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The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2008
“The articles . . . draw the reader more tightly into the web of the world. They forge links in unexpected ways. They connect us to nature and to each other, and those connections nourish the intellect and uplift the spirit.”—Jerome Groopman, M.D., editor
This year’s Best American Science and Nature Writing offers another rich assortment of “fascinating science and impressive journalism” (New Scientist) culled from an array of periodicals, such as The New Yorker, Scientific American, and National Geographic. The twenty-four provocative and often visionary stories chosen by guest editor Jerome Groopman form an outstanding sampling of the very best in a field of writing that stays ahead of the curve, bringing important topics to the forefront of American discussion.
In “The Universe’s Invisible Hand,” Christopher Conselice takes us into the recent spectacular discovery of the crucial role of dark energy, which is making our universe expand faster and faster. Florence Williams tells the story of a more down-to-earth form of energy in “A Mighty Wind,” which describes how a small Danish island community is making great leaps in energy conservation by using innovative wind farms. John Cohen explores the marvelous world of ligers, zorses, wholphins, and other hybridized creatures in “Zonkeys Are Pretty Much My Favorite Animal.” And Robin Marantz Henig delves into the possibly hazardous ramifications of the rapidly expanding science of nanotechnology.
The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2008 packs a wallop of intriguing, informative, and wondrous stories, each one bringing with it, as Jerome Groopman writes, “a sense of excitement [to be] shared with others.”
This year’s Best American Science and Nature Writing offers another rich assortment of “fascinating science and impressive journalism” (New Scientist) culled from an array of periodicals, such as The New Yorker, Scientific American, and National Geographic. The twenty-four provocative and often visionary stories chosen by guest editor Jerome Groopman form an outstanding sampling of the very best in a field of writing that stays ahead of the curve, bringing important topics to the forefront of American discussion.
In “The Universe’s Invisible Hand,” Christopher Conselice takes us into the recent spectacular discovery of the crucial role of dark energy, which is making our universe expand faster and faster. Florence Williams tells the story of a more down-to-earth form of energy in “A Mighty Wind,” which describes how a small Danish island community is making great leaps in energy conservation by using innovative wind farms. John Cohen explores the marvelous world of ligers, zorses, wholphins, and other hybridized creatures in “Zonkeys Are Pretty Much My Favorite Animal.” And Robin Marantz Henig delves into the possibly hazardous ramifications of the rapidly expanding science of nanotechnology.
The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2008 packs a wallop of intriguing, informative, and wondrous stories, each one bringing with it, as Jerome Groopman writes, “a sense of excitement [to be] shared with others.”
352 pages, Paperback
First published October 8, 2008
11 people are currently reading
281 people want to read
About the author
Jerome Groopman
20 books130 followersWhen Dr. Groopman is not in his laboratory at Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where he is chief of experimental medicine, he focuses his expertise as a hematologist and oncologist as well as his compassion on the inner workings of his patients. It is this unusual nexus of medicine, healing and faith in the preciousness of life that characterizes Dr. Groopman’s career and core being. At age 44, Dr. Groopman turned his gentle yet meticulous lens to writing about his patients’ courage, endurance and resilience.
Though he considers himself a scientist and physician first, his eloquent pen captures the pace and pathos of medical mysteries and human dramas. The Measure of Our Days (Penguin) was published to critical acclaim and inspired the ABC television drama Gideon’s Crossing. In 1998, The New Yorker asked Dr. Groopman to become a staff writer in medicine and biology.
Though he considers himself a scientist and physician first, his eloquent pen captures the pace and pathos of medical mysteries and human dramas. The Measure of Our Days (Penguin) was published to critical acclaim and inspired the ABC television drama Gideon’s Crossing. In 1998, The New Yorker asked Dr. Groopman to become a staff writer in medicine and biology.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews
November 13, 2008
This anthology, edited by Jerome Groopman, is exactly what one would hope for - a wide-ranging collection of well-written, fascinating articles which will expand the reader's horizons and are fun to read. It puts the competing anthology "Best American Science Writing 2008", edited (perfunctorily) by Sylvia Nasar, to shame. Where Nasar didn't bother to look beyond "The New York Times" and "The New Yorker" for her material, Groopman's anthology benefits from his having cast a much broader net, as well as from the depth of his intellectual curiosity. In his introduction, he outlines his criteria for inclusion:
"the articles ... have novel and surprising arguments, protagonists who articulate their themes in clear, cogent voices, and vivid cinema. They are not verbose or tangential. They are filled with simple declarative sentences. ... I suspect none of the articles was easy to write. Each shows a depth of thought and reporting that takes time and considerable effort."
These target criteria show that we are in good hands - the only remaining question is whether they are actually achieved for the pieces included in the anthology. The answer is a resounding yes - with very few exceptions (only Freeman Dyson's piece on biotechnology and Michael Specter's article on retroviruses seemed fuzzy to me) the writing is crisp and clear, and the subject material is interesting and thought-provoking. That is, in my estimation, Dr Groopman's batting average is 22 excellent pieces of 24 (and your view on the Dyson and Specter pieces may differ). Which far exceeds the norm for this kind of anthology.
Here is a partial list of the articles included:
Jon Cohen: "Zonkeys are pretty much my favorite animal"
John Colapinto: "The Interpreter" (the linguistic anomaly represented by the Piraha language)
Robin Marantz Henig: "Our silver-coated future" (safety assessment of nanotechnology)
Michael Finkel: "Malaria: Stopping a Global Killer"
Olivia Judson: "The Selfless Gene"
Todd Pitock: "Science and Islam in Conflict"
Ron Rosenbaum: "How to Trick an Online Scammer into Carving a Computer out of Wood"
Ian Parker: "Swingers" (mating habits of bonobos)
Jeffrey Toobin: "The CSI effect" (forensics: TV versus reality)
Other articles cover topics as diverse as dark matter, "spooky action at a distance", khipu knots of the Incas, the coming robot army, the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko by polonium-210, the Hendra virus, difficulties in the interpretation of epidemiological studies, wind energy, and the requisite Oliver Sacks case study (musicophilia).
"the articles ... have novel and surprising arguments, protagonists who articulate their themes in clear, cogent voices, and vivid cinema. They are not verbose or tangential. They are filled with simple declarative sentences. ... I suspect none of the articles was easy to write. Each shows a depth of thought and reporting that takes time and considerable effort."
These target criteria show that we are in good hands - the only remaining question is whether they are actually achieved for the pieces included in the anthology. The answer is a resounding yes - with very few exceptions (only Freeman Dyson's piece on biotechnology and Michael Specter's article on retroviruses seemed fuzzy to me) the writing is crisp and clear, and the subject material is interesting and thought-provoking. That is, in my estimation, Dr Groopman's batting average is 22 excellent pieces of 24 (and your view on the Dyson and Specter pieces may differ). Which far exceeds the norm for this kind of anthology.
Here is a partial list of the articles included:
Jon Cohen: "Zonkeys are pretty much my favorite animal"
John Colapinto: "The Interpreter" (the linguistic anomaly represented by the Piraha language)
Robin Marantz Henig: "Our silver-coated future" (safety assessment of nanotechnology)
Michael Finkel: "Malaria: Stopping a Global Killer"
Olivia Judson: "The Selfless Gene"
Todd Pitock: "Science and Islam in Conflict"
Ron Rosenbaum: "How to Trick an Online Scammer into Carving a Computer out of Wood"
Ian Parker: "Swingers" (mating habits of bonobos)
Jeffrey Toobin: "The CSI effect" (forensics: TV versus reality)
Other articles cover topics as diverse as dark matter, "spooky action at a distance", khipu knots of the Incas, the coming robot army, the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko by polonium-210, the Hendra virus, difficulties in the interpretation of epidemiological studies, wind energy, and the requisite Oliver Sacks case study (musicophilia).
December 20, 2008
I've read this series for a long time and it's one of the few books I dog-ear and return to over and over. My copy of this book is gone, so I'll get another one and start again from scratch.
November 25, 2017
A. I have enjoyed quite a few of the tomes.
July 16, 2019
Reading stuff like this can be weird because you realize that it's already 11 years old. So, some of it was interesting, and some suspiciously out of date.
October 2, 2020
loved this so much- my fav is the one about Malaria
January 2, 2009
Houghton Mifflin's series has always leaned heavily toward the pop in popular science and nature, favoring topical, crowd-pleasing subjects like nanotechnology, dark matter, chimps and robots, robots and chimps, stem cell research and—that perennial favorite—mental abnormalities from the case files of Oliver Sacks. Just about all of these show up in the 2008 edition, yet for the first time the bulk of these essays aren't even nominally scientific (unless you feel, as the editors seem to, that everything is science, in which case the word itself is meaningless). One look at the table of contents shows that only a handful of this year's essays came from sources that might be considered 'sciencey,' while a full third are from The Atlantic and The New Yorker—where Gerome Groopman, Guest Editor, works. As a reader of the series for the past eight years (and someone who found even The Elegant Universe impenetrably technical) I've been more than happy to go along with their always readable, never-too-taxing selections. And this year's pieces, putting aside the Science and Nature rubric, are almost all excellent, they just miss the point for someone like me who actually reads this series, year after year, to keep up with scientific developments, or at least feel like I am. Instead I feel condescended to, being told that an essay about online "scam-baiters" hoodwinking Nigerians somehow belongs here.
That said, there are many highlights, among them two fantastic essays on language, one about an Amazonian tribe that seems to defy the central tenet of Chomskyan linguistics, and another about the deciphering of a long-lost Incan language recorded using knots. The award for the creepiest essay must go to Freeman Dyson, for his piece Our Biotech Future, in which he envisions a world of "user-friendly," "do-it-yourself" genetic engineering kits, with which we can design our own pets and such. "Few of the new creations will be masterpieces," he laments, but, hey, they're just living things, right? The essay, line for line, is laugh-out-loud horrifying, with Dyson, the quintessential cavalier scientist, solving problems like rural poverty with a wave of his hand—through the grand, abstract use of genetically modified crops—or disposing of our unwanted cars by designing termites to eat them. Of nature's failure to produce plants with black leaves, which he believes would be more efficient, he concludes, "Perhaps we will not understand why nature did not travel this route until we have traveled it ourselves." Our grim new future awaits.
What really makes these collections worth reading are the pieces I can always count on to profoundly change my view of the world. There was only one this year, Darwin's Surprise, by Michael Specter, on how retroviruses, over the course of human history, have written themselves into our DNA and shaped our development. It's the kind of essay I hope to see a lot more of in future editions, one that's truly worthy of the title Best American Science and Nature.
That said, there are many highlights, among them two fantastic essays on language, one about an Amazonian tribe that seems to defy the central tenet of Chomskyan linguistics, and another about the deciphering of a long-lost Incan language recorded using knots. The award for the creepiest essay must go to Freeman Dyson, for his piece Our Biotech Future, in which he envisions a world of "user-friendly," "do-it-yourself" genetic engineering kits, with which we can design our own pets and such. "Few of the new creations will be masterpieces," he laments, but, hey, they're just living things, right? The essay, line for line, is laugh-out-loud horrifying, with Dyson, the quintessential cavalier scientist, solving problems like rural poverty with a wave of his hand—through the grand, abstract use of genetically modified crops—or disposing of our unwanted cars by designing termites to eat them. Of nature's failure to produce plants with black leaves, which he believes would be more efficient, he concludes, "Perhaps we will not understand why nature did not travel this route until we have traveled it ourselves." Our grim new future awaits.
What really makes these collections worth reading are the pieces I can always count on to profoundly change my view of the world. There was only one this year, Darwin's Surprise, by Michael Specter, on how retroviruses, over the course of human history, have written themselves into our DNA and shaped our development. It's the kind of essay I hope to see a lot more of in future editions, one that's truly worthy of the title Best American Science and Nature.
July 12, 2025
I picked this book up as part of a bargain deal at B&N on a bit of a whim. It's been awhile since I've sat down and read a book of essays, and I wanted to see what was up with the modern world of science.
Turns out, I'd already heard about a number of topics mentioned in this book, which isn't that surprising when you consider that even though the essays themselves were written in 2007, many of the events and discoveries they describe occurred earlier, sometimes many years so.
There were a few broad, recurring scientific themes among the essays, a few of which one might expect and others that might be less predictable. Of course, an essay sometimes contained more than one theme. Recurring themes include:
• Biology/Genetics: "Zonkeys Are Pretty Much My Favorite Animal," "Restoring America's Big, Wild Animals," "Our Biotech Future," "Malaria: Stopping a Global Killer," "The Selfless Gene," "Swingers," "Deadly Contact," "Darwin's Surprise"
• Anthropology/Primatology: "The Interpreter," "Untangling the Mystery of the Inca," "The Selfless Gene," "Swingers," "Science and Islam in Conflict," "First Churches of the Jesus Cult"
• Epidemiology: "Malaria: Stopping a Global Killer," "Children Are Diamonds," "Deadly Contact," "Darwin's Surprise," "Numbers Can Lie"
• Environmentalism: "Restoring America's Big, Wild Animals," "Malaria: Stopping a Global Killer," "Children Are Diamonds," "A Mighty Wind"
• Physics/Cosmology: "The Universe's Invisible Hand," "A Curious Attraction"
• Technology: "Our Biotech Future," "The Coming Robot Army," "The First Assassination of the Twenty-First Century," "Our Silver-Coated Future," "The Autumn of the Multitaskers," "How to Trick an Online Scammer into Carving a Computer out of Wood," "The CSI Effect," "Numbers Can Lie," "A Mighty Wind"
I don't have the space (or will...) to comment on each essay individually, so I will provide some brief thoughts only about the three I liked best and the three I liked least.
See the full review CurtisWeyant.com
Turns out, I'd already heard about a number of topics mentioned in this book, which isn't that surprising when you consider that even though the essays themselves were written in 2007, many of the events and discoveries they describe occurred earlier, sometimes many years so.
There were a few broad, recurring scientific themes among the essays, a few of which one might expect and others that might be less predictable. Of course, an essay sometimes contained more than one theme. Recurring themes include:
• Biology/Genetics: "Zonkeys Are Pretty Much My Favorite Animal," "Restoring America's Big, Wild Animals," "Our Biotech Future," "Malaria: Stopping a Global Killer," "The Selfless Gene," "Swingers," "Deadly Contact," "Darwin's Surprise"
• Anthropology/Primatology: "The Interpreter," "Untangling the Mystery of the Inca," "The Selfless Gene," "Swingers," "Science and Islam in Conflict," "First Churches of the Jesus Cult"
• Epidemiology: "Malaria: Stopping a Global Killer," "Children Are Diamonds," "Deadly Contact," "Darwin's Surprise," "Numbers Can Lie"
• Environmentalism: "Restoring America's Big, Wild Animals," "Malaria: Stopping a Global Killer," "Children Are Diamonds," "A Mighty Wind"
• Physics/Cosmology: "The Universe's Invisible Hand," "A Curious Attraction"
• Technology: "Our Biotech Future," "The Coming Robot Army," "The First Assassination of the Twenty-First Century," "Our Silver-Coated Future," "The Autumn of the Multitaskers," "How to Trick an Online Scammer into Carving a Computer out of Wood," "The CSI Effect," "Numbers Can Lie," "A Mighty Wind"
I don't have the space (or will...) to comment on each essay individually, so I will provide some brief thoughts only about the three I liked best and the three I liked least.
See the full review CurtisWeyant.com
July 23, 2009
24 articles from 14 publications, with top contributor being The New Yorker with 5 stories.
I enjoy each edition, so I'll just point at which articles were able to stay fresh in my mind after having read them over a year ago.
Zonkeys Are Pretty Much My Favorite Animals by Jon Cohen
Hybrid animals are far more common than we realize.
Untangling the Mystery of the Inca by Gareth Cook
Explores the quest to untangle the meaning behind Incan khipus.
Malaria: Stopping a Global Killer by Michael Finkel
A quick but thorough introduction to malaria.
The First Assassination of the Twenty-First Century by James Geary
The story and science behind the assassination of Alexander Litvinenko.
Swinger by Ian Parker
Bonobos have quite a lot of sex.
Science and Islam in Conflict by Todd Pitock
Science and religion don't always get along, and this article takes a look at how they fare in some Muslim nations.
Deadly Contact by David Quammen
Explains how narrow a jump it is for diseases to make animals sick and humans dead.
How To Trick an Online Scammer into Carving a Computer Out of Wood by Ron Rosenbaum
One of the funniest articles anthologized, takes a look at what happens when online scammers are scammed themselves.
A Bolt From the Blue by Oliver Sacks
Fascinating look at what happens to those who survive lightning strikes.
The CSI Effect by Jeffrey Toobin
Hair and fiber may make for good television, but in real life they aren't very reliable or definitive.
Numbers Can Lie by Andreas Von Bubnoff
Explains why numbers and statistics can be so misleading.
I enjoy each edition, so I'll just point at which articles were able to stay fresh in my mind after having read them over a year ago.
Zonkeys Are Pretty Much My Favorite Animals by Jon Cohen
Hybrid animals are far more common than we realize.
Untangling the Mystery of the Inca by Gareth Cook
Explores the quest to untangle the meaning behind Incan khipus.
Malaria: Stopping a Global Killer by Michael Finkel
A quick but thorough introduction to malaria.
The First Assassination of the Twenty-First Century by James Geary
The story and science behind the assassination of Alexander Litvinenko.
Swinger by Ian Parker
Bonobos have quite a lot of sex.
Science and Islam in Conflict by Todd Pitock
Science and religion don't always get along, and this article takes a look at how they fare in some Muslim nations.
Deadly Contact by David Quammen
Explains how narrow a jump it is for diseases to make animals sick and humans dead.
How To Trick an Online Scammer into Carving a Computer Out of Wood by Ron Rosenbaum
One of the funniest articles anthologized, takes a look at what happens when online scammers are scammed themselves.
A Bolt From the Blue by Oliver Sacks
Fascinating look at what happens to those who survive lightning strikes.
The CSI Effect by Jeffrey Toobin
Hair and fiber may make for good television, but in real life they aren't very reliable or definitive.
Numbers Can Lie by Andreas Von Bubnoff
Explains why numbers and statistics can be so misleading.
February 19, 2009
I'd already read and enjoyed some of the articles in this book (the ones previously published in the New Yorker-- especially Colapinto's essay). Overall I find an anthology like this an essential contribution to History of Science oeuvre-- it's interesting to have a record of the year's most salient themes in popular science writing (which also indicates social concerns of the time, of course). I thought that some of the articles fell short of a "best" rating and were merely somewhat interesting or unconventional ideas that were not fully supported or explored (i.e. Zonkeys are Pretty Much My Favorite Animals and the article about re-introducing big game to the US).
Favorite essays included: Gareth Cook's "Unraveling the Mystery of the Inca," Robin Henig's "Our silver-coated future" (about nanotechnology), Michael Finkel's essay on malaria, and Walter Kirn's essay on multitasking. Also a few essays play well off of each other in this collection. A few about viruses and our genome, malaria, and altruism/competition in great apes.
Three stars partly because there are no citations for any of the articles and no suggested list of related readings, which would seem logical since the essays as popular science narratives cannot delve very deeply into scientific specifics.
Favorite essays included: Gareth Cook's "Unraveling the Mystery of the Inca," Robin Henig's "Our silver-coated future" (about nanotechnology), Michael Finkel's essay on malaria, and Walter Kirn's essay on multitasking. Also a few essays play well off of each other in this collection. A few about viruses and our genome, malaria, and altruism/competition in great apes.
Three stars partly because there are no citations for any of the articles and no suggested list of related readings, which would seem logical since the essays as popular science narratives cannot delve very deeply into scientific specifics.
January 14, 2009
I'm a big big fan of the best american science and nature writing compilations. I look forward to them each year. This year's book was simply disappointing. The most interesting essay is "The Interpreter" which was previously published in the New Yorker, and which I read in that magazine earlier this year. That article is about an amazonian tribe called the pirahan, who's number system and grammar are extremely unique. "The Interpreter" is fascinating: multi-dimensional, expertly written, and smart.
I would say the book is worth reading just for that essay, but that article is available on the New Yorker's website for free, complete with pictures (http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/20...)
I found most of the science writing in this book to be uninspired. 2006 and 2007 were full of surprises, and made the reader feel that science was perhaps the most exciting career path a person could take. This year's collection--not so fun. I was rarely surprised, often bored, and overall fairly disappointed in the book. And if this book can't captivate a nerd like me...
I would say the book is worth reading just for that essay, but that article is available on the New Yorker's website for free, complete with pictures (http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/20...)
I found most of the science writing in this book to be uninspired. 2006 and 2007 were full of surprises, and made the reader feel that science was perhaps the most exciting career path a person could take. This year's collection--not so fun. I was rarely surprised, often bored, and overall fairly disappointed in the book. And if this book can't captivate a nerd like me...
June 29, 2016
The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2008 was a marvelous collection of this previous year's more fascinating popular science articles. Among the best articles in the collection are Jon Cohen's "Zonkeys Are Pretty Much My Favorite Animal," an article about how new exposure to hybrids is making biologists and zoologists rethink the traditional taxonomy of species; John Colapinto's "The Interpreter," where one field linguist has encountered a Brazilian people called the Piraha who have such peculiarities of language that one doubts the possibility that human beings have innate knowledge of language (the Universal Grammar thesis); Freeman Dyson's "Our Biotech Future," a prediction of the ease with which people will use biotechnology; Olivia Judson's "The Selfless Gene," which contends that some form of altruism persists in species because of its overall net benefit; and Andreas Von Bubnoff's "Numbers Can Lie," about how unreliable statistics are, namely with respect to diagnosing illnesses. These are by no means the only articles one should read in this collection, but they would be the top five I would tout from this collection.
March 4, 2009
There are some really great articles in this anthology, but the main lesson I took away from this collection is that the New Yorker is an amazing magazine. I'd read many of these articles when they were printed in the New Yorker last year. Seeing them again, against other publication's offerings, reminded me why I love the magazine so much. The articles aren't just well researched, they are excellently framed. And while other publications put out five pages of story, the New Yorker consistently dives into twenty pages or more. The result is really getting to understand an issue, or a place, or a person.
Highlights in addition to the New Yorker articles: Freeman Dyson's Our Biotech Future (New York Review of Books), Malaria: Stopping a Global Killer (National Geographic), The Selfless Gene (The Atlantic), and Restoring America's Big, Wild Animals (Scientific American).
Highlights in addition to the New Yorker articles: Freeman Dyson's Our Biotech Future (New York Review of Books), Malaria: Stopping a Global Killer (National Geographic), The Selfless Gene (The Atlantic), and Restoring America's Big, Wild Animals (Scientific American).
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April 23, 2009I love these compilations--it seems I never have enough time to read all of the magazines I would like and professional journals are completely beyond my reading scope so these are a godsend. Obviously it's just a small slice of what's out there and subject to the preferences of the editor but it's a good way to get a sense of what's going on these days and it's easy to follow up on the topics you're most interested in. This book had articles ranging from new theories about whether the Mayans had a written language after all to scientists ability to revive ancient viruses to determine more about the scariest ones that affect us today.
February 17, 2009
Interesting and varied collection. Reading these made me realize, however, that the place for collections like this is disappearing. Much of the content in here is the length of a long blog entry, which is the format I actually read most of my science from. The greatest thing about reading science on the internet versus dead tree form is that on the internet, it is generally from the originating scientist himself, whereas on paper, it is usually a journalist who inevitably seems to get some of the science wrong.
September 7, 2009
Good book on some of the latest research and findings going on. This is a good, varied selection of articles, covering from physics to evolution, and from religion to politics! If you enjoy knowing, you will enjoy this book!
*Most interesting article, Darwin's Suprise: Talks about some proof that we are in fact descendant from other primates, and even more stunning, viruses have been a essential part of our evolution throughout history, being able to combine with our DNA to produce advantageous mutations.
*Most interesting article, Darwin's Suprise: Talks about some proof that we are in fact descendant from other primates, and even more stunning, viruses have been a essential part of our evolution throughout history, being able to combine with our DNA to produce advantageous mutations.
July 16, 2009
I love this series of books. The science and nature books might be my favorite, but I also enjoy the short stories, essays, and travel writing.
Just a quick review on this one.
It starts with some excellent pieces, gets a bit boring near the middle, but then turns into a fireball of awesomeness near the end. This is the kind of book that helps you open up to areas of science & nature you've never thought about before. Plus, some of the essays are based on cutting-edge stuff.
This book is like a room with many doors and you really can't go wrong by opening any of them.
Just a quick review on this one.
It starts with some excellent pieces, gets a bit boring near the middle, but then turns into a fireball of awesomeness near the end. This is the kind of book that helps you open up to areas of science & nature you've never thought about before. Plus, some of the essays are based on cutting-edge stuff.
This book is like a room with many doors and you really can't go wrong by opening any of them.
September 14, 2009
The 1st article, "Zonkeys Are Pretty Much My Favorite Animal" definitely grabbed my attention! It's about the current plethora of hybrid animals such as ligers, pizzlies, blynxes, etc. (You'd be amazed out how many different hybrids there are.) indicates that hybridization of animals MAY have played a larger role in evolution than anyone had surmised.
I skipped a number of articles, maybe 1/2 of the book, but since I checked it out at the library, the book was well worth it. No one is likely to want to read every piece, but many of the articles were fascinating and informative.
I skipped a number of articles, maybe 1/2 of the book, but since I checked it out at the library, the book was well worth it. No one is likely to want to read every piece, but many of the articles were fascinating and informative.
January 5, 2010
As with any anthology, the pieces assembled here are hit and miss. By and large, though, the articles are fascinating, and the quality of the writing lives well up to the "Best American" series standard. The articles collected here cover a broad array of topics ranging from biology to technology to linguistics, and so on, so whatever your interests, there's sure to be something here to pique your curiosity. And, an article about (sigh) Pleistocene rewilding.
January 14, 2009
Book of 24 well-written essays previously published in assorted magazines on a variety of science topics. I was especially intrigued by articles about why multitasking rarely works, dark energy in the universe, why malaria is such a scourge on our planet (did you know it is thought that HALF of all people who have EVER LIVED have died of malaria?), and why virus fragments we all carry in our DNA may be the reason human beings don't lay eggs. A great read.
April 13, 2009
If you vote, if you consume products or food, if you are at all interested in the real world around you, or if you have two neurons to knock together (which you do, because you're reading this sentence), read this collection. I'd say on average 18 of the 20 featured articles blow me away each year, and this 2008 collection is no exception. A MUST, and good for busy people, since it's divided into short, digestible pieces.
April 23, 2009
Good stuff, short articles about science and nature. For some reason, the article by Gareth Cook about the Incan knot system really grabbed me. Found the article by Todd Pitock, "Science and Islam in conflict" a massive understatement (bulletin from the front lines!). And Edward Hoagland's "Children are Diamonds" was wrenching and a surprisingly emotional departure from the other articles in this collection.
August 6, 2009
these vary in quality (this series rather) and its amazing how many science artifices the new yorker has! i learned about nanotech, linguistics, inca writing, lots of progress on evolution front, virus research, "the first churches of the jesus cult", malaria, and a cool ass island in Denmark (samso [sic:]) that is is more than negative 150% carbon neutral.
July 30, 2011
Some great stories as usual. Good ones about studies of Amazon tribal languages, scary ones about decoding and storing viruses, good debate about epidemiology versus clinical studies, informative ones about evolution, and interesting ones about archeology. Current science by good science writers is always interesting.
March 15, 2012
Faves:
Jon Cohen, "Zonkeys Are Pretty Much My Favorite Animal"
James Geary, "The First Assassination of the Twenty-first Century"
Olivia Judson, "The Selfish Gene"
Walter Kirn, "The Autumn of the Multitaskers"
Ron Rosenbaum, "How to Trick an Online Scammer into Carving a Computer out of Wood"
Oliver Sacks, "A Bolt from the Blue"
Jon Cohen, "Zonkeys Are Pretty Much My Favorite Animal"
James Geary, "The First Assassination of the Twenty-first Century"
Olivia Judson, "The Selfish Gene"
Walter Kirn, "The Autumn of the Multitaskers"
Ron Rosenbaum, "How to Trick an Online Scammer into Carving a Computer out of Wood"
Oliver Sacks, "A Bolt from the Blue"
February 12, 2009
not quite as good as the companion 'best science writing 2008', but still lots of good stuff. oliver sacks' account of a man who develops a passion for piano music after being struck by lightning is a gem.
March 17, 2009
When I bought this I wasn't sure if I would like it or not. But I must say I cannot put it down. I have only skipped one article so far, and it was on physics. The biology articles are really interesting. I would recommend this to anyone. I'm about half way through right now.
March 10, 2009
Another fantastic collection this year. There is definitely a medical theme that runs throughout the book and is a result of Groopman's influence. There seems to be less emphasis Nature in this edition, but still a great read.
October 7, 2009
The chapters are a perfect length, you can get through them in 15-20 minutes or less and each one has been so interesting so far - I'm talking my fiance's head off about what I'm learning about the Inca civilization, animal hybridization, linguistics and megafauna conservation!
July 16, 2012
A terrific review of the year's best short writing on science and nature. Anyone with an interest in our world, and they way it works, will find something appealing here and, with only one article more than twenty pages, even those that seem boring don't take much to get through.
February 19, 2014
Very good articles, ranging from using the internet to get revenge on the Kenyan minister e-mail hoax to how retroviruses became part of our genome. Bonobo apes, wind generated power and CSI are all included. Nice reads.
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