Volume 98 | Number 5 | September-October 2010
W. Patrick McCray
A review of A Grand and Bold Thing: An Extraordinary New Map of the Universe Ushering in a New Era of Discovery, by Ann Finkbeiner. In Finkbeiner’s hands, the story of the creation of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey is both gripping and fascinating
Robert Proctor
A review of Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming, by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway. Extremist scientists, funded by trade associations and fearful of a regulatory state, have attacked all efforts to trace environmental maladies back to corporate chemicals, say Oreskes and Conway
Michael D. Gordin
A review of Beyond Uncertainty: Heisenberg, Quantum Physics, and the Bomb, by David C. Cassidy, and Heisenberg in the Atomic Age: Science and the Public Sphere, by Cathryn Carson. Cassidy traces the life of Werner Heisenberg in detail from birth through the end of World War II, and Carson focuses on the three decades that followed; both explore the tension between public and private that made Heisenberg such a fascinating and perplexing figure
Ernest Davis
A review of The Invisible Gorilla: And Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us, by Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons. Chabris and Simons take as their theme two types of errors, Davis says: those that result from various kinds of gaps in our cognitive abilities and those that arise from the difficulty we have in recognizing those gaps
Roger L. Geiger
A review of The Great American University: Its Rise to Preeminence, Its Indispensible National Role, and Why It Must Be Protected, by Jonathan R. Cole. Cole lists the things that make for a great research university, documents discoveries made by university researchers that have changed everyday life, and offers excellent advice that no one is likely to follow, says Geiger
Benjamin K. Sovacool
A review of Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto, by Stewart Brand. Brand maintains that in order to solve our pressing environmental problems, we need to focus on three key technologies: cities, nuclear power and the genetic modification of crops
Marilyn Lombardi
A review of The Cultural Logic of Computation, by David Golumbia. We are so much under the spell of technology, warns Golumbia, that it’s hard for us to even recognize the ethical, cultural and political costs of computing—let alone address them satisfactorily
John R. McNeill
A review of Natural Experiments of History, edited by Jared Diamond and James A. Robinson, and Why America Is Not a New Rome, by Vaclav Smil. When done rigorously, comparisons between and among societies can be quite useful, particularly for understanding causation, say Diamond and Robinson. Smil decries the lack of rigor in the common comparison of the United States to ancient Rome
Steven Vogel
A review of Dazzled and Deceived: Mimicry and Camouflage, by Peter Forbes. Forbes first shows how biologists came to understand the significance of mimicry and camouflage in nature and then branches out to discuss the use made of nature’s visual patterns by artists and the military
Total Records : 11
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!
