Books
laelaps | April 18, 2008Even though I was busy yesterday (3-hour lab and 2 lab reports due), I got into the writing groove and was able to produce about five pages of new material. I've been jumping around from chapter to chapter a bit, writing on whatever I feel most interested in on any given day, and yesterday was all about human evolution.
Edward Tyson's 1699 dissection of a juvenile chimpanzee provided a natural jumping-off point, and Harriet Ritvo's excellent book The Platypus and the Mermaid has proved to be an excellent resource for issues dealing with finding "Man's Place in Nature" (with a little help from…
laelaps | April 17, 2008Today is going to be another day of putting work into my book. Last night I read The War of Art from cover to cover, and while it waded into some vague notions of spirituality here and there (angels, muses, and the like), it still was a worthwhile read. It's put together as a collection of little definitions or thoughts, each strung together by a common theme but also floating on its own (the book Monogamy was organized in a very similar fashion). This made it more digestible as I definitely couldn't take a "Here are the 12 steps to getting your book done" approach.
The main idea I got from…
cmooney | April 16, 2008Last week, we certainly had you folks guessing--sometimes in a pretty off-the-wall way--about the news we planned to announce.
So here's what's really happening: We have just inked a deal to do a book together. Yes, that's right--my third, Sheril's first.
And yes, the book is about science--and about "the Intersection." We don't want to reveal too much yet, but suffice it to say, it rolls together many of the preoccupations of this blog over the past year or more--ScienceDebate2008, science communication, how to fight back against political interference--into a package that we think could…
neurophilosophy | April 16, 2008
On this day in 1943, Albert Hofmann (right), a chemist working for the Swiss pharmaceutical company Sandoz, discovered the psychedelic properties of LSD. Hofmann had actually first synthesized the drug 5 years earlier, as part of a research program in which the therapeutic effects of derivatives of ergot alkaloids - chemicals produced by a fungus - were being investigated.
In his autobiography, LSD: My Problem Child, Hofmann explains how he accidentally ingested the drug while synthesizing it in the laboratory:
It seemed to have resulted from some external toxic influence; I surmised a…
laelaps | April 15, 2008True to my word, I worked for about 5 hours on my book today. As always, I didn't get as much done as I would have liked, but I figure another 2 and 1/2 pages in Word isn't too bad. The main difficulty with the writing I did today involved correcting some mistakes and incorrect interpretations in an earlier draft concerning T.H. Huxley and the origin of birds. Working from books like Taking Wing by Pat Shipman, I naively accepted a bit of textbook cardboard, which Adrian Desmond's Archetypes and Ancestors and some original source material helped set straight.
This slowed down the writing…
grrlscientist | April 15, 2008I have been thinking about a book review that I published yesterday about David Attenborough's Life in Cold Blood. In short, my review of that particular book was positive, but not effusive. Because I focused on errors/ambiguous wordings and on what I think that book lacked, it is possible that I came across as being too harsh. As a result, I'd like to know if I should use an unambiguous rating system, such as something like Amazon's five star system, to help you quickly assess what I think of the book?
I like to publish positive book reviews on my blog, and generally refuse to even finish…
laelaps | April 15, 2008Things may be a little slow on the blog today. After lamenting my lack of progress writing my book, I've decided to take most of the day to do something about the situation. Hopefully I'll be able to update my progress sometime tonight.
gregladen | April 14, 2008When Life Nearly Died: The Greatest Mass Extinction of All Time is a book by Michael Benton on the Permian Extinction now out in paperback. From the press release:
Today it is common knowledge that the dinosaurs were wiped out by a meteorite impact sixty-five million years ago, which killed half of all species then living.
Far less well-known is a much bigger catastrophe - the greatest mass extinction of all time - which occurred 251 million years ago, at the end of the Permian period. In this cataclysm, at least ninety per cent of life was destroyed, both on land, including sabre-toothed…
grrlscientist | April 14, 2008tags: Life in Cold Blood, amphibians, reptiles, David Attenborough, book review
When asked why there are so few books about amphibians and reptiles -- collectively referred to as "herps" -- published for the general public, David Attenborough responds by pointing out that "reptiles and amphibians are sometimes thought of as slow, dim-witted and primitive. In fact they can be lethally fast, spectacularly beautiful, surprisingly affectionate and extremely sophisticated." Even though this is true for many herps, it takes a lot of dedication and skill to show those less-known qualities to a…
pharyngula | April 14, 2008Jay Hosler has a new book out, Optical Allusions(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). If you're familiar with his other books, Clan Apis(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll) and The Sandwalk Adventures(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), you know what to expect: a comic book that takes its science seriously. Hosler has a fabulous knack for building serious content into a light and humorous medium, just the kind of approach we need to get wider distribution of science into the culture.
This one has a strange premise. Wrinkles the Wonder Brain is an animated, naked brain working for the Graeae Sisters, and he loses the one eye they…
laelaps | April 14, 2008Has it really been over a month since I last worked on my book? That's what the calendar tells me. Between the cat eviscerating the keyboard of my laptop, said laptop being stolen, midterms, and other activities, I haven't done much of anything since March 9. Last night, for example, I intended to sit down a write for a while, but the evening slipped away from me and I didn't write a word. This needs to change.
As I thought about why I haven't written anything in a month as I got dressed this morning, it became clear that I lost my focus. The main thread that I hope will connect the entire…
grrlscientist | April 13, 2008tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, natural history books
"One cannot have too many good bird books"
--Ralph Hoffmann, Birds of the Pacific States (1927).
Here's this week's issue of the Birdbooker Report by Ian Paulsen, which lists bird and natural history books that are (or will soon be) available for purchase.
New and Recent Titles:
Arbour, Claude. Choosing Wildness: My Life Among the Ospreys. 2008. Greystone Books. Paperback: 242 pages. Price: $22.95 U.S. [Amazon: $ 15.61] SUMMARY: The author describes his personal journey from being a high school dropout to becoming one of Quebec's…
grrlscientist | April 12, 2008tags: What Bugged the Dinosaurs?, dinosaurs, insects, disease, George Poinar, Roberta Poinar, book review
I grew up with a fondness for dinosaurs. Their unbelievable size, their peculiar shapes, and their undeniable absence from the world as I knew it were all sources of fascination. But never once did I think of the dinosaurs as being plagued by biting insects and other blood-sucking arthropods; mosquitoes, flies, ticks and mites were creatures that haunted camping trips, picnics and attics, not the majestic dinosaurs! But according to the new book, What Bugged the Dinosaurs? Insects,…
gregladen | April 9, 2008The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing edited by Richard Dawkins is now in pre-release state ... so you can order it with a discount from Amazon. Publisher's description:
Boasting almost one hundred pieces, The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing is a breathtaking celebration of the finest writing by scientists--the best such collection in print--packed with scintillating essays on everything from "the discovery of Lucy" to "the terror and vastness of the universe."
Edited by best-selling author and renowned scientist Richard Dawkins, this sterling collection brings together…
laelaps | April 9, 2008Surprise, surprise; a recent poll found that the most popular book in America is the Bible. Gone With the Wind, the Lord of the Rings series, The Stand, To Kill a Mockingbird, Atlas Shrugged, and Catcher in the Rye all wound up in the top 10, as well, but what was truly disconcerting was that Dan Brown's The DaVinci Code and Angels and Demons landed near the top of the list.
As stated on The Colbert Report, I'm of the opinion that ten monkeys typing for three days would produce a work of Dan Brown, and why his books are as popular as they are I'll never comprehend. I guess I should just be…
laelaps | April 9, 2008I haven't yet been up to write personal responses to everyone who e-mailed me yesterday, but I deeply appreciate the support many of you provided. I'm feeling a bit better now that I can at least see a glimmer of light at the end of the undergraduate tunnel, and I most certainly keep on writing no matter what I do.
On that general topic, I wanted to set out a few goals for myself. Right now what I'm going to be doing this summer is up in the air, and writing for a few hours a day might end up becoming my "job." Even if it doesn't, I definitely want to outdo myself in 2008 and make the most of…
clock | April 6, 2008There is a good review of Amanda Marcotte's book on Powell's site:
Fortunately, she manages to integrate enough fresh material to keep the book relevant to feminists of all ages. As she observes in her introduction, "Spotting sexism sounds easy, but the sheer commonness of it, coupled with its surprising diversity, makes it so that even hardened feminists could use refreshers." Marcotte shines when she takes aim on subjects that are rarely discussed in Women's Studies 101, from the passing stranger who demands that you smile to the ritual of self-flagellation that occurs when female coworkers…
clock | April 6, 2008Or so says Talia in her book review.
I recently ordered a bunch of stuff from Amazon.com for me and others, and all orders arrived nicely except this book which never appeared (lost in space?). Perhaps I should not worry, according to the review.
grrlscientist | April 6, 2008tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, natural history books
"One cannot have too many good bird books"
--Ralph Hoffmann, Birds of the Pacific States (1927).
Here's this week's issue of the Birdbooker Report by Ian Paulsen, which lists bird and natural history books that are (or will soon be) available for purchase.
New and Recent Titles:
Angehr, George R., Dodge Engleman, and Lorna Engleman. A Bird-Finding Guide to Panama. 2008. Cornell University Press. Paperback: 391 pages. Price: $29.95 U.S. [Amazon: $19.77]. SUMMARY: An up-to-date birding guide to Panama.
Gellhorn, Joyce. White-tailed…
laelaps | April 4, 2008I'm headed out to the MIND08: The Design and the Elastic Mind Symposium in New York, so things will probably be a little light here today. I have no idea when I'll make it home, but you can expect a post about the day when I get back.
To keep things going a little bit while I'm out then, I'd like to know what you all have been reading lately. I'm almost done with Lucy, but today I'll be bringing along Bonebeds for the train ride. So far it's quite good, and seems like it would be a good companion to Exceptional Fossil Preservation.