To the extent that we talked about Richard Dawkins at all in the new-athiesm podcast this summer, we never got around to properly discussing science as wonder. Dawkins makes this argument in a really beautiful new book "The Magic of Reality". Illustrated by Dave McKean, it's ostensibly a children's book, structured around a series of basic questions like "Who was the first person, really?" and "What are things made of?", but, as he presents in the introduction, it's a book aimed at showing that there is distinction between myth and science and that the account of the world through science is astonishing and wonderful.
Though it's out as a hard-cover book, you should check out the iPad version if at all possible. That version includes a number of clever and wonderful mini-apps to illustrate some key scientific concepts and discoveries. I particularly liked the scalable solar system and Newton's light-splitting experiment.
You can read a review of paper book from the Guardian newspaper.
Dylan
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