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Behind the scenes of 15 great discoveries
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Dangerous debris Find out all the facts before freaking out about plastic in the ocean, says Bob Holmes Plastic Ocean: How a sea captain’s chance discovery launched a determined quest to save the oceans by Captain Charles Moore and Cassandra Phillips, Avery, $26
A decade and a half later, Moore’s obsession has led to several scientific papers, documentary films, numerous media appearances, and now a book. “I wasn’t the first to be
Ken Graham/GETTY
WHEN Charles Moore sailed his 50-foot catamaran Alguita through one of the remotest, leastvisited parts of the Pacific Ocean in 1997, he was appalled to find plastic flotsam everywhere. This discovery of what has come to be called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch – a vast area of the central Pacific where debris accumulates because of ocean current patterns – set Moore off on a crusade to measure, identify and, ultimately, try to prevent plastic pollution of the ocean. Indigestible: Plastic bags harm the mammals that swallow them
Behind the discovery Drive and Curiosity: What fuels the passion for science by István Hargittai, Prometheus, $26/£21.95 Reviewed by Jeremy Webb
PEOPLE love stories, and they are incredibly powerful for conveying information. István Hargittai’s intention in writing Drive and Curiosity is to narrow the gap between those who make scientific discoveries and everyone else. By telling the stories of 15 great discoveries he
disturbed about plastic trash in swallow balloons or plastic the ocean, and I wasn’t the first bags. And he makes a tentative to study it,” he writes in Plastic case that even the smallest Ocean. “But maybe I was the first shards of plastic – the size and to freak out about it.” shape of plankton, and thus likely And freak out he certainly to be eaten by fish and other does. Chapter by chapter, Moore recounts his growing alarm as he “Moore recounts his growing alarm as he learns learns about the abundance of about the abundance of plastic debris in the ocean and plastic debris in the ocean” the ways it can get there. He also documents the clear harm that seabirds and marine mammals planktivores – may carry a suffer when they become tangled payload of toxic chemicals into in abandoned fishing nets or the food chain. In the end, though, many readers – especially New Scientist readers – are likely to find Moore unpersuasive. Partly that’s because his book is a bit of a mess, rambling and disorganised. But the biggest problem is that Plastic Ocean comes across as a bit of a rant. By his own account, Moore decided that plastic flotsam is a Very Bad Thing long before he gathered any solid evidence of any harm to sea life. And he is prone to making leaps: just because toxins can be detected in plastics does not mean that they are present in biologically meaningful doses. Moore may very well be right in thinking they are, but readers who are looking for a dispassionate conclusion based on the facts won’t find it here.
has chosen the perfect vehicle for his mission. The book is full of the drama of the protagonists’ lives: people who had to overcome poor education, political upheaval, unforgivable discrimination, professional jealousy and downright disbelief in their ideas. Some faced the destruction of their careers, stuck doggedly to an idea or followed a hunch to emerge triumphant. Hargittai starts off with James Watson and the discovery of DNA’s structure. Elsewhere he recounts Linus Pauling’s work on the structure of proteins and Edward Teller’s creation of the hydrogen bomb. So much has
already been written about these people that there is little new to reveal. The real value of this book is in telling the stories of less well-known pioneers. Gertrude Elion, for instance, who reached adulthood during the Great Depression, had to battle sexual discrimination and anti-Semitism before she could begin to create anti-cancer drugs. Alan MacDiarmid, in the face of dire warnings from colleagues, changed direction in his research. His perseverance paid off with a Nobel prize for creating conducting polymers. Hargittai, a chemist, does not produce the slick prose of popular
science writers. Indeed some of his facts, however interesting in themselves, are of questionable relevance to his stories. Nevertheless it all works. His sources are impeccable: he met all but two of his subjects, interviewing most of them, and some are his friends. His list of discoveries sometimes reflects his eastern European roots, and is also refreshing and prophetic, as in the case of the chapter devoted to Dan Shechtman’s discovery of quasicrystals in the early 1980s. Shechtman’s claim was widely disbelieved, with Pauling as lead critic. Yet as I was reading the book Shechtman became the latest Nobel prizewinner in chemistry. 29 October 2011 | NewScientist | 55
Dangerous debris Find out all the facts before freaking out about plastic in the ocean, says Bob Holmes Plastic Ocean: How a sea captain’s chance discovery launched a determined quest to save the oceans by Captain Charles Moore and Cassandra Phillips, Avery, $26
A decade and a half later, Moore’s obsession has led to several scientific papers, documentary films, numerous media appearances, and now a book. “I wasn’t the first to be
Ken Graham/GETTY
WHEN Charles Moore sailed his 50-foot catamaran Alguita through one of the remotest, leastvisited parts of the Pacific Ocean in 1997, he was appalled to find plastic flotsam everywhere. This discovery of what has come to be called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch – a vast area of the central Pacific where debris accumulates because of ocean current patterns – set Moore off on a crusade to measure, identify and, ultimately, try to prevent plastic pollution of the ocean. Indigestible: Plastic bags harm the mammals that swallow them
Behind the discovery Drive and Curiosity: What fuels the passion for science by István Hargittai, Prometheus, $26/£21.95 Reviewed by Jeremy Webb
PEOPLE love stories, and they are incredibly powerful for conveying information. István Hargittai’s intention in writing Drive and Curiosity is to narrow the gap between those who make scientific discoveries and everyone else. By telling the stories of 15 great discoveries he
disturbed about plastic trash in swallow balloons or plastic the ocean, and I wasn’t the first bags. And he makes a tentative to study it,” he writes in Plastic case that even the smallest Ocean. “But maybe I was the first shards of plastic – the size and to freak out about it.” shape of plankton, and thus likely And freak out he certainly to be eaten by fish and other does. Chapter by chapter, Moore recounts his growing alarm as he “Moore recounts his growing alarm as he learns learns about the abundance of about the abundance of plastic debris in the ocean and plastic debris in the ocean” the ways it can get there. He also documents the clear harm that seabirds and marine mammals planktivores – may carry a suffer when they become tangled payload of toxic chemicals into in abandoned fishing nets or the food chain. In the end, though, many readers – especially New Scientist readers – are likely to find Moore unpersuasive. Partly that’s because his book is a bit of a mess, rambling and disorganised. But the biggest problem is that Plastic Ocean comes across as a bit of a rant. By his own account, Moore decided that plastic flotsam is a Very Bad Thing long before he gathered any solid evidence of any harm to sea life. And he is prone to making leaps: just because toxins can be detected in plastics does not mean that they are present in biologically meaningful doses. Moore may very well be right in thinking they are, but readers who are looking for a dispassionate conclusion based on the facts won’t find it here.
has chosen the perfect vehicle for his mission. The book is full of the drama of the protagonists’ lives: people who had to overcome poor education, political upheaval, unforgivable discrimination, professional jealousy and downright disbelief in their ideas. Some faced the destruction of their careers, stuck doggedly to an idea or followed a hunch to emerge triumphant. Hargittai starts off with James Watson and the discovery of DNA’s structure. Elsewhere he recounts Linus Pauling’s work on the structure of proteins and Edward Teller’s creation of the hydrogen bomb. So much has
already been written about these people that there is little new to reveal. The real value of this book is in telling the stories of less well-known pioneers. Gertrude Elion, for instance, who reached adulthood during the Great Depression, had to battle sexual discrimination and anti-Semitism before she could begin to create anti-cancer drugs. Alan MacDiarmid, in the face of dire warnings from colleagues, changed direction in his research. His perseverance paid off with a Nobel prize for creating conducting polymers. Hargittai, a chemist, does not produce the slick prose of popular
science writers. Indeed some of his facts, however interesting in themselves, are of questionable relevance to his stories. Nevertheless it all works. His sources are impeccable: he met all but two of his subjects, interviewing most of them, and some are his friends. His list of discoveries sometimes reflects his eastern European roots, and is also refreshing and prophetic, as in the case of the chapter devoted to Dan Shechtman’s discovery of quasicrystals in the early 1980s. Shechtman’s claim was widely disbelieved, with Pauling as lead critic. Yet as I was reading the book Shechtman became the latest Nobel prizewinner in chemistry. 29 October 2011 | NewScientist | 55