In this week's podcast we look at what two popular science books can tell us about individual identity – and nature's strategies to conceal it. We're joined in the studio by Tim Radford, whose latest work, The Address Book, looks at mankind's place in the universe, all the way from the garden gate to the solar system.
We also hear from Peter Forbes, whose award-winning Dazzled and Deceived examines the phenomenon of camouflage, from a moth pretending it's a stick, to ships passing themselves off as clouds, and artists who have co-opted the subterfuges of of the military in the name of high fashion.
And we sound the last post for the typewriter, and find out which literary quotations our listeners particularly cherish citing that mean machine.
Finally, in a week when the British Library launches a major science fiction exhibition, and the Guardian publishes a bonanza of SF content, we listen into the sound archives to hear from Isaac Asimov, Kurt Vonnegut, Arthur C Clarke and JG Ballard.
Reading List
Dazzled and Deceived: Mimicry and Camouflage by Peter Forbes (Yale)
The Address Book by Tim Radford (4th Estate)
