Reseñas proporcionadas por Syndetics

CHOICE Review

For ``utopia'' in the title, read Mars. Horowitz was the expert leader of the bioscience team at the Jet Propulsion Lab for the Mariner and Viking missions. His engaging style, plus many illustrations (eight in color), provides an insider's account for the nonspecialist of the accomplishments of these missions to Mars. The first three chapters (for which some background in chemistry is needed) are essential biology lessons: what is life, how did it start, and how did it evolve on Earth? Chapters 4 and 5 concern the astronomy of the solar system, biological conditions on the planets, and the past telescopic studies of Mars. Up to 1964 these studies supported Percival Lowell's speculation that there is life on Mars. Chapters 6 and 7 convey the excitement of the Viking mission, and Chapter 8 summarizes conclusions, including the view that there is no other life in the solar system. The description of the Viking mission is much less detailed than in E.C. and L.N. Ezell's On Mars; Exploration of the Red Planet, 19581978 (1984), but Horowitz fits together the data, particularly biological data, in a connected way showing the scientific achievement. In Chapter 7 the biological reasoning is fairly advanced. There are several tables of useful biological, chemical, and astronomical data; a glossary; an extensive bibliography; and a good index. Recommended for auxiliary reading in college biology courses.-T. Page, NASA Johnson Space Center