Nothing: Surprising Insights Everywhere from Zero to Oblivion

There's a lot about nothing in this fun assortment of pop science essays culled from New Scientist. The essays aren't all about nothing necessarily. Sometimes they're about the appearance or feel of nothing, such as Linda Geddes's "Banishing Consciousness" which explores the effects of anaesthetics; Stephen Battersby's "Pathways to Cosmic Oblivion" describes fours ways the universe might end its days. An essay by Douglas Fox reveals a once unexplored network in the brain and the benefits of daydreaming. The collection on a whole takes a fun and accessible tone with easily digestable insights and discoveries, like the history and differences between zero as a number and zero as a symbol (which surprisingly people didn't always use it or even have it to represent nothing) or the critical benefits of doing nothing for certain animals. The topics may seem dense but the reading is breezy, proving it doesn't take a scientist to know about nothing. (Mar.)