Andrew Robinson reviews five of the best science picks

August 21, 2025 | 08:00pm

How a fraudulent scientist faked his career and other cautionary tales: Books in brief

Andrew Robinson reviews five of the best science picks

The Scientist Who Wasn’t There

Joanne Briggs Ithaka (2025)

Once a respected NASA space scientist, Michael Briggs became a university biochemist and pharmaceutical executive who advocated for Primodos, a controversial oral pregnancy test. But Briggs was exposed for scientific fraud by an investigative journalist in 1986. He died that same year from a mystery illness. Now his daughter, barrister Joanne Briggs, has written a hauntingly frank “memoir, not a historical account” about him, relying on her and her mathematician brother’s memories and copious research into their father’s career.

Ocean

David Attenborough & Colin Butfield John Murray (2025)

During the past century — which coincides with naturalist and broadcaster David Attenborough’s life — “we have discovered more about our ocean than in any other span of human history”, Attenborough notes in an eloquent book, written with producer Colin Butfield. We know that the huge blue whales (Balaenoptera musculus) feed mainly on krill, some of the ocean’s smallest animals, swallowed in a single gulp of 80,000 litres of water. Yet how whales blend their senses to traverse Earth’s “last wilderness” is still a mystery.

Clamor

Chris Berdik W. W. Norton (2025)

The World Health Organization treats noise as one of the top environmental threats. Drawing on research in acoustics, neuroscience and urban planning, science writer Chris Berdik explores in his resonant book how “noise took over our world while we weren’t really listening”. Noise “can trigger a visceral, even furious response from us in the moment” but once it passes we ignore its effects. And it’s tricky to distinguish noise from sound — like the high-pitched “kiss of a trout” followed by a splash while fly-fishing.