Customer Reviews

The Best American Science Writing 2004

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The 2004 volume of "The Best of American Science Writing" edited by Dava Sobel is a first-rate, in my opinion, collection of pieces by well-selected spectra of contributing authors.

These are not dry scientific articles, but well written science short stories, and accounts. This book is a pleasure to read and a great source of information.

Without further ado, I would like to continue by giving short descriptions to each of the works in the book. If you prefer to find out for yourself what those are about, you may wish to stop reading this review now.

1. Jennifer Kahn - "Stripped for Parts". A dead man's body is the best place to store organs. Read about the current state of organ transplantation, challenges and advancement. A baboon heart in a human body? Find out how well it works.
2. Atul Gawande - "Desperate Measures". Experimental techniques in medicine. How a test tube of radioactive deuterium from a nuclear reactor helped to measure human body water content. Moral aspects of versus medical progress.
3. John Updike - "Mars Bright as Venus". A little poem.
4. K. C. Cole - "Fun with Physics". Neutrinos, and MiniBooNE experiment at Fermilab.
5. Oliver Morton - "Strange Nuggets". Very heavy and strange dark matter. Read about an extraordinary probe into using seismic stations around the world to detect possible strange matter clusters passing through the Earth.
6. Keay Davidson - "Mapping of Cosmos Backs Big". How recent measurements of cosmic background radiation prove the Big Bang Theory.
7. Neil DeGrasse Tyson - "Gravity in Reverse". Find out what Einstein's "greatest blunder" was. Understand "Dark Energy" that causes the universe to expand at a different rate than previously thought.
8. Dennis Overbye - "One Cosmic Question, Too Many Answers". String theory and 10-dimetional universe.
9. Sherwin B. Nuland - "How to Grow Old". We need better quality of aging. What were some different and unsuccessful ways to prolong the youth in history, and why immortality is a bad idea.
10. Aaron E. Hirsh - "Signs of Life". Applying mathematics to protein evolution. Is Biology an exact science with strict rules?
11. Ian Parker - "Reading Minds". Harnessing brain waves to communicate with fully paralyzed persons.
12. Tom Siegfried - "The Science of Strategy". Discover the amazing Mathematical Game Theory and its applications.
13. Kaja Perina - "Cracking the Harward X-Files". Psychology of alien abductions and other traumatic memories.
14. John Noble Wilford - "A Tense Border's More Peaceful Past". Archeological study of Wadi Arabah by the Dead Sea. A bridge or a barrier?
15. Tom Bissell - "A Comet's Tale: On the Science of Apocalypse". Immerse yourself in the study of sociological and religious aspects of the "end of the world", and most likely scenarios of an asteroid or comet collision with our planet.
16. Elizabeth Royte - "Transsexual Frogs". Atrazine contamination in the environment, and its effects on frogs.
17. Susan Milius - "Leashing the Rattlesnake". Ingenious ways to solve experimental challenges in biological science.
18. Michael Benson - "What Galileo Saw". Staggering spacecraft journey to Jupiter.
19. Barbara J. Becker - "Celestial Spectroscopy: Making Reality Fit the Myth". Short story about an English astronomer William Huggins.
20. Kevin Patterson - "The Patient Predator". Increasing danger of tuberculosis, and new Multi-Drug-Resistant strains.
21. Michael Pollan - "Cruising on the Ark of Taste". Read about an innovative organization that helps preserving the biological and cultural diversity through selecting what to eat.
22. William Langewiesche - "Columbia's Last Flight". Get the insight on political and some of the technical details of the investigation that followed the loss of the space shuttle Columbia.
23. Diane Ackerman - "We Are All a Part of Nature". A perspective on life and nature.

The articles in this book are not merely technical chronicles; they evolve around real people, scientists. They are captivating and fresh.

I enjoyed reading this book immensely, and would recommend it to anyone.

This is a great series. Don't miss any of it. Back order old issues... it's worth it.

I've read quite a few of these compilations. While there are some really great pieces included--my favorite is the one on TB--it doesn't have the same spark as some of the other books of this type. Nevertheless, it's well worth reading.

This is an excellent collection of scientific writings. It exposes you to fields that you might not think about exploring on your own. The dark secrets of organ donor science and the nightmare of being "locked in" by total paralysis come to mind. Note that not every writing in this collection will interest you. There will surely be a story or two that you end up just skipping over due to complete lack of interest. This book is a great alternative to watching T.V. on the nights when you are completely burned out from your primary research/occupation but feel like you need to keep on chugging.

Note: I gave this book a 4 out of 5. This is because most of the writings where excellent and very engaging but there were a few that were a little lackluster.