FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

PLAYING GOD, MIMICKING DARWIN, COLORING YOUR WORLD, AND GAIA

SIMEARTH-THE LIVING PLANET

*

Maxis Software, Two Theatre
Square, Suite 230, Orinda, CA
94563. $69.95

PLUSES: Unspeakable power.
MINUSES: Unfathomable responsibilities.
THE VERDICT: Addictive.

Prepare for a shock. Booting up SimEarth makes the user a God. And God has a
lot of complex responsibilities when it comes to managing a planet. If you
don't regulate the amount of toxins spewed into the air by mammalian
civilizations, monitor ocean salinity and temperature, and foster areas that
reoxygenate the atmosphere, your planet will fail and its life forms will
perish.

This game, this simulation, this problem makes George Bush's job look like a
Caribbean holiday.

Illustration

GAIAN SCIENCE

*

For Geophysiology Researchers and Teachers.
Newsletter. Box 1115, Chadds Ford, PA 19317.
$35 for 12 issues.

PLUSES: Up-to-date.
MINUSES: Home-brewed taste.
THE VERDICT: Earnest.

The earth, like any living thing, has a physiology, according to the fledgling
Gaia theory. And like anything fledgling, the theory is full of energy, is
somewhat naive, and occasionally has trouble sustaining flight.

The casual reader finds tiny, gemlike resources, such as simplifications of
complex papers, bibliographies arranged by topic, book reviews, lesson plans,
and the whole nine yards.

A TRAVELER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAPAGOS ISLANDS

*

Bruce Boyce. Galapagos Travel, 1990. $14.25

PLUSES: No visa necessary.
MINUSES: Sea legs required.
THE VERDICT: Whiners stay home.

Darwin found several elegant examples of natural selection flying, swimming, and
crawling around the Galapagos Islands. Today about 60,000 hearty humans a year
come to gander.

And almost everybody sleeps on boats. Some boats are big (100 berths) and some
are small (six berths). Daytime is for exploring; nighttime is spent tooling to
your next destination. Idyllic? Not quite: Those unacquainted with the Third
World should heed Boyce's travel tips. And those who haven't slept on a boat
should bring Dramamine.

Photo

THE HUMAN EVOLUTION COLORING BOOK

*

Adrienne L. Zihlman. Harper and Row, 1982. $10.95

PLUSES: Nary a stone left unturned.
MINUSES: Textbookish.
THE VERDICT: Sizable concentration required.

Although this is a coloring book, don't expect children to be scrambling for
their crayons. The author admits in the preface that he "had trouble getting
across certain technical concepts" in his "Introduction to Human Evolution"
class and that the coloring book idea arose to help fill the gap.

And it works. Seeking out the images, coloring them in, and then reading about
their relevance packages the material for easy withdrawal from the memory bank,
The approach works especially well for the detailed technical sections on DNA
and Mendelian genetics.

Lay people with a burning desire to plumb the depths of the evolution question
will find themselves in seventh heaven. Ordinary Joes and Josephines won't.
But the book is still in print after nine years, and that speaks for itself.