K–T boundary

Book review – Fire in the Sky: Cosmic Collisions, Killer Asteroids, and the Race to Defend Earth

6-minute read

Can you have too many books on the same topic? Not four months after the publication of Cosmic Impact in February 2019, which I reviewed earlier this year, Scribner books published Fire in the Sky in June. The former book was written by astrophysicist Andrew May, while Gordon L. Dillow is a newspaper reporter and war correspondent, coming at the subject from a different angle. Despite touching on many of the same events and topics, he provides a wealth of new information in what is a thoroughly researched work of popular science. But first, let’s go to Arizona and turn back our clocks some 50,000 years.

Fire in the Sky (more…)

Book review – Fires of Life: Endothermy in Birds and Mammals

6-minute read

Endothermy, colloquially known as warm-bloodedness, was a major breakthrough in the history of life on Earth. It gave rise to the active lifestyle of birds and mammals. But how did it evolve? Research into this question has been ongoing for decades, though in the eyes of evolutionary physiologist Barry Gordon Lovegrove, the field has stagnated amidst competing single-cause hypotheses that all try to find that one killer explanation. In his wide-ranging Fires of Life, he brings together many disparate strands of research and gives an overview of our thinking on the evolution of endothermy in mammals and birds. Providing food for thought for students in this field, it also is a great overview for the general reader that stands out for its superbly accessible writing.

Fires of Life (more…)

Book review – Cosmic Impact: Understanding the Threat to Earth from Asteroids and Comets

The idea of an asteroid or comet impacting with planet Earth and causing a catastrophe for mankind has long been given a cold shoulder in scientific circles. But with the notion that the dinosaurs met their fate at the hand of a rather large space rock it does not seem so outlandish anymore. NASA has started monitoring near-earth objects, but is there really something we could do if one was heading our way? Astrophysicist and science writer Andrew May provides a delightful little primer on these questions with Cosmic Impact, injecting this oft-hyped topic with a healthy dose of realism.

Cosmic Impact (more…)

Book review – The Dinosaurs Rediscovered: How a Scientific Revolution is Rewriting History

If you are interested in dinosaurs, the last two years have seen a slew of great books published, and there is more in the pipeline. The latest I am reviewing here is The Dinosaurs Rediscovered from the well-known British Professor of Vertebrate Palaeontology Michael J. Benton. With a huge number of possible topics you could write about, and an already saturated book market, Benton has set himself a very specific aim: to show how the science of palaeobiology has moved from a descriptive, speculative scientific discipline, to a hard, testable, rigorous one. In other words, given that palaeontologists nowadays regularly make some pretty amazing and precise claims about creatures long extinct, how, exactly, do they know that?

The Dinosaurs Rediscovered (more…)

Book review – Burning Planet: The Story of Fire Through Time

Fire is a force of nature that both fascinates and frightens. Large wildfires around the world seem to be on the rise and are a cause of concern due to the risk to lives and property. But fire also is an essential part of the workings of our planet that pre-dates humans by a long time. How long? For the last 40 years, geologist and palaeobotanist Andrew C. Scott has researched plant remains in the fossil record that have been preserved by fire in the form of fossil charcoal. In Burning Planet, he takes you on a 400-million-year deep-history tour of fire and how it has shaped our planet.

Burning Planet (more…)

Book review – The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: The Untold Story of a Lost World

Dinosaurs. You could fill a library with the books written about them. Why write another one? Because the field is moving fast: new fossils are constantly being found, new species are being described, and new techniques allow us to ask completely new questions. Being a young career-palaeontologist at the top of your field is another good reason. And Steve Brusatte does not lack ambition. Rather than singling out any one topic, The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs gives you the whole epic story, from the early beginnings right up to the abrupt end. Given the brief Brusatte has set himself he obviously doesn’t cover everything exhaustively, but he succeeds admirably in giving you a very relevant overview of where we are now.

The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs (more…)

Book review – Cataclysms: A New Geology for the Twenty-First Century

Was the asteroid impact that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs a one-off? Or are other mass extinctions in earth’s deep history perhaps also linked to impacts of extraterrestrial bodies? Many scientists are reluctant to accept this idea. In Cataclysms, Rampino argues that it is high time to cast off the spirit of Lyell that continues to haunt geological thinking and embrace a new era of catastrophism.

Cataclysms (more…)

Book review – The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans and Our Quest to Understand Earth’s Past Mass Extinctions

Aaaah… the Apocalypse. Who doesn’t love Hollywood’s favourite movie trope? The spectacle, the drama, and the foreboding knowledge that – oh, spoilers – everyone dies at the end. There has been no shortage of good eschatological writing in recent years. Some books to come to mind are Erwin’s imaginatively titled Extinction, Wignall’s recent The Worst of Times, or Alvarez’s T. rex and the Crater of Doom – those pesky dinosaurs remain a popular subject. Do we really need another popular science book about mass extinctions? Given the continued developments in our understanding, and given that you get not one, not two, but all five for the price of one, I’d say yes. As far as I can tell the last comparable book was Hallam & Wignall’s 1997 Mass Extinctions and their Aftermath, published by Oxford University Press, which was a more academic treatise. So, get your bucket of popcorn ready and roll on the Apocalypse!

The Ends of the World (more…)