topics: |  science | history | astronomy | genetics | physics

Contents

1.  The father of electricity [Michael Faraday]
2.  One giant leap for mankind;
3.  Medicine's marvellous rays; [William Roentgen]
4.  Things that glow in the dark;
5.  Parcels of light;
6.  Dr Einstein's fountain pen;
7.  The Big Bang, or how it all began;
8.  Molecular soccerballs; [Buckminister Fuller]
9.  Jostling plates, earthquakes and volcanoes;
10. Soda pop, phlogiston and Lavoisier's oxygen;
11. Of beer, vinegar, milk, silk and germs;
12. Of milkmaids, chickens and mad dogs;
13. Malaria's cunning seeds; [Roland Ross]
14. Penicillin from pure pursuits;
15. DNA, the alphabet of life;
16. Cutting DNA with molecular scissors;
17. DNA, the molecular detective;
18. Magic bullets; Further Reading; Index.

New Scientist Review

Roy Herbert's review, Nov 1994

During the 1940s and 1950s, the gradually revealed details of the sometimes
decisive part that science played in winning the Second World War produced a
public somewhat dazzled by science and scientists. The way ahead seemed
bright, lit by the beams of applied research.

Remarkable Discoveries (Cambridge, pp 278, £16.95) is an argument, that
"basic investigation of Nature will ... inevitably give us new and unexpected
benefits that will improve every aspect of our daily lives". Starting with
surely the most convincing instance of basic research and its undreamt-of
benefits - Michael Faraday and his experiments with magnetism and electricity
- he takes us through a couple of centuries of discoveries stemming from
fundamental work, right up to the unravelling of DNA...  Ashall, although he
was at The Independent as a Media Fellow, cannot be said to be more than an
adequate writer. The potted biographies of his discoverers are
schooldesk-flat recitals of facts [but] Ashall does make his case.