David Schneider, Anna Lena Phillips, Fenella Saunders
Hollywood Science: Movies, Science, and the End of the World, Transport Design: A Travel History and Skin: A Natural History
Susan Cutter
A review of The Next Catastrophe: Reducing Our Vulnerabilities to Natural, Industrial, and Terrorist Disasters, by Charles Perrow. An important source of vulnerability to disasters in the United States is that much of our critical infrastructure is concentrated in interdependent nodes, says Perrow
Russell Greenberg
A review of No Way Home: The Decline of the World's Great Animal Migrations, by David S. Wilcove. The loosely organized stories in this book highlight the dramatic and emotional appeal of migrations in a variety of species worldwide, But how satisfying will it be to save all the migratory species from extinction, asks Greenberg, if the flow of migration nevertheless slows to a trickle?
Lillian Hoddeson
A review of Structures of Scientific COllaboration, by Wesley Shrum, Joel Genuth and Ivan Chompalov. The result of a project spanning nearly a decade, this book sums up what was learned by interviewing members of the various scientific teams that worked on 53 multi-institutional or computer-mediated collaborations in physics
Brian Hayes
A review of Understanding Moore's Law: Four Decades of Innovation, edited by David C. Brock. This slim volume of essays by Moore and others commemorates the 40th anniversary of his observation that circuit density grows exponentially
Robert J. Richards
A review of Evil Genes: Why Rome Fell, Hitler Rose, Enron Failed, and My Sister Stole My Mother’s Boyfriend, by Barbara Oakley. Reviewed by Robert J. Richards. Oakley proposes that the component traits of the Machiavellian syndrome and borderline personality disorder derive from heritable pathologies of specific neural systems. Richards is skeptical
Robert L. Dorit
A review of The Invisible Cure: Africa, the West, and the Fight Against AIDS, by Helen Epstein. Epstein untangles the social, cultural, economic and political factors that have complicated efforts to combat the ferocious AIDS pandemic in Africa, providing insight into why large-scale foreign aid projects have so often failed
J. Scott Turner
A review of Built by Animals: The Natural History of Animal Architecture, by Mike Hansell. After surveying which animals build things and which do not, Hansell explores several interesting themes, including the role that appreciation of craft and beauty might have played in the evolution of these behaviors
Anthony Grafton
A review of The Jewel House: Elizabethan London and the Scientific Revolution, by Deborah Harkness. Harkness brings the scientific communities of 16th-century London "to quarrelsome, absorbing life," says Grafton
Greg Ross
The sociologist of science considers the subtleties of expertise
Anna Lena Phillips
The psychologist discusses why more women aren't in science and ways to change that
Anna Lena Phillips
The social psychologist discusses decision-making and cognitive dissonance
Greg Ross
The science journalist on hurricane intensity and global warming
Greg Ross
The Harvard medical historian on America's tortured history with tobacco
Greg Ross
University of Arizona astronomer, author of The Living Cosmos: Our Search for Life in the Universe
Greg Ross
MIT physicist, author of Fantastic Realities
Greg Ross
Mount Holyoke College mathematician, author of The Poincare Conjecture
Sheila Jasanoff
A review of The Honest Broker: Making Sense of Science in Policy and Politics, by Roger A. Pielke, Jr. The guidance that Pielke offers science advisers rests on a map of the science policy world that is too simple, says Jasanoff
Barry Castleman
A review of Secret History of the War on Cancer, by Devra Davis. According to Davis, the "war on cancer" has fought the wrong battles, ignoring the disease's preventable industrial and environmental causes
Mark Walker
A review of Von Braun: Dreamer of Space, Engineer of War, by Michael J. Neufeld. This nuanced biography of Wernher von Braun shows that his true genius was as a manager of large, complex science and engineering projects, from the V-2 combat rocket to the Saturn V launch vehicle
Ethan Remmel
A review of Why Youth Is Not Wasted on the Young: Immaturity in Human Development, by David Bjorklund. Human development takes as long as it does for good reasons and therefore shouldn't be rushed, says Bjorklund
Brian Hayes
A review of Processing: A Programming Handbook for Visual Designers and Artists, by Casey Reas and Ben Fry, and Visualizing Data, by Ben Fry. These two books serve as useful introductions to the programming language called Processing, which is intended for creating work in the visual arts
Jennifer C. McElwain
A review of The Emerald Planet: How Plants Changed Earth's History, by David Beerling. Beerling tracks major evolutionary events in the plant kingdom through geological time, showing how they have influenced global environmental conditions over the eons
Scott L. Feld
A review of The Social Atom: Why the Rich Get Richer, Cheaters Get Caught, and Your Neighbor Usually Looks Like You, by Mark Buchanan. Buchanan suggests that people are like atoms, obeying simple rules with "lawlike" regularity
Michael A. Bell
A review of Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body, by Neil Shubin. Shubin traces the imprint of our fishy ancestors on our anatomy and recounts some of the highlights of his career
Anna Lena Phillips
A review of Making Mathematics with Needlework, edited by sarah-marie belcastro and Carolyn Yackel. This collection of mathematics papers and craft projects offers entertainment and challenges for needleworkers and math fans alike.
Steve Shapin
A review of In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto, by Michael Pollan. What has gone wrong with scientific expertise about food, Pollan says, is its focus on the measurement of specific constituent nutrients
Amos Esty, David Schneider
Short takes on two books: Acid Rain in the Adirondacks: An Environmental History, by Jerry Jenkins, Karen Roy, Charles Driscoll and Christopher Buerkett, and The Physics of NASCAR: How to Make Steel + Gas + Rubber = Speed, by Diandra Leslie-Pelecky.
Greg Ross
The pathbreaking social psychologist discusses the Stanford prison experiment and the nature of evil
Greg Ross
The Indiana University cognitive scientist revisits the themes of Gödel, Escher, Bach