book review
jstemwedel | June 24, 2007Since 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 might not, be plausible when pondered. (As Bill points out, the scientific details in the novel itself are pretty minimal -- the focus is squarely on the interactions between characters -- so plausibility is only an issue if you're not good at suspending disbelief.)
WARNING: This post will be packed with spoilers!
Unless you've already read the book, or you have sworn a blood-…
jstemwedel | June 23, 2007
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 to wander through a pretty impressive airport book store, where I picked up a copy of Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. I had heard a bit about it (maybe in reviews on the radio, if memory serves), and knew that it had some connection to ethical issues around biomedical technologies that seem not to be too far off from where we are now.
Because I was taking a stab at using my…
grrlscientist | June 14, 2007tags: book review, Nature, The Open Laboratory
Some of you might be aware that The Open Laboratory: The Best Writing on Science Blogs 2006 (2007) was reviewed in this week's issue of Nature magazine. This is a volume that I, along with 49 other science blog writers, contributed to (actually, most of this book was put together while I was hospitalized and shortly after I was discharged, so Bora, the editor, kindly thought to choose one of my pieces for the book himself). You might be interested to read this Nature review, and it might also inspire you to submit an essay or two of your own to…
grrlscientist | June 14, 2007tags: book review, birding, birds, Why Don't Woodpeckers Get Headaches, Mike O'Connor
Have you ever wondered if backyard birds can choke on peanut butter? If robins really are the first birds of spring? Where should you hang your new bird feeder? Whether there is such a bird as a horned House Finch? If the white Aflack bird a duck or a goose? What birds do when the temperatures and wind chill fall below zero? If penguins have knees? The answers to all these questions and more can be found in a delightful little book, Why Don't Woodpeckers Get Headaches? And Other Bird Questions You Know You…
grrlscientist | June 8, 2007tags: global warming, LabLit, science fiction, book review
Fifty Degrees Below (Bantam Books, NYC: 2005) is the second novel in Kim Stanley Robinson's global warming trilogy (the first is Forty Signs of Rain). In this book, the novel shifts its attention from Anna and Charlie Quibler and their quirky sons onto NSF scientists/beaureaucrats Frank Vanderwal and Diane Chang.
The first book in this trilogy, Forty Signs of Rain, developed slowly, which seemed to reflect the author's perception of America's slow reaction to impending global climate change. However, that book ended with a stunning…
grrlscientist | June 7, 2007tags: global warming, LabLit, science fiction, book review
A friend of mine who is an editor at Random House Publishers sent me a fascinating book about global warming that I think qualifies as "LabLit." LabLit is short for "Laboratory Literature"; a new genre of fictional science literature that realistically portrays scientists working and living during contemporary times.
This book, Forty Signs of Rain by Kim Stanley Robinson (NYC, Bantam Books: 2004), is a peek into the lives of scientist, Anna Quibler, who works for the National Science Foundation (NSF), and her stay-at-home husband,…
grrlscientist | May 8, 2007tags: Harry Potter, books, book review
One of my devoted blog readers must be able to read crystal balls because he mercifully sent me a book about Harry Potter. Even though I have been going crazy waiting for the next movie and the last book to come out in July, this gift is a book that I never thought of reading while I wait, a book that I would never would have heard about if he hadn't sent it to me, in fact. And thank goodness that he did send this book; I can re-watch the first four DVDs and re-read the first six books only so many times before I start to feel guilty about not indulging…
sciencetolife | May 7, 2007 I was recently sent a book for review-Carved in Sand: When Attention Fails and Memory Fades in Midlife. It's an informative book by Cathryn Jakobson Ramin chronicling her struggle with memory loss and subsequent journey to explore drug and non-drug treatments. I found it a good read and even witty at times. It highlights a condition that many people struggle with as they age: memory loss and attention failure.
When signs of memory loss and attention failure manifest in midlife most people fear an onset of Alzheimer's disease is at hand.
Alzheimer's is a complex disease afflicting more…
neurontic | May 2, 2007A review of Carved in Sand, by Cathryn Jakobson Ramin
I won't lie to you. The press release for Carved in Sand did not inspire confidence. "When journalist Cathryn Jakobson Ramin was in her early 40s, she began forgetting things and was having trouble concentrating," reads the description of the book:
Embarrassed, but also concerned, she decided to get to the heart of the question so many people in midlife ask: Is this normal--or am I slowly losing my mind? A veteran reporter with two decades of investigative work under her belt, she decided to become a guinea pig . . . [embarking] on a…
grrlscientist | March 23, 2007Tall, handsome and charming, Richard Meinertzhagen is sometimes known as the English spy who didn't kill Hitler when he met him while carrying a loaded gun in his pocket. Three biographies have been written about Meinertzhagen, who was reputed to be a British war hero, spy, and famous ornithologist (hence my interest), and he is mentioned as a historical character in many more histories, movies and several TV shows. Meinertzhagen lived from the 1870s to the 1960s, was the model for the fictional spy, James Bond, worked for Winston Churchill and worked with T.E. Lawrence ("of Arabia"), and…
grrlscientist | March 13, 2007At first glance, I thought this book was too slim to accomplish its stated goal, but I was wrong. In God: The Failed Hypothesis (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2007), Victor J. Stenger critically examines both empirical data and scientific models for the existence of a supreme, transcendant being -- God -- and finds them to be inadequate.
Stenger begins by defining God according to the Judeo-Christian-Islamic scriptures and asserting that the existence of God is a hypothesis that can be tested scientifically. Thus, as with all hypotheses, this allows us to make predictions of what we should…
grrlscientist | March 5, 2007Those of you who agree with the death penalty will rethink your position after you read John Grisham's first nonfiction book, The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town (NYC: Doubleday; 2006), while those of you who disagree with the death penalty will find your position reinforced after you've read this stunning book.
And stunning it is due to the obvious and egregious miscarriage of justice that was so casually carried out in a small town. This book tells the tragic story of former major league baseball hopeful, Ron Williamson, who was the first major league draft choice from…
grrlscientist | February 28, 2007Have you wondered what the big commotion is regarding bird flu? Are you still confused about how avian influenza came to be and why epidemiologists are so afraid of it? Do you wonder why I have gone on numerous tirades about how the virulent H5N1 strain did not originate in wild birds, but rather, is a product of human creation? Throughout the entire book, Doctor Michael Greger examines influenza viruses and what makes them into such killers by meticulously weaving together historical, medical, ecological, agricultural, viral, and economic factors that contributed to the "hatching" of this…
jstemwedel | February 23, 2007It 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 a librarian who can break out some Dewey Decimal on our profusion!)
Naturally, this means the sprogs must grapple with the issue of which books are reliable sources of information and with the related issue of which books are appropriate for children. We consider as a test case Animals of the Ocean: In Particular the Giant Squid.
The book is hardbound…
grrlscientist | February 23, 2007Howard Norman's new book, Devotion (NYC: Houghton-Mifflin, 2007) begins on 19 August 1985, with a fist fight between David Kozol and his new father-in-law, William Field. This fight -- which occurred for reasons that remain mysterious until nearly the end of the book -- ends up in the street where William is hit by a taxi, injuring his pelvis and larynx.
From this dramatic beginning, the author then carefully fleshes out the story by moving forward and backward from this pivotal event to provide a glimpse into the lives and motivations of his protagonists.
From the moment that David first…
grrlscientist | February 22, 2007Did you know that North America had its own species of zebra? Or that there was a wolf-like carnivorous mammal -- with hooves? And there once was a horned rodent whose corkscrew-shaped burrows are still visible today? If this sort of thing interests you then you will enjoy Donald Prothero's book, After the Dinosaurs: The Age of Mammals (Bloomington, IN: University of Indiana Press, 2006).
With the exception of birds, dinosaurs became extinct 65 million years ago when a giant bolide crashed into the earth just off the Yucatan peninsula. This extinction left thousands of niches open for other…
grrlscientist | February 21, 2007Can one be religious while simultaneously claiming to be an ardent atheist? This is what Sam Harris manages to accomplish in his rant, The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason by Sam Harris (New York: WW Norton & Co., 2004, 2005).
Throughout much of this simplistic argument, Harris uses blunt, hard-hitting prose to make his case for why abrahamic religions, particularly Islam, are the most dangerous element of modern life. According to the author, religious faith is flawed because it requires its adherents to cling irrationally to mythic stories of heaven and hell. He…
grrlscientist | February 19, 2007"The brain is soft," writes Katrina Firlik in her book, Another Day in the Frontal Lobe (NYC: Random House, 2006). "Some of my colleagues compare it to toothpaste but that's not quite right. Tofu -- the soft variety, for those who know tofu -- may be a more accurate comparison." So begins the interesting tale of the residency of the first female neurosurgeon in America.
After briefly introducing her reader to the history of neurosurgery, Firlik moves on to describe the nature of her specialty, which she says is a combination of science and mechanics. Unlike neurologists and psychiatrists,…
grrlscientist | February 16, 2007Normally I do not review books that have been out for longer than a year or so, but while I was in the hospital, I decided to celebrate Columbus Day by reading a book that was sent to me by my blog pal, Tara. This book, Pox: Genius, Madness, and the Mysteries of Syphilis by Deborah Hayden (New York: Basic Books, 2004, 2005), turned out to be an interesting biography of a bacterial infection that has baffled doctors for hundreds of years.
In the first part of the book, the author observes that there are two main problems associated with an case history of syphilis: first, syphilis is "the…
grrlscientist | February 15, 2007The Bush administration has made no secret of its disdain for science, especially science that pertains to global warming, stem-cell research and endangered animals and plants. The chilling effect this has on science, public health and on the public good is documented in Chris Mooney's book, The Republican War on Science (Cambridge, MA: Basic Books, 2005, 2006), which was recently released in paperback.
As Mooney argues in this well-written book, disregard for scientists and the scientific method has been carefully nurtured by the modern conservative movement, which is a movement anchored in…