Flashes of brilliance the cutting edge of Irish science

Reviewed by Sean Duke on 9 Nov 2006

This collection of published articles, reflect the diversity, the volume and the outstanding quality of the research happening in Ireland today.

The author, Dick Ahlstrom, science correpondent with The Irish Times, is arguably the best-known science journalist in the country (there aren't too many of us around). His science writing here began in the mid 1980s, when science in this country was on its knees.

As the author says in his introduction: "I started writing about Irish science during the dark days of the mid 1980s, when Irish scientists excelled at getting more financial support per capita out of the EU's various research programmes than anyone else in the community. These are changed times, and now researchers here have the capacity to do world-class science.

How things have changed, beyond all recognition, and now top class Irish researchers are returning home to join the party, but, even more remarkable, leading scientists from abroad are now quite happy to come and work in dynamic little Ireland. Wow!

This welcome book - one of the few popular titles that deal with Irish science, or Irish scientists - has articles published in the period 2002 up to the start of 2006. The articles, as we would expect, are well written and presented, and in the book are further enhanced by the use colour pictures.

This book will appeal to the science professional and to the general reader, albeit a general reader with a strong interest in science. There is a welcome lack of scientific jargon, and the author does a good job explaining difficult concepts in ways that all of us can understand. For example, "DNA is like a ladder that has been twisted into a helix". Or how about, "As explained in all the best sci-fi movies, put matter and antimatter together in one place and both are immediately destroyed with the release of large amounts of energy". The author is avoids speaking over the heads of his readers.
I have one quibble, but this book is still highly recommended. Instead of repeating material that has already been published, perhaps another approach might have been to select a smaller number of articles and go into these in much more depth. Certainly, some of the stories seem to abruptly end, just as the appetite is whetted.

Flashes of brilliance, the cutting edge of Irish science, Dick Ahlstrom. Published by Royal Irish Academy.