Life at the Extremes: Amazon.co.uk: Frances Ashcroft: Books

Amazon.co.uk Review

In Life at the Extremes Frances Ashcroft, Professor of Physiology at Oxford University, investigates the related questions: how much can the human body endure? What can it survive, what causes it to fail? Why can some creatures tolerate conditions that would kill others? The extremes in question, to which bodies are periodically subjected, either voluntarily or not, include the limits of endurable temperature and pressure; physical constraints on speed; the weightlessness, vacuum and utter cold of space; and a number of environments that, for various reasons, are so unpleasant as to limit drastically the options of life-forms that attempt to inhabit them. By its nature, such a subject does not lend itself to continuous narrative, and Life at the Extremes may be best regarded as a kind of anthology into which one can dip to pull out examples, cheerful or gruesome, of what can happen to living tissue at the extremes. Here is Mr Blagden, accompanied by some eggs, a raw steak and a dog, entering a room heated to 105 degrees C, in the late 18th century. Fifteen minutes later the steak and eggs were cooked but Mr Blagden and the dog were not. A clear and absorbing explanation of mammalian heat regulation follows. Here are dreadful pictures of frost-bitten extremities; Sir Roger Bannister breaking the four-minute mile; a frog frozen solid in a block of ice but still alive and well; divers and the bends; astronauts and the redistribution of bodily fluids in weightlessness; flamingos enduring their caustic soda lakes; the physiology of the chilblain. Frances Ashcroft writes warmly and with wit: her many illustrative anecdotes are well chosen and provoke much thought about how life copes with, and adapts to, the physical circumstances it finds itself in. --Robin Davidson --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Amazon.co.uk Review

How much can the human body endure? What can it survive, what causes it to fail? Why can some creatures tolerate conditions that would kill others? Frances Ashcroft, Professor of Physiology at Oxford University, investigates these and related questions in Life at the Extremes. The extremes in question, to which bodies are periodically subjected, either voluntarily or not, include the limits of endurable temperature and pressure; physical constraints on speed; the weightlessness, vacuum and utter cold of space; and a number of environments that, for various reasons, are so unpleasant as to limit drastically the options of life-forms that attempt to inhabit them. By its nature, such a subject does not lend itself to continuous narrative, and Life at the Extremes may be best regarded as a kind of anthology into which one can dip to pull out examples, cheerful or gruesome, of what can happen to living tissue at the extremes. Here is Mr Blagden, accompanied by some eggs, a raw steak and a dog, entering a room heated to 105 degrees C, in the late 18th century. Fifteen minutes later the steak and eggs were cooked but Mr Blagden and the dog were not. A clear and absorbing explanation of mammalian heat regulation follows. Here are dreadful pictures of frost-bitten extremities; Sir Roger Bannister breaking the four-minute mile; a frog frozen solid in a block of ice but still alive and well; divers and the bends; astronauts and the redistribution of bodily fluids in weightlessness; flamingos enduring their caustic soda lakes; the physiology of the chilblain. Frances Ashcroft writes warmly and with wit: her many illustrative anecdotes are well chosen and provoke much thought about how life copes with, and adapts to, the physical circumstances it finds itself in. --Robin Davidson

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4.1 out of 5 stars

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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful

great stories and good science 30 Oct 2001

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

I love this book.
It is a fascinating insight into how the human body copes with extremes of heat and cold, heights and depths, etc. Frances AShcroft explains how our biology copes with these extremes.

And it is not just the biology. The book is full of little stories. There are stories that make me squirm, and say "Stop! Don't tell me any more!" And then I just have to read the next one. And there are other stories that cause me to wonder, like the scientists who carry out experiments on themselves, experiments that lead to all sorts of suffering.

The great thing is this: while I am reading all these stories about life at the extremes, I am also absorbing a lot of basic information about how our bodies work normally, almost without realising I am learning. I was talking to someone about this book, and I started to rabbit away about what happens in an aircraft if it suffers explosive decompression - I was surprised at what I was able to tell my pals.

This book is full of wee stories, gruesome, outrageous, fascinating, inspiring.
It is a brilliant source of tales to tell in the pub.
It is very informative about human physiology, and also history.

To Paul and Shula who gave me this book for my birthday - thanks indeed. Its great.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

Beware ebook (Kindle) Edition 25 Sep 2010

By Suenos6

Format:Kindle Edition

Whilst I appreciate that this should really only be a review of the content of the book, I thought I'd mention that, having recently purchased the ebook (kindle) version, it is full of spelling errors and incomplete sentences. This has completely spoilt the reading experience and I have complained to both Amazon and the Publisher.

Please don't let this put you off buying the book as the actual content is good, it is just the ebook version which is currently flawed. I am confident that this will eventually be rectified but buyer beware!

Reading at the extremes 11 Mar 2010

By Tom

I did enjoy reading this book and I did learn a couple of those classic titbits to inform, or annoy, friends with. I now know why we get The Bends; what temperature your brain cells die at; that Mt. Everest is coincidentally at the absolute limit of what humans can survive without breathing apparatus; and some historical details on early diving bells and the Mariana Trench. That said, this book is incredibly `hard going'. This isn't necessarily as a result of the scientific content, which although sometimes difficult to grasp at the first pass, isn't truly that difficult. It comes as a result of the author's laboured style and overly convoluted pros. I did feel like I was expected to have a prior knowledge and understanding of the subject. Like I said I wasn't looking for a `beginners guide' and this book wasn't technically demanding, but the explanations are so befuddled that it was impossible sometimes to follow the thought pattern (there were very few diagrams, graphs, and/or charts, that in some instances may have gone a long way to succinctly explaining the issue).

I don't think this book warrants a `1' or `2' star but it's certainly not one of the best popular science books I've read in recent times. It had the potential to be a superb book, with an engaging and interesting subject matter. However, it falls short of this and manages to make some parts very dull. I did read the book cover to cover, unlike the people that review what they've "given up" on, but I have to confess it took me a lot longer than usual. Maybe this is something for a coffee table or chapter-by-chapter `dip' over the course of a few months. If nothing else it may simply inspire you to further reading on the very interesting topics.

Just as an aside. I take exceptional care of my books but found that by the end a couple of pages were falling out where they had become unstuck from the broken spine. Wasn't happy!