SCI awards author Honorary
Membership
Popular scientific writer
Dr John Emsley acknowledged for improving public understanding
of science
 Dr
John Emsley (right) was awarded SCI’s Honorary Membership
in late October — a unique honour and one rarely bestowed.
Recipients are high-profile individuals and are all extraordinary
achievers. Honorary Members are also frequently both familiar
and comfortable with the media. Dr Emsley is certainly that:
he has written a string of popular and highly readable books
with a chemistry theme.
The Awards Committee nominates candidates with great care
and there are only 20 permitted worldwide at any one time.
Current holders from the UK include: James Watson, co-discoverer
of DNA; Sir Neil Cossons, Chairman of English Heritage and
former Director of the Science Museum; and Sir James Black,
the man behind beta-blockers and other life-saving drugs.
Dr Emsley’s current book, Vanity, Vitality & Virility,
sets out to explain in everyday language the nature and behaviour
of around 40 ingredients that play important roles in modern
living, ranging from lipstick to Viagra. There are chapters
on cosmetics, diet, sex, hygiene, depression, and polymers.
The final chapter covers the causes of chemiphobia, in other
words why people are now rejecting the benefits of chemistry,
and suggests possible cures for the unpopularity of this science.
Dr Emsley is a great science communicator. His entertaining
books have contributed to the advancement of a positive awareness
of science and he says of himself in the preface of his book
Nature’s Building Blocks: ‘As a writer of popular science,
I am aware of the desire of people to know more of the world
about them.’
Vanity, Vitality & Virility is published by Oxford
University Press, 2004.
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