MORE WORDS OF SCIENCE

Partly to keep up with the vocabulary explosion that has occurred since Asimov's Words of Science (1959), a sequel with the same alphabetical arrangement and rather discursive style, with no more reference or basic educational value than its predecessor but the same irresistible browsability. The new words range from the obvious astronaut and laser to chillers like clone and the disreputable polywater. There are old words newly come to household status (ecology, eutrophication, greenhouse effect), a few pushovers to boost your confidence (photosynthesis, robot, jet plane), some you've heard and really should know (black hole, red shift, holography) — and if you've kept up so far how about bremsstrahlung, carbonaceous chondrites, scotophobin, vasopressin? The mix makes no sense at all but you'll upset your circadian rhythm and cut into your rem sleep turning just one more page and then another to the final zinjanthropus and zpg.