FOR some people, stem cells are workers of miracles, a potential panacea for broken-down brains or backs. For others, using them is degenerate and exploitative. Stem cell research is fraught with scientific and ethical struggles. Elizabeth Finkel offers a way through them in Stem Cells (ABC Books, A$27.95).
For something a bit more beguiling, try Ernst Haeckel's Art Forms from the Ocean (Prestel, £12.99), a facsimile of which is just out. Haeckel, a German zoologist, was fascinated by radiolarians - tiny marine organisms - he made a series of drawings classifying them by their skeletal structures. His work was published in 1862, and he was one of the first to weave Darwin's evolutionary ideas with taxonomy: his radiolarians, later recognised as single-celled protozoa that evolved about 550 million years ago, show the mutability of species.
Change is everything in China Miéville's Iron Council (Macmillan, £7.99), which has just won him ...
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