The month ahead

Somewhere in the Christmas television schedules there is bound to be a vintage whodunnit involving someone gurgling to death after having downed arsenic. Enjoyable though such spectacles are, spare a thought for the Victorians. According to James C Whorton, author of The Arsenic Century (OUP), most Victorian deaths caused by the favoured poison of novelists were accidental. Arsenic could be found in everything from candles to candies, wallpaper to clothing. Part science and part social history, Whorton’s book—due out in January—promises a vivid account of one of the first-ever documented episodes of environmental poisoning.

If Oliver Morton’s essay on geoengineering, p33, piqued your interest, visit the Royal Society on 19th January for a lecture in which a panel of experts will discuss how large-scale technological interventions to alter our climate could work in practice, and who should oversee them. The last point is especially contentious, given that any plan would need to be implemented globally. The House of Commons’ science and technology committee and its US counterpart have already joined forces to discuss how such a plan should be regulated.

The UN has declared 2010 the International Year of Biodiversity, to highlight the fact that the current rate of loss of species is 100 times greater than the natural rate of extinction. Amateur naturalists are being urged to join in a range of activities, which include mapping elms, looking out for bluebells and spotting snails. More details at the Natural History