Richard Dawkin's new book

Richard Dawkins has a new book announced for the 4th of October, and this excited me because he is one of my favourite authors. He has a rare talent of being able to communicate complicated scientific ideas in an easily understandable and interesting way.

It's called "The Magic of Reality", and marks a significant departure from his usual works. Namely it's for kids, and from the sound of it it seems fantastic.

I think stuff like this is so important, most lovers of science were captivated by the wonder of science as children. It was the "Horrible Science" series that caught me. I got the one about bugs when I was 8, and loved science ever since. Hopefully "The Magic of Reality" will captivate a new generation like Horrible Science and Carl Sagan's Cosmos did before it.

The Selfish Gene, the musical!

I didn't believe this at first, but someone has actually turned Richard Dawkin's The Selfish Gene into a musical. Don't believe me?

The book itself is about the idea of selection of genes and not necessarily individuals or species, as well as the evolution of altruism through "selfish" genes. In the musical, an Oxford professor teaches this to the audience by using the Adamson Family's daily struggles as an example.

I am soooooo happy about this, science needs more representation in the arts. Brian Cox does a good lecture on the subject. It is a fantastic book, and hopefully stuff like this can fight the general ignorance towards evolution.