The spider-tailed horned viper makes use of its distinctive lure to trick birds into approaching
Matthijs Kuijpers/Alamy
The Genetic E-book of the Useless
Richard Dawkins (Yale College Press (US, out now); Apollo (UK, 17 October))
The late, nice evolutionary biologist William Hamilton apparently used to correspond on second-hand postcards, writing over the unique script in different-coloured ink, typically at proper angles. In The Genetic E-book of the Useless: A Darwinian reverie, his colleague Richard Dawkins describes this as a sort of palimpsest – “a manuscript in which later writing has been superimposed on earlier (effaced) writing”. This, he says, is a…
