Michael Gross ( of Astrobiology)

Michael Gross wrote a new blog post: social jetlag

From a paper in the latest issue of Current Biology, I learned that the habit of many people to switch their sleeping hours between a later weekend... read more »

Michael Gross gave

to:

Swallow
by Sefi Atta

My rating:

The book opens with a dialogue between two friends on the bus, on their way to work, after narrowly escaping a possible accident. Rose talks a lot, and preferably about what her friend Tolani should do with her life and her boyfriend, while Tolani he...more

Michael Gross is currently reading:

La Isla Bajo El Mar
by Allende Isabel

My rating:

Michael Gross is currently reading:

El sueno del Celta
by Mario Vargas Llosa

My rating:

Michael Gross gave

to:

Uses and Abuses of Plant-Derived Smoke by Marcello Pennacchio

Uses and Abuses of Plant-Derived Smoke: Its Ethnobotany as Hallucinogen, Perfume, Incense, and Medicine
by Marcello Pennacchio

My rating:

tobacco and cannabis are only the tip of a huge iceberg which is explored here in great detail. I reviewed this for Chemistry & Industry, review should be out soon.

Michael Gross gave

to:

The $1,000 Genome: The Revolution in DNA Sequencing and the New Era of Personalized Medicine
by Kevin Davies

My rating:

A very topical account of the ongoing revolution in genetics and genomics.

Michael Gross made a comment in the group And Other Stories Spanish-Language Reading Group — Libro de Pola O., Las Teorias Salvajes topic

"oooops. months later ... and I still haven't finished it. It's tricky as it needs both quality time and a good dictionary, and I rarely have both at h...more "

Michael Gross gave

to:

The Honest Look
by Jennifer L. Rohn

read in November, 2010

My rating:

The cultural divide between the worlds of science and arts has stirred much debate since CP Snow diagnosed it in the 1950s. How much specialisation is good for society, and how much general knowledge from the sciences should extend to the other side...more The cultural divide between the worlds of science and arts has stirred much debate since CP Snow diagnosed it in the 1950s. How much specialisation is good for society, and how much general knowledge from the sciences should extend to the other side of the divide? The idea has inspired several generations of science popularisers, but we rarely read about its effect on people who straddle both sides or are unsure which side they should be on.

The protagonist of “The Honest Look”, Claire Cyrus (no relation of Miley I hope), is one of the straddlers. She has just completed a PhD in biology, but is more passionate about writing and reading poetry than about her science, which involves a monstrous proteomic analysis instrument, a machine with the size, complexity, and neediness of the Beckman model E ultracentrifuge from the 1960s (no, I’m not that old, but my PhD supervisor still used two of these in the 90s).

Adding to the culture shock is the fact that her first post-doctoral appointment, taking care of the first commercial specimen of that machine, is in a biotech start-up, where we have the corporate culture conflicting with her hitherto purely academic upbringing. A third cultural divide opens up as the company in question is based in the Netherlands, but most of the scientific staff members are Brits who migrated there with the scientific founders. Oh, and our heroine is bilingual, the child of a Spanish mother and British father.

Unlike Rohn’s first lablit novel, Experimental Heart, which had a thriller plot, this one is essentially a romance, so as a fifth binary we have two contrasting male specimens competing for the attention of our heroine, and naturally each has different views on the cultural conflicts listed above, so love also pulls her in different directions on these other issues of cultural identity.

With all those conflicting forces tearing her apart and cultural canyons to fall into, not to mention a serious moral dilemma arising from an unexpected scientific result, one does worry about Dr Cyrus a lot, which keeps the pages turning just as fast as a thriller plot. Rohn pulls out all the writerly stops to make the poetic sensibility of her heroine believable, and succeeds as far as I can discern from my vantage point between cultures (English poetry buffs may have their own opinions).

She is also very good at bringing the expat perspective on Amsterdam (where she lived herself for several years) and the surrounding lowlands to life. With my rather vague and informal knowledge of Dutch I loved the paragraph where one of the characters translates mundane everyday Dutch into Shakespearean English to illustrate the similarities. (I might have used this as a running gag, actually, for comic relief when the story gets tense.)

What I found less convincing was everything involving the use of Spanish – firstly, I don’t understand why Claire, with Spanish and English and a love of words, doesn’t really extend her love to Spanish, which in my ears is the more interesting and poetic language of the two. Then, the character called “Ramon” (rather than Ramón) lost his accent in more than one way – the dialogues reported to have been held in Spanish don’t sound like something translated from Spanish to me. Even some of the Spanish interjections (querida, Dios mío, por favor,) sound as though they had been translated from English, not glimpsed from a Spanish dialogue. I think with a language used so widely in popular culture (CSI Miami through to latin pop music) one can actually get away with longer snippets giving a more authentic impression.

Having said that, it’s still a wonderful novel, and it addresses cultural conflicts that are very important to me and should be to a wider readership as well. So I hope it does find readers on all sides of these cultural divides, and thereby helps to bridge the gap between Snow’s Two Cultures (and a few more).(less)

Michael Gross made a comment in the group And Other Stories Spanish-Language Reading Group — Pola Oloixarac - Las teorías salvajes (Wild Theories) topic

"I'm half-way through now, finding it intriguing but also very difficult - obviously need to brush up on Argentinian slang and on philosophy ... but wa...more "

Michael Gross is currently reading:

La consolante
by Anna Gavalda

My rating:

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	Life On The Edge 3.00 avg rating — 4 ratings — published 1998 — 2 editions	My rating:
	Light and Life: An Engrossing Exploration of Biological Clocks, Ancient Sun-Gods, and Creatures That Glow in the Dark 3.33 avg rating — 3 ratings — published 2003	My rating:
	Travels To The Nanoworld 3.00 avg rating — 2 ratings — published 2001	My rating:
	The Birds, the Bees and the Platypuses: Crazy, Sexy and Cool Stories from Science 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — published 2008	My rating:
	Astrobiology: A Brief Introduction by Kevin W. Plaxco, Michael Gross (Goodreads Author) 3.29 avg rating — 14 ratings — 3 editions	My rating:

Michael Gross wrote a new blog post: social jetlag social jetlag From a paper in the latest issue of Current Biology, I learned that the habit of many people to switch their sleeping hours between a later weekend... read more »
May 26, 2012 03:52pm · like
Michael Gross gave to: Swallow by Sefi Atta	My rating:
The book opens with a dialogue between two friends on the bus, on their way to work, after narrowly escaping a possible accident. Rose talks a lot, and preferably about what her friend Tolani should do with her life and her boyfriend, while Tolani he...more
Jul 25, 2011 07:54am · see review
Michael Gross is currently reading: La Isla Bajo El Mar by Allende Isabel	My rating:
Jan 04, 2011 02:23pm
Michael Gross is currently reading: El sueno del Celta by Mario Vargas Llosa	My rating:
Jan 04, 2011 02:13pm
Michael Gross gave to: Uses and Abuses of Plant-Derived Smoke: Its Ethnobotany as Hallucinogen, Perfume, Incense, and Medicine by Marcello Pennacchio	My rating:
tobacco and cannabis are only the tip of a huge iceberg which is explored here in great detail. I reviewed this for Chemistry & Industry, review should be out soon.
Jan 04, 2011 02:07pm · see review
Michael Gross gave to: The $1,000 Genome: The Revolution in DNA Sequencing and the New Era of Personalized Medicine by Kevin Davies	My rating:
A very topical account of the ongoing revolution in genetics and genomics.
Nov 08, 2010 05:56am · see review
Michael Gross made a comment in the group And Other Stories Spanish-Language Reading Group — Libro de Pola O., Las Teorias Salvajes topic "oooops. months later ... and I still haven't finished it. It's tricky as it needs both quality time and a good dictionary, and I rarely have both at h...more "
Nov 08, 2010 05:49am
Michael Gross gave to: The Honest Look by Jennifer L. Rohn read in November, 2010	My rating:
The cultural divide between the worlds of science and arts has stirred much debate since CP Snow diagnosed it in the 1950s. How much specialisation is good for society, and how much general knowledge from the sciences should extend to the other side...more
Nov 08, 2010 05:40am · see review
Michael Gross made a comment in the group And Other Stories Spanish-Language Reading Group — Pola Oloixarac - Las teorías salvajes (Wild Theories) topic "I'm half-way through now, finding it intriguing but also very difficult - obviously need to brush up on Argentinian slang and on philosophy ... but wa...more "
Sep 15, 2010 06:38am
Michael Gross is currently reading: La consolante by Anna Gavalda	My rating:
Aug 23, 2010 02:52pm

Michael Gross

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