Books
aardvarchaeology | April 17, 2007
Very timely with the discovery of the Kaga foil-figure model, my buddy Ing-Marie Back Danielsson has published her PhD thesis in archaeology, Masking Moments. The transitions of bodies and beings in Late Iron Age Scandinavia (available on-line). There's a picture of a foil-figure or other late-1st Millennium human representation on almost every page. The viva is on Thursday Friday 20 April in Stockholm, and the opponent none other than that enfant terrible of the British Neolithic, Julian Thomas. Reading his fine 1991 book Rethinking the Neolithic, I remember wondering if there is anything…
pharyngula | April 16, 2007
I've finished Simon Conway Morris's Life's Solution: Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), a book I've mentioned before and promised, with considerable misgivings, to read thoroughly. I didn't like his ideas, I thought he'd expressed them poorly before, but I'd give his book on the subject a fair shake and see if he could persuade me.
My opinion: it's dreck.
To be fair, I thought there were some improvements. I've long thought that his writing was leaden and clunky, and painful to slog through. I think that in this book he has achieved something of a more tolerable…
clock | April 16, 2007My son (13) is in his physics phase. As a biologist, I don't know much about physics beyond college classes, but our home library is huge, so he managed to dig out a bunch of physics-related books. Some he read, others he skimmed, and now he wants more. He is interested in everything - gravity, cosmology, etc. He is not afraid of simple math so a book with some easy formulas are fine. Help me pick a couple of good choices to get him later this week. What he checked/read so far is a smorgasbord of books of different ages, qualities, levels and topics:
Atom by Isaac Asimov
Mr.Tompkins…
aardvarchaeology | April 15, 2007Another one of my favourite podcasts hits 100 instalments: the R.U. Sirius show. It's cyber-counterculture talk radio with ample references to sex, drugs and rock'n'roll, but done in a geeky, distinctly literate manner. R.U. Sirius himself used to be the editor of seminal cyber-mag Mondo 2000 back in the day, and is now an elder statesman on the trippy fringe of technology. By his own admission, he likes to spend a Sunday afternoon reading a thick book while stoned, and him and his posse of witty co-chatterers are a delight to hear.
Among recent guests on the show we find security expert…
terrasig | April 15, 2007The weekend version of the Wall Street Journal (sorry, sub reqd) included John Gribbins' list of influential science books that also make for good literature. Gribbin trained originally as an astrophysicist and recently finished writing his 100th book.
The list:
1. On the Loadstone And Magnetic Bodies - By William Gilbert - 1600
William Gilbert of Colchester was the first person to set out clearly in print the essence of the scientific method of testing hypotheses by experiment. He also made discoveries in the field of magnetism that were not improved on for two centuries.
2. Micrographia -…
pharyngula | April 13, 2007No, it can't possibly be true! Jim Theis's masterwork, The Eye of Argon(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), has actually been published? As a book? With pages and a cover and all of that? I've known of this legendary monstrosity for years, and have read it online and as a tattered and stapled faded photocopy, but to actually have a publisher commit resources and money to it … truly, we are in the End Times.
You too can read it, but don't buy it: get it for free, and even then you are paying too much for it. This is what you get when you give a teenager a thesaurus, insist that every noun must have an…
voltagegate | April 12, 2007I'm sure everyone has heard by now that the life of American novelist Kurt Vonnegut has been cut short:
His death was reported by Morgan Entrekin, a longtime family friend, who said Mr. Vonnegut suffered brain injuries as a result of a fall several weeks ago.
He was an ornery man and an ornery writer; if the fall had not have happened, I wouldn't have been surprised to see Vonnegut live well beyond 90 years. In fact, after seeing him on the Daily Show some months ago, he seemed invincible.
I have always held Vonnegut in my elusive and incomplete top [insert number] favorite authors list. He…
purepedantry | April 12, 2007Kurt Vonnegut died this morning in Manhattan. He was 84.
To hear him read an excerpt of his most famous work, Slaughterhouse Five, go to this interview at Salon. It's my favorite part.
From Slaughterhouse Five:
Billy licked his lips, thought a while, inquired at last: "Why me?" "That is a very Earthling thing to ask, Mr. Pilgrim. Why you? Why us for that matter? Why anything? Because this moment simply is. Have you ever seen bugs trapped in amber?" "Yes." Billy, in fact, had a paperweight in his office which was a blob of polished amber with three lady-bugs embedded in it. "Well, here we…
jlynch | April 11, 2007This is sad. Kurt Vonnegut has died. Pessimist, existentialist and damn great writer. As he said in God Bless You Mr Rosewater:
"Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies -- 'God damn it, you've got to be kind.' "
I've taught his Galapagos many times over the years and Slaughterhouse-Five is a classic that reflects his experiences in Dresden during the fire-bombing of 1945.
From Slaughterhouse-Five:
"And every day my…
clock | April 11, 2007Died at the age of 84. One of the best of the best. One of the 2-3 people in the world whose ALL works I own and have read at least once. He'll be missed.
clock | April 10, 2007...or blog post, or any non-fiction for that matter. Dave Munger explains. As one of his commenters notes: "
Actually, this fantastic post is like a DSM entry for diagnosing crappy science writing. "Must exhibit 7 of 9 symptoms for 200 pages."
Print it out and put it next to your computer. Check it out next time you start writing something...
clock | April 9, 2007It appears that scientists are not the only ones who do not grok framing. Jeffrey Feldman's book got blasted by some ninkompoop in NY Times yesterday. Jeff responds:
Indeed, when I read that passage I wondered if the reviewer had given up on reading my book just after glancing through the table of contents. It seems that, instead of writing about my book, Fairbanks popped in a DVD of "The Matrix," or maybe "A Clockwork Orange," and then churned out a piece of creative non-fiction reacting to those other works of sci-fi.
Update: More about the "fairbanksing" of Feldman here, here and here.
aardvarchaeology | April 8, 2007
One of my favourite podcasts, Escape Pod, currently offers its one hundredth weekly show. Congratulations Steve & Co, that is so impressive! I've listened to almost every one of the shows, offering excellent short stories in the science fiction and fantasy genres. Number 100 is Isaac Asimov's classic "Nightfall". And it's not just about the stories: Steve Eley's intros and outros are always a treat to hear. Dear Reader, check out Escape Pod's web site and have a listen. It's free, and donations are voluntary. Highly recommended!
pharyngula | April 1, 2007Over at Street Anatomy, you can find some utterly stunning anatomical images from a series of books called Pernkopf Anatomy; really, it's beautiful stuff, with artfully posed models and exquisite detail. If you get on Amazon and look up the books, you'll see that you might be able to find used copies for $500 and up — far out of my price range, but for the quality, they might well be worth that.
Except, unfortunately, for this little detail…
Like Pernkopf, the artists for his atlas were also active Nazi party members. Erich Lepier even signed his paintings with a Swastika, which up until 15…
pharyngula | March 31, 2007Well, Skatje's going to Minicon next weekend—sending her off to hang out with intelligent nerds and geeks and people like Charles deLint and Lois McMaster Bujold and the Nielsen Haydens and Jane Yolen is probably the most responsible thing a parent can do. If any of my readers are also going, make sure she doesn't just go hide in her room and knit or chat on the computer. She needs to get out and socialize! Make friends! Watch Dr Who! Something!
Unfortunately, although I'll be providing the shuttle service to get her to and from the con, I'm going to be swamped with work for the next few…
clock | March 26, 2007First three months of the year are almost over and... we have only 14 entries so far for the next Science Blogging Anthology!
Everything written and posted since December 20th 2006 is fair game. Have you written something really good since then? Send it in. Have you submitted something to a carnival this year yet? Send it in. Have you hosted a carnival and received some really cool posts? Send them in. Have you discovered a great new science blog that you think everyone should know about? Pick their best post and send it in.
It's easy, just use the submission form or click here:
Help…
aardvarchaeology | March 20, 2007
Survival of the Sickest is a collection of eight pop-sci essays on medicine from an evolutionary perspective. It does not present any single cohesive line of argument, but the book's title refers to one of the main themes: the idea that common hereditary diseases would not have become widespread in the gene pool unless they once conferred an adaptive edge on individuals.
I read the book quite avidly and it is unlikely to disappoint anyone with an interest in the subject. Yet still I feel that it's a flawed piece of work in two important and interlinked respects: scientific credibility and…
pharyngula | March 20, 2007The Biology in Science Fiction blog has a short article on color-changing chromatophores in cephalopod skin, and asks for examples of biological adaptive camouflage used in SF stories — I want more. I want to know what SF novels have used cephalopods or cephalopod-like aliens as major characters or antagonists. There's usually a tendency to make anything with tentacles the representative of evil in these stories, unfortunately.
clock | March 20, 2007The first four books in the Cherry Ames series are back in print, published by Springer Publishing Company.
Apparently, many people, upon reading them, decided to join the nursing profession. Mind you, that was between 1943 and 1968. when these books first came out.
I bet Kim was the first one to order the new reprints (although I bet she still keeps her old originals somewhere around the house). My wife is ordering her set today.
aardvarchaeology | March 18, 2007
Dagens Nyheter reports that the Stockholm University Library has seen some pretty bad vandalism. Yesterday morning it was discovered that someone had disconnected the drain-pipe from an upstairs washbasin and opened the taps to the max. Several cubic meters of water flooded out during the night and drenched three floors. Luckily, few books were damaged, but the place will have to close while everything is dried out and the carpeting replaced.
Vandalising libraries is of course on a par with organising book bonfires or bringing down internet hubs, a particularly ugly crime. I hope whoever did…