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 Reviews Surviving ExtremesJanuary 2008
Surviving Extremes is a study of coping with life-threatening situations in an unforgiving environment, and the qualities that will be needed for future space missions – particularly exploration of Mars.  Planet Earth, Part TwoJanuary 2008
No one does natural history quite like the BBC, and the second instalment of the Planet Earth series, already screened by the ABC in Australia, raises the standard another notch.  Peace and WarJuly 2007
There are few science fiction novels that can comfortably carry the label of 'classic' for long. The Forever War is one such novel, remaining as relevant now as it was when first published back in 1974.  The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Twenty Third Annual CollectionJuly 2007
Every year for over two decades, Gardner Dozois has selected the best science fiction stories published in the previous year for his legendary Year’s Best SF collections. They are always huge (this one is over 600 pages and 300,000 words), and provide a hearty serving of reliably high quality reading.  Diversity and Discovery: The History of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute 1965-1996July 2007
The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, in Melbourne, is one of the premier research centres in Australia, with a superb reputation internationally. It specialises in the investigation of the human immune system, in related areas of cancer research, and in the scientific struggle against autoimmune diseases.  The Goldilocks Enigma: Why is the Universe Just Right for Life?July 2007
Something looks fishy about the way our universe is "uncannily fit for life". There seems to be nothing self-contradictory about the idea that its physical constants and other fundamental features — such as the amount of dark matter — could have been different.  A Beautiful Math: John Nash, Game Theory and the Modern Quest for a Code of NatureJuly 2007
One of the reasons human beings are such wonderful creatures to be around is because they are so endearingly unpredictable. Get two of them in the same room and watch the sparks fly. Fill a planet with them and it's just one big party.  It Ain't Necessarily So… BroJuly 2007
Karl Kruszelnicki (affectionately known as 'Dr Karl') is a vibrant voice (just about as vibrant as his shirts) promoting science with boundless energy and passion on radio and television, in newspapers and in his many books of popular science.  Space RaceJuly 2007
Produced by Deborah Cadbury — the author of Space Race (reviewed in Cosmos Issue 10) — this four-part drama from the BBC adds tension and colour to her story of humanity's early steps towards the stars.  Lost Worlds Vanished LivesJuly 2007
We know him as a ubiquitous presence in some of the world's finest nature documentaries, but there's another side of David Attenborough revealed in Lost Worlds Vanished Lives: his lifelong passion for fossils.  The Outcast: An Anthology of Exiles and StrangersJuly 2007
Editor Nicole Murphy tells us in her introduction that the theme for The Outcast was suggested by well-known Australian author Maxine McArthur, whose then-unpublished manuscript Time Future won the George Turner Prize in 1999.  Australian Backyard AstronomyJuly 2007
I'd have killed for this book when I was ten. Children's books about astronomy were thin on the ground back then, and books about the skies of the Southern Hemisphere, written for Australians, were rarer still.  A Different Universe (Reinventing Physics from the Bottom Down)July 2007
Tired of the predictable 'clockwork' nature of the physical world as defined by Newtonian laws? Then you'll find a friend in Robert B. Laughlin. He suspects the fact that Newtonian laws break down at quantum levels and fail to predict all phases between states is evidence the physical world is still highly mysterious.  The Fluoride DeceptionJuly 2007
In this confronting book, Christopher Bryson's quest is simple, but far from easy: to discover how tiny quantities of a key ingredient of toxic industrial poisons and Cold War wastes is today added to most toothpastes and drinking water in some parts of the U.S., Britain and Australia.  The Pill: The Liberation of WomenJuly 2007
By the age of 37, my (Protestant) paternal grandmother had borne 13 children — rather more than she'd intended. My maternal grandmother had only four children, but she sometimes said that she wouldn't have had any had the pill had been available in her day. In the last 50 years, the freedom for a woman to control her own fertility, to have children only by choice, has changed women's lives dramatically. 
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