THE SALMON CANNON AND THE LEVITATING FROG

How so-called silly science leads to advances for humankind.

If artists are expected to experiment with paintbrushes, and musicians with instruments, scientists too must have “space for play and creativity,” according to this fun, fast-paced romp through the weird and curious minds that dared to ask why. The author is an animal behaviorist whose keen understanding of creatures enlightens tales of how the path to a scientific breakthrough is often not linear. From rats that sniff out tuberculosis and land mines, to a small frog that appeared comfortable floating in midair and made a big splash for physics, to the scientists who studied how elephants pee, it all matters, somehow. “He didn’t just study nitrous oxide: He inhaled it,” the author writes of a chemistry maverick of the late 1700s who noticed the laugh-inducing and pain-dulling effect of the gas. Thoroughly researched yet highly readable, this book has more twists and turns than a duck’s penis—and vagina, it turns out—as the author describes how knowledge of duck genitalia changed our understanding of evolution and sexual selection. Tales include one about a microbiologist who spotted an algae that thrived in the boiling waters of Yellowstone National Park, which eventually led to the creation of a ubiquitous PCR test used in the Covid-19 pandemic. The “salmon cannon” in the title refers to the vacuum device, akin to a bank-teller tube, that propels salmon over dams as they make their way upstream to spawn. In an era of cutting costs for basic research in favor of applied research, and amid long-standing questions of why taxpayers should fund research that seems outlandish, this whole book is a witty and deftly delivered answer to the question: What’s the point?

A delightful plunge into the curiosity-driven discoveries at the heart of science.