THE latest edition of the Council of Biology Editors’ epic volume Scientific Style and Format (Cambridge Univeristy Press, pp 825, £19.95) has been expanded to cover at least some aspects of physical sciences and mathematics, as well as biology and medicine, and is now hard to beat as an accessible, clear and accurate single-volume guide. If you want to know the correct way to refer to a gene or a chemical compound, to name a virus or give the celestial coordinates of a star, this is the place to find out. Did you know, for example, that the vaccinia virus is a member of one of the largest and most complex of the vertebrate viruses? Or that the term “X-ray” is always hyphenated, but that “gamma ray” only takes a hyphen when it’s an adjective? Well, you do now. And as well as the specifically scientific stuff, the general chapters on grammar and punctuation are required reading. An essential reference book for all libraries used by scientists.
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