two decades of taking the mickey

Rounding up the science journalism published in German in March and April we have biodegradable plastics, molecular Ferris wheels, and the completion of my second decade of making scientifically-minded fun of things:

Umwelt: Biologie gegen Plastikmüll
Nachrichten aus der Chemie Volume 68, Issue 3, March 2020, Pages 76-78
Access via Wiley Online Library
related content in English

Ausgeforscht: Erkenne deine Grenzen
Nachrichten aus der Chemie Volume 68, Issue 3, March 2020, Page 106
Access via Wiley Online Library
(peer review helps authors to appreciate the limitations of their findings)

20 Jahre Ausgeforscht: Auf der Suche nach dem verlorenen Sinn
Nachrichten aus der Chemie Volume 68, Issue 4, April 2020, Page 14-15
Access via Wiley Online Library
This is my regular column celebrating its 20th birthday in the context of the April pages which are generally in the spirit of advanced tongue-in-cheekery; the second decade's worth of the column is collected in the Tabakschwärmer book, out now.

Aromaten: Ein Hückelsches Riesenrad
Chemie in unserer Zeit Volume 54, Issue, 2 April 2020, Page 76-77
Access via Wiley Online Library
Related content in English




Hey, I haven't done enough trumpet-blowing for the Tabakschwärmer book so I'll re-use it as illustration here ...

colourful caterpillars

Author copies of my new book:

Tabakschwärmer, Bücherwürmer und Turbo-Socken:
Chemische Schwärmereien aus 10 Jahren Ausgeforscht
226 Seiten
Springer
ISBN-10: 3662593025
ISBN-13: 978-3662593028

arrived yesterday, and it is definitely available now (Eg from Blackwells, buecher.de, or amazon.de.)

When the copies arrived, I realised that the more recent cartoons (by Roland Wengenmayr) are actually printed in colour - I had no idea. Which makes this my first book with colour illustrations in the text (there were a few colour plates tucked in at the end in Non-Standard Computation).


About the book:

This is the second collection of the sketches I write for the Nachrichten aus der Chemie, the magazine of the German Chemical Society, covering roughly the last decade. The first collection was the nine million bicycles book published in Feb 2011.




The caterpillar in question is the tobacco hornworm / tobacco hawk moth (Manduca sexta), which has a remarkable resistance to nicotine as well as some other chemical tricks up its sleeve which I discussed in one of the sketches included here. I also tend to mention it whenever I write about insect ecology.

I have a strong suspicion that Lewis Carroll had this species in mind when he invented the hookah-smoking caterpillar that confuses Alice with unhelpful answers in Alice's adventures in Wonderland, so I suggested to use an Alice illustration for the cover and got through with the idea.

caterpillar book out now

UPDATE 29.10.: Book definitely available now, even though amazon now cites publication date as November.

I haven't seen a physical copy yet, but apparently my latest book in German is out today (at least that's what amazon thinks). Ask at your bookshop or get it from amazon if you must. It is the second collection of the sketches I write for the Nachrichten aus der Chemie, the magazine of the German Chemical Society, covering roughly the last decade. The first collection was the nine million bicycles book published in Feb 2011.




The caterpillar in question is the tobacco hornworm / tobacco hawk moth (Manduca sexta), which has a remarkable resistance to nicotine as well as some other chemical tricks up its sleeve which I discussed in one of the sketches included here. I have a strong suspicion that Lewis Carroll had this species in mind when he invented the hookah-smoking caterpillar that confuses Alice with unhelpful answers in Alice's adventures in Wonderland, so I suggested to use an Alice illustration for the cover and got away with it. While it may be a little bit naughty to use another author's popularity this way, I feel that after 26 years at Oxford I can claim Lewis Carroll as my cultural background.

alice's day

Today there are lots of events around Oxford commemorating the anniversary of Alice's adventures in Wonderland. This is because Lewis Carroll first told the story on July 4th 1862, and events tend to be on the following Saturday. Most of them for kids, but I went to the lectures put on by the Lewis Carroll Society, which tend to be very inspiring.



Here's Franziska Kohlt, with a video relating to her talk from last year (Alice & Victorian psychiatry), she spoke again this year on a broader "Alice through time" kind of topic:




I'm sure she will be back next year, she's quite unstoppable.


Alice and the caterpillar, shown above will, of course, feature on the cover of my new book ...

caterpillar book

After books with platypus, gecko, and raccoon as their mascots, the next one will star an insect, namely the tobacco hornworm / tobacco hawk moth (Manduca sexta), which has a remarkable resistance to nicotine. I have a strong suspicion that Lewis Carroll had this species in mind when he invented the hookah-smoking caterpillar that confuses Alice with unhelpful answers in Alice's adventures in Wonderland, so I suggested to use an Alice illustration for the cover, which will now look like this:




The book is the second collection of my regular fun-poking pieces in Nachrichten aus der Chemie covering roughly the second decade of this activity. The first is in the volume: 9 Millionen Fahrräder am Rande des Universums.

I've started building a new page on my website for the new book, where further details will emerge with time. Watch this space.