Book reviews

Science Books: New And Cheap (not necessarily both)

gregladen — Tue, 15 Aug 2017 13:03:49 +0000

Science Books: New And Cheap (not necessarily both)

Let's start with CheMystery.

This is a fun graphic novel mystery book by C.A. Preece and Josh Reynolds. Two cousins experience an incident that would make a physicist cry, but that works in a chemistry book because they now have the ability to observe and change matter. So this is a superhero book, designed to teach chemistry. The story is great, the science is great, and the pedagogy is well suited for kids and adults that like graphic novels.

Preece is the chem teacher (high school) and Reynolds is the artist.

This is written for grades 7 through 10 (ages 8-12) but some younger kids will do fine with it.

This book is pretty new, but I think it is available.

Here are some books that are currently available cheap on Kindle, for anywhere from free to two bucks, that are either science or otherwise, I suspect, of interest to readers of this blog:

Electric Universe: How Electricity Switched on the Modern World

In Praise of Doubt: How to Have Convictions Without Becoming a Fanatic

You Are Not So Smart: Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory Is Mostly Fiction, an d 46 Other Ways You're Deluding Yourself

Bad Girls Throughout History: 100 Remarkable Women Who Changed the World

Adams: An American Dynasty

gregladen Tue, 08/15/2017 - 09:03

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Books

Book reviews

Chemistry

graphic novel

science books

Books

Can someone help me remember the name and authors of a book providing guidelines for consumers to make informed choices? I believe I may have even gotten the original title from Greg's blog. I bought it several years ago but have moved and can't locate my copy. I believe it was co-authored by two experts from a major university.
I need to buy it or a similar book. Our church denomination is now focused on learning more about this crisis and making informed choices.
Thanks in advance for any help and suggestions.

Here are all my book reviews:

http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/category/books/

Meanwhile I'll think about this and see if I can remember. Sounds very familiar.

One of these?

Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases

Choices, Values, and Frames

Thinking, Fast and Slow

Counterknowledge

Getting Risk Right: Understanding the Science of Elusive Health Risks

The Age of Radiance

gregladen — Sun, 14 Sep 2014 07:44:29 +0000

The Age of Radiance

The Age of Radiance: The Epic Rise and Dramatic Fall of the Atomic Era by Craig Nelson (author of Rocket Men: The Epic Story of the First Men on the Moon) is a well done history of the atomic age. If you are a bit squeamish (justifiably I'm sure) about the nuclear industry or nuclear stuff generally you'll find Nelson's dismissal of your concerns as the product of a public relations fail on the part of the nuclear industry to be patronizing and annoying, but there isn't too much of that in the book, and he's partly right; most fears people have about nuclear energy are not especially accurate, but then again, that applies to all fears all the time, it seems. Nuclear power does not have as much of a power to make people stupid as nuclear power advocates suggest. But I digress...

.... this is a biography of an important age in our history, one that we are currently leaving but will still be with us for hundreds of thousands of years, seeping into the groundwater. It is a fascinating story. I mean, seriously, the whole idea of nuclear physics is fascinating. Everything we knew about everything prior to the discoveries related to the cracking of the atom have two important characteristics: 1) almost off of that applies perfectly to the world around us (basic chemistry and Newtonian physics) and 2) it is all wrong. The opening days of the nuclear age involved that remarkable discovery. There was research, radiation, x-rays, then bombs and power generation. The cold war, terrorism, accidents. Nelson's book is, really, just full of interesting stories.

gregladen Sun, 09/14/2014 - 03:44

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Your dismissive handling of this bbok is most unbecoming of both your scientific background plus society's need for large amounts of carbon-free energy to address human needs in lightof the reality of climate change.

The partisan 'small brain' is showing strongly in this post.

Re-think nuclear energy, this time with the part of your brain that you used to pass Calculus 101 back in school.....

I didn't say anything negative about nuclear energy in this post. I did say something negative about the attitude of nuclear proponents, then wham bam you came along and demonstrated my point with a pointless personal attack and clear evidence that you didn't even read what I wrote!

Ten Thousand Birds

gregladen — Sat, 13 Sep 2014 05:35:20 +0000

Ten Thousand Birds

There are over 10,000 species of bird on the Earth today. There is one blog called "10,000 Birds" for which I write a monthly article, in case you did not know. But this post is about Ten Thousand Birds: Ornithology Since Darwin, a book by Tim Birkhead, Jo Wimpenny and Bob Monegomerie.

Birds and various studies of birds are central to evolutionary theory and the development of all of the surrounding biology and science. Here's a short list of key roles birds have played in evolutionary biology:

Darwin's study of pigeon breeding was central to On the Origin of Species and later works.

The Galapagos finches and other birds, observed by Darwin during The Voyage of the Beagle were also key in the development of his work.

Darwin's work involved a great deal of other birds, such as the Rhea and helped shape his thinking about species.

Skipping past many examples, and far ahead in time, The Sibley–Ahlquist taxonomy was the first major application of DNA to develop phylogeny.

As described in The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time, the Grants' study of finches in the Galapagos advanced evolutionary theory with detailed tests of Darwin's models, and influenced one of the most important works on the origin of humans.

Birds have often been used as examples in teaching evolution. Have a look at this example: It May Be Hard To Swallow, But Bumpus Could Get Bumped To The Back Burner

Ten Thousand Birds: Ornithology Since Darwin is an absolutely spectacular book. It is big and heavy and over 500 pages long. It is dark green like all great scholarly books. Despite it's great lenght it has only 11 chapters, so you know the material is treated in depth. It has dozens and dozens of pages of notes and references. It has an appendix with a list of 500 ornithologists. It has a separate appendix with a list of ornithologies.

That's all nice but the meat of the book is in those long intense chapters. These chapters provide a very thorough, detailed, and fascinating history of ornithology, often focusing on the ornithologists, their quirks, their visions, the contexts in which they worked, and their findings. So, yes, this is a history of the science. The story starts when birds first flew into the field of evolutionary biology, or perhaps, were captured by it, and traces the history of biology from a birds eye's point of view, including the development of the modern synthesis, and on to the behavioral revolution of Lack, the conceptual revolution of Tinbergen, and the ecological reframing of MacArthur.

This could serve as a very readable core of a college elective in the history of science, though it is certainly not a textbook. Richly illustrated, well written, engaging.

Tim Birkhead is a professor of zoology at Sheffield, and has done major bird research. He wrote The Wisdom of Birds: An Illustrated History of Ornithology and Bird Sense: What It's Like to Be a Bird. Jo Wimpenny is a bird researcher at Sheffield. Bob Montgomerie is professor of biology at Queen’s University in Ontario, and studies the evolution of plumage and bird sex.

gregladen Sat, 09/13/2014 - 01:35

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Rare Birds of North America

gregladen — Fri, 12 Sep 2014 05:01:41 +0000

Rare Birds of North America

Rare Birds of North America is the only extensive treatment I've see of the so called "vagrant birds" in the US and Canada. Most, or at least many, traditional bird books have a section in the back for rare birds, occasionals or accidentals, which one might see now and then. But when you think about it, how can five or even a dozen species in a bird book really do justice to the problem of spotting birds that are normally not supposed to be spotted?

I'm reminded of one South African bird guide that has a half dozen penguin species listed in it. There is only one species of penguin in South Africa but a handful of others have shown up, almost always as a corpse floating around with other junk on the beach somewhere. I suppose when we're talking penguins, that counts.

Anyway, Rare Birds of North America by Steve Howell, Ian Lewington and Will Russell includes 262 species illustrated across 275 plates, from the Old World, the New World Tropics, and the planet's oceans. The first 44 pages or so are about rare birds, and the rest of the book is a morphologically-grouped compendium of the species. The species discussion run from page to page (unlike a typical modern guide). They include common name, binomial, basic size stats, then info on taxonomy, rarity, normal distribution, and as appropriate, subspecies Most of the plates have multiple illustrations showing various angles and flight vs. non-flight, sex-specirc, and other views. The illustrations are drawings and as far as I can tell are good quality. But since you never see these birds who the heck knows!?!?

An appendix includes brand new rare species not covered in the book. A second appendix includes species that may or may not have occurred. A third appendix lists the "birds new to North America" by year. This appendix and various data presented at the beginning of the book are analyzed in the work, but seem ripe for further Science by Spreadsheet!

This is a Hefty, thick-leaved, well made book (I reviewed the hardcover). Not a field guide but not a big coffee table book either. More like the bird-book-shelf and truck of the car style book.

Steve N. G. Howell is research associate at PRBO Conservation Science and is affiliated with WINGS, an international bird tour company. Hew wrote Petrels, Albatrosses, and Storm-Petrels of North America. Ian Lewington a bird illustrator famous for the high quality of his work. Will Russell is cofounder and managing director of WINGS.

gregladen Fri, 09/12/2014 - 01:01

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I remember a couple of years ago I saw a Lazuli Bunting in my back yard - we are at the absolute furthest north occasional range - it was a marvelous sight. Unfortunately the picture I got was very small and blurry when blown up (didn't have my dslr with me.) I expect with climate change I'll see more of them as their range moves north - .

The Theoretical Minimum, by Susskind & Hrabovsky

mspringer — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 11:58:00 +0000

The Theoretical Minimum, by Susskind & Hrabovsky

The Theoretical Minimum: What You Need to Know to Start Doing Physics

When this book appeared in my mailbox I judged it by its cover and was a little concerned. The problem with the cover is the name of one of the authors: Leonard Susskind. He's an extremely talented physicist and writer, to be sure, but he's a string theorist. Worse, he's one of the major names behind the string theory landscape idea. Though not a high-energy physicist myself and thus not really being terribly qualified to judge, I tend to classify the string theory landscape as somewhere between speculative and pseudoscience.

Beyond the cover, I am happy to report that my initial worries were absolutely incorrect. This is a charming and erudite instance of a genre with very few members - a pop-physics book with partial differential equations on a good fraction of the pages. The goal of the book according to the forward by Susskind (a physicist) and Hravovsky (an engineer) is to give a substantive but not-textbook-detailed introduction to physics. Not just to teach about physics, as is the typical pop-physics book's goal, but to actually teach physics.

The title refers to a slightly notorious requirement the great Soviet physicist Lev Landau put on his students before they could join his group. There was a level of knowledge of physics he called the "theoretical minimum", which for him meant exhaustive mastery of theoretical physics. In the more limited goal of this book, the theoretical minimum is to understand physics as it actually works mathematically - beyond just the Scientific American level. Not to the level where you're actually solving graduate textbook problems, but to the level where you know what the concept of a Lagrangian actually entails.

More impressive still is that the book entirely resists the temptation to skip to the good stuff - quantum mechanics and so on. This is a book which is purely about classical mechanics. More volumes are planned on electromagnetism and quantum mechanics, but for now this is the true basics. These basics of course turn out to be built into the fabric of electrodynamics and quantum mechanics, aside from the minor fact of the vast importance of classical mechanics in the world of practical problems.

The succeeds admirably in its goal. It presents classical mechanics in all its glory, from forces to Hamiltonians to symmetry and conservation laws, in a casual but detailed style.

Hawking famously suggested that each equation halved the sales of a book, so the question here is whether or not you might be interested in reading The Theoretical Minimum if you haven't learned calculus or don't remember it. It's a judgement call. I suspect you won't get the whole experience if you haven't at least seen calculus at some point in your life. But even a half-remembered course years ago is probably good enough - there's a pretty substantial bit of mathematical refresher material presented in a visual and intuitive way. If in doubt, give it a try. On the other hand, a reader without any calculus background could probably pick up some of the flavor of the physics but I don't think I recommend starting with this book.

I'm looking forward to the rest of the books in this series. They address a niche that sees very few solid attempts to fill.

[Standard disclosure: the publisher sent me a free copy of the book to review. I am not otherwise compensated for this review.]

mspringer Tue, 02/12/2013 - 06:58

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Book reviews

If you haven't yet looked at Suskind's courses on the Stanford Continuing Education site, you should. As understand it, this book resulted from one of those courses. One of Suskind's other courses on the site is about string theory. The first few lectures (which requires some knowledge of Field Theory, perhaps, like me, dimly remembered from many many years ago) will at least convince you why so many great physicists were drawn to those ideas.

I am not an engineer, I am an amateur physicist.

Hey, I *like* calculus, I've just been too lazy to get my teeth into physics, despite my interest.

Sounds abolsutely perfect.

Rated "euw" for wicked bug sex

bioephemera — Thu, 26 May 2011 06:02:37 +0000

Rated "euw" for wicked bug sex

Amy Stewart's new book Wicked Bugs: The Louse That Conquered Napoleon's Army & Other Diabolical Insects takes a fairly trivial concept - a collection of historical anecdotes and icky factoids about dangerous insects - and executes it remarkably well. The book is well-written and has a non-cloying sense of humor ("she's just not that into you," begins the section relating how female praying mantids eat the males). Briony Morrow-Cribbs lends her insect illustrations (see a NYTimes slideshow of her ink illustrations here), and Anne Winslow's design plays off the concept of a vintage textbook - more Hogwarts than Harvard, perhaps, but still cute. I love the red-and-crimson cover.

As these snapshots show, there are multiple fonts, brown and black ink, pull-quotes, faux-aged pages, and of course illustrations everywhere:

At times, the sheer accumulation of design elements becomes almost too much. But the overall effect is playful, nonthreatening, and certainly a fun way to introduce kids (or adults) to entomology. Such a small, durable book (it's a little larger than a paperback, with an apparently water-resistant board cover) is very conveniently sized for taking to the beach or park in a knapsack - which may explain why the book is coming out now, and not at Halloween. But be aware, the book is not a field guide (as Stewart herself warns in the introduction), and it will not teach you to name or categorize what you find on a nature walk. Rather, it's the sort of compendium of deliciously gross, morbid factoids that small boys absolutely adore - virtually every body part is bitten, chewed off, or infected with some form of insect at one point or another. Ticks? Check. Tapeworms? Check. Tapeworms in the brain? Check.

A few paragraphs, though, may make some parents blanch. I'm thinking specifically of the banana slugs gnawing one another's penises off, or "all species of bat bugs participate in a form of lovemaking called traumatic insemination, in which the male bypasses the female's vagina altogether and pierces her abdomen with his horribly sharp little penis." That's biology - no way around it - and it's neither naughty nor prurient. But one of the benefits of not being a parent myself is not having to decide at what ages my kids get to read about - and ask me to explain - penis-stabbing. (That's your problem, friends with babies! Ha!)

Anyway, "bad bug romance" aside, the book is teeming with tales of the insect pests that brought down armies, cities, even the French wine industry. It's entertaining stuff, it flows well, and it's fairly accurate (which in my experience is unusual for popular-science books). Stewart even make a point of explaining in the introduction that the word "bug" is a misnomer as applied to all insects, for which this biologist thanks her. Maybe one or two people will retain that tidbit, along with the Napoleon anecdotes and the story of the British man who bought a nine-inch exotic centipede to keep as a pet - which promptly escaped to the neighbor's house. Really? A giant centipede pet?

For a sense of the content, here's a promotional video Stewart created. In my mind, it doesn't do the book justice (for one thing, the book has more of a steampunky, turn of the century library flavor than a early-journalism newsreel public health vibe). But the tongue-in-cheek attitude is right on target.

Wicked Bugs: The Louse That Conquered Napoleon's Army & Other Diabolical Insects: recommended for all aspiring entomologists old enough to handle icky bug sex, however old that is, in your opinion, because I would not presume to judge or parents will get mad at me.

Read an excerpt here. NPR interview with Stewart here. Boing Boing interview with Stewart here. Also see Stewart's previous book, Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln's Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities, also illustrated by Morrow-Cribbs.

bioephemera Thu, 05/26/2011 - 02:02

Tags

Medical Illustration and History

Retrotechnology and steampunk

Yikes!

If the Founding Fathers wanted to visit Body Worlds. . .

bioephemera — Sun, 22 May 2011 19:47:07 +0000

If the Founding Fathers wanted to visit Body Worlds. . .

. . . they could have. Or pretty darn close, at least - they just needed to visit one of the many European cabinets of anatomical curiosities, to see the work of anatomists like Honore Fragonard.

Fragonard's eighteenth-century ecorches were the clear precursors to Gunther von Hagens' "Body Worlds" exhibits: preserved, injected, partially dissected bodies in lifelike, dramatic poses, with ragged strips of muscle draped like primitive clothing over exposed vessels and nerves. The effect is eerie - like a Vesalius illustration sprung to (half-)life:

Man with a Mandible

Several of Fragonard's surviving ecorches (including Man with a Mandible, above) are now housed in France's Musee Fragonard d'Alfort (below, with its armies of bleached, skeletal quadrupeds), and described in a new illustrated book by Musee Fragonard curator Christophe Degueurce.

To create an ecorche, Degueurce explains,

a body, chosen for its leanness, had its large superficial veins cut in several places to drain it of blood, and then it was washed and placed in a heated water bath to warm it in preparation for the injections into the heart and vessels. The substance injected was a mixture of resin, tallow, oil, and beeswax and was stained red for the arteries, blue for the veins. . . . Once the body had been injected, it was then dissected as rapidly as possible before decomposition set in.

The dried specimen was then washed in alcohol and allowed to dry out, with constant adjustments to maintain the final pose (which was often assisted with a wooden frame, needles, and blocks.

Fragonard's preservation techniques (which resembled those used by his contemporaries but are generally regarded as superior) are detailed in an appendix to Degueurce's very thorough book (see pp. 139-46). After drying his specimens, Fragonard retouched the paint and coated the final specimen with a costly resin-based varnish used on oil paintings (and possibly the paintings of Fragonard's cousin, the rococo painter). This treatment produced the shiny, lacquered appearance characteristic of the Musee's specimens, and - in Degueurce's estimation - protected the specimens from the insect damage that claimed many other pieces over the centuries.

Human Bust

In addition to cataloguing and describing the handful of surviving ecorches at the Musee Fragonard, Degueurce seeks to provide some context for their creation. Fragonard doesn't spring to life as a fully realized personality, but one does get the impression of a man dedicated to a larger vision. Fragonard rose to prominence at a new veterinary school, which was founded in 1766 at Alfort, outside Paris. (The Musee Fragonard is now housed there.) At Alfort, Fragonard and his colleagues built a renowned cabinet of curiosities that included specimens like the wild-eyed "Man With a Mandible" (at the top of the post), the "Horseman," a rider and horse fully preserved mid-stride, and the graceful "Doe of the Indies" below:

Nilgai/Doe of the Indies

Fragonard was well-known and popular, but eventually, conflicts with the veterinary school's founder led to Fragonard's dismissal, and he began producing specimens for private collections. In 1792, Fragonard made the case for a national anatomy museum in a report addressed to the National Assembly, volunteering to supply the specimens himself. Fragonard wrote, "except for a few small 'cabinets of curiosities,' all Mr. Fragonard's handiwork and privately owned, we have nothing, absolutely nothing in France to shed light on the wonders of [anatomy], which, despite so much hard work, has not much progressed."

Although the museum never materialized, Fragonard helped inventory extant anatomical collections for preservation - including the three thousand specimens in the veterinary school collection he helped create. In 1795, Fragonard took a position as director of anatomical research at the Paris School of Health. He passed away in 1799, his dream of a national anatomical museum unrealized, and many of the specimens he curated and created were transferred away from Alfort and/or lost.

Le nouveau parfait marechal ou la connaissance generale et universelle
Francois de Garsault, 1755

Degueurce seems regretful that while Fragonard and his peers helped catalyze a monumental shift in how we view our bodies - "man and animal inexorably came closer together" through the comparative anatomists' work - Fragonard's successors largely forgot him (perhaps partly through the efforts of his jealous ex-boss). Many of Fragonard's lost ecorches, Degueurce suggests, "suffered the common fate of old scientific objects: outdated, lacking relevance to current interests, such things are often disposed of." In a collaborative concluding essay written with Laure Cadot, Degueurce juxtaposes Fragonard's ecorches with von Hagens' plastinates, observing how public displays of anatomy fell out of popularity, only to recently rise again:

Despite a popular interest undiminished for more than a hundred years, the turn of the twentieth century nevertheless saw a progressive decline in these anatomical collections, as much on the technical level as on that of the moral, and with a disapproving eye some came to be viewed as inappropriate excesses in displays of morbid pathologies and monstrosities. The advent of increasingly realistic and accurate medical imaging and the revulsion with which flesh was regarded in the wake of the atrocities of the First World War gave the coup du grace to what had become an almost obsessive building of such collections. They began, little by little, to fall into the shadows, leaving the anatomists to pursue their investigations away from the uninitiated. . . In recent years there has been a renewed interest in the history of anatomy, and the development of worldwide shows such as Professor Gunther von Hagens' Body worlds exhibition, and his many imitators, once again puts the unhallowed figure of the ecorche at the fore of today's news. Is this merely a current fad resulting from the whiff of scandal or is it symptomatic of the corpse's resistance to the dematerialization of our era?

Degueurce's attitude toward the plastinate-driven resurgence is ambivalent. In one view, the faddish fascination with bodies indicates that human society has become unfamiliar with death, distant from it, in a way that makes death a "spectacle" of "morbid fascination." Questions about the legitimacy and propriety of plastinate exhibitions have spilled over to affect historical, scholarly collections like the Musee Fragonard's - questions that Degueurce, as curator, likely has to answer fairly often.

On the other hand, Degueurce clearly sees Fragonard as a pivotal symbol of the Age of Enlightenment, and his ecorches as works of great emotional and artistic significance:

[even] if intended by its creator as nothing more than a model demonstrating anatomy - a "beautiful specimen," as Fragonard noted - Man with a Mandible has validity as an artistic creation in its success as an anatomical model, in its refined, virtuosic execution, and in the powerful emotion it expresses.

Thus, Degueurce argues, it is not necessary to resolve whether Fragonard intended his ecorches to be works of "art," as well as works of science: "even if in our century science no longer considers the ecorches to be more than rather disturbing remnants of the long march toward human knowledge, the tracks of which must be carefully preserved, artists see in them dynamic and fertile aesthetic and conceptual associations." Though modern science has forgotten Fragonard and prefers bloodless virtual atlases to his varnished tableaux, artists and historians of science still find the ecorches evocative - as do we.

When I first started blogging, I was surprised that there was very little information on the internet about medical illustration, wax moulage, anatomical museums, etc. When I wrote posts like Wombs, Waxes and Wonder Cabinets or Invading Hands, Sleeping Beauties, I had to dig for content. That's not the case anymore; the fascination of vintage medical paraphernalia has gone mainstream, as shown by shows like the Discovery Channel's Oddities. Nevertheless, it's still hard to find good virtual tours of places like the Musee Fragonard. You can occasionally find tourists' photos on Flickr (these photos by Nicholas Borenstein are good) or an old documentary like this one on YouTube, which gives you a sense of how eerie Fragonard's work really is. Given the lack of resources on Fragonard's ecorches, Degueurce's book is a very helpful addition - especially the discussion of the techniques used by the master anatomist. I've seen Fragonard's injection technique described as "lost" or "mysterious" before; I've never seen it explained at the level Degueurce does. If you are interested in the process, you should seriously consider getting this book.

On the other hand, I was disappointed in one respect: the photos of the ecorches weren't as sharp, detailed, or clear as I had hoped. The isolated specimens floating on their black fields reminded me a little of stills from a 1980s film souvenir book - like 1/12th scale models from a nascent Guillermo del Toro - Jim Henson horror collaboration about zombies invading a natural history museum (wow - that sounds awesome, doesn't it?). Some of that could have been remedied by better photography; I wish the specimens had been taken off the velvety blackfield and more carefully lit, to eliminate the glare of varnish. But on some level, Fragonard's ecorches just aren't detailed enough to yield the crisp, well-lit eye candy we expect from a plastinate specimen or a modern medical atlas.

This is hardly a criticism of Fragonard. I learned from a wonderful, surreal conversation I once had with a curator at the Hunterian Museum that we have today lost many preservation techniques known to past anatomists - they really were innovators and artisans. However, what we've lost in the nuances of chemical preservation, we've largely made up in digital photography, MRI, cellular imaging, etc: today, we expect detail and scientific accuracy that Fragonard's posed, painted ecorches, like oil paintings or sculptures, simply don't deliver. Even next to the plethora of vintage medical illustrations, engravings and paintings Degueurce provides as historical context, the ecorches themselves look dulled and hazy with age. That patina is part of what makes them remarkable, but it's also . . . frustrating.

In the end, this book about Fragonard and his specimens is not meant to teach anatomy or physiology, any more than Fragonard's specimens are themselves today used for such a purpose. Rather, the book is a window into how we approached anatomy in the past, juxtaposing history with today's experiences of mortality and the body. That Fragonard is obscure, while his cousin, the painter of The Swing, gets almost all the Google hits (and the tourists, with a few rare exceptions) says something about our conception of Western culture. That Gunther von Hagens' plastination exhibits are popular, yet controversial, spectacles (and have led some critics to ask, "is it possible to stage an exhibit such as BODY WORLDS while respecting human dignity?") indicates that we retain a disquieted fascination with the human body. Are Fragonard's ecorches really that different from von Hagens' plastinates? It's hard to say, apart from the patina of history and mystery that clings to Fragonard's work - but does any piece in Body Worlds have quite the same spark of madness to it as Man with a Mandible?

Fragonard Museum: The Ecorches: recommended, especially for fans of curiosity cabinets, medical museums, Oddities, etc. (you know who you are!)

Human Bust

Credits:

All ecorches by Honore Fragonard, from the collection of the Musee Fragonard; images reproduced courtesy of Blast Books, from Fragonard Museum: The Ecorches.

bioephemera Sun, 05/22/2011 - 15:47

Tags

Medical Illustration and History

Museum Lust

Photography

Retrotechnology and steampunk

Science

Science in Culture & Policy

Wonder Cabinets

Yikes!

What is Mental Illness? Book Review at WIRED

jgoldman — Wed, 18 May 2011 10:00:00 +0000

What is Mental Illness? Book Review at WIRED

"Nearly 50 percent of Americans have been mentally ill at some point in their lives, and more than a quarter have suffered from mental illness in the past twelve months. Madness, it seems, is rampant in America."

This is how Richard J. McNally opens his new book, What Is Mental Illness? Earlier this year, David Dobbs of the Neuron Culture blog at Wired, recommended that I try to get my hands on an advance copy of this new book by McNally, a Professor of Psychology at Harvard. Well, I did indeed manage to get my hands on a galley copy of the book, thanks to the fine folks at Harvard University Press.

Today, you can see my review of the book (short version: its a great read, especially in advance of the publication of DSM-5, which will happen in May 2013) over at David's blog, Neuron Culture, at Wired Science.

When way most of us think about psychopathology, or abnormal psychology, we think of mental illness. We think of disability. We think of something perhaps maladaptive, at least in the everyday sense of psychosocial functioning, if not in the larger evolutionary sense. We tend to think that something inside the mind of the mentally disabled is fundamentally broken. This seems a fairly reasonable understanding of mental illness, but if you dive a bit deeper into the field of psychopathology, the waters begin to get a bit murkier.

Head on over to Neuron Culture to see the rest!

But don't just take my word for it - check out What Is Mental Illness? for yourself, and let me know what you think!

jgoldman Wed, 05/18/2011 - 06:00

Tags

Book reviews

Psychological Science

Psychopathology

Just a brief comment while on my lunch/pump break; I'll head over to WIRED this afternoon.

When way most of us think about psychopathology, or abnormal psychology, we think of mental illness. We think of disability.

This perception is why so many people don't seek help for issues like depression and anxiety disorders. I've talked openly about my postpartum depression, in the hopes that people would begin to see it as an illness, much like a bout of the flu, which can be treated and overcome. Sure, some issues are more chronic, but there's such a stigma attached because of the idea that it is a disability. I'm still waiting for the day that this changes, and I'm hoping that this book begins to address this issue.

I agree with you almost entirely. I think the field of psychopathology is going to continue to grapple with this issue. Is psychopathology like a disease, superimposed onto an otherwise healthy individual, like the flu (even if chronic)? Or is psychopathology fundamental to the organization of a person? In other words, is it disease or is it personality? I think some diagnoses will fall onto one side of this line, and others will fall onto the other side. That divide is already apparent in the organization of the DSM: Axis I are the "disease-like" diagnoses, and Axis II are the personality disorders.

I wonder if you are looking at thinking of mental illness as including the broader social ailments of a psychological nature, like distraction and obliviousness to torture, war, poverty, a lack of compassion (for which there could be a whole new long term). When does this, when do these categories get named and studied? When does it get looked at that mental health professionals have been missing in action when it comes to honoring and promoting developmental concepts in our relationships and in our parenting? Thanks...

The Meowmorphosis: blatant meme abuse?

bioephemera — Tue, 03 May 2011 09:30:53 +0000

The Meowmorphosis: blatant meme abuse?

Ok, what are the people at Quirk Books on?

I have to say, I love the cover of the book, and the typographical trailer is cute - but isn't this just blatant meme abuse?

Quirk explains The Meowmorphosis thus. . .

"One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that he had been changed into an adorable kitten." Thus begins The Meowmorphosis--a bold, startling, and fuzzy-wuzzy new edition of Franz Kafka's classic nightmare tale, from the publishers of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies! Meet Gregor Samsa, a humble young man who works as a fabric salesman to support his parents and sister. His life goes strangely awry when he wakes up late for work and finds that, inexplicably, he is now a man-sized baby kitten. His family freaks out: Yes, their son is OMG so cute, but what good is cute when there are bills piling up? And how can he expect them to serve him meals every day? If Gregor is to survive this bizarre, bewhiskered ordeal, he'll have to achieve what he never could before--escape from his parents' house. Complete with haunting illustrations and a provocative biographical exposÃ© of Kafka's own secret feline life, The Meowmorphosis will take you on a journey deep into the tortured soul of the domestic tabby.

So I feel like A) the Groupon writers and Quirk's writers are the same people, and B) it's only a matter of time before someone outs "Coleridge Cook," the "beloved fantasy novelist and blogger" who pseudonymously joins Kafka as author on The Meowmorphosis, and says WHAT THE HECK WERE YOU THINKING!?

Full disclosure: I haven't had the time to read The Meowmorphosis myself. So for all I know, it's awesome. I skimmed the reviews on the Amazon product page, and I'm so glad I did: this is one of the most amusing reviews I've ever seen. The befuddled reviewer (who has written many other reviews, and appears to be legit/serious) complains:

Our main character is a adorable kitten. He leaves his room & when he is shoved back in his room he can barely fit through the door. His big round belly is too big to fit through the door - yet he walked out of the room just fine. Not only that but since when do kittens have gigantic round bellies? I tend to surround myself with kittens as much as possible & though their bellies can be rounded, they are not out of proportion with the general size of the kitten. Anyway, while being pushed & shoved through the door our poor giant kitten had his side scraped up & he was sore. On top of that he has tiny little legs out of proportion with his body. I had no idea kittens had tiny little legs. . .

Next when our giant kitten who can fit under a couch but not through a doorway but who can jump out a window, goes outside no one screams & yells in terror of the giant kitten creature. . . .

There are just so many examples where he is a huge kitten, yet is he? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. On top of that the kitten character is pathetic & you have no sympathy for such a looser of his own making. Note, I gather that is the personality of the original character making me think I don't want to read the original.

Um, yeah, I agree you don't want to read the original. (I still can't believe that's a genuine review - but if it's not, props to the humorist who wrote it.)

This review captures (delightfully) all that is awkward and potentially disastrous about Quirk books' mashup strategy. The majority of people who "get it" will be those who were assigned to read Kafka in school, most of whom won't really have liked Kafka (or so I assume without evidence, because he's, well, Kafka). The Metamorphosis is not a "beloved book" on the order of Austen's Pride and Prejudice, trailing a fan base possessing infinite appetite for reboots, and a substantial mass market name recognition quotient. People who never read Kafka and are seeking a cuddly kitten fix will be, like this reviewer, all "what the heck?" Kafka by any other name = a bunch of continuity errors and poor characterization.

On some level, part of the cachet of reading The Meowmorphosis must be a subtext like, "Yeah, I've studied Kafka, and I am well-versed in memes, and I don't take any of it seriously - lo, I am a subgroup of ironic hipster. I win." But though Kafka's too literary to be mass market, I don't think he's obscure or scarce enough to generate hipster cred. It's not like "A Canticle for Leibowitz starring Ke$ha" or "Thomas Kuhn's Tumblr feed" or hacking a TRS-80 emulator onto your iPad, etc. - all projects with questionable merit, but would arguably prove your chops as a connoisseur of the obscure. You can't make hipster cred out of high school homework* - at least I don't think so. And Kafka was homework to a lot of people.

*Okay, wait: I'd think I'd really dig a Meowmorphosis Trapper Keeper. Maybe you can mix high school homework and hipster cred. . . . especially if Gregor Samsa was riding a unicorn across some kind of laser grid! Oh, someone in the lowbrow art movement has to have made that already. I'll go look!

No! The first link in my search took me to a blog featuring lots of portraits of a nude President Obama riding unicorns. Darn you, internetz. . .

bioephemera Tue, 05/03/2011 - 05:30

Tags

Book reviews

Books & Essays

Department of the Drama

ephemera

Yikes!

Human Anatomy: A Visual History from the Renaissance to the Digital Age

bioephemera — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 11:01:57 +0000

Human Anatomy: A Visual History from the Renaissance to the Digital Age

Anatomical engraving from Henry Gray's Anatomy, 1858.

A month or so ago, Abrams books reached out to mention that they were releasing a new title, Human Anatomy: A Visual History from the Renaissance to the Digital Age. I said, "don't I already have this book?" It turns out I did - I had the previous, hardback edition which I picked up for $25 or so on Amazon (a deal, I thought at the time). So I knew this book should really be subtitled "vintage eye candy from Vesalius to Schmiedel," because it's a bundle of rich images from anatomical atlases, interspersed with just enough curation to give them historical context (including a great opening essay by Benjamin Rifkin). It includes Jan van Rymsdyk's illustrations of pregnant women from Hunter's atlas, Victorian color plates of cirrhotic liver and tuberculotic lungs by Robert Carswell, plates from an early edition of Gray's Anatomy, and the atmospheric mezzotints of Jacques Gautier d'Agoty. In other words, if you read BioE, Morbid Anatomy, or similar blogs over the past few years, you've probably seen many of these artists before.

The so-called "Anatomical Angel"
Jacques-Fabien Gautier d'Agoty, coloured mezzotint, 1746

The really nice thing about this updated paperback edition? Its price. As Judith Folkenberg notes in the brief biography of d'Agoty, "throughout the centuries, anatomists, artists, and publishers have viewed human anatomy as a potentially lucrative subject for expensive books. More often than not, they were disappointed." That has to have been written with a wry smile, because the price point of this book is $16.95 - $11 on Amazon. Seriously. I did not know you could buy pretty color books made of trees so cheaply anymore!

Anatomical engraving from Henry Gray's Anatomy, 1858.

Part of the pricing has got to be that so many of the illustrations are public domain. There are very few modern illustrations in the book, which is too bad; the "digital age" part is only a gesture in that direction, with a few plates from the Visible Human Project and McCracken's 3D-modeled New Atlas of Human Anatomy. It would be a better book if it covered more modern imaging - like Portraits of the Mind - or if Netter were represented. It would also be a better book if it were two feet tall, so you could see the illustrations in their full-size glory. And I guess it would be better if it still had a hard cover, although I much prefer the modern white paperback design over the lavender slipcover on the hardback, and inside the softcover edition, the pages do appear to be bound to a cloth, and therefore more durable, spine. But one can only ask so much! Human Anatomy costs much less than the paper and ink you'd need to print its illustrations off the web - assuming you could find them all in high resolution - the quality of the printing is very nice, and it's a book. If you like vintage illustrations, or know someone who does, there is simply no reason not to buy this, unless you're foregoing books entirely for digital media.

I now have two copies, so I guess I'm giving my old hardback to a friend - but I am definitely keeping the new paperback for myself.

Verdict: a steal at the paperback price. Recommended.

bioephemera Fri, 04/15/2011 - 07:01

Tags

Medical Illustration and History

Museum Lust

Retrotechnology and steampunk