Embrace the rat race
Readers of New Scientist aren鈥檛 known for their pursuit of mindless pleasure. Many of you are dedicated to your work or to keeping up with your field, which tends to be a bit more interesting than the average 9 to 5. It鈥檚 a wonder you take time off at all and, even then, lots of you remain strangers to holiday excesses.
We could try scaring you onto that beach or up that mountain. What if we remind you that, while you are at home, especially since many of you live in cities, you are said to be never more than a metre or two away from a rat?
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But then again, as a New Scientist reader, you are unlikely to credit such a hackneyed statistic. You may also be aware of journalist Joe Shute鈥檚 (Bloomsbury Wildlife), which aims to scotch many a myth on the way to celebrating this supersocial animal. How such an easily domesticated creature became everyone鈥檚 idea of a harbinger of death makes fascinating and prejudice-busting reading.
In the 1950s, in an effort to improve the way we build and run our cities, ethologist John Calhoun used rats as animal models, creating a variety of configurations of 鈥渞at city鈥�. Social historians Jon Adams and Edmund Ramsden chart his peculiar experiments in (Melville House). They conclude that, when it comes to civil order, we could learn a thing or two from our whiskered brethren.
But perhaps our best chance of scaring you into that holiday may be to remind you that, wherever you are at work, you are rarely more than a couple of metres away 鈥� from other people. Now there鈥檚 one animal we really do have to worry about.
There has been much argument (and some pushback) about social psychologist Jonathan Haidt鈥檚 jeremiad against the smartphone, (Allen Lane, UK; Penguin Press, US). Haidt鈥檚 impassioned attempt to give a statistical foundation to our concerns about young people鈥檚 deteriorating mental health has made his book an international water-cooler hit 鈥� and one inspiring many people to at least experiment with a marked reduction in their smartphone use (for as long as the vacation lasts, that is).
All this assumes that, having left for your holidays, you can actually get anywhere. Good luck negotiating the hordes of shambling smartphone addicts cluttering the mouths of lifts and milling around at the bottom of escalators. Readers convinced we are living through some sort of outtake from a George Romero zombie movie will appreciate sociologist Allison Pugh鈥檚 (Princeton University Press, out in the UK on 30 July). Commercial logic, coupled with technology, is eroding the spontaneity of human contact. Pugh鈥檚 message is plain: we have to make a concerted effort, in the workplace and in our lives, to revive our social worlds.
Great train reading
Holiday-making can itself be a lonely business. To while away those sleepless hours on long train journeys, a good book is vital. On the strength of the title alone, what could be more fitting for discombobulated travellers than Robyn Arianrhod鈥檚 (University of Chicago Press).
Not only will readers acquire the mathematical ability to determine forces on an amusement park ride (a vital part of parental arsenals), they will also discover how an elegant piece of mathematical notation has changed the way we think about the world.
A more straightforwardly imaginative getaway is served up by science writer Rebecca Boyle in (Hodder & Stoughton), which traces the moon鈥檚 physical, historical and psychological influence over our species. Our reviewer, Abigail Beall, particularly liked how Boyle wove in so many historical perspectives, from palaeontology to her own family history.
If you want to carry your imagination even further, then astronomer Lisa Kaltenegger is bound for worlds of scientifically bounded speculation in (Allen Lane, UK; St. Martin鈥檚 Press, US). A new generation of telescopes, even now under construction, will usher in a historical shift in the way we look at the night sky, says Kaltenegger, whose book intertwines science with her own professional experiences, including the deployment of the James Webb Space Telescope and the first discovery of Earth-like planets at the right distance from their star to host liquid water.
It is a complex book, with plenty to ponder on a long journey. How did life emerge on Earth? What are the most unusual exoplanets 鈥� and how can we find them? Not forgetting, especially in the wee small hours of the night, the killer question: how do we define life?
Kaltenegger also makes a vital point about the sexism in her field. Her personal reflections about her career may strike some as jarring alongside the 鈥渞eal鈥� science, but, as she explains, the best chance for humans to succeed in their mission to discover alien life is to have 鈥渢he broadest, the most diverse, spectrum of thinkers working together鈥�. Everyone is needed on this quest of quests.
Time to binge
Once you hit that beach, forest cabin or (insert ideal destination here), all reading bets are off.
But let鈥檚 just add a few lovely but light science reads 鈥� just to prove that this isn鈥檛 a contradiction in terms. First, try David Darling鈥檚 delightful (OneWorld). This compendium of the largest, smallest, stickiest, loudest, fastest and slowest phenomena in science contains, among other marvels, the speed record for a sloth (but that would be telling).
And if you are feeling peckish, then a chapter or two of (Harvest) will have you heading for the kitchen. Flavour scientist Arielle Johnson piqued the appetite of reviewer Sam Wong for adventurous chemistry, in particular by explaining how flavours have been extracted, concentrated and transformed by different culinary traditions. And that鈥檚 not to mention all the other extraordinary information she feeds us: who knew that we have 400 types of smell receptor that let us recognise perhaps as many as a trillion aromas?
Plus, there are exotic recipes, including coffee-infused rum, and smoke-infused oil made with lapsang souchong tea. Others are ambitious, like the vinegar, cr猫me fra卯che and pumpkin seed miso.
After that, it is time for a walk. Chances are you are taking your break in the countryside, but if you think that the rural environment holds no more surprises, think again. Even better, read the amazing (Bloomsbury Wildlife) in which naturalist Chantal Lyons visits the Forest of Dean in south-west England to meet a population descended from boar released illegally in the 1980s.
No one can say what you may find around the next corner 鈥� though it is a pretty safe bet that someone, somewhere, has written a book about it.
Save our seas
The story of our relationship with the ocean grows ever more complex. In (Grove Press, UK; Atlantic Monthly Press, US, out 16 July), marine biologist Helen Scales explains how our prospects are intimately bound up with that of the ecosystems in the sea.
In this snapshot of the state of our oceans, there are plenty of scare stories. For example, the sea ice that connects to solid land is weakening earlier in the year, which can force emperor penguin chicks into the water before they develop the waterproof feathers they need to survive.
But benign human innovation and the natural resilience of marine ecosystems may turn the tide. Scales is a wonderful guide to the tragedy and the triumph of taking our ocean in hand.
Psychedelic paradox
Ernesto Londo帽o used to report from war zones. Years later, he realised something was wrong when he considered taking his life. He knew soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder, so he recognised what he was dealing with and knew how poor the standard treatments were. As a journalist, he decided to try something fashionable: ayahuasca tea. Even if dabbling in psychedelic medicine didn't help him, it might make a book.
(Orion Spring, UK; Celadon Books, US) is the result, a fast-paced but deep and personal investigation into the promise psychedelics hold for mental health conditions.
Londo帽o swears by the tea (chunks of the Amazonian vine Banisteriopsis caapi are boiled with the leaves of a shrub called Psychotria viridis 鈥� not at home, please). But he is well aware that a medicine that is part plant extract, part complex and thoughtful ritual doesn't fit easily with typical Western prescriptions.
Equally, abandoning what we do know can be an easy path to silliness and quackery (his criticisms of psychedelic culture are caustic and funny). To reap the benefits of psychedelics, we will need a more balanced perspective. Trippy is a valuable first step.
Simon Ings is a writer based in听London.听His latest book is Engineers听of Human Souls
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