Book review:
The foreshadowing last week was accurate. This week, we offer a review of Tentacles! Tales of the Giant Squid by Shirley Raye Redmond with illustrations by Bryn Barnard. Younger offspring: We should talk about my new squid book for the...
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Posted on April 18, 2008 1:23 PM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
What is it like to be a scientist while also being a human being?
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Posted on February 16, 2008 3:30 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
The average American's lack of scientific literacy has become a common complaint, not only among scientists but also among those who see our economic prospects as a nation linked to our level of scientific know-how. Yet somehow, science has...
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Posted on July 23, 2007 6:57 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
When I was growing up in New Jersey, hurricanes were "on the radar" for us, one of many possible (if infrequent) weather patterns during summer and fall. Later, in my first semester of college in Massachusetts, the morning of my...
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Posted on July 19, 2007 2:46 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
People sometimes worry that throwing ethics coursework at scientists-in-training is not such a great strategy for training them to be ethical scientists. (I've explored worries of this sort myself.) For one thing, at many schools the existing coursework may...
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Posted on July 11, 2007 12:40 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
I recently finished reading Greg Critser's Generation Rx: How Prescription Drugs Are Altering American Lives, Minds, and Bodies. Frankly, I don't feel so well....
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Posted on July 5, 2007 1:18 PM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
I recently read a book by regular Adventures in Ethics and Science commenter Solomon Rivlin. Scientific Misconduct and Its Cover-Up: Diary of a Whistleblower is an account of a university response to allegations of misconduct gone horribly wrong. I'm...
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Posted on June 26, 2007 2:46 PM • 28 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Since it has come up in the comments on my review of Kazuo Ishiguro's novel Never Let Me Go, I'm going to go ahead and discuss some of the issues around cutting-edge biomedical technologies in the book that might, or...
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Posted on June 24, 2007 2:31 PM • 9 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Last May, on my way back from a mini-conference in Stockholm, I had a long layover in Munich. Since major airports are now essentially shopping malls with parking for commercial jets, I used a little bit of that time...
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Posted on June 23, 2007 8:20 PM • 10 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
It willl be no surprise to regular readers on this blog that the Free-Ride offspring like books. At this point, it is even possible that their books outnumber their parents' books, which is almost alarming. (Please send compact shelving and...
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Posted on February 23, 2007 1:14 PM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
As promised, I bring you some gift recommendations for kids who are into math or science (or could be if presented with the right point of entry). The first installation: books. Books are the best. They don't need batteries or...
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Posted on November 22, 2006 9:29 AM • 13 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
A couple years ago, I taught a freshman seminar class called "Matters of Life and Death". In the course, we looked at philosophy, anthropology, medical ethics, literature, and film to try to get some insight to how our awareness...
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Posted on August 30, 2006 2:43 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Like a bunch of my ScienceBlogs SiBlings, I read Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard's book, Coming to Life: How Genes Drive Development. As I am not a trained biologist of any stripe (and haven't been enrolled in a biology course since the 1980s),...
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Posted on August 23, 2006 8:06 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
How a Seed Grows by Helene J. Jordan. Illustrated by Loretta Krupinski.This is a nifty science book for little kids. Our favorite thing about this book is that it's all about getting empirical....
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Posted on July 31, 2006 10:24 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Janet D. Stemwedel (whose nom de blog is Dr. Free-Ride) is an assistant professor of philosophy at San Jose State University. Before becoming a philosopher, she earned a Ph.D. in physical chemistry. Email her at dr.freeride@gmail.com.
