Best for: You, assuming you like quality science writing, humor, and an unexpected amount of social justice talk. In a nutshell: Journalist and doctor answers questions about our bodies. Line that sticks with me: (mostly because it’s demonstrative of the author’s dry humor) “But in search of an actual definition, Cleveland clinic begs the question. “Sudden cardiac death is a sudden, unexpected death caused by loss of heart function.” (You guys, why do you have a website?)” p289 Why I chose it: Stopped by […]
If you’ve seen the comic, you know what this book is
This book kept popping up in my Amazon Prime as a free download, but I never payed it any attention until KimMiE” reviewed it a month ago and mentioned that the author was the guy who makes the XKCD comics. That was all I needed to hear. Taken from the “What If?” Section of the website, where he answers the internet’s most inexplicable science-ish questions (for instance: what would happen if everyone actually had one soulmate, one random person in the world?). His answers are […]
Shark Repellent Was Designed to Act as a Placebo
The past few years I have been working slowly but surely through the works of Mary Roach. I find her style to be intoxicating, even if her subjects seem a little outside my own personal interests. When announced that her latest book would be about the science of war I was immediately wondering how her light-hearted and comedy heavy style would work with this subject. Once I realized that she was, as usual, going to focus on the weird eddies of science and discovery. In […]
So you’re saying the movie 300 might not have been historically accurate?
I picked up this book not knowing too much about it, except that it looked quirky with some fun artwork and promised to teach me math and physics in an entertaining way. I didn’t know that the author, Randall Munroe, is the cartoonist behind xkcd.com, the delightful webcomic where stick figures rule and sarcasm explains science. Munroe actually studied physics in school and was a roboticist at NASA before becoming a cartoonist full-time. On his site, and in this book, he combines his passion for science with his keen […]
So now I feel like an underachiever
Lab Girl is one of those books that makes you sit back and wonder what you’ve been doing with your life. It’s not enough that Hope Jahren is an accomplished geobiologist and geochemist, or that she has a Ph.D. from U.C. Berkeley. It’s not enough that she’s won three Fulbright Awards, or that Popular Science magazine named her one of its “Brilliant 10” scientists in 2006. It’s not enough that in 2016 Time named her one of the world’s “100 Most Influential People.” With all those accomplishments, you’d think she’d have […]
For the scientifically inclined cat lady.
I will jump at any chance to pretend like I know more about my cat and what he’s thinking than I really do. So this one was high on my to-read list, and I was particularly excited about the more scientific approach it promised to take towards cat behavior. That scientific approach is definitely the books biggest strong point. The hypotheses put forth for questions like why pet cats hunt when they have food at home, or why cats don’t without stressing them and ourselves are backed up […]
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