Volume 92 | Number 4 | July-August 2004
Frank Diller
John Aldrich
Theodore M. Porter's new biography shows us the young Karl Pearson, a man of many talents
William Shear
Thomas Eisner's For Love of Insects is a manual for discovery, which also imparts an intuitive understanding of evolution
Steve Shapin
The late Robert K. Merton's book on serendipity and science notes that chance indeed favors the prepared mind
Anthony Grafton
Maps of Time draws on the work of modern cosmologists, geologists, evolutionary biologists and archaeologists to trace history on the most immense scale imaginable
Robert Levine
It would be difficult to overestimate the influence of Stanley Milgram's controversial obedience experiments, in which subjects proved surprisingly willing to follow instructions to administer electric shocks to people. More than 40 years later, these "shock studies" are still being discussed, most recently for the light they may shed on the treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. A new biography shows Milgram to have been "a brilliant, inventive, slightly spooky Renaissance man."
Paul Rabinow
James Shreeve provides a riveting, blow-by-blow account of the technological and moral battles fought by, and between, those sequencing the human genome
Cipher Deavours
Herbert O. Yardley, a colorful and controversial figure who established the first U.S. codebreaking agency in 1917, is the subject of The Reader of Gentlemen's Mail
Patricia Wright
Alison Jolly's autobiographical history of southern Madagascar and its people shows her to be an expert storyteller
Total Records : 14
About once a month at Sigma Xi headquarters, we liven up the lunch hour with an American Scientist Pizza Lunch talk. In these informal lectures, scientists describe new research to nonscientists. The series is light on jargon but heavy on solid science. Each Pizza Lunch offers an in-depth look at its subject, whether it's bedbugs or the smart grid. Click below to read about and download these talks -- and to subscribe!
