Free Thought

Another list for your reading, gift-giving and collection development pleasure. Every year for the last bunch of years I’ve been linking to and posting about all the “year’s best sciencey books” lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year. All the previous 2012 lists are here. This post includes the following: Cocktail Party Physics Baker’s Dozen: Sampling the Best Science Books of 2012. The Particle at the End of the Universe by Sean M. Carroll A Man of Misonceptions: The Life of an Eccentric in an Age of Change by John Glassie The Idea…
Another list for your reading, gift-giving and collection development pleasure. Every year for the last bunch of years I’ve been linking to and posting about all the “year’s best sciencey books” lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year. All the previous 2012 lists are here. This post includes the following: Technology and Learning The 11 Best Nonfiction Books of 2012. Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain The Signal and the Noise: Why Most Predictions Fail but Some Don't by Nate Silver Tubes: A…
Another list for your reading, gift-giving and collection development pleasure. Every year for the last bunch of years I’ve been linking to and posting about all the “year’s best sciencey books” lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year. All the previous 2012 lists are here. This post includes the following: Top Books of 2012: Environmentalism and Climate Change, Evolution. Evolution's Wedge: Competition and the Origins of Diversity by David W. Pfennig, Karin S. Pfennig The Evolution of Parental Care by Nick J. Royle, Per T. Smiseth,…
Another list for your reading, gift-giving and collection development pleasure. Every year for the last bunch of years I’ve been linking to and posting about all the “year’s best sciencey books” lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year. All the previous 2012 lists are here. This post includes the following: . Connectome: How the brain's wiring makes us who we are by, Sebastian Seung Gravity's Engines: How Bubble-Blowing Black Holes Rule Galaxies, Stars, and Life in the Cosmos by Caleb Scharf Hallucinations by Oliver Sacks Immortality: The…
Another list for your reading, gift-giving and collection development pleasure. Every year for the last bunch of years I’ve been linking to and posting about all the “year’s best sciencey books” lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year. All the previous 2012 lists are here. This post includes the following: Kobo Best of 2012. Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg…
Another list for your reading, gift-giving and collection development pleasure. Every year for the last bunch of years I’ve been linking to and posting about all the “year’s best sciencey books” lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year. All the previous 2012 lists are here. This post includes the following: Books of the Year 2012: Natural history, . Bird Sense: What It's Like to Be a Bird by Tim Birkhead Fighting for Birds: 25 Years in Nature Conservation by Mark Avery My Garden & Other Animals by Mike Dilger Field Guide to the Micro-…
Another bunch of lists for your reading, gift-giving and collection development pleasure. Every year for the last bunch of years I’ve been linking to and posting about all the “year’s best sciencey books” lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year. All the previous 2012 lists are here. This post includes the following: The Scholarly Kitchen: Chefs’ Selections: The Best Books Read During 2012 The Signal and the Noise: Why Most Predictions Fail but Some Don'tby Nate Silver Measuring the Networked Nonprofit: Using data to Change the Worldby Beth…
Another bunch of lists for your reading, gift-giving and collection development pleasure. Every year for the last bunch of years I’ve been linking to and posting about all the “year’s best sciencey books” lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year. All the previous 2012 lists are here. This post includes the following: Amazon.co.uk Non-Fiction Best of 2012 Bad Pharma: How drug companies mislead doctors and harm patientsby Ben Goldacre Seventeen Equations that Changed the Worldby Ian Stewart Quiet: The power of introverts in a world that can't…
Another list for your reading, gift-giving and collection development pleasure. Every year for the last bunch of years I’ve been linking to and posting about all the “year’s best sciencey books” lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year. All the previous 2012 lists are here. This post includes the following: Wall Street Journal Science, Business, Travel, Military History, Non-Fiction. Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic by David Quammen Horseshoe Crabs and Velvet Worms: The Story of the Animals and Plants That Time Has…
Another bunch of lists for your reading, gift-giving and collection development pleasure. Every year for the last bunch of years I’ve been linking to and posting about all the “year’s best sciencey books” lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year. All the previous 2012 lists are here. This post includes the following:   The Smithsonian The Social Conquest of Earthby E.O. Wilson Zoobiquity: What Animals Can Teach Us About Health and the Science of Healingby Barbara Natterson-Horowitz and Kathryn Bowers American Canopy: Trees, Forests, and the…
Apps are too much like 1990's CD-ROMs and not enough like the Web Open Access to Scientific Research Can Save Lives The OA Interviews: Harvard’s Stuart Shieber (Pay special note to the comment by Sandy Thatcher and the devastating fisking of it by Stuart Shieber. And by devastating, I mean dev. a. sta. ting.) Questioning Clay Shirky Shirky, Bady and For-Profit Higher Ed Unlikely Pairing? (liberal arts schools get into moocs) A New (Kind of) Scholarly Press (An open access university press) Can researchers protect their open data? Visualizing the Uniqueness, and Conformity, of Libraries (cool…
Another list for your reading, gift-giving and collection development pleasure. Every year for the last bunch of years I’ve been linking to and posting about all the “year’s best sciencey books” lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year. All the previous 2012 lists are here. This post includes the following: The Economist. Ivory, Apes & Peacocks: Animals, Adventure and Discovery in the Wild Places of Africa by Alan Root Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic by David Quammen The Origins of Sex: A History of the First…
Another bunch of lists for your reading, gift-giving and collection development pleasure. Every year for the last bunch of years I’ve been linking to and posting about all the “year’s best sciencey books” lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year. All the previous 2012 lists are here. This post includes the following: The Atlantic Books of the Year 2012: The Top 5 and the Runners Up Masters of the Planet: The Search for Our Human Origins by Ian Tattersall  CNNMoney Abundance: The future is better than you thinkby Peter Diamandis Inside Apple…
Another list for your reading, gift-giving and collection development pleasure. Every year for the last bunch of years I’ve been linking to and posting about all the “year’s best sciencey books” lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year. All the previous 2012 lists are here. This post includes the following: Kirlus Reviews: Current Affairs & Social Sciences, Biography, History, Science & Nature. Wait: The Art and Science of Delay by Frank Partnoy Visit Sunny Chernobyl: And Other Adventures in the World's Most Polluted Places by…
Another list for your reading, gift-giving and collection development pleasure. Every year for the last bunch of years I’ve been linking to and posting about all the “year’s best sciencey books” lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year. All the previous 2012 lists are here. This post includes the following: Booklist Online Top 10 Science and Health Books. The Bluebird Effect: Uncommon Bonds with Common Birds by Julie Zickefoose Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan An Epidemic of Absence: A New Way of Understanding…
Another list for your reading, gift-giving and collection development pleasure. Every year for the last bunch of years I’ve been linking to and posting about all the “year’s best sciencey books” lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year. All the previous 2012 lists are here. This post includes the following: Financial Times Best Books of 2012. Makers: The New Industrial Revolution by Chris Anderson The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do and How to Change by Charles Duhigg The Particle at the End of the Universe: The Hunt for the Higgs and…
Ever imagined that an Xbox controller could help open a window into the nanoworld of groundbreaking physics? Well, check out the video above. Brookhaven scientist Ray Conley designed that one-of-a-kind machine to grow (through a technique called sputtering deposition) atomically precise lenses that can focus x-rays to within one billionth of one meter, revealing the internal nanoscale structure of materials such as electric vehicle fuel cells. When tweaking his recipe for these multilayer Laue lenses (MLL), Conley used to have to manually enter commands into a computer to move a crucial…
Another list for your reading, gift-giving and collection development pleasure. Every year for the last bunch of years I’ve been linking to and posting about all the “year’s best sciencey books” lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year. All the previous 2012 lists are here. This post includes the following: Amazon.ca Top 100 Editors' Picks. The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail-but Some Don't by Nate Silver Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We…
Another list for your reading, gift-giving and collection development pleasure. Every year for the last bunch of years I’ve been linking to and posting about all the “year’s best sciencey books” lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year. All the previous 2012 lists are here. This post includes the following: Boing Boing Gift Guide. The Where, the Why, and the How: 75 Artists Illustrate Wondrous Mysteries of Science by Matt Lamothe, Julia Rothman, Jenny Volvovski and David Macaulay Hallucinations by Oliver Sacks Illustrated Guide to Home…
Another list for your reading, gift-giving and collection development pleasure. Every year for the last bunch of years I’ve been linking to and posting about all the “year’s best sciencey books” lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year. All the previous 2012 lists are here. This post includes the following: New York Times 100 Notable Books. Belzoni: The Giant Archaeologists Love to Hate by Ivor Noël Hume Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History by Florence Williams Darwin's Ghosts: The Secret History of Evolution by Rebecca Stot The Folly…