Carolyn's comments (member since Dec 09, 2008)

Carolyn's comments from the Science and Inquiry group.

I'm crazy busy. Work sometimes does that in my life. It expands, fills every moment, and I can't even find time for laundry, much less anything else. It should calm back down in late May.

Wouldn't it be better if they hurt? Wouldn't that impel one to the emergency room faster and make it more likely that one would get treated? Would we see better outcomes as a result?

One thing I worry about is dying of something that I barely noticed. It is fairly common for me to not notice problems until they've ballooned into much bigger issues. So I don't take action when I could resolve something with simple measures.

I read Botany of Desire a few years ago and it is a beautiful book and not polemical at all. It turned my perception of the plant world upside down for a few weeks before my natural egocentricity re-asserted itself. The writing is excellent, evocative, and interesting. On the whole, it is a good book, one of my favorites. (Though I am a major fan of botany books anyway.)

You may be right, Juliana. I usually do like intellectual history and science history, but I didn't like this book. Perhaps it was that he tried to do too much and left too much hanging. Or perhaps I wasn't in the mood for it. Or perhaps something else. In the past I've tried to read about the 18th century (which by all rights should be a fascinating period since it effervesces with revolutions in thought, politics, science, and business) but have found myself more irritated with the books than enlightened, so I may just have a problem with that century (or with the writers attracted to it). I find it frustrating to dislike a book and not be able to speak to why I don't like it. Since I am thoroughly enjoying The HIstory of Everything (which is chock full of history) I don't know what my problem is with The Invention of Air.

My recommendation is:




Liaisons of Life From Hornworts to Hippos--How the Unassuming Microbe has Driven Evolution

It is a book that I have wanted to read for quite a while.

JuliAnna wrote: "Carolyn, this is exactly the reason that I have been considering a Kindle. And, when you travel, you can take tons of books with you without anyone complaining about the weight of your baggage."

I really like mine. There are a lot of un-noted advantages. For example, Amazon maintains a list of the books you've bought and the Kindle sends bookmark information to Amazon when Whispernet is on. This came in very handy when my Kindle was stolen and I had to buy a new one. The new one was filled with all my books in a few minutes (without me having to pay anything for the books) and my bookmarks were just where I had left them. I was so pleased. Now if only the Memphis police department could have been as efficient as Amazon and found my first Kindle!

Tracy wrote: Our bookshelves are sinking our floor, and I thought it might look bad if the UPS man pulled up with a giant box of books while my husband was crawling under the house with a jack.

We have a lot of books as well. My husband is a history professor so there are books everywhere. He has filled his bedroom with books. We have a separate room that is nothing but books (we call it the library) and the family room is also filled with books.

This fact is part of why I like my Kindle. I can have lots of books which are never far from my fingers and I never have to make room. For a long while there was a rule that before buying a new book, we had to put an old book up for sale on Amazon (because otherwise there wouldn't be room anywhere). With the Kindle, I can ignore the rule because they all fit without mass in the memory.

Jill wrote: "I'm currently reading it. It's my lunchtime book. So far it's been very good. I didn't have an opinion on the whole Pluto debate before reading the book, but with Tyson's (somewhat unjustified, at ..."

I don't know that he has a "goal" for the book. My impression was that he felt wrongly villainized by fourth graders and wanted everyone to know how unfair it was. A topic that I find so excruciatingly silly (on both sides) that I can't help laughing when I read about it. Though in truth, I don't think Tyson is taking himself too seriously. I think he sees the humor of the situation and is detailing it for us so that we can laugh with him.

Like you, I don't really care whether Pluto is called a planet or not. I didn't care before I read the book and I don't care now. But what I do find intriguing is how science is politicized in our country. When state legislatures want to declare that Pluto must be a planet within their state or that the meaning of Pi must be "3", or when astrologers think that they should be consulted before scientific groups make a statement, that just seems funny to me and the absurdity warms me inside just a bit. There is something quixotic about it.

When you get to the end of the book, he's put the lyrics to songs written about Pluto and the controversy at the end, which is also a lot of fun. Like I said, I found the book to be a tour de force of silly fun with a kissing relationship to science. It has put me in a very good mood to read the March selection, which is so far also quite astronomical, though I am only in the beginning.

Tracy wrote: "Oh pass me the cookie jar! You posted just in time. I was just about to make my Amazon order and Pluto Files was going to sit on the wish list a few more weeks, but now that someone else is reading..."

It seems only fair that you should read it as well since it was your post that caused me to look into it.

Well, while I was avoiding reading the February selection, I found myself drawn into The Pluto Files The Rise and Fall of America's Favorite Planet. I scolded myself and shoved The Invention of Air in front of my nose with very firm intentions but to no avail. The combination of the fact that I didn't much like The Invention of Air and that Neil deGrasse Tyson wrote a wonderfully funny book about the controversy over Pluto's demotion from planethood meant that I'd gulped down the entire book before I'd realized what I'd done.

So I sit here with the equivalent of Oreo cookie crumbs on my lips and unable to hide my guilty pleasure. It has now occurred to me that if the rest of you join me in plunging into the Oreos, that I am not actually guilty, but merely part of a group of aficionados.

Seriously, though. I recommend the book. It is wonderfully funny. I consider it science light, but Neil deGrasse Tyson makes up for the lack of extensive passages on science in my estimation with his clever prose and description of the controversy. And, of course, he is Neil deGrasse Tyson, so the science that is there is good as well.

William wrote: "Not what I expected. I was dissapointed that this work turned into more of a political/theological discorse rather than a summation of his scientific work."

I felt much the same. I stopped reading it about two-thirds in, realizing that when I tell myself that I like history of science what I really mean is that I like the history to place the scientific thought in a context for me. However, I still prefer to have the science front and center.

Thank you so much for the information!

Thank you!

Much, much less than I'd like. I probably get to read about an hour a night during quiet work weeks and practically no reading at all during very busy weeks. :(

I most prefer eBooks that work on the Kindle because it allows me to vary the text size to deal with my difficult eyesight. Otherwise, I can't read paperbacks at all when my contacts are in and hardcovers are often difficult as well. Of physical books I most prefer hardcovers, which feel substantial in my hands and have clearer text that doesn't bend around as much as paperbacks (thus messing with my ability to read).

I also love audio books. In fact, there are times when I work so many hours (60-80 in a week) that I would get no "reading" done at all if it weren't for books I could listen to as I worked.

Thank you for the information on Australian explorers and the tip to look up Thomas Bewick and Jenny Uglow's book on him. It looks like it will afford hours of enjoyment.

As to snakes, they all look big to me. I am irrationally afraid of them and no amount of self-talk can stop my heart from racing and my perception from narrowing to the snake alone when I come across one. I cannot imagine coming across so large a snake as you did.

I am amazed by the discoveries being made in paleontology and fascinated by the speculative art being done to illustrate those discoveries. Have you seen the story of the transitional turtles that have only their bottom plastron and no top shell (Odontochelys semitestacea )?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/200...

Not only is it a completely fascinating story from the perspective of evolution and science, it is illustrated with one of the cutest artist's renditions of a paleontological find ever.

Can we add another shelf for food science? I'm reading a book I would like to add The World of Caffeine The Science and Culture of the World's Most Popular Drug and it caused me to realize that some of my favorite books blend science, history and food.

Hi Tracy!

I've put The Equation That Couldn't Be Solved How Mathematical Genius Discovered the Language of Symmetry on my list. Thanks for the recommendation.

Have you read Zero The Biography of a Dangerous Idea? It is also quite good.

JuliAnna wrote: "Boy, I never thought someone would recommend a history of stats book! This one is supposed to be both accessible and quite good. I can't wait to vote."

I am finding books on mathematical history to be fascinating and surprisingly accessible. My husband originally suggested I focus on science, food, and math when we were reading up on the ancient Greeks, Romans, and Carthaginians (he focused on the military and political dimensions) and the result was a deep appreciation of the history of math that has carried me beyond ancient history.

The idea that math, like language, is limited by and influences the understanding of philosophy, religion, culture, and reality itself was an epiphany for me. It lifted math from the realm of the dry and practical or the esoteric and difficult. I've begun to realize that math transcends our humanity, allows us to look beyond our mind's limited abilities to comprehend reality and is intricately woven into the patterns of our minds. It seems like poetry spoken in another language.

Statistics, in particular, is interesting since it quantifies uncertainty, which is itself an epistemological advance. How did we ever get to the point where we could put numbers on the unknown and say that we think that there is this percentage chance that some proposition is true, rather than simply assessing truth or falsehood in a binary way? It seems to be a game-changing idea to me.

So I am also hoping that people will vote for this book. But even if they do not, I will come up with an excuse to add it to my sagging bookshelves.

There is a much larger image of the artist's rendition of the snake:

http://www.newswise.com/images/uploads/2...

How does someone become a scientific artist, I wonder. I've read that nineteenth century archaeology teams always included an artist among their members. Is it the same for paleontologists? Is there a specialty of scientific artists that hires out for pictures such as this? Wouldn't it be divine if there were a book on the history and profession of scientific art (complete with copious pictures)?