Make: Volume 32 – Zany and practical projects and articles for DIY builders – #bookreview

Make: Volume 32
(O’Reilly, paperback)

Make: is a science, technology, and do-it-yourself (DIY) projects magazine published quarterly in paperback book format. Volume 32 not only has intriguing articles about private rocketeers, flying motorcycles, and human-size replicas of videogame costumes and weapons. It also has about two dozen “complete plans” for a wide array of useful and zany projects.

One of the projects in Volume 32 is “The Awesome Button,” a big red desktop button that you can hit when you can’t think of a synonym for the totally overused word “awesome” while you’re composing email or a letter or a manuscript. The project uses a $16 Teensy USB Development Board made by PJRC, plus some downloaded code. When your fist hammers down on the big red button, the board generates random synonyms for “awesome” and sends them to your computer so you can quickly accept or reject them in your document.

Another project is a catapult launcher that will send a tiny balsa wood glider zooming 150 feet into the air. Beats the heck out of a rubber band looped around a Popsicle stick.

And another DIY article focuses on the joys of salvaging perfectly good electronic and mechanical parts from discarded laser printers, so you can use the parts in other projects.

Make: Volume 33 is due to appear in January. In the meantime, Volume 32 is full of fun reading and intriguing projects, such as how to transform data files into synthesized music.

– Si Dunn

What Makes You Tick? – Do we exist only inside our brains, or does the mind have a longer reach? – #bookreview

What Makes You Tick? A New Paradigm for Neuroscience
Gerard Verschuuren
(Solas Press, paperback)

What is the connection between the mind and the brain? Does the mind exist independent of the brain? And does the human mind communicate with something—or someone–beyond its “biological substrata and physics”?

Gerard Verschuuren tackles these and other mystery-laden questions in his book that proposes a “new paradigm for neuroscience.” While he hopes to expand the thinking of neuroscientists—to look beyond the brain for answers to what and who and how we are—he also has written What Makes You Tick? with general readers in mind.

Verschuuren contends: “Science can’t possibly explain all of what we are . Apparently , it is not just a clockwork mechanism that makes us tick; there is so much more to it.”

The author is a human geneticist with a doctorate in the philosophy of science. He also is a computer specialist who has published several other works. As writer, speaker, and consultant, he works “at the interface of science, philosophy, and religion.”

He brings all of these aspects together in his new book, and he draws from notable scientists and others who believe that the mind has connections and workings that reach beyond the complex processes at work inside our skulls.

You may not agree with all of Dr. Verschuuren’s assertions, conclusions and evidence. But his book is well written, and his points are well argued. What Makes Us Tick? likely will stir up some new debates and possibly some expanded thinking, too, about where the mind actually resides within – and beyond? – the human body.

– Si Dunn

Surviving Orbit the DIY Way – You, too, can launch a satellite – #diy #science #bookreview

Surviving Orbit the DIY Way
Sandy Antunes
(O’Reilly, paperback – Kindle)

Okay, it’s not exactly Star Trek. For less than the price of a reasonably good used car, you now can build your own picosatellite from a kit, get it launched into low Earth orbit by commercial rocket, and receive data from space.

Surviving Orbit the DIY Way is a new book in O’Reilly’s four-book series focusing on do-it-yourself satellites. The project book’s focus is “Testing the Limits Your Satellite Can and Must Match.”

The first book, DIY Satellite Platforms, was released by O’Reilly in January, 2012, and focuses on “Building a Space-Ready General Base Picosatellite for Any Mission.” A forthcoming book, DIY Instruments for Amateur Space, will emphasize “Inventing Utility for Your Spacecraft Once It Achieves Orbit.” And a future book will show how to install miniature radio equipment in your picosatellite, so you and others can receive its data transmissions.

In Surviving Orbit the DIY Way, the text describes the conditions a picosatellite faces in orbit. It also explains how to build and use a $100 thermal vacuum chamber , plus an inexpensive centrifuge, vibration test stand, and other do-it-yourself test facilities needed to prepare your picosatellite for the stresses of launch and deployment.

Writes the author: “…with a bit of boldness and a strong do-it-yourself spirit, you can be flying your own picosatellites ‘the maker way’.”

You won’t be boldly going where no one has gone before, of course. Yet, with picosatellites, you can join the numerous schools, groups, and individuals now putting useful and educational low-budget space experiments into orbit around Planet Earth.

– Si Dunn

Illustrated Guide to Home Forensic Science Experiments – Real CSI basics – #bookreview

Illustrated Guide to Home Forensic Science Experiments: All Lab, No Lecture
Robert Bruce Thompson and Barbara Fritchman Thompson
(O’Reilly, paperback – Kindle)

Movies, TV shows and detective novels have elevated forensic science to a cultural fascination. And in real life, a clue uncovered with a microscope or a chemical test frequently is the one that provides the big break toward solving a crime.

You may daydream about what it might be like to work in a crime lab. And if you write crime novels, you likely will generate mental images of crime scene investigators or detectives trying to decipher puzzling clues. You might even picture a laboratory packed with sophisticated electronic analyzers that cost hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars.

Indeed, some labs do have that type of equipment. But this book’s authors note: “Here’s a startling fact: the vast majority of forensic work, even today, is done with low-tech procedures that would be familiar to a forensic scientist of 100 years ago.”

Indeed, they add: “You don’t need a multi-million dollar lab to do real, useful forensic investigations. All you need are some chemicals and basic equipment, much of which can be found around the home.”

You will also need “a decent microscope—the fundamental tool of the forensic scientist—but even an inexpensive student model will serve.”

The Illustrated Guide to Home Forensic Science Experiments: All Lab, No Lecture is intended for “responsible” teenagers and adults who want “to learn about forensic science by doing real, hands-on laboratory work. DIY hobbyists and forensics enthusiasts can use this book to learn and master the essential practical skills and fundamental knowledge needed to pursue forensics as a lifelong hobby. Home school parents and public school teachers can use this book as the basis of a year-long, lab-based course in forensic science.”

The hefty, 425-page book offers more than 50 lab experiments, and each session represents actual procedures used each day by professional forensic analysts.

The labs are organized into 11 groups:

1. Soil Analysis
2. Hair and Fiber Analysis
3. Glass and Plastic Analysis
4. Revealing Latent Fingerprints
5. Detecting Blood
6. Impression Analysis
7. Forensic Drug Testing
8. Forensic Toxicology
9. Gunshot and Explosive Residues Analysis
10. Detecting Altered and Forged Documents
11. Forensic Biology

Even though the book says it contains “no lectures,” each lab is introduced with a short background summary, plus lab safety cautions and warnings, lists of equipment and materials, and related how-to instructions. Also, each group of labs is introduced with a short overview of its category and its importance in forensic science. The book also contains comments from Dennis Hilliard, director of the Rhode Island State Crime Laboratory.

This is not a book that young students should use without supervision. Even “responsible teens” will need close guidance. And adults, too, must be very careful to follow all safety instructions.

But this is a fascinating how-to guide for learning the basics of forensic science, whether you hope to do it as a career or hobby, gain a science credit, or merely describe some of the techniques in a mystery novel or screenplay.

– Si Dunn

Illustrated Guide to Home Biology Experiments – Serious science for homeschoolers and biology hobbyists – #bookreview

Illustrated Guide to Home Biology Experiments: All Lab, No Lecture
Robert Bruce Thompson and Barbara Fritchman Thompson
(Make:Books/O’Reilly Media, paperback, list price $34.99; Kindle edition, list price $27.99)

This is serious science in the form of a 359-page workbook devoted to 30+ lab experiments that can be performed at home, with the right equipment and materials.

The book is intended for adults who want to “explore the science of nature as a life-long hobby,” and it’s intended for homeschoolers who need and want challenging biology labs.

The book’s experiments are not cheesy and simple. Some example titles include “Simulated DNA Separation by Gel Electrophoresis”, “Investigating Bacterial Antibiotic Sensitivity”, “Soil and Water Pollution Testing,” and “Observing Specialized Eukaryotic Cells.” The review questions at the end of each lab also are challenging and require thoughtful, written answers rather than simple fill-in-a-blank responses.

Background material is provided before each experiment. But the authors recommend that their book be used in conjunction with a standard biology textbook, such as “the freely downloadable CK-12 Biology.” Meanwhile, the authors’ company, The Home Scientist, LLC, offers “inexpensive custom kits that provide specialized equipment and supplies you’ll need to complete the experiments.” You will also need a microscope and some “common household items” to use this book.

Illustrated Guide to Home Biology Experiments is well-written and well-illustrated. Before it introduces its experiments, it describes how to maintain a properly formatted laboratory notebook, how to set up a good home biology laboratory, how to use a microscope, and how to be careful with the necessary tools and materials. The workbook is part of the “DIY Science” series published by Make:Books, an imprint of Maker Media, which is a division of O’Reilly Media, Inc.

– Si Dunn

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Control this! Four new how-to books that use Arduino – #electronics #programming #bookreview #in

The Arduino microcontroller and programming environment let you create, program, and control a variety of devices that interact with the physical world.

Some of the things you can do with Arduino are very simple, such as adjusting the color of an RGB (red, green, blue) LED under program control. Other projects are more complex, such as creating a system that will notify you by email when a package has been left at your front door or controlling a small robotic arm.

According to the Arduino website: “Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. It’s intended for artists, designers, hobbyists, and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments.”

Four new Arduino-related books recently have been released by O’Reilly and Pragmatic Bookshelf. They are: Arduino Cookbook, 2nd Edition; Programming Your Home; Programming Interactivity, 2nd Edition; and Making Things See.

Arduino Cookbook, 2nd Edition
By Michael Margolis
(O’Reilly, paperback, list price $44.99; Kindle edition, list price $35.99)

If you’ve been curious about Arduino, this book is a fine place to start and learn a lot about what you can do with the popular little microprocessor hardware and its software. And don’t be intimidated by the book’s hefty size: 699 pages. It is packed with how-to projects, and you won’t need experience with electronics or programming to get started.

Michael Margolis has updated his Cookbook to cover Arduino 1.0. A variety of “official boards” can be found via the Web, according to Margolis, but the “basic board that most people start with [is] the Arduino Uno.” Radio Shack and other outlets sell it. The Uno has a USB connector “that is used to provide power and connectivity for uploading your software onto the board.”

Speaking of software, you will want to install Arduino’s Integrated Development Environment (IDE) on your computer. The software, available for Windows, Mac, and Linux, can be downloaded here. Margolis explains how to set up each version and also how to set up the Arduino board (and some new boards such as Leonardo).

In the Arduino world, a piece of source code is known as a “sketch.” Virtually every how-to-program book for computers starts out with a simple “Hello World” example. And the Ardunio Cookbook is no exception. It shows how to load a very simple program into the board and make an LED blink on and off. From there, the projects become increasingly more robust, until you are generating audio tones, controlling motors and servos, reading temperatures with digital thermometers, and even using Arduino to send messages to Twitter.

This well-written and well-illustrated book nicely lives up to its tagline: “Recipes to Begin, Expand, and Enhance Your Projects.”

The three other Arduino-related books focus on more specific applications of the microprocessor and its software.

Programming Your Home: Automate with Arduino, Android, and Your Computer
By Mike Riley, edited by Jacquelyn Carter
(Pragmatic Bookshelf, paperback, list price $33.00)

For those who have some basic experience with Arduino, Programming Your Home offers several fun and useful home automation projects, such as an electronic guard dog, a Web-enabled light switch, a door lock you can open or latch from an Android phone, and a package-delivery alert tool that can send you an email.

Programming Your Home is well written and shows, step-by-step, how to wire up the external components to the Arduino board, program the applications, test them and use them. A second goal is to give you the skills and confidence necessary to create “custom home automation projects of  your own design.”

The author states: “Programming Your Home is best suited to DIYers, programmers, and tinkerers who enjoy spending their leisure time building high-tech solutions to further automate their lives and impress their friends and family with their creations.”

He adds: “The projects also make great parent-child learning activities, as the finished products instill a great sense of accomplishment.”

One family-oriented example is an Arduino-controlled bird feeder that time-stamps bird visits and their durations and stores the data. It also sends out Twitter tweets that alert nearby bird watchers and signal the need for more bird food. 

The most complex project in his book is also one of the coolest: a smartphone app that lets you call home and unlock or lock a door remotely. It uses a first-generation Android phone, a Sparkfun IOIO board and a few other components. This project does not use the Arduino board, but the programming and hardware experience gained from working with the Arduino comes in handy.

Programming Interactivity, 2nd Edition
By Joshua Noble
(O’Reilly, paperback, list price $49.99; Kindle edition, list price $39.99 )

“This book,” says Joshua Noble, ”is called Programming Activity because it’s focused primarily on programming for interaction design, that is, programming to create an application with which users interact directly.”

His 704-page how-to guide is aimed at readers who “don’t have a deep, or even any, programming or technical background [but] you’re a designer, artist, or other creative thinker interested in learning about code to create interactive applications in some way or shape.”

The tagline for this updated edition is: “A Designer’s Guide to Processing, Arduino, and openFrameworks.” Those are the three key areas covered in the book.

“Processing,” Noble points out, “was the one of the first open source projects that was specifically designed for simplifying the practice of creating interactive graphical applications so that nonprogrammers could easily create artworks. Artists and designers developed Processing as an alternative to similar proprietary tools.”

As for Arduino, Noble focuses first on programming using the Arduino IDE. Then he introduces wiring parts and devices to the board and making them work. Soon, he jumps into object-oriented programming using C++, and then he moves to openFrameworks (oF), “which is a collection of code created to help you do something in particular.”

He adds: “Specifically, oF is a framework for artists and designers working with interactive design and media art.”

From there, his book moves into physical input, programming graphics, bitmaps and pixels, sound and audio, Arduino and creating physical feedback (such as turning on motors, servos or household appliances), protocols and communication, graphics and OpenGL, motion and gestures, movement and location, spaces and environments, and further resources.

Noble covers a lot of ground, using a mixture of text, illustration and code examples. And he offers plenty of links and additional topics. Unlike many how-to guides, he includes “interviews with programmers, artists, designers, and authors who work with the tools covered in this book.”

Making Things See: 3D Vision with Kinect, Processing, Arduino, and MakerBot
By Greg Borenstein
(O’Reilly, paperback, list price $39.99; Kindle edition, list price $31.99)

Arduino becomes a key factor beginning on page 353 of this fascinating and challenging 416-page book aimed at gamers, artists, technology hobbyists and others.

The microprocessor becomes the brain of a small, easy-to-build robotic arm that can, within  limits, ”reproduce the motions of a real arm.”

Much of this book focuses on the Microsoft Kinect, a popular peripheral for Microsoft’s XBox 360 video game system, which the author of Making Things See terms a “depth camera.” A Kinect contains an infrared projector and infrared camera, an RGB camera, and some microphones. “The Kinect…records the distance of the objects that are placed in front of it…[and]…uses infrared light to create an image (a depth image) that captures not what the objects look like, but where they are in space….[A] depth image is much easier for a computer to ‘understand’ than a conventional color image,” Borenstein writes.

There is focus, as well, on Processing and on 3-D printing using a MakerBot ReplicatorG or the Shapeways online service.

The book offers several projects, and, in the final one, Kinect and Arduino are linked together and the Arduino is programmed to control a basic robotic arm that responds to forward or inverse kinematics. Using two servos, the arm can move up and down at “elbow” and “shoulder” and follow the movements of a particular point.

“Our bodies respond to physical objects differently than graphics on a screen,” Borenstein states, “and there’s something powerful about closing that loop by making interactive objects that can see us move around the room and respond by moving in kind.”

He adds: “Rather than just waving at computers, now we’ve taught them to wave back.”

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– Si Dunn is a novelist, screenwriter, freelance book reviewer, and former software technical writer and software/hardware QA test specialist. He also is a former newspaper and magazine photojournalist. His latest book is Dark Signals, a Vietnam War memoir. He is the author of an e-book detective novel, Erwin’s Law, now also available in paperback, plus a novella, Jump, and several other books and short stories.

Make: Electronics -Learning by doing & messing things up – A fun how-to book #bookreview

Make: Electronics
By Charles Platt
(O’Reilly, paperback, list price $34.99; Kindle edition, list price $27.99)

Okay, big confession time. I learned electronics back in the day when vacuum tubes were still state of the art, and ham radio hobbyists happily tinkered with World War II surplus aircraft radios, tank transmitters and telegraph keys that had thigh clamps so radio operators could communicate with HQ while bouncing around in Jeeps.

Electronics is still one of my hobbies. But I haven’t kept good pace with advancing technologies, and I don’t tackle as many do-it-yourself projects as I used to. I have a large cache of small electronics components stashed in plastic crates in a shed. And those crates seldom have been opened in recent years.

This book has changed that. Make: Electronics by Charles Platt has gotten me excited again about wiring up simple projects. It is not a new book. It was published in 2009. But it is still up to date in the teaching of electronics fundamentals. 

Platt’s book approaches electronics the same way I learned it, by burning things out, messing things up and then studying some of the theory, learning how to read schematic diagrams, and learning how be more careful and thoughtful as circuits are wired up. Of course, in my day, some mis-wired electronic projects literally caught on fire, and more than one exploded.

Platt’s how-to experiments, fortunately, use low voltages and low currents, typically 9-volt batteries or a few double-A batteries. The projects can be constructed on small breadboards or perforated boards or even built ”dead-bug style,” where the leads of the components simply are soldered together without any other kind of support.

His well-organized and well-written book keeps its promise to be “a hands-on primer for the new electronics enthusiast.” But it can teach some new tricks to some old electronics hounds, as well.

Make: Electronics begins with a small shopping list. You will need a few inexpensive components and tools to get started. Then it moves into some very basic and classic experiments, such as touching a 9-volt battery to your tongue, making a battery with a lemon, using resistors to reduce the voltage in a circuit, applying too much voltage to an LED and burning it out, and shorting a small battery to feel its heat.

Some fundamental theories of electricity and electronics are introduced. Proper soldering is illustrated. And then, as more theory is examined and explained, the book’s experiments move into progressively more complex projects, such as amplifiers. By the end of the book, the reader is tinkering with basic robotics and microcontrollers.

Platt provides numerous helpful resources and references for further examination, as well.

The only disappointment for me is that radio-frequency projects are limited to the construction of a basic crystal radio. But the author deftly covers a lot of ground in his book, and even simple RF circuits admittedly are better handled by those who have mastered the fundamentals first. 

Bottom line, this book has some circuits I am eager to wire up, because I am in the mood to learn again. Plus, I already have a boatload of parts and tools in storage, just waiting to be used. 

With luck and attention to detail, maybe nothing I build this time will blow up.

– Si Dunn‘s latest book is a detective novel, Erwin’s Law. His other published works include Jump, a novella, and a book of poetry, plus several short stories, including The 7th Mars Cavalry, all available on Kindle. He is a screenwriter, a freelance book reviewer, and a former technical writer and software/hardware QA test specialist.

To the edge of the cosmos & beyond: The Manga Guide to the Universe – #bookreview

The Manga Guide to the Universe
By Kenji Ishikawa, Kiyoshi Kawabata, and Verte Corp.
(No Starch Press, paperback, list price $19.95)

There was a time long ago, in a decade far, far away, when I really wanted to be an astronomer.

It was a time, pre-Sputnik, when some astronomers still thought there might be beings building great canals on Mars and living in great cities beneath the clouds of Venus.

My observatory consisted of a clear, back yard view of the Milky Way, a small handheld telescope and an occasional outdated astronomy book borrowed from the local library.

It wasn’t that long ago. I’m still alive and still fascinated by the universe and its myriad mysteries and surprises.

The Manga Guide to the Universe, recently released by No Starch Press, is exactly the book I wish I had owned when I was much younger. This “cartoon guide to the cosmos” is packed with clearly explained, easily absorbed details about a wide array of astronomical and cosmological concepts.

The topics range from the early geocentric  (Earth-centered) and heliocentric (sun-centered) theories of the universe, to surface conditions on the solar system’s planets, the “blue shift” and “red shift” in the light from an object as it approaches or moves away, and “Occam’s razor” –“If two or more theories can explain the same phenomenon, then the simplest one is more likely to be correct.”

You may not be familiar with manga or “educational manga,” but many U.S. educators, reviewers and media outlets have been praising manga comic books as a fresh hope for getting today’s media-distracted, reading-resistant young people interested in science, mathematics and other tough subjects critical to America’s future.

Over the past four years, No Starch Press has been translating into English and publishing a series of Manga Guides originally from Japan. These books offer entertaining comic introductions to tough subjects such as calculus, physics, molecular biology, and relativity.

The comic books’ characters are Japanese youngsters, teens, and adults. And some of the illustrations have a few residual bits of Japanese language embedded (sometimes with translation added). But the English texts are well-translated, well-edited and reviewed for accuracy by experts.

In The Manga Guide to the Universe, the characters encounter a wide range of concepts that include how a star’s size, magnitude and temperature are related and how cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR) is just one part of the evidence for the Big Bang theory of the universe’s origin and expansion.

And no comic book exploring the universe is, of course, complete without a clarifying discussion of the Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker (FLRW) model of the cosmos. It holds that “the fate of the universe depends on the curvature of space, and that curvature has a one-to-one correspondence with the average density…of matter that currently exists in the universe….”

You don’t have to be a media-distracted, reading-resistant kid to enjoy, be challenged by, and learn from The Manga Guide to the Universe. Books like this can reach, teach and entertain students and casual readers of almost all ages. They might even help launch new careers and new discoveries as today’s readers grow into tomorrow’s scientists, researchers and leaders.

It’s a bit late for me to become an astronomer, of course. Yet it is not too late to study this book and look up at the heavens with a greater understanding and deeper appreciation. We now know much more than ever.

Still, the mysteries that remain to be discovered and deciphered extend from here to infinity…and, as that intrepid space adventurer Buzz Lightyear would tell us, beyond.

– Si Dunn‘s latest book is a detective novel, Erwin’s Law. His other published works include Jump, a novella, and a book of poetry, plus several short stories, including The 7th Mars Cavalry, all available on Kindle. He is a screenwriter, a freelance book reviewer and a former technical writer and software/hardware QA test specialist.

Can ‘edumanga’ save us from our educational malaise? The Manga Guide to Biochemistry – #bookreview

The Manga Guide to Biochemistry
By Masaharu Takemura and Office Sawa, with illustrations by Kikuyaro
(No Starch Press, paperback, list price $24.95)

Biology and chemistry were never my top subjects, and my chances of becoming a biochemist are less than zero now, in this universe.

But even an old dog like me can learn a few biochemistry tricks with the help of manga, the smart, refreshing Japanese comic book alternative to turgid textbooks.

Indeed, many American high school and college students may now need all the manga they can get to help stem our worrisome national decline in science and mathematics scores. 

Since 2008, No Starch Press has been translating into English and publishing a series of Manga Guides originally from Japan. These offer entertaining comic introductions to tough subjects such as calculus, physics, molecular biology, and relativity.

The approach is known as ”educational manga” or “edumanga,” and many U.S. educators, reviewers and media outlets are praising it as a fresh hope for getting young students interested in tough subjects critical to America’s future.

This new volume from No Starch Press, The Manga Guide to Biochemistry,  dives into its tricky topics in a very engaging way. The comic’s young protagonist, a girl named Kumi, unlocks many of the secrets of healthy eating and, along the way, learns some of the key science of biochemistry. By going on and off fad diets, she begins to understand how the body metabolizes carbohydrates, lipids, and alcohol, and how mitochondria produce ATP, and how DNA is transcribed into RNA.

Kumi is helped in her quest by her brainy friend Nemoto, by Nemoto’s biochemistry professor, Dr. Kurosaka, and by Robocat, a friendly endoscopic robot.

(Trust me, when you are being endoscoped, you want everyone and everything to be friendly.)

No Starch Press publisher William Pollock has reported that the ”easily digestible” manga comic format is proving popular not only with ”college and high school students tired of dry textbooks” but also grabbing the attention of “younger readers interested in learning real math and science.”

Says Pollock:  ”The Manga Guides are great supplements to college-level courses, but we’ve also heard from parents whose nine- and ten-year-olds learned statistics and physics from these books. The story and comics almost hide the fact that readers are actually gaining solid technical knowledge.”

Not many comic books have kid characters dealing with topics such as the hyperbola of the Michaelis-Menten equation or the sigmoid curve of an allosteric enzyme. And not many comic books can help you  understand (if you don’t already know) the metabolism of substances such as carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, and alcohol.

Actually, it’s very hard to hide the biochemistry when brainy Nemoto is intoning: “And if just a base and a pentose bond (without a phosphate), the result is called a nucleoside.”

But that’s okay. As the book says: “Whether you’re an amateur scientist, a medical student, or just curious about how your body turns cupcakes into energy, The Manga Guide to Biochemistry is your guide to understanding the science of life.”

Or, at least, it’s your guide to appreciating a valiant effort to make biochemistry more exciting, challenging and  understandable to kids, young  adults — and even aging grownups who often avoided tough subjects in school and now want and need some understanding of what was missed.

– Si Dunn