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Featured Book

Dazzled and Deceived by Peter Forbes

Subtitled 'Mimicry and camouflage', this is a fascinating exploration of the use of visual trickery to disguise the nature of objects both in the living world and in the military. Along the way we trace the gradual growth of understanding of how creatures in the wild use mimicry to pretend to be what they aren't (for example, imitating a poisonous creature, or an insect pretending to be a plant), or camouflage to become less visible against a particular background.

The two aspects of natural visual deceit that really struck me in reading it were the situations where something we all 'know' to be true isn't - for instance, the chameleon uses its colour changing for display, not for camouflage - and in the incredible complexity of some butterfly mimicry where, for instance, the female of one species might look like any one of four very different nasty tasting butterflies.

What is also very engaging is the way that Peter Forbes carefully dissects the over-simple evolutionary idea of 'the ones that looked more like the thing they were mimicking survived better' to transform it into a modern understanding of the complex mechanisms behind such mimicry. All too often, the simplistic approach seems to apply too much choice to the concealed creature, as if it could decide to look like something else, where actually its ability to mimic depends on having certain characteristics (even if they weren't previously used) already.

In the interlaced chapters on wartime camouflage, it is amazing just how amateurish early attempts at camouflage were - and how 'facts' about camouflage were derived with very little real experimental evidence. In the early days there were two opposing camps - the artists and the naturalists. Perhaps surprisingly given his background, Forbes doesn't inherently side with the naturalists, but rather gives both sides credit for their contributions. Having said that, I'm surprised there isn't more about the physics, as in the end camouflage is an attempt to manipulate photons - really neither artists nor naturalists were arguably the right people to sort it out.

There were one or two minor weaknesses. Because of this concentration on artists and naturalists, there was nothing about modern technology for hiding things, whether it's stealth technology or invisibility cloaking. More significantly, although Forbes's style is always approachable, I found a few of the biology sections a little heavy going. It wasn't always easy to work out just what was supposed to be causing an effect. It's not that Forbes doesn't know his stuff, but rather than he knows it too well and doesn't explain in quite enough detail to get the message across to the non-biologist. By comparison, the military sections were all very readable without that slight problem.

Overall a wonderful topic that really hasn't been given enough coverage, especially given its importance in understanding the mechanisms of evolution better, and an excellent book. Highly recommended.

Only in hardback

Review by Brian Clegg

Train you Brain to be a Genius by John Woodward  age range 10-14 *

There's a strong market, coming out of Japan, of electronic games that claim to 'train your brain'. There's very little benefit to these games - they may well be fun, but they won't turn you into a genius. So when I saw the title of this book my heart sank a little. But it shouldn't have. Because the contents are so much better than the title suggests.

If you overlook that attempt to ride on the back of the 'brain training' business, this is a superb book for young readers, telling them about their brains and how to use them. It would be more properly called Your Brain, an Instruction Manual - and it does a great job of helping the reader get to know their brain better, to stimulate it and to understand more of how it works.

It's quite a large book, roughly in the format of a children's annual, in the standard Dorland Kindersley, highly illustrated, two pages per topic layout. Mostly this works very well, though some pages are sideways on, as far as I can tell just to show how clever the publisher is, and that's irritating, because in a book this size it's quite difficult to handle it that way round. For the cognoscenti it feels half way between a DK book and a Horrible Science book - it has that Horrible Science sense of cheeky enjoyment of the subject that isn't always there in these big illustrated titles.

After a basic introduction to the brain we have some excellent material on the senses (I would have liked to have seen something about how sight works using different kinds of module in the brain, rather than like a camera, and about our perception of moving images, but otherwise well covered). Then we move on to memory, problem solving, words, creativity, a rather fuzzy bit on psychology and some evolution/general cognition material.

There are plenty of activities and fun items - the senses section has lots of sensory illusions to play with, for example - and though this book definitely isn't going to turn a young reader into a genius (there are a few of these interspersed through the text as encouragement - Einstein, Leonardo and so on), it certainly will help them think better and have a useful understanding of how their brain functions. As someone who teaches creativity and problem solving (see www.cul.co.uk) I found the creativity section the weakest, but none of the content was bad, and some of it was positively inspired.

Unlike some books in this format, Train Your Brain works well both to dip in, and as a read through from cover to cover. Age 11 I got sent one of Edward de Bono's books for Christmas. I would have so much preferred this. Recommended.

Only in hardback

Reviewed by Brian Clegg

Featured Gifts

  Looking for a different present, or a gift for someone who's difficult to buy for? Take a look at this:

Gift review - Organizing a Murder

There seems a strong correlation between being interested in science and getting fun out of cracking fictional murder mysteries. There have been "murder mystery party kits" around for a long time, but they are expensive and only get you through a single mystery.

Produced by our own Brian Clegg, this is a very clever alternative. This ebook in the popular Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format provides twelve different mysteries, with setting as varied as a British brewery and a starship in which to display your deductive powers. Mysteries (they aren't all murders) come in different levels from simple to challenging and have different ways to play - some are little more than treasure hunts, while others require the detective to put together clues, evidence and witness statements to try to beat the criminal.

Unlike the traditional kits, everyone playing is a detective (either individually or in teams), so there's none of that dressing up and play acting. This might be a disappointment to some, but personally I'm deeply relieved. It also means that the game can be played over a shorter timescale if desired.

The content is a little rough and ready - there could have been more work done on the design - but considering the incredible value for money, this is hardly a major issue.

The thing that really makes the product is ability to freely print from the PDF ebook. This means you can run off a set of answer sheets to give your players, print off the clues as and when you want them - all without damaging your original as you would have to with a physical book. This is perhaps the best application of a PDF we've ever seen - it's absolutely ideal.

All in all a brilliant little ebook (around 118 pages) to use either at parties or for team building exercises - or just for fun.

There is a free to download sample containing the introduction, and part of one of the simpler mysteries, to get an idea of the format. You can download it by RIGHT CLICKING HERE and selecting "Save Target As..." or "Save Link As..." to download.

Not got the free Adobe Acrobat reader?

Brian Clegg, a best-selling author with over 20 conventional books in print including Instant Stress Management, Imagination Engineering, Light Years and Infinity.

Please note that this ebook is licensed solely to the buyer and may not be distributed or resold in electronic or paper form.

Buy Organizing a Murder in UK pounds (Adobe PDF format) £10.99 IMMEDIATE DOWNLOAD - you will be able to pay securely using a credit card or PayPal. Select Return to Merchant at the end of the transaction to get to the download page.
Buy Organizing a Murder in US dollars  (Adobe PDF format) $22.99 IMMEDIATE DOWNLOAD - you will be able to pay securely using a credit card or PayPal. Select Return to Merchant at the end of the transaction to get to the download page.

Gift category - bargain

Reviewed by Martin O'Brien