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This is a thread to discuss the history of science and any scientific non fiction books. Group members can also discuss historical fiction which deals with a scientific theme.

This thread can also focus on scientific research.

An interesting book:

Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain by Antonio Damasio

by António R. Damásio

Publisher's Synopsis:

One of the most important and original neuroscientists at work today tackles a question that has confounded neurologists, philosophers, cognitive scientists, and psychologists for centuries: how consciousness is created.

Antonio Damasio has spent the past thirty years studying and writing about how the brain operates, and his work has garnered acclaim for its singular melding of the scientific and the humanistic. In this revelatory work, he debunks the long-standing idea that consciousness is somehow separate from the body, presenting astounding new scientific evidence that consciousness—what we think of as “self”—is in fact a biological process created by the brain. Besides the three traditional perspectives used to study the mind (the personal, the behavioral, and the neurological), Damasio introduces the evolutionary perspective, which entails a radical change in the way the history of conscious minds is viewed and told.

Self Comes to Mind is a groundbreaking investigation of consciousness as a dynamic, unpredictable faculty that is instrumental in defining and explaining who we understand ourselves to be.

Another addition:

Reading in the Brain: The Science and Evolution of a Human Invention by Stanislas Dehaene

by Stanislas Dehaene

Publisher's Synopsis:

A renowned cognitive neuroscientist’s fascinating and highly informative account of how the brain acquires reading

How can a few black marks on a white page evoke an entire universe of sounds and meanings? In this riveting investigation, Stanislas Dehaene provides an accessible account of the brain circuitry of reading and explores what he calls the “reading paradox��: Our cortex is the product of millions of years of evolution in a world without writing, so how did it adapt to recognize words? Reading in the Brain describes pioneering research on how we process language, revealing the hidden logic of spelling and the existence of powerful unconscious mechanisms for decoding words of any size, case, or font.

Dehaene’s research will fascinate not only readers interested in science and culture, but also educators concerned with debates on how we learn to read, and who wrestle with pathologies such as dyslexia. Like Steven Pinker, Dehaene argues that the mind is not a blank slate: Writing systems across all cultures rely on the same brain circuits, and reading is only possible insofar as it fits within the limits of a primate brain. Setting cutting-edge science in the context of cultural debate, Reading in the Brain is an unparalleled guide to a uniquely human ability.

Another addition:

The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist's Quest for What Makes Us Human by V.S. Ramachandran

by V.S. Ramachandran

Publisher's Synopsis:

V. S. Ramachandran is at the forefront of his field-so much so that Richard Dawkins dubbed him the "Marco Polo of neuroscience."

Now, in a major new work, Ramachandran sets his sights on the mystery of human uniqueness.

Taking us to the frontiers of neurology, he reveals what baffling and extreme case studies can teach us about normal brain function and how it evolved.

Synesthesia becomes a window into the brain mechanisms that make some of us more creative than others.

And autism—for which Ramachandran opens a new direction for treatment—gives us a glimpse of the aspect of being human that we understand least: self-awareness.

Ramachandran tackles the most exciting and controversial topics in neurology with a storyteller's eye for compelling case studies and a researcher's flair for new approaches to age-old questions. Tracing the strange links between neurology and behavior, this book unveils a wealth of clues into the deepest mysteries of the human brain.

Hmmm. Science. I love to read about the history of science. I definitely lean towards the physics side of things, but it is all interesting.

Here's one of my favorites about the history of science:

by Thomas Samuel Kuhn

I liked this one when I read it in the 90's. It did a great job outlining how physics has evolved, moving up to what was then the cutting edge of things. One of the last things discussed in the book is the postulation of the top quark, which was discovered in Fermilab experiments in 1995, a year after the book was published.

by David Lindley

Info on the top quark:

I'll be back with more, eventually. :)

Science?! My favorite. I have a long list, I'll go fetch it and get writing.

Math is science, or part of science, right? In my mind they are inextricably linked, and this is the one book in my to-read pile that I found in the math section of the bookstore. That is not a section I peruse with any regularity as my math/science comprehension is, well, less well developed than other parts of my brain. It deals with randomness, which is math related. I am certain this will be my only contribution to this thread but I am quite interested to see if others have read it or what they have to say about it.
by Leonard Mlodinow
An intriguing and illuminating look at how randomness, chance, and probability affect our daily lives.

Successes and failures in life are often attributed to clear causes, when actually they are profoundly influenced by randomness and chance. Here, with the sense of narrative and imaginative approach of a storyteller, Leonard Mlodinow vividly demonstrates how wine ratings, corporate success, school grades, and political polls are less reliable than we believe. Showing us the true nature of chance and revealing the psychological illusions that cause us to misjudge the world around us, Mlodinow provides the tools we need for more informed decision making. From the classroom to the courtroom and from financial markets to supermarkets, Mlodinow's insights will intrigue, awe, and inspire

Definitely math is part of science. They need each other. And unless there is a separate thread for math stuff, that looks good here. Interesting book!

OK....mathematics will have its own thread.

Thanks Bentley. I am no math wizard but glad it has it's own home here among the science threads.

Bentley wrote: "OK....mathematics will have its own thread."

Careful, next thing you know I'll need to separate out physics and then astronomy and then... Hee hee.

Yes, it seems more appropriate here than some other folders but not well traveled enough yet for its own folder. (smile)

Alisa wrote: "Thanks Bentley. I am no math wizard but glad it has it's own home here among the science threads."

Alisa, could you put the book and write-up for your message nine on the mathematics thread. Thanks.

Here is a good book:

by Rebecca Skloot

ŷ������ Write-up

Amazon Best Books of the Month, February 2010: From a single, abbreviated life grew a seemingly immortal line of cells that made some of the most crucial innovations in modern science possible. And from that same life, and those cells, Rebecca Skloot has fashioned in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks a fascinating and moving story of medicine and family, of how life is sustained in laboratories and in memory. Henrietta Lacks was a mother of five in Baltimore, a poor African American migrant from the tobacco farms of Virginia, who died from a cruelly aggressive cancer at the age of 30 in 1951. A sample of her cancerous tissue, taken without her knowledge or consent, as was the custom then, turned out to provide one of the holy grails of mid-century biology: human cells that could survive--even thrive--in the lab. Known as HeLa cells, their stunning potency gave scientists a building block for countless breakthroughs, beginning with the cure for polio. Meanwhile, Henrietta's family continued to live in poverty and frequently poor health, and their discovery decades later of her unknowing contribution--and her cells' strange survival--left them full of pride, anger, and suspicion. For a decade, Skloot doggedly but compassionately gathered the threads of these stories, slowly gaining the trust of the family while helping them learn the truth about Henrietta, and with their aid she tells a rich and haunting story that asks the questions, Who owns our bodies? And who carries our memories? --Tom Nissley

Amazon Exclusive: Jad Abumrad Reviews The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Jad Abumrad is host and creator of the public radio hit Radiolab, now in its seventh season and reaching over a million people monthly. Radiolab combines cutting-edge production with a philosophical approach to big ideas in science and beyond, and an inventive method of storytelling. Abumrad has won numerous awards, including a National Headliner Award in Radio and an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Science Journalism Award.

Read his exclusive Amazon guest review of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks: Honestly, I can't imagine a better tale.

A detective story that's at once mythically large and painfully intimate.

Just the simple facts are hard to believe: that in 1951, a poor black woman named Henrietta Lacks dies of cervical cancer, but pieces of the tumor that killed her--taken without her knowledge or consent--live on, first in one lab, then in hundreds, then thousands, then in giant factories churning out polio vaccines, then aboard rocket ships launched into space. The cells from this one tumor would spawn a multi-billion dollar industry and become a foundation of modern science--leading to breakthroughs in gene mapping, cloning and fertility and helping to discover how viruses work and how cancer develops (among a million other things). All of which is to say: the science end of this story is enough to blow one's mind right out of one's face.

But what's truly remarkable about Rebecca Skloot's book is that we also get the rest of the story, the part that could have easily remained hidden had she not spent ten years unearthing it: Who was Henrietta Lacks? How did she live? How she did die? Did her family know that she'd become, in some sense, immortal, and how did that affect them? These are crucial questions, because science should never forget the people who gave it life. And so, what unfolds is not only a reporting tour de force but also a very entertaining account of Henrietta, her ancestors, her cells and the scientists who grew them.

The book ultimately channels its journey of discovery though Henrietta's youngest daughter, Deborah, who never knew her mother, and who dreamt of one day being a scientist.

As Deborah Lacks and Skloot search for answers, we're bounced effortlessly from the tiny tobacco-farming Virginia hamlet of Henrietta's childhood to modern-day Baltimore, where Henrietta's family remains. Along the way, a series of unforgettable juxtapositions: cell culturing bumps into faith healings, cutting edge medicine collides with the dark truth that Henrietta's family can't afford the health insurance to care for diseases their mother's cells have helped to cure.

Rebecca Skloot tells the story with great sensitivity, urgency and, in the end, damn fine writing. I highly recommend this book. --Jad Abumrad

Bentley wrote: "Alisa wrote: "Thanks Bentley. I am no math wizard but glad it has it's own home here among the science threads."

Alisa, could you put the book and write-up for your message nine on the mathematic..."

Yes, I did that as soon as the math thread went up so it is there too now.

Thanks

Bentley wrote: "Here is a good book:

by Rebecca Skloot

ŷ������ Write-up

Amazon Best Books of the M..."

I read this last year, thorougly enjoyed it. It is a difficult story but the author does a great job documenting and explaining the science and the personalities involved along with the evolution of this woman's cells. It raises good points on medical ethics and treatment, the right to privacy of medical records, and accountability. Great book.

Thank you for adding your input on this book Alisa; it will help the group members decide about it.

Its been a while but this one blew me away when I first read it:

by James Gleick

It sounds good Tom. Thanks.

Mary Roach

ŷ������ Write-up:

The study of sexual physiology - what happens, and why, and how to make it happen better - has been a paying career or a diverting sideline for scientists as far-ranging as Leonardo da Vinci and James Watson. The research has taken place behind the closed doors of laboratories, brothels, MRI centers, pig farms, sex-toy R&D labs, and Alfred Kinsey's attic.

Mary Roach, "the funniest science writer in the country" (Burkhard Bilger of 'The New Yorker'), devoted the past two years to stepping behind those doors. Can a person think herself to orgasm? Can a dead man get an erection? Is vaginal orgasm a myth? Why doesn't Viagra help women or, for that matter, pandas?

In 'Bonk', Roach shows us how and why sexual arousal and orgasm, two of the most complex, delightful, and amazing scientific phenomena on earth, can be so hard to achieve and what science is doing to slowly make the bedroom a more satisfying place

Sheldon Rampton

ŷ������ Write-up:

“Comprehensive, readable, and replete with current, useful examples, this book provides a much-needed explanation of how to be a critical consumer of the scientific claims we encounter in our everyday lives.��

—April Cordero Maskiewicz, Department of Biology, Point Loma Nazarene University

“Seethaler’s book helps the reader look inside the workings of science and gain a deeper understanding of the pathway that is followed by a scientific finding—from its beginnings in a research lab to its appearance on the nightly news.��

—Jim Slotta, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto

“How I wish science was taught this way! Seethaler builds skills for critical thinking and evaluation. The book is rich with examples that not only illustrate her points beautifully, they also make it very interesting and fun to read.��

—Julia R. Brown, Director, Targacept, Inc.

The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher

Lewis Thomas

Wikipedia:

The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher is a 1974 collection of 29 essays written by Lewis Thomas for the New England Journal of Medicine during the preceding three years. The pieces are loosely based around the premise that the Earth is perhaps best understood as a cell. The final paragraph of the titular essay reads as follows:

�� Item. I have been trying to think of the earth as a kind of organism, but it is no go. I cannot think of it this way. It is too big, too complex, with too many working parts lacking visible connections. The other night, driving through a hilly, wooded part of southern New England, I wondered about this. If not like an organism, what is it like, what is it most like? Then, satisfactorily for that moment, it came to me: it is most like a single cell.[1] ��

From this, Thomas touches on subjects as various as biology, anthropology, medicine, music (showing a particular affinity for Bach), etymology, mass communication, and computers. Within lively and lucid prose, he reveals a certain prescience.

In the essay titled "Your Very Good Health," Thomas says:
�� Just recently, to correct some of the various flaws, inequities, logistic defects, and near-bankruptcies in today's health-care delivery system, the government has officially invented new institutions called Health Maintenance Organizations, already known familiarly as HMOs, spreading out across the country like post offices, ready to distribute in neat packages, as though from a huge, newly stocked inventory, health.[1]

Awards:

The Lives of a Cell won the National Book Award for both "Arts and Letters" and "The Sciences" in 1975. It is also ranked 11th on the Modern Library's "100 Best Nonfiction" books of the 20th century list [1].

The Scientists: A History of Science Told Through the Lives of Its Greatest Inventors

John R. Gribbin

Publisher's Synopsis;

A wonderfully readable account of scientific development over the past five hundred years, focusing on the lives and achievements of individual scientists, by the bestselling author of In Search of Schrodinger's Cat

In this ambitious new book, John Gribbin tells the stories of the people who have made science, and of the times in which they lived and worked. He begins with Copernicus, during the Renaissance, when science replaced mysticism as a means of explaining the workings of the world, and he continues through the centuries, creating an unbroken genealogy of not only the greatest but also the more obscure names of Western science, a dot-to-dot line linking amateur to genius, and accidental discovery to brilliant deduction.

By focusing on the scientists themselves, Gribbin has written an anecdotal narrative enlivened with stories of personal drama, success and failure. A bestselling science writer with an international reputation, Gribbin is among the few authors who could even attempt a work of this magnitude. Praised as "a sequence of witty, information-packed tales" and "a terrific read" by The Times upon its recent British publication, The Scientists breathes new life into such venerable icons as Galileo, Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein and Linus Pauling, as well as lesser lights whose stories have been undeservedly neglected. Filled with pioneers, visionaries, eccentrics and madmen, this is the history of science as it has never been told before.

Bentley wrote: "Mary Roach

ŷ������ Write-up:

The study of sexual physiology - what happens, and why, ..."

She did a TED talk on that I liked:

The Lunar Men: Five Friends Whose Curiosity Changed the World

Jenny Uglow

ŷ������ Synopsis:

In the 1760s a group of amateur experimenters met and made friends in the English Midlands. Most came from humble families, all lived far from the center of things, but they were young and their optimism was boundless: together they would change the world. Among them were the ambitious toymaker Matthew Boulton and his partner James Watt, of steam-engine fame; the potter Josiah Wedgwood; the larger-than-life Erasmus Darwin, physician, poet, inventor, and theorist of evolution (a forerunner of his grandson Charles). Later came Joseph Priestley, discoverer of oxygen and fighting radical.

With a small band of allies they formed the Lunar Society of Birmingham (so called because it met at each full moon) and kick-started the Industrial Revolution. Blending science, art, and commerce, the Lunar Men built canals; launched balloons; named plants, gases, and minerals; changed the face of England and the china in its drawing rooms; and plotted to revolutionize its soul.

Uglow's vivid, exhilarating account uncovers the friendships, political passions, love affairs, and love of knowledge (and power) that drove these extraordinary men. It echoes to the thud of pistons and the wheeze and snort of engines and brings to life the tradesmen, artisans, and tycoons who shaped and fired the modern age.

I really enjoyed this one. A little biography + a little science + a little history = a lot of fun.

by Barbara Lovett Cline

From the goodreads blurb:

Cline recounts the development of quantum theory, capturing the atmosphere of argument and discovery among physicists in the 1920s. She explores the backgrounds of the major figures—Rutherford, Bohr, Planck, Einstein—separately, but draws them together as they begin to consider each other's questions about the nature of matter.

Here is one:

The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements

Sam Kean

Publisher's Synopsis:

The infectious tales and astounding details in The Disappearing Spoon follow carbon, neon, silicon, and gold as they play out their parts in human history, finance, mythology, war, the arts, poison, and the lives of the frequently mad scientists who discovered them.

Awards:

ŷ������ Choice Award Nominee for History and Biography (2010)

This looks fun:

Carl Sagan

Amazon:
Carl Sagan muses on the current state of scientific thought, which offers him marvelous opportunities to entertain us with his own childhood experiences, the newspaper morgues, UFO stories, and the assorted flotsam and jetsam of pseudoscience. Along the way he debunks alien abduction, faith-healing, and channeling; refutes the arguments that science destroys spirituality, and provides a "baloney detection kit" for thinking through political, social, religious, and other issues.

I loved Sagan; he was at Cornell until he passed away. He certainly though marched to the tune of a different drummer but was brilliant.

Bentley wrote: "I loved Sagan; he was at Cornell until he passed away. He certainly though marched to the tune of a different drummer but was brilliant."

He was one of the great science "ambassadors" bringing science to the lay person.

That is a very nice way of putting it; he certainly was and I think he succeeded since that was one of his life's goals.

The book deals with the history of science in the Age of Enlightenment:

by Richard Holmes

Description:
“Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,�� Wordsworth recalled, thinking of the fall of the Bastille in 1789. But Richard Holmes's exuberant group biography celebrates the scientific revolution that preceded and outsoared the political one, changing life, the universe and everything in the last decades of the 18th century... Holmes suffuses his book with the joy, hope and wonder of the revolutionary era. Reading it is like a holiday in a sunny landscape, full of fascinating bypaths that lead to unexpected vistas. He believes that we must engage the minds of young people with science by writing about it in a new way, entering imaginatively into the biographies of individual scientists and showing what makes them just as creative as poets, painters and musicians. The Age of Wonder is offered, with due modesty, as a model, and it succeeds inspiringly��
-- John Carey, Sunday Times

‘The Age of Wonder gives us...a new model for scientific exploration and poetic expression in the Romantic period. Informative and invigorating, generous and beguiling, it is, indeed, wonderful��
-- Jenny Uglow, Guardian

‘vividly conveys the compelling fusion of art and science in the 18th century ... this is a book to linger over, to savour the tantalising details of the minor figures ... The Age of Wonder allows readers to recapture the combined thrill of emerging scientific order and imaginative creativity��
-- Lisa Jardine, Financial Times

‘If ever there was an argument for a biographical analysis of complex scientific and technological history, this is it ... well paced and rich in detail ... Heartbreaking accounts of hope and fears, ambitions and disappointments dance along the pages. Even the choice of pictures gives us new insights into old favourites ... There is no dry page in this visceral, spirited and sexy account��
-- The Times

‘Richard Holmes's stellar collective biography ... gives a gripping account of the scientific research that inspired a sense of wonder in poets and experimenters alike ... fascinating ... this beautifully crafted book deserves all the praise it will undoubtedly attract. Well-researched and vividly written The Age of Wonder will fascinate scientists and poets alike��
-- Literary Review

‘Holmes triumphantly shows the Romantic age was one of symbiosis rather than opposition...no biographer is better than Holmes at evoking the thrill of the chase ... elegant ... fascinating ... entrancing��
-- Sunday Telegraph

‘Exhilarating...instructive and delightful...finely observed...generous and hugely enjoyable��
-- Daily Telegraph

‘Romanticism and Science are justly reunited in Richard Holmes's new book....a revelation....thrilling��

Thank you Max.

You're quite welcome. :)

I just read by Gillian Turner which was a really good, fairly short overview of the search for the magnetic poles, history of navigation, sea travel, and geomagnetism in general. Starts at the time of the Greeks and continues to this day, as this is still a field where a LOT of discoveries are being made.

That looks really cool, Kristen. (Pun unintended.) I like how you point out that it covers a lot of areas.

I have a short attention span, so the fact it covers a lot of areas was one of it's appeals to me.

I am also reading by Mark V. Barrow Jr.. It's supposed to be about extinction, but is instead a very thorough survey of natural history study over time. Well researched, just kind of dry. I guess it does talk about extinction in that it begins with the study of the natural world and then gets into the fact that people started to realize animals were disappearing, but yeah. Only for people seriously interested in the topic. 359 pages with small print.

I've mentioned a couple of the 2011 Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalists in other posts. I thought I'd provide links to the others here with brief excerpts from the ŷ������ blurbs.

The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood

James Gleick, the author of the best sellers Chaos and Genius, now brings us a work just as astonishing and masterly: a revelatory chronicle and meditation that shows how information has become the modern era’s defining quality—the blood, the fuel, the vital principle of our world.

Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls and the Consequences of a World Full of Men

A shocking expose of the causes of Asia's massive gender imbalance and its consequences across the globe .

Blood Work: A Tale of Medicine and Murder in the Scientific Revolution

A sharp-eyed exposé of the deadly politics, murderous plots, and cutthroat rivalries behind the first blood transfusions in seventeenth-century Europe.

So many books, so little time!

by Martin Amis

by Mara Hvistendahl

by Holly Tucker

We don't like to think about it but this book gives the scientific explanation of how it will all end.

How It Ends

by Chris Impey

Synopsis

Although we may try to keep it tucked at the back of our minds, most of us are aware of our own mortality. But few among us knows what science has to say about death on a larger scale. With a healthy dose of humor, astronomer Chris Impey reveals the fascinating science behind the eventual end to everything and projects the death of the whole shebang - individuals, species, biosphere, earth, sun, Milky way, and the universe itself. According to the author, we won't have to worry about it in our lifetime...........we hope!!

Alisa wrote: "Math is science, or part of science, right? In my mind they are inextricably linked, and this is the one book in my to-read pile that I found in the math section of the bookstore. That is not a s..."

Mlodinow is wonderful. Have you read ?

History of Science is one of my favorite topics. Some favorites:

by Alfred W. Crosby

by Gerald Holton

by I. Bernard Cohen

and

by

Great job on the citations, Peter. Go ahead and tweak the last one:

Mordechai Feingold

I'm a fan of I. Bernard Cohen. I like his:

Science and the Founding Fathers: Science in the Political Thought of Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, and Madison

I. Bernard Cohen

Synopsis

General readers, students of American history, and professional historians alike will profit from reading this engaging presentation of an aspect of American history conspicuously absent from the usual textbooks and popular presentations of the political thought of this crucial period.
Thomas Jefferson was the only president who could read and understand Newton's Principia. Benjamin Franklin is credited with establishing the science of electricity. John Adams had the finest education in science that the new country could provide, including "Pnewmaticks, Hydrostaticks, Mechanicks, Staticks, Opticks." James Madison, chief architect of the Constitution, peppered his Federalist Papers with reference to physics, chemistry, and the life sciences.

For these men science was an integral part of life--including political life. This is the story of their scientific education and of how they employed that knowledge in shaping the political issues of the day, incorporating scientific reasoning into the Constitution.

Bryan wrote: "I'm a fan of I. Bernard Cohen. I like his:

Science and the Founding Fathers: Science in the Political Thought of Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, and Madison

[bookcover:Science and the Founding Fathe..."

That sounds interesting! I am adding it to my to-read pile.

I just started this book, but it's so good that I have to share it now. "The Medical Book: From Witch Doctors to Robot Surgeons, 250 Milestones in the History of Medicine," by Clifford A. Pickover. This book is a fairly brief, but very well written, history of medicine with exquisite illustrations and images. My only complaint is that it is a little bit on the pricey side at ~$30 dollars. Highly recommend!

Dr. Leonardo Noto (nom de plume)

Thanks Leonardo. Don't forget the citation

Clifford A. Pickover

Thanks for the add and chg.