Has anyone bought any of the new scientist books that have been released in the last few years? They aren't strictly about nature, but they do have sections of interesting questions about wildlife and the environment with some fascinating answers.

I don't have any of the books to hand at the moment, but I have read the first two "Does anything eat wasps?" and "Why don't penguins feet freeze?". For those of you that haven't read them, they are a series of interesting questions answered by experts in their field, and all are great to read.

I have just seen that the newest is out, "How to fossilise your hamster" and wondered if anyone has read it. Does it live up to the standards of the previous books?

hi
i have not heard of these books they sound interesting i will check them out in my local library and book shop thanks for the info.

I haven't got the books myself but I've read some of the last word columns (which is where the questions originally come from) and they are very fun + interesting to read, especially the ones about animals. It turns out quite a few things eat wasps!

I need to see if I can pick that up here in the States just for the joy of the title!

Kingfisher

Hehe, the title is briiliant isn't it? And I quite like the thought of my little hamster being discovered in a few thousand years time, I wonder what they would think of it?

I thought people might like to hear an example of the type of questions they have. This one is from a recent New Scientist:

Q: Do fish get thirsty?

A:Well yes, at least some of them do, so long as we leave aside the subjective human feeling of "thirst". There is also a substantial difference between fish in seawater and fresh water, and we also need to consider the possibility of the thirsty shark.

Bony fish, known as teleosts, have a salt concentration in their bodies that is not dramatically different from that of land-dwelling vertebrates. This means that the teleosts of the sea - marine fish - live in an environment with a much higher salt concentration than is present in their blood. Their relatives in fresh water are in the opposite position.

Water tends to move along concentration gradients through water-permeable biological membranes like those shielding most organisms from their environment - a process known as osmosis. Therefore, marine fish, which have a low salt concentration compared with that of seawater, will constantly leak water through their body wall - especially through the thin and permeable gill epithelia. To replenish the lost water, marine fish need to drink, so it would be easy to argue that they become thirsty. The surplus salt they ingest by drinking seawater is excreted by specialised cells located in the gills.

Freshwater fish, on the other hand, are unlikely to become thirsty. Because they live in a more dilute environment, they have the opposite problem: water flows inwards and dilutes their blood. The freshwater fish therefore need to excrete excess water, which they do in much the same way we do, via a dilute urine.

So we can see that marine fish get thirsty and drink, while freshwater fish avoid drinking but pee a lot.

Finally, sharks, dogfish, rays and skates - which are cartilaginous rather than bony and are called elasmobranchs - are also marine fish (with a few Central and South American freshwater exceptions). Although the concentration of inorganic salts in their blood is not dramatically different from that of marine teleosts, they have little or no osmotic gradient between blood and seawater. This is because they retain organic molecules, the main ones being urea (carbamide) and trimethylamine oxide (TMAO). In this way, the cunning sharks avoid an osmotic water flow from their body surfaces, and may not be very thirsty.

I see it is available through Barnes & Noble here...I shall have to see about finding a copy (although probably not until after the New Year if I know what's good for me ).

Kingfisher

I would definitely wait until the new year. I've used amazon for all sorts of things for years and they have always been reliable, but this last month or so I have been having lots of problems with their deliveries not arriving, wrong orders being sent etc. It seems even they are struggling to keep up with the christmas demand this year!