Books
purepedantry | January 9, 2008Keeping with my attempt to actually do book reviews, I have the first of what will hopefully be a continuing series. I am reviewing Stem Cell Century by UCLA Law Professor and Volokh Conspiracy contributor Russell Korobkin -- with Stephen Munzer in some chapters.
This book examines the legal, ethical and policy-related issues in stem cell research. Stem cells as a technology are nearly universally acknowledged as possessing huge potential to improve human life and limit human suffering; however, in many cases this potential has not yet been realized. Further, the legal and ethical…
laelaps | January 8, 2008
From De humani corporis fabrica libri septem (1543) by Andreas Vesalius.
For everyone who loves old books (and old books about bones, at that) as much as I do, check out this website, which contains William Cheselden's Osteographia. Andreas Vesalius' De corporis humani fabrica libri septem is up there too, as well as a slew of other old anatomical works.
grrlscientist | January 7, 2008tags: books, writing, writers from across the blogosphere, blog carnivals
The most recent edition of Writers from Across the Blogosphere Carnival is now available for you to read and enjoy.
cmooney | January 6, 2008From "Why I Write," a bracingly honest assessment of the scribe's motives:
All writers are vain, selfish, and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives there lies a mystery. Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand. For all one knows that demon is simply the same instinct that makes a baby squall for attention. And yet it is also true that one can write nothing readable unless one constantly struggles to efface one's…
pharyngula | January 5, 2008The NAS has a new edition of their Science, Evolution, and Creationism publication, which is a genuinely excellent piece of work. We've used the previous editions in our introductory biology course here at UMM, and if you want a short, plainly written introduction to the evidence for and importance of evolution to modern biology, I recommend it highly. It fills a niche well — it explains the science and gives a general overview for the layman without getting distracted by the details. And if $12 strains your wallet and 70 pages exceeds your attention span, you can download an 8 page summary…
laelaps | January 4, 2008
While they are often not the sort of films to win Oscars, science fiction movies have been around for nearly as long as there have been moving pictures, and Hollywood continues to pump out tales about time-traveling cyborgs, alien encounters, and man-made disasters. Sidney Perkowitz's new book, Hollywood Science, takes a look at a number of popular films that not only feature extensions of science but also a look at scientists themselves, what appears on the silver screen often being a reflection of our own attitudes and worries in a changing world. Movie scientists struggle with personal…
pharyngula | January 4, 2008Every year, John Brockman comes up with a question and asks the eclectic group on the Edge forum to answer it…then all the answers get bound up in a book. In the past he has asked, "What do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it?", "What is your dangerous idea?", and "What are you optimistic about?" This year's question is now revealed:
When thinking changes your mind, that's philosophy. When God changes your mind, that's faith. When facts change your mind, that's science. What have you changed your mind about? Why?
It was a tough one. There are so many trivial things that we…
grrlscientist | January 3, 2008tags: National Academy of Sciences Press, Science, Evolution, and Creationism, books
The National Academy of Sciences Press has revised their excellent book, Science, Evolution, and Creationism, which you can download for free. The book is a revision of an older version, which I own a hard copy of, and it has chapters on the nature of science, the evidence for evolution, and creationist claims. To receive the complete book as a free download [free PDF], you need to sign in, first. (You can get an 8-page summary PDF for free without signing in first).
grrlscientist | January 3, 2008tags: books, book reviews
Thanks to you, I read a LOT of books (and watch a few DVDs as well), but end up reviewing approximately one in four (or is it one in five?) of all books I read (and rarely review any DVDs that I watch). This doesn't seem right, even though I have had the great pleasure to read so many wonderful books, both gifts from my readers and review copies provided by publishers. Unfortunately, if I reviewed every good book that I've read this past few years, I would not write anything on my blog except book reviews. So to address that sad situation, I have decided to add a…
grrlscientist | January 3, 2008tags: books, Open Laboratory
I know that you all are dying to begin collecting the Open Lab anthologies, so I wanted to let you know that this is still possible because the inaugural edition, Open Laboratory 2006: The Best Science Writing in the Blogosphere, is still available for you to purchase. The funds raised from the sale of this volume support the Annual Science Blog Conference, which is held in North Carolina. You can purchase this book either as a electronic download ($8.69) or as a hard copy ($19.95).
The 2007 edition of this anthology will be available on amazon.com a couple of…
neurophilosophy | January 2, 2008
At A Blog Around the Clock, Bora has announced the posts that will be published in Open Lab 2007, the forthcoming second annual anthology of the best science blogging of last year.
Of the 486 submitted entries, just 50 have made it into the book, and I'm pleased to say that one of them is written by me. It's one of the last posts from my old blog, and I'm currently re-reading it to weed out any errors before it is formatted for the book.
I won't link to the post just yet, as I'm currently extending it slightly for the book, because I think the original ends a bit abruptly. I'll post the…
jlynch | January 2, 2008The 486 nominations for Open Laboratory 2007 have been whittled down to 53 and Bora has the complete listing of the entries that will appear in book form in time for the 2nd Science Blogging Conference. I’m happy to report that my Pithecophobes of the World, Unite! Part I, Part II, Part III and Part IV have been judged suitable for inclusion. Thanks again to the reader who nominated them!
I guess I have some editing and formatting to do!
omnibrain | January 2, 2008After reading well over 400 blog submissions for the second edition of the "Open Laboratory" the judges have finally whittled the list to the best 51 to be included in the book. Surprisingly, one of the Omni Brain posts has made it into the anthology - I think perhaps one of the only serious blog posts I've written this year.
The winning list has a great variety of wonderful posts from a great variety of blogs, some of which I have never heard of. So head over to A Blog Around The Clock for the winning list and links to all of the great articles.
clock | January 2, 2008Well, The Day has arrived! After reading all of the 486 entries at least once (and many 2-3 times) and after calculating all of the judges' ratings of all the posts, Reed Cartwright and I are happy to announce which blog posts will be published in the second science blogging anthology, the "Open Laboratory 2007".
First, I want to thank the judges (at least those who do not wish to remain anonymous - let me know if I missed one of you) for spending their holiday break reading, commenting on and grading all the submitted posts and making our job that much easier. Those are: Anna Kushnir,…
aardvarchaeology | January 2, 2008
Here's something for lovers and collectors of classic science fiction. Häpna! ("Be Amazed!") was the seminal Swedish sf fiction mag, published from 1954 to 1966, with many translations of the US Golden Age greats but also much work by Swedish writers. Now the Alvar Appeltofft Memorial Foundation is offering nearly the entire backlog of the mag very cheaply, and they have a healthy number of copies of each issue, all in pristine condition. Dear Reader -- even if you don't understand one word of Scandy, can you honestly say that your living-room table is complete without a fresh copy of a…
aardvarchaeology | January 1, 2008
I just learned that my blog entry Your Folks, My Folks in Prehistory has been selected for inclusion in the 2007 Open Lab science blogging anthology! Yay! I was likewise honoured a year ago when I had an entry about the field-archaeological paradox in the volume for 2006.
The 2007 volume is edited by Reed Cartwright of the De Rerum Natura blog and Bora Zivkovic of A Blog Around the Clock and will be available in bookstores and from Amazon.
laelaps | December 31, 2007
You know you've got a unique book on your hands when the cover spots a eurypterid snagging a jackalope from under the cab of a Ford pickup carrying a disgruntled ammonite while dinosaurs stomp towards a "last chance" food & gas stop in the background. If you're a fan of artist Ray Troll, however, such a vibrant and motley assemblage probably will pique your interest rather than shock you. His artwork graces the pages of Cruisin' the Fossil Freeway, a collaborative work with paleobotanist Kirk Johnson, a wonderfully nerdy "Epoch Tale" of paleontology. While it may at first seem unusual,…
grrlscientist | December 30, 2007tags: Harry Potter, JK Rowling, books
Weak moments: JK Rowling may give in to temptation and write an eighth Harry Potter book.
Image: DailyMail.
Wow, the latest news is that JK Rowling might be convinced to write an eighth Harry Potter book, especially in response to her 14-year-old daughter, Jessica's, urging.
"If -- and it's a big if -- I ever write an eighth book, I doubt that Harry would be the central character. I feel I've already told his story," said Rowling. "But these are big ifs. Let's give it ten years."
The book, if Rowling writes it, could be a prequel, possibly telling the…
ddobbs | December 29, 2007Last month, when all the "Best Books of 2007" lists came out, several regulars on a science writers list-serve I'm on expressed chagrin that most of the most prominent lists held few science books. Even defining "science book" broadly, the New York Times Review Notable Books list contained just one science book (How Doctors Think, by Jerome Groopman) The Amazon Best 100 lists held somewhere between none and five, depending on how you defined science book. (For more on that, see my sieve of their list at bottom.) John Dupius, who keeps the blog Confessions of a Science Librarian, took to task…
neurophilosophy | December 28, 2007In this wonderful passage from King Solomon's Ring, Konrad Lorenz, who, together with Nikolaas Tinbergen and Karl von Frisch founded the science of ethology, describes some of the behaviours of his pet capuchin monkey Gloria:
She occupied a large, roomy cage in my study. When I was at home and able to look after her, she was allowed to run freely about the room. When I went out, I shut her in the cage, where she became exceedingly bored and exerted all her talents to escape as quickly as possible. One evening, when I returned home after a longer absence and turned the knob of the light switch…