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Six-Legged Science by Brian Hocking is a little gem of a book that should adorn the bookshelf of every biologist. I was completely unaware of this book until a colleague hunting for it, found it hidden with yet another colleague! The book of 200 pages is a passionate eulogy, offered in eighteen charming essays on all matters concerning insects. The essay, ‘Gall enough in thy ink’, beautifully dramatizes the two important inventions of mankind that have had a huge impact on human civilization for over two thousand years – ink and paper. The essay dramatizes the discovery of paper by a Chinese character observing a wasp as it repeatedly visits a tree to collect fibre to build its paper envelope nest. In the fantasy spun by Hocking, the character Leng fu painstakingly observes the nest construction by the wasp and proceeds to make paper from plant fibre.
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