Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, May 20, 1990                   TAG: 9005200279
SECTION: HORIZON                    PAGE: F4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Reviewed by PAUL DELLINGER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

COLLECTION OF COLUMNS ON SCIENCE EASY TO COMPREHEND

More than three years ago, astronomer-author Carl Sagan bemoaned in Parade magazine the widespread and uncritical public acceptance of UFOs, telepathy, channeling and other fashionably far-out ideas.

Practically every newspaper had an astrology column, he observed, but how many carry science columns? I clipped the article and mailed it to Isaac Asimov, suggesting that he - a widely read science writer - consider authoring a syndicated science column.

Asimov wrote back saying that, as a matter of fact, he had been doing just that for several months now. He sent the address where a paper could sign up for it. I lobbied for its inclusion in the Roanoke Times & World-News, obviously without success; there just wasn't space without dropping something else. But much of the material is now available anyway, because Asimov has collected more than 120 of his weekly columns in book form.

Okay, maybe not all of our readers would be interested in the difference between muon and electronic neutrinos, whether quarks are the fundamental components of the universe, or what killed the dinosaurs. On the other hand, it behooves all of us to be interested in the global problems of over-population, depletion of the ozone layer and maybe even what killed the dinosaurs if it could be a threat to us someday. Asimov covers all this and much more.

Asimov has published many other volumes of science essays in book form, from places such as his monthly column in "Fantasy & Science Fiction" magazine. But the newspaper nature of these makes them different. They are more concise, each one about three pages and easily read at a sitting; they are more up to date, not having had to wait for months in a magazine's inventory; and they are aimed more specifically at general readers than those who already have an interest in science.

In the book, Asimov divides the columns into five sections, covering recent discoveries in the early development of humanity; science in general, from atom-smashers to cold fusion; new findings about our planet, from the dinosaurs to the first living cell; our solar system, including new space probe data; and the universe beyond our own star's system. As always, Asimov is able to make the information interesting and comprehensible in a way that many science magazines often do not.