Cirrus@Austlit

'I am not a scientist; I was a reasonable biology student, but I limped through chemistry at high school and eventually dropped it for politics. My school learning of science calcified when I chose to focus on arts at university, but when I conceived the premise of Fauna, I drew back the curtains on science for the sake of writing and became a student of the ‘intermezzo’: the in-between of science and fiction and the in-between of human and Neanderthal.' (Introduction)

'Scientists seek to tell meaningful, logical, comprehensive stories that explain how the world works. Allowing for differences in cultural logic, storytellers have long sought to do the same. Scientists and storytellers may use different methods and tools in their explorations, communicate using different discursive modes, and value different outcomes, but at heart they are on the same quest: to make sense of things.'(Introduction)

'In the opening of Lab Girl, her memoir about becoming a scientist, Hope Jahren exhorts her reader to look outside their window. Amidst buildings and sidewalks, they might catch a glimpse of something green: a tree. This is ‘one of the few things left in the world that humans cannot make,’ she says. She directs her reader to look closer and to focus on one leaf. Jahren, a geobiologist who analyses plant fossils, asks questions of leaves such as ‘How hydrated is the leaf? Limp? Wrinkled? Flush? What is the angle between the leaf and the stem?’ She turns back to the reader and tells them, ‘Now you ask a question about your leaf.’' (Introduction)