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The Best American Science And Nature Writing 2019
A NATIONAL BESTSELLER
Sy Montgomery, New York Times best-selling author and recipient of numerous awards, edits this year’s volume of the finest science and nature writing.
“Science is important because this is how we seek to discover the truth about the world. And this is what makes excellent science and nature writing essential,” observes New York Times best-selling author Sy Montgomery. “Science and nature writing are how we share the truth about the universe with the people of the world.” And collected here are truths about nearly every corner of the universe. From meditations on extinction, to the search for alien life, to the prejudice that infects our medical system, the pieces in this year’s Best American Science and Nature Writing seek to bring to the people stories of some of the most pressing issues facing our planet, as well as moments of wonder reflecting the immense beauty our natural world offers.
Sy Montgomery, New York Times best-selling author and recipient of numerous awards, edits this year’s volume of the finest science and nature writing.
“Science is important because this is how we seek to discover the truth about the world. And this is what makes excellent science and nature writing essential,” observes New York Times best-selling author Sy Montgomery. “Science and nature writing are how we share the truth about the universe with the people of the world.” And collected here are truths about nearly every corner of the universe. From meditations on extinction, to the search for alien life, to the prejudice that infects our medical system, the pieces in this year’s Best American Science and Nature Writing seek to bring to the people stories of some of the most pressing issues facing our planet, as well as moments of wonder reflecting the immense beauty our natural world offers.
361 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2019
312 people are currently reading
692 people want to read
About the author
Sy Montgomery
60 books1,997 followersPart Indiana Jones, part Emily Dickinson, as the Boston Globe describes her, Sy Montgomery is an author, naturalist, documentary scriptwriter, and radio commentator who has traveled to some of the worlds most remote wildernesses for her work. She has worked in a pit crawling with 18,000 snakes in Manitoba, been hunted by a tiger in India, swum with pink dolphins in the Amazon, and been undressed by an orangutan in Borneo. She is the author of 13 award-winning books, including her national best-selling memoir, The Good Good Pig. Montgomery lives in Hancock, New Hampshire.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 76 reviews
December 30, 2019
The actual science writing is almost all pretty good.
Skip the extraordinarily political, and not even very well written or persuasive, introduction by the new series editor (how did they find someone even more annoying than the old one?). It nearly soured me on the book, and series, entirely. But you know, the science articles were actually really good, in most cases.
Skip the extraordinarily political, and not even very well written or persuasive, introduction by the new series editor (how did they find someone even more annoying than the old one?). It nearly soured me on the book, and series, entirely. But you know, the science articles were actually really good, in most cases.
January 21, 2021
A sold collection of science writing published in the 2018/2019. I enjoyed quite a few of the essays, but my favorites were probably the last three that discuss medicine & health. A good chunk of the collection focuses on the current ecological/climatic crises we are in and that is something I already think about in my day to day life. I had to put this anthology down for several weeks because every time I read it, I would cry thinking about all of the terrible things happening in the world.
The most unusual essay was "why does the paper jam persist" and was an enjoyable read (apparently what type of tree the paper comes from matters).
Ironically, one of the essays was about the next pandemic.. and this anthology was published in October 2019, one month before the first confirmed case of SARS-cov-2. Fun.
The most unusual essay was "why does the paper jam persist" and was an enjoyable read (apparently what type of tree the paper comes from matters).
Ironically, one of the essays was about the next pandemic.. and this anthology was published in October 2019, one month before the first confirmed case of SARS-cov-2. Fun.
May 31, 2020
It's not an exaggeration to call this volume a check of America's pulse. If you're doubtful, just read Ed Yong's piece, "When the Next Plague Hits," which predicted, in 2018, a flulike virus hitting the United States. Also predicted was the US's unprepared for such a virus. Dr. Anthony Fauci is on record in the article, saying he was pessimistic about our prospects.
Another common motif across these various essays in The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2019 is the failure of the American healthcare system. As well-meaning as doctors and caregivers may be, there continue to be problems with people receiving adequate medical care that will not bankrupt them and put them out of work (Milly Osberg's "How to Not Die in America"). There is also a problem of inadequate medical record-keeping for patients (Ilana Yurkiewicz's "Paper Trails"). The reason this issue is so serious is that when one patient moves from one healthcare facility to another, even at the doctor's recommendation, so the patient can receive more specialized treatment, the patient's records do not always transfer with him. Sometimes there's a transfer of handwritten notes, sometimes these notes get lost in the shuffle, sometimes there are electronic records but the hospital to which the patient is transferred does not the same software as the previous hospital to access these records. This chaos results in duplicated medical procedures, incorrect dosages for medicine, and sometimes no care given because the record can't be found. What is sorely lacking is an integrated, national database that all healthcare institutions can access in order to better treat a patient. This issue of records and personal histories is often a matter of life and death. Another article addressing failures in healthcare is Linda Villarosa's "The Hidden Toll," which describes the role racial prejudice has with regard to medical procedures for people of color, particularly when it comes to child delivery. The way things are now, a woman of color is three times more likely to lose her child than a white person. The results are by no means decisive but preliminary data seems to indicate that it has a lot to do with the stress people not only face as minorities but also the kind of care that people of care do or not receive.
I won't go into all the pieces on climate change, but they're are plenty in this volume. You will find in this volume what we know about how climate change is taking its toll on species (they're going extinct) and how American coastlines are being swallowed by oceans as people slowly flee to higher grounds.
I don't want to give the impression that this book is all doom and gloom. For those seeking more lighthearted stuff, read the super-fun essay "Why Paper Jams Persist." (Spoiler alert: it's not the photocopiers' fault but the composition of the paper itself and the conditions in which the paper is kept.) Or read, "What If the Placebo Effect Is Not a Trick?" This piece mainly deals with a curious fact that has been demonstrated time and time again, namely that people's recovery increases just by virtue of being treated and cared for. And these are not just psychosomatic results. There have been demonstrable physical changes because of this kind of care.
You might not like this book, I'll confess. Regardless, it is a good if partial glimpse at larger problems America faces today. This is something you can usually get by picking up the latest volume of The Best American Science and Nature Writing..
Another common motif across these various essays in The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2019 is the failure of the American healthcare system. As well-meaning as doctors and caregivers may be, there continue to be problems with people receiving adequate medical care that will not bankrupt them and put them out of work (Milly Osberg's "How to Not Die in America"). There is also a problem of inadequate medical record-keeping for patients (Ilana Yurkiewicz's "Paper Trails"). The reason this issue is so serious is that when one patient moves from one healthcare facility to another, even at the doctor's recommendation, so the patient can receive more specialized treatment, the patient's records do not always transfer with him. Sometimes there's a transfer of handwritten notes, sometimes these notes get lost in the shuffle, sometimes there are electronic records but the hospital to which the patient is transferred does not the same software as the previous hospital to access these records. This chaos results in duplicated medical procedures, incorrect dosages for medicine, and sometimes no care given because the record can't be found. What is sorely lacking is an integrated, national database that all healthcare institutions can access in order to better treat a patient. This issue of records and personal histories is often a matter of life and death. Another article addressing failures in healthcare is Linda Villarosa's "The Hidden Toll," which describes the role racial prejudice has with regard to medical procedures for people of color, particularly when it comes to child delivery. The way things are now, a woman of color is three times more likely to lose her child than a white person. The results are by no means decisive but preliminary data seems to indicate that it has a lot to do with the stress people not only face as minorities but also the kind of care that people of care do or not receive.
I won't go into all the pieces on climate change, but they're are plenty in this volume. You will find in this volume what we know about how climate change is taking its toll on species (they're going extinct) and how American coastlines are being swallowed by oceans as people slowly flee to higher grounds.
I don't want to give the impression that this book is all doom and gloom. For those seeking more lighthearted stuff, read the super-fun essay "Why Paper Jams Persist." (Spoiler alert: it's not the photocopiers' fault but the composition of the paper itself and the conditions in which the paper is kept.) Or read, "What If the Placebo Effect Is Not a Trick?" This piece mainly deals with a curious fact that has been demonstrated time and time again, namely that people's recovery increases just by virtue of being treated and cared for. And these are not just psychosomatic results. There have been demonstrable physical changes because of this kind of care.
You might not like this book, I'll confess. Regardless, it is a good if partial glimpse at larger problems America faces today. This is something you can usually get by picking up the latest volume of The Best American Science and Nature Writing..
January 31, 2020
This is one of my favorite books each year. I don’t have the time or mind to digest a sampling of science across many periodicals. However, the best are in this book and the last chapter about The Plaque is uncomfortable reading in the mix of the current pandemic that had spread to 6000 people.
February 22, 2021
This collection never fails. I read in 2021, and reading Ed Yong's 2018 piece about pandemic preparedness was really something in the context of all that happened in 2020.
April 3, 2020
A compendium of scientific vulgarization articles from the best! A well of inspiration for any science fiction writer out there!
My favorites:
What if the Placebo effect is not a trick? By Gary Greenberg p .75
Is the placebo only an effect of imagination, a sham, a trick, or could it be something tangible, verifiable, provided the right conditions? A very absorbing question. One of the most difficult reading for me, because of the fascinating concep, but the writing may be hard to follow.
An enzyme called COMT has a role in pain response. Low COMT, best response to placebo, high COMT, less response, but the relation is not that simple. Using MRI machines on placebo given patients, the authors found that the amount of interaction, of rituals, counts: more interaction, better responses. The placebo can be a powerful medical treatment that is ignored by doctors only at their patient’s expanse. The care, the interaction, the rituals may have a role.
Also, the conditions of trials, on young healthy subjects with a positive outcome on life, cannot be comparable to the despair suffered by people with chronic, intractable pain. Needless to add that business and big Pharma would love to ID patients responding too well to placebo effect from their tests…
“Placebo and drug do not involve separate processes, one psychological and the other physical, that adds up to the overall effectiveness of the treatment; rather, they may both operate on the same biochemical pathway – the one governed in part by the COMT gene.”
I loved this article because it took something we take for granted, i.e. that the placebo effect is a smudge in the medical science windshield, and turns it over its head. It proposes a daunting concept of placebome, “a chemical pathway along which healing signals travel, and not only to the mind, but also to the body.
---------------
The Insect Apocalypse is There by Brooke Jarvis p. 150
Or, when a club of amateur naturalists win over academia.
Most insect studies focus around particular insects species; few studies were about the actual populations numbers. When strollers began to intuit there were less “bugs” than years ago, and some scientists noticed the insect decline (the very visible monarch butterfly among them), they deplored the lack of solid, long-term evidence. No quantitative data had ever been compiled.
An obscure German study published in 2017 sent a shockwave in the scientific world. Measured by weight, they found an overall flying insects decline of 75% over 27 years.
In Krefeld, a club of amateur naturalists, founded in the 70s, had lovingly and painstakingly, collected samples! None had university diplomas, but all had a love of discovery. Passionate Their methods methods of quantitative sampling has kept the same over thirty years, hence providing a welcome comparison point. In 2013, the Krefeld amateur entomologists confirmed that a 80% drop from 1989 in a nature preserve.
The economic evaluation of pollination is staggering, as some have to pay workers to manually pollinate trees.
What I loved in that article was the fact that such a vital wealth of data was made public in 2017, not by a prestigious university, not by a big company or government, but thanks to a group of amateurs working over decades in the Krefeld entomologist club. Also, it is one of my pet preoccupation, as two of my stories are related to insects and butterflies.
My favorites:
What if the Placebo effect is not a trick? By Gary Greenberg p .75
Is the placebo only an effect of imagination, a sham, a trick, or could it be something tangible, verifiable, provided the right conditions? A very absorbing question. One of the most difficult reading for me, because of the fascinating concep, but the writing may be hard to follow.
An enzyme called COMT has a role in pain response. Low COMT, best response to placebo, high COMT, less response, but the relation is not that simple. Using MRI machines on placebo given patients, the authors found that the amount of interaction, of rituals, counts: more interaction, better responses. The placebo can be a powerful medical treatment that is ignored by doctors only at their patient’s expanse. The care, the interaction, the rituals may have a role.
Also, the conditions of trials, on young healthy subjects with a positive outcome on life, cannot be comparable to the despair suffered by people with chronic, intractable pain. Needless to add that business and big Pharma would love to ID patients responding too well to placebo effect from their tests…
“Placebo and drug do not involve separate processes, one psychological and the other physical, that adds up to the overall effectiveness of the treatment; rather, they may both operate on the same biochemical pathway – the one governed in part by the COMT gene.”
I loved this article because it took something we take for granted, i.e. that the placebo effect is a smudge in the medical science windshield, and turns it over its head. It proposes a daunting concept of placebome, “a chemical pathway along which healing signals travel, and not only to the mind, but also to the body.
---------------
The Insect Apocalypse is There by Brooke Jarvis p. 150
Or, when a club of amateur naturalists win over academia.
Most insect studies focus around particular insects species; few studies were about the actual populations numbers. When strollers began to intuit there were less “bugs” than years ago, and some scientists noticed the insect decline (the very visible monarch butterfly among them), they deplored the lack of solid, long-term evidence. No quantitative data had ever been compiled.
An obscure German study published in 2017 sent a shockwave in the scientific world. Measured by weight, they found an overall flying insects decline of 75% over 27 years.
In Krefeld, a club of amateur naturalists, founded in the 70s, had lovingly and painstakingly, collected samples! None had university diplomas, but all had a love of discovery. Passionate Their methods methods of quantitative sampling has kept the same over thirty years, hence providing a welcome comparison point. In 2013, the Krefeld amateur entomologists confirmed that a 80% drop from 1989 in a nature preserve.
The economic evaluation of pollination is staggering, as some have to pay workers to manually pollinate trees.
What I loved in that article was the fact that such a vital wealth of data was made public in 2017, not by a prestigious university, not by a big company or government, but thanks to a group of amateurs working over decades in the Krefeld entomologist club. Also, it is one of my pet preoccupation, as two of my stories are related to insects and butterflies.
November 14, 2021
I think I've read every book in this series in this century. It is, for me, a great bedside book to end the day. It took me a while to finish this one, though. The choice of editor makes a big difference ... that makes sense. The editors seem to alternate between physicists and nature writers ... I guess also makes sense. In looking back over previous books, I prefer the physicists. I don't think they have fewer nature articles but it seems to me they are less political.
This book's editore is Sy Montgomery, a nature writer. As always, there are a few articles that stand out. the article on the incect apocolypse has really stuck with me. Insect population may have declined world wide by well over 70% in my lifetime. We really don't know because is really hasn't been measured until recently. The article refers to the "windshield test", that is, we don't clean our windshields after car trips like we used to. I have absolutely noticed this.
The article on Atlantic right whales is heart breaking. They require sound for communication and hunting and the noise pollution along the atlantic coast is leading to starvation and insanity. The unintended consequences of urban living is too complex to comprehend.
I'm looking forward to 2020, edited by Michio Kaku.
This book's editore is Sy Montgomery, a nature writer. As always, there are a few articles that stand out. the article on the incect apocolypse has really stuck with me. Insect population may have declined world wide by well over 70% in my lifetime. We really don't know because is really hasn't been measured until recently. The article refers to the "windshield test", that is, we don't clean our windshields after car trips like we used to. I have absolutely noticed this.
The article on Atlantic right whales is heart breaking. They require sound for communication and hunting and the noise pollution along the atlantic coast is leading to starvation and insanity. The unintended consequences of urban living is too complex to comprehend.
I'm looking forward to 2020, edited by Michio Kaku.
April 23, 2021
Been reading this off and on for over a year; finally finished it. Fascinating stories on a wide variety of interesting and often heartbreaking topics. (And I can’t believe Ed Yong, after his near-psychic reporting in “When the Next Plague Hits” (The Atlantic, summer 2018), didn’t publish a follow-up piece in early 2020 called “I Told You So”.)
February 5, 2020
This was a great collection of essays. If you can power through the sense of doom from the middle section without wanting to end it all, you will be rewarded with some lighter pieces at the end!
October 19, 2020
I loved this book, and will be buying the next one every year. I’m guilty of not reading all the magazines that pile up month after month, and I know that I’m missing important content. This volume collects the “best of” from periodicals far and wide, that I’d never normally find. I look forward to having a shelf in my library of consecutive yearly volumes. I have to assume that the other “Best American Series” books are equally satisfying?
May 13, 2020
Reads this was like sitting down with a stack of magazines and poking through the most interesting articles. Probably some of them I won't have read, but since they were in the book, I read them. If you more or less pay attention to science news there is nothing earth-shattering here, but there is some great writing. A couple of favorites were the articles about the science of paper jams and one very prescient article by Ed Yang about the coming pandemic.
December 15, 2019
Thirty pieces, including a couple dozen stories.
Each article in this book tells the story about a slice of the Earth, writes Jaime Green in her foreword. Science writing is political because it shows us how to care for the world and other people. Green wants this book to celebrate the power of telling stories of research and discovery, of human ingenuity as well as hope, wonder and dedication. Reading these pieces keeps our eyes open, writes Green, the series editor.
Science seeks truth about the world, writes Sy Montgomery in her introduction. She received a hundred longform journalism articles about science and nature. “This book is a cabinet of wonders,” says Montgomery, this year’s guest editor. Many forces conspire to suppress science, especially about pollution and climate change. The stories in this book serve as an antidote, speaking to our holy curiosity as Einstein called it. Emerge from reading these pages transfixed by wonder, bolstered by knowledge and inspired to help heal our fascinating, fractured world, Montgomery urges.
Five essays that stuck with me:
The Brain Reimagined, by Douglas Fox, from Scientific American. General anesthetics began in the eighteen forties. Each drug shuts down nerve functions in the same order: memory formation, pain sensation, consciousness then breathing.
The Endling: Watching a species vanish in real time, by Ben Goldfarb, from Pacific Standard. Endling, the last member of a species. In a hundred years, we lost the passenger pigeon, Tasmanian tiger and Pinta Island tortoise, among many others. The endling of a bashful porpoise, the vaquita, swims off the Mexican coast. Six hundred swam the Gulf twenty years ago.
What if the Placebo Effect is Not a Trick? by Gary Greenberg, from the NYT Magazine. The leading lights of placebo science crave mainstream acceptance. Chronic stress responds best to placebos when delivered by someone trustworthy. Depression, back pain, malaise and post-traumatic stress disorder respond to placebos as well as others on a growing list. The placebo effect suffers from a reputation as fake medicine doled out by the unscrupulous to the credulous. Functional magnetic resonance imaging and other surveillance techniques may reveal biochemical process to explain how placebos work and why they work more effectively for some people and some disorders. In the late fifties, a new way to evaluate drugs arose: the double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial.
The Fading Stars: A constellation, by Holly Haworth, from Lapham’s Quarterly. Four hundred years ago, news of the spyglass reached Galileo. The invention of the microscope and telescope around the same time allowed us to learn about the vast and the small. Galileo saw the universe as a mechanism to observe. The telescope brought the light of knowledge, illuminating the sky. This story tells of our advancing knowledge.
How Extreme Weather is Shrinking the Planet, by Bill McKibben, from The New Yorker. A well-documented horror story. Thirty years ago, the New Yorker published an article about what we then called the greenhouse effect. Signs appeared that human progress began to slow down. In the face of environmental deterioration, did the human game begin to falter, playing itself out? Until now, humans spread around the world. But a period of contraction set in as we lose parts of the habitable earth. Most of the slow pullback will happen along the world’s coastlines. Every year, twenty-four thousand people abandon the fertile Mekong Delta as salt pollutes the crops. “If anyone wants to question global recovery, just see where the flood zones are,” said Marty Walsh, Boston’s mayor. “Some of these zones did not flood twenty years ago.” The prediction became reality quicker than scientists warned while the slow response defies expectation. Three years ago, Stephen Hawking gave humanity a thousand years to leave Earth. Six months later he revised the timetable to a century.
Each article in this book tells the story about a slice of the Earth, writes Jaime Green in her foreword. Science writing is political because it shows us how to care for the world and other people. Green wants this book to celebrate the power of telling stories of research and discovery, of human ingenuity as well as hope, wonder and dedication. Reading these pieces keeps our eyes open, writes Green, the series editor.
Science seeks truth about the world, writes Sy Montgomery in her introduction. She received a hundred longform journalism articles about science and nature. “This book is a cabinet of wonders,” says Montgomery, this year’s guest editor. Many forces conspire to suppress science, especially about pollution and climate change. The stories in this book serve as an antidote, speaking to our holy curiosity as Einstein called it. Emerge from reading these pages transfixed by wonder, bolstered by knowledge and inspired to help heal our fascinating, fractured world, Montgomery urges.
Five essays that stuck with me:
The Brain Reimagined, by Douglas Fox, from Scientific American. General anesthetics began in the eighteen forties. Each drug shuts down nerve functions in the same order: memory formation, pain sensation, consciousness then breathing.
The Endling: Watching a species vanish in real time, by Ben Goldfarb, from Pacific Standard. Endling, the last member of a species. In a hundred years, we lost the passenger pigeon, Tasmanian tiger and Pinta Island tortoise, among many others. The endling of a bashful porpoise, the vaquita, swims off the Mexican coast. Six hundred swam the Gulf twenty years ago.
What if the Placebo Effect is Not a Trick? by Gary Greenberg, from the NYT Magazine. The leading lights of placebo science crave mainstream acceptance. Chronic stress responds best to placebos when delivered by someone trustworthy. Depression, back pain, malaise and post-traumatic stress disorder respond to placebos as well as others on a growing list. The placebo effect suffers from a reputation as fake medicine doled out by the unscrupulous to the credulous. Functional magnetic resonance imaging and other surveillance techniques may reveal biochemical process to explain how placebos work and why they work more effectively for some people and some disorders. In the late fifties, a new way to evaluate drugs arose: the double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial.
The Fading Stars: A constellation, by Holly Haworth, from Lapham’s Quarterly. Four hundred years ago, news of the spyglass reached Galileo. The invention of the microscope and telescope around the same time allowed us to learn about the vast and the small. Galileo saw the universe as a mechanism to observe. The telescope brought the light of knowledge, illuminating the sky. This story tells of our advancing knowledge.
How Extreme Weather is Shrinking the Planet, by Bill McKibben, from The New Yorker. A well-documented horror story. Thirty years ago, the New Yorker published an article about what we then called the greenhouse effect. Signs appeared that human progress began to slow down. In the face of environmental deterioration, did the human game begin to falter, playing itself out? Until now, humans spread around the world. But a period of contraction set in as we lose parts of the habitable earth. Most of the slow pullback will happen along the world’s coastlines. Every year, twenty-four thousand people abandon the fertile Mekong Delta as salt pollutes the crops. “If anyone wants to question global recovery, just see where the flood zones are,” said Marty Walsh, Boston’s mayor. “Some of these zones did not flood twenty years ago.” The prediction became reality quicker than scientists warned while the slow response defies expectation. Three years ago, Stephen Hawking gave humanity a thousand years to leave Earth. Six months later he revised the timetable to a century.
Currently reading
October 10, 2019First impression: a little disappointed. I like Sy Montgomery, so I was looking forward to this, but I read the first essay, which didn't do much to grab me. And then the second. They were fine essays, don't get me wrong, but I wasn't really sucked into the book. And then I realized that the pieces were simply sorted in alphabetical order. To me, who reads anthologies front to back rather than just dipping in, one of an anthologist's main tasks is organization. There's more to a good anthology than simply the selection of the right pieces. Whether stories are grouped thematically or not, there needs to be a flow. Good organization makes an anthology more than just the sum of its pieces -- and this is especially so in anthologies like this, where most of the essays are easily and freely accessible online.
The third essay, by Peter Brannen, was okay, but felt slight, especially having read this year's magnificent "The Anthropocene Is a Joke" by the same author. It wasn't until the fourth piece that I found myself really engaged and interested in this anthology.
I'll update this review with more discussion of the content once I've finished the book.
P.S. Here's a link to one of my own favorite bits of nature writing from 2018, which was not available for reprint in this book but which stuck in my imagination as much as anything I read last year: "Snarge" by Gary Kroll, collected in the anthology Future Remains: A Cabinet of Curiosities for the Anthropocene .
The third essay, by Peter Brannen, was okay, but felt slight, especially having read this year's magnificent "The Anthropocene Is a Joke" by the same author. It wasn't until the fourth piece that I found myself really engaged and interested in this anthology.
I'll update this review with more discussion of the content once I've finished the book.
P.S. Here's a link to one of my own favorite bits of nature writing from 2018, which was not available for reprint in this book but which stuck in my imagination as much as anything I read last year: "Snarge" by Gary Kroll, collected in the anthology Future Remains: A Cabinet of Curiosities for the Anthropocene .
August 26, 2020
I've only read one other in the Best American Science and Nature Writing series--2013 was decent--and I liked it then, so I checked out 2019. A good compilation even if I did not think all of them were spectacular enough to be the "Best". Still don't know to what degree a featured editor does except choose amongst what a series editor selects.
Snippets of my thoughts of each piece since I feel like getting some typing practice in today:
Philip Ball- A Compassionate Substance: Water does not have memory, Elsa of Arendell; stop supporting pseudoscience
Rebecca Boyle- The Search for Alien Life Begins in Earth's Oldest Desert: Earth has some areas that are tutorial mode for Mars exploration and extremeophile research is good for finding extraterrestrial life, probably
Peter Brannen- Glimpses of a Mass Extinction in Modern-Day Western New York: trilobites! otherwise, I don't remember much from this one
Chris Colin- This Sand is Your Sand Very funny and also navigable river water public rights just seem right based on my bias for the principle of the matter. Reminds me of rights of ways for walking paths.
Douglas Fox- The Brain, Reimagined: I now want a biologist to fight a physicist about neurons. Preferably in in a boxing ring.
Conor Gearin- Little Golden Flower-Room: On Wild Places and Intimacy: Good Hamlet quote--"I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams"--otherwise not for me but probably does something for someone.
Ben GoldFarb- The Endling: Watching a Species Vanish in Real Time: Lonesome George will always be my favorite endling mainly due to the straightforward name; vaquita means 'little cow'! Oh, my heart; it's adorable but not endearing enough for important people to rally for it and we're failing so hard to save it.
Gary Greenberg- What If the Placebo Effect Is Not a Trick? There is already money to be made in sugar pills; so many vitamin/supplements are full of sugar
Jeremy Hance- The Great Rhino U-Turn: I wonder if anyone has looked to see if Iron Storage Disease could be used to balance out the anemics in the human world
Holly Haworth- The Fading Stars: A Constellation: Did not like writer's writing style. Phrasing, please; the amount of times 'penetrate' is written about a feminized night sky is bit excessive or the usage of the original "milk'd" when Milton just wants his blind self to have his words transcribed as he dictated. Also, I am still mad that the Catholic Church put Galileo under house arrest for the theory of heliocentrism but then eventually accepted the theory. Not cool.
Eva Holland- Saving Baby Boy Green My heart sank when the mom was mentioned to have IVF and the only thing I know about it is its expensive and often leads to twins but the title *sadness*
Apricot Irving- The Fire at Eagle Creek: Good balance of multiple POVs in a clear timeline of disaster; also the young person who stupidly caused the fire with fireworks is going to live with this for the rest of their lives. oof
Rowan Jacobsen- Deleting a Species; Ehh, my old friend CRISPR; reminds me of a proposed gene editing situation in a book about mosquitoes I read once; Make those suckers sterile, and hopefully it does not cause everything to collapse
Brooke Jarvis- The Insect Apocalypse Is Here: How did I not know about this? Another thing that sucks to add to the suck list
Matt Jones- No Heart, No Moon: Distinctive writing style; good angle to explaining the extinction of a series directly and indirectly due to humanity
Kevin Krajick- The Scientific Detectives Probing the Secrets of Ancient Oracles: Rocks myth busters; basically the prophecy version of huffing paint
J.B. MacKinnon- You Really Don't Want to Know What It's Like to Be a Right Whale These Days: Brutal descriptions but great journalism; yep there's a duty of care in there somewhere, but I do not know what to do which would not be met by great resistance
Bill McKibben- How Extreme Weather Is Shrinking the Planet: Yeah, pretty much. U.S.' inaction and complicity is so sad and disappointing. Also, Exxon's role in the 'debate' of climate change and policy change about it is detestable. I still have a reliance of nonrenewable energy so I can't be all high and mighty, but, geez, the short-term profits and selfishness of denying the science is messed up.
Rebecca Mead- The Story of a Face: Very respectful reporting of a delicate subject; reminds me that surgery is fascinating, but I also don't have the guts to do it especially on the face; saw off some bone all day, but the thought of suturing some eyelids for a little bit just gives me the heebie geebies.
Molly Osberg- How to Not Die in America: Yeah, the U.S. healthcare system is definitely tread water or be thrown to the sharks with the chum. Real easy. Also, that's real bad luck with the rare strep strain.
Joshua Rothman- Why Paper Jams Persist: Even if Rothman mentioned it once, my head could only think of the Office Space movie scene smashing that cursed printer the way it deserves half the time
Jordan Michael Smith- The Professor of Horrible Deeds: Tough read; not sure I could have that much empathy for those type of people.
Shannon Stirone- Welcome to the Center of the Universe: Yep. NASA needs more funding; less than 1% of the annual budget, really? Still since I last heard that stat? Only a miracle or a freak accident could actually lead to a bigger budget.
Linda Villarosa- The Hidden Toll Racist society affects black mothers' and black babies' mortality rates. Because America. Still curious as how different doulas are from midwifes. More advocating than catching babies? Might look up some other time when it comes up again
Ed Yong- When the Next Plague Hits My dude, Ed Yong! I remember liking his writing in his book "I Contain Multitudes". Like others probably have mentioned by now, it is uncanny how accurate and prescient Yong's assessment of preparedness for the next and due plague was; especially America's probable reaction. Reading this after Covid-19 hit the U.S. is one way to appreciate the good reporting these writers do. Also, the Nebraska team watched Contagion together like 1/4 of the U.S. population did this Spring 2020. Article 15/Debrouillez-vous vs. nous sommes ensemble
Ilana Yurkiewicz: Paper Trails: Since I read a book by a health care systems person before reading this book, I was just nodding my head constantly because the exchange of Electronic Health Records helps with cross-coordinated care.
Glad good science writing is still surviving even if I am guilty of not reading it when it's fresh. Still a good series, but I would recommend jumping about in the articles to find the ones with topics that interest you unless you are like me and have fits of being a completionist.
Snippets of my thoughts of each piece since I feel like getting some typing practice in today:
Philip Ball- A Compassionate Substance: Water does not have memory, Elsa of Arendell; stop supporting pseudoscience
Rebecca Boyle- The Search for Alien Life Begins in Earth's Oldest Desert: Earth has some areas that are tutorial mode for Mars exploration and extremeophile research is good for finding extraterrestrial life, probably
Peter Brannen- Glimpses of a Mass Extinction in Modern-Day Western New York: trilobites! otherwise, I don't remember much from this one
Chris Colin- This Sand is Your Sand Very funny and also navigable river water public rights just seem right based on my bias for the principle of the matter. Reminds me of rights of ways for walking paths.
Douglas Fox- The Brain, Reimagined: I now want a biologist to fight a physicist about neurons. Preferably in in a boxing ring.
Conor Gearin- Little Golden Flower-Room: On Wild Places and Intimacy: Good Hamlet quote--"I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams"--otherwise not for me but probably does something for someone.
Ben GoldFarb- The Endling: Watching a Species Vanish in Real Time: Lonesome George will always be my favorite endling mainly due to the straightforward name; vaquita means 'little cow'! Oh, my heart; it's adorable but not endearing enough for important people to rally for it and we're failing so hard to save it.
Gary Greenberg- What If the Placebo Effect Is Not a Trick? There is already money to be made in sugar pills; so many vitamin/supplements are full of sugar
Jeremy Hance- The Great Rhino U-Turn: I wonder if anyone has looked to see if Iron Storage Disease could be used to balance out the anemics in the human world
Holly Haworth- The Fading Stars: A Constellation: Did not like writer's writing style. Phrasing, please; the amount of times 'penetrate' is written about a feminized night sky is bit excessive or the usage of the original "milk'd" when Milton just wants his blind self to have his words transcribed as he dictated. Also, I am still mad that the Catholic Church put Galileo under house arrest for the theory of heliocentrism but then eventually accepted the theory. Not cool.
Eva Holland- Saving Baby Boy Green My heart sank when the mom was mentioned to have IVF and the only thing I know about it is its expensive and often leads to twins but the title *sadness*
Apricot Irving- The Fire at Eagle Creek: Good balance of multiple POVs in a clear timeline of disaster; also the young person who stupidly caused the fire with fireworks is going to live with this for the rest of their lives. oof
Rowan Jacobsen- Deleting a Species; Ehh, my old friend CRISPR; reminds me of a proposed gene editing situation in a book about mosquitoes I read once; Make those suckers sterile, and hopefully it does not cause everything to collapse
Brooke Jarvis- The Insect Apocalypse Is Here: How did I not know about this? Another thing that sucks to add to the suck list
Matt Jones- No Heart, No Moon: Distinctive writing style; good angle to explaining the extinction of a series directly and indirectly due to humanity
Kevin Krajick- The Scientific Detectives Probing the Secrets of Ancient Oracles: Rocks myth busters; basically the prophecy version of huffing paint
J.B. MacKinnon- You Really Don't Want to Know What It's Like to Be a Right Whale These Days: Brutal descriptions but great journalism; yep there's a duty of care in there somewhere, but I do not know what to do which would not be met by great resistance
Bill McKibben- How Extreme Weather Is Shrinking the Planet: Yeah, pretty much. U.S.' inaction and complicity is so sad and disappointing. Also, Exxon's role in the 'debate' of climate change and policy change about it is detestable. I still have a reliance of nonrenewable energy so I can't be all high and mighty, but, geez, the short-term profits and selfishness of denying the science is messed up.
Rebecca Mead- The Story of a Face: Very respectful reporting of a delicate subject; reminds me that surgery is fascinating, but I also don't have the guts to do it especially on the face; saw off some bone all day, but the thought of suturing some eyelids for a little bit just gives me the heebie geebies.
Molly Osberg- How to Not Die in America: Yeah, the U.S. healthcare system is definitely tread water or be thrown to the sharks with the chum. Real easy. Also, that's real bad luck with the rare strep strain.
Joshua Rothman- Why Paper Jams Persist: Even if Rothman mentioned it once, my head could only think of the Office Space movie scene smashing that cursed printer the way it deserves half the time
Jordan Michael Smith- The Professor of Horrible Deeds: Tough read; not sure I could have that much empathy for those type of people.
Shannon Stirone- Welcome to the Center of the Universe: Yep. NASA needs more funding; less than 1% of the annual budget, really? Still since I last heard that stat? Only a miracle or a freak accident could actually lead to a bigger budget.
Linda Villarosa- The Hidden Toll Racist society affects black mothers' and black babies' mortality rates. Because America. Still curious as how different doulas are from midwifes. More advocating than catching babies? Might look up some other time when it comes up again
Ed Yong- When the Next Plague Hits My dude, Ed Yong! I remember liking his writing in his book "I Contain Multitudes". Like others probably have mentioned by now, it is uncanny how accurate and prescient Yong's assessment of preparedness for the next and due plague was; especially America's probable reaction. Reading this after Covid-19 hit the U.S. is one way to appreciate the good reporting these writers do. Also, the Nebraska team watched Contagion together like 1/4 of the U.S. population did this Spring 2020. Article 15/Debrouillez-vous vs. nous sommes ensemble
Ilana Yurkiewicz: Paper Trails: Since I read a book by a health care systems person before reading this book, I was just nodding my head constantly because the exchange of Electronic Health Records helps with cross-coordinated care.
Glad good science writing is still surviving even if I am guilty of not reading it when it's fresh. Still a good series, but I would recommend jumping about in the articles to find the ones with topics that interest you unless you are like me and have fits of being a completionist.
March 29, 2020
It sounded promising based on the Foreword by new series editor Jaime Green, but I felt like the selections weren't as strong as previous years. Some articles were very good. I finished reading this while "sheltering in place" during the coronavirus pandemic, and so Ed Yong's article "When the Next Plague Hits" was particularly timely and scary.
January 12, 2020
Now that I've read several of these collections I can confidently say that the editor goes a very long way in contributing to my enjoyment of the readings. And yes, that should be beyond obvious from the beginning, but my appetite for current science-related writing can sometimes overtake common sense and a little extra work to check on the writing of the editor of said collection. Had I read more Sy Montgomery I would have been less likely to purchase the 2019 collection. I find her books for adults rather boring and as such, really wasn't that excited about the pieces she chose to include for this book. So it goes. Interesting science, but in the case of this particular collection, not a fun read for me.
February 12, 2020
This particular series gets darker and darker as our clueless government and their minions continue to deny, and cut funding to, science. But it's an important volume. My favorite articles were "The Great Rhino U-Turn" by Jeremy Hance, "How Not to Die in America" by Molly Osberg, "The Hidden Toll" by Linda Villarosa, "Deleting a Species" by Rowan Jacobsen, and "Paper Trails: Living & Dying with Fragmented Medical Records" by Ilena Yurkiewicz.
October 26, 2019
Damn this series gets darker every year as nature becomes more imperiled and science more omniscient. Always excellent nonetheless..
February 17, 2021
I have two confessions to make:
1. For the last few years, I have been hoarding books.
This is a really common meme among anybody who reads. “Oh, I have so many books, haha… but what does one more hurt?” It’s a common thing, sure, but it has led to me developing a legitimately unwieldy library, both in terms of physical books and ebooks. This year, to help combat this tumorous collectoin, I’m trying to tackle my kindle library in alphabetical order (or as the kindle defines alphabetical order). For whatever reason, this book was listed first, and so I dived right in on January 1st. This leads me to my second confession:
2. As much as I enjoy thinking about it, I have an aversion to science itself.
Now, what do I mean by this? Surely I can’t mean that I’m anti-science? Well, I certainly wouldn't describe myself that way. I have spent a lot of my life considering the natural world, wondering about how different physical objects and relationships work, worry about the health of the planet and myself. I’m concerned about climate change and wish to combat it by changing elements of my personal life (and society, to the extent that I am about to do that). What I mean by this is that I think that my prior experience with science has led me to develop an intuitive sense of how the world works. I know enough of the basics of physics/chemistry/biology that I can guess my way to an answer to questions that feels satisfying to me. As such, actually sitting down and reading about science has rarely seemed very appealing to me.
So imagine my surprise when this collection connected so strongly with me. It includes some extremely engaging essays on a wealth of different scientific topics. These topics range in tone from bright explorations into the unknown to serious discussions of heavy topics. The through-line here is the quality of the writing: all of these essays effectively take on the form of high-quality journalism. This way of framing scientific writing totally opens up the field to me! I feel like I can engage and enjoy these pieces both on their own merits as essays and as basic pedagogical tools to understand the world around me a bit better.
While a lot of the fun of this book comes from the “everything goes” nature of it there are naturally some pieces that are stronger than others. My favorites:
“When the Next Plague Hits” by Ed Yong. Hard not to walk away from this one with your mouth agape after living through the last year. Extremely prescient writing. Yong’s book on microbes was a favorite audiobook experience last year, too!
“The Endling” and “No Heart, No Moon” deal with extinct species. One of them made me cry—can’t remember which. They both have that energy, though. A few other essays deal with similar topics, or focus on the impact of climate change on the world. These are topics that I think about often as is, so while I did find these pieces enlightening and useful, I didn’t necessarily find any of them to be groundbreaking. The personal portrait of a sole-surviving member of a species will always be a gut punch, though.
“The Search for Alien Life Beings in Earth’s Oldest Desert” was really inspiring to me. I don’t think about space as much as I used to, but this discussion of some of the most extreme environments on our own planet made me feel some of the same wonder I did when I was a kid. “Welcome to the Center of the Universe” evoked similar feelings in me. I spent a few hours on Wikipedia reading about various NASA probes after reading that piece.
“This Sand is Your Sand” made me laugh! It’s an important topic (Who has the right to use our public waterways? Who gatekeeps these rights?) but the presentation and framing makes this farcically dramatic.
“The Story of a Face” hit me close to home. As someone who has not only spent a solid amount of time wondering about and questioning my own gender identity BUT ALSO has had many friends come out as trans in the last few years, Abby’s story here was relatable and touching.
“How Not to Die In America” and “Paper Trials: Living and Dying with Fragmented Medical Records” go together very well, and “The Hidden Toll: Why are Black Mothers and Babies in the United States Dying at More Than Double the Rate of White Mothers and Babies…” also lends more clarity to the discussion. All three of these articles describe different failings of our awfully designed medical system. Depressing to read but ultimately important to get a fuller picture of just how supremely destructive and ineffectual our system is.
Overall, this is well worth the read. In some ways, it makes me miss the heyday of magazines… then again, I suppose there’s nothing stopping me from getting a subscription to one of the mags listed here? Regardless, I think I’ll make this anthology a yearly read from here on out.
1. For the last few years, I have been hoarding books.
This is a really common meme among anybody who reads. “Oh, I have so many books, haha… but what does one more hurt?” It’s a common thing, sure, but it has led to me developing a legitimately unwieldy library, both in terms of physical books and ebooks. This year, to help combat this tumorous collectoin, I’m trying to tackle my kindle library in alphabetical order (or as the kindle defines alphabetical order). For whatever reason, this book was listed first, and so I dived right in on January 1st. This leads me to my second confession:
2. As much as I enjoy thinking about it, I have an aversion to science itself.
Now, what do I mean by this? Surely I can’t mean that I’m anti-science? Well, I certainly wouldn't describe myself that way. I have spent a lot of my life considering the natural world, wondering about how different physical objects and relationships work, worry about the health of the planet and myself. I’m concerned about climate change and wish to combat it by changing elements of my personal life (and society, to the extent that I am about to do that). What I mean by this is that I think that my prior experience with science has led me to develop an intuitive sense of how the world works. I know enough of the basics of physics/chemistry/biology that I can guess my way to an answer to questions that feels satisfying to me. As such, actually sitting down and reading about science has rarely seemed very appealing to me.
So imagine my surprise when this collection connected so strongly with me. It includes some extremely engaging essays on a wealth of different scientific topics. These topics range in tone from bright explorations into the unknown to serious discussions of heavy topics. The through-line here is the quality of the writing: all of these essays effectively take on the form of high-quality journalism. This way of framing scientific writing totally opens up the field to me! I feel like I can engage and enjoy these pieces both on their own merits as essays and as basic pedagogical tools to understand the world around me a bit better.
While a lot of the fun of this book comes from the “everything goes” nature of it there are naturally some pieces that are stronger than others. My favorites:
“When the Next Plague Hits” by Ed Yong. Hard not to walk away from this one with your mouth agape after living through the last year. Extremely prescient writing. Yong’s book on microbes was a favorite audiobook experience last year, too!
“The Endling” and “No Heart, No Moon” deal with extinct species. One of them made me cry—can’t remember which. They both have that energy, though. A few other essays deal with similar topics, or focus on the impact of climate change on the world. These are topics that I think about often as is, so while I did find these pieces enlightening and useful, I didn’t necessarily find any of them to be groundbreaking. The personal portrait of a sole-surviving member of a species will always be a gut punch, though.
“The Search for Alien Life Beings in Earth’s Oldest Desert” was really inspiring to me. I don’t think about space as much as I used to, but this discussion of some of the most extreme environments on our own planet made me feel some of the same wonder I did when I was a kid. “Welcome to the Center of the Universe” evoked similar feelings in me. I spent a few hours on Wikipedia reading about various NASA probes after reading that piece.
“This Sand is Your Sand” made me laugh! It’s an important topic (Who has the right to use our public waterways? Who gatekeeps these rights?) but the presentation and framing makes this farcically dramatic.
“The Story of a Face” hit me close to home. As someone who has not only spent a solid amount of time wondering about and questioning my own gender identity BUT ALSO has had many friends come out as trans in the last few years, Abby’s story here was relatable and touching.
“How Not to Die In America” and “Paper Trials: Living and Dying with Fragmented Medical Records” go together very well, and “The Hidden Toll: Why are Black Mothers and Babies in the United States Dying at More Than Double the Rate of White Mothers and Babies…” also lends more clarity to the discussion. All three of these articles describe different failings of our awfully designed medical system. Depressing to read but ultimately important to get a fuller picture of just how supremely destructive and ineffectual our system is.
Overall, this is well worth the read. In some ways, it makes me miss the heyday of magazines… then again, I suppose there’s nothing stopping me from getting a subscription to one of the mags listed here? Regardless, I think I’ll make this anthology a yearly read from here on out.
October 4, 2020
This collection is a much more serious set that some I have read in the past. By this I mean there is little fun science, this deals with some very serious subject matter that has long standing ramifications. I suppose with the tenor of the times we would expect nothing less
The articles that stuck with me included
Peter Brannen’s The New Yorker article “ Glimpses of a Mass Extinction in Modern Day Western New York “ where the author travels into the area and makes topographical notes and demonstrates examples that show the area was once part of an ocean.
“ This Sand is Your Sand “ reviews maritime law as it relates to navigable rivers. In short all riverfront property is public up to the high water mark if the river is classified as a river of commerce. This is not enforced in the same way from town to town, or region or state. Still, anytime a case has made its way through the courts the principle holds. Think of all the private beachfront property along rivers and realize how few people realize what they do and don’t own
Ben Goldfarb writes “ The Endling, Watching a Species Die in Real Time “ which focuses on vaquitas and their pending extinction. A small porpoise that lives in the Gulf of California. They are being wiped out by fishing, not for them, but the nets used for other fish
Gary Greenberg explores “ What if the Placebo Effect is Not a Trick “. In this exploration evidence of offered of the veracity of the use of placebos but also theorizes it is the act of caring and consideration that maximizes the effect
Jeremy Hance writes “ The Great Rhino U Turn “ telling of the long efforts by those at The Cincinnati Zoo to breed the Sumatran Rhino in captivity
“ The Fire at Eagle Creek “ by Apricot Irving is especially timely as fires currently and constantly ravage our West Coast.
In “ Deleting a Species “ by Rowan Jacobsen explores the dilemmas brought about by the new Crisper Gene Splicer and speaks to its potential benefits as well as the risk of unforeseen consequences of using it. There are so many sides to this but one always comes to down to science being used by those in power for aims that become warped by their own desires
“ Brooke Jarvis “ writes “ The Insect Apocalypse is Here “ which explores the apparent mass loss of insects around the world. Not so much extinction but loss of quantity across the board. And, for those who sit outside on a spring night and think that cannot be a bad thing, we are assured it is indeed very bad.
J.B Mackinnon writes “ You Really Don’t Want to Know What It’s Like Being a Right Whale These Days “ and it is a terrible story. Living in an area of The East where fisherman fight the limits placed in equipment etc to protect these whales and them to read what is happening to them is brutal. Some of the greatest beings ever, maybe as “ human “ as us in many ways and we are using every way possible to destroy them.
In the last few years I’ve gotten sadly used to reading doomsday articles by Bill Mckibben about the environment. “ How Extreme Weather is Shrinking the Planet “ is one of the more rage inducing. The sections where we learn what Exxon knew about climate change and then lied and obfuscated repeatedly to protect their profits is just beyond comprehension. And of course Dr Evil himself Dick Cheney plays a part
Rebecca Mead is one of our great writers no matter the subject. In her “ The Story of a Face “ we follow a plastic surgeon who specializes in facial feminization surgery for Transgender Women. It really is quite amazing.
Molly Osberg recounts “ How Not to Die in America” a timely look at the wreck of our unbalanced, uneven, and unfair , healthcare system. Brutal but effective
“ The Hidden Toll “ by Linda Villarosa explores in detail the disparity in both care and result of black women and babies through the whole maternal process. The numbers make clear that it is the act of being black itself that has much to do with results than anything else, including economic status, age, or a disparate range of factors. Introduces the concept of weathering as a factor
With a host of great medical writers Ed Yong might be our best. “ When the Next Pandemic Hits “ written long before our Covid crisis becomes a post mortem of everything we have done wrong, could have done differently, and makes clear it did not have to be this way.
This collection covers some incredibly frustrating topics. Healthcare, Global Warming, Racism and of course the Pandemic.
The emotion it should induce is rage. It succeeds
The articles that stuck with me included
Peter Brannen’s The New Yorker article “ Glimpses of a Mass Extinction in Modern Day Western New York “ where the author travels into the area and makes topographical notes and demonstrates examples that show the area was once part of an ocean.
“ This Sand is Your Sand “ reviews maritime law as it relates to navigable rivers. In short all riverfront property is public up to the high water mark if the river is classified as a river of commerce. This is not enforced in the same way from town to town, or region or state. Still, anytime a case has made its way through the courts the principle holds. Think of all the private beachfront property along rivers and realize how few people realize what they do and don’t own
Ben Goldfarb writes “ The Endling, Watching a Species Die in Real Time “ which focuses on vaquitas and their pending extinction. A small porpoise that lives in the Gulf of California. They are being wiped out by fishing, not for them, but the nets used for other fish
Gary Greenberg explores “ What if the Placebo Effect is Not a Trick “. In this exploration evidence of offered of the veracity of the use of placebos but also theorizes it is the act of caring and consideration that maximizes the effect
Jeremy Hance writes “ The Great Rhino U Turn “ telling of the long efforts by those at The Cincinnati Zoo to breed the Sumatran Rhino in captivity
“ The Fire at Eagle Creek “ by Apricot Irving is especially timely as fires currently and constantly ravage our West Coast.
In “ Deleting a Species “ by Rowan Jacobsen explores the dilemmas brought about by the new Crisper Gene Splicer and speaks to its potential benefits as well as the risk of unforeseen consequences of using it. There are so many sides to this but one always comes to down to science being used by those in power for aims that become warped by their own desires
“ Brooke Jarvis “ writes “ The Insect Apocalypse is Here “ which explores the apparent mass loss of insects around the world. Not so much extinction but loss of quantity across the board. And, for those who sit outside on a spring night and think that cannot be a bad thing, we are assured it is indeed very bad.
J.B Mackinnon writes “ You Really Don’t Want to Know What It’s Like Being a Right Whale These Days “ and it is a terrible story. Living in an area of The East where fisherman fight the limits placed in equipment etc to protect these whales and them to read what is happening to them is brutal. Some of the greatest beings ever, maybe as “ human “ as us in many ways and we are using every way possible to destroy them.
In the last few years I’ve gotten sadly used to reading doomsday articles by Bill Mckibben about the environment. “ How Extreme Weather is Shrinking the Planet “ is one of the more rage inducing. The sections where we learn what Exxon knew about climate change and then lied and obfuscated repeatedly to protect their profits is just beyond comprehension. And of course Dr Evil himself Dick Cheney plays a part
Rebecca Mead is one of our great writers no matter the subject. In her “ The Story of a Face “ we follow a plastic surgeon who specializes in facial feminization surgery for Transgender Women. It really is quite amazing.
Molly Osberg recounts “ How Not to Die in America” a timely look at the wreck of our unbalanced, uneven, and unfair , healthcare system. Brutal but effective
“ The Hidden Toll “ by Linda Villarosa explores in detail the disparity in both care and result of black women and babies through the whole maternal process. The numbers make clear that it is the act of being black itself that has much to do with results than anything else, including economic status, age, or a disparate range of factors. Introduces the concept of weathering as a factor
With a host of great medical writers Ed Yong might be our best. “ When the Next Pandemic Hits “ written long before our Covid crisis becomes a post mortem of everything we have done wrong, could have done differently, and makes clear it did not have to be this way.
This collection covers some incredibly frustrating topics. Healthcare, Global Warming, Racism and of course the Pandemic.
The emotion it should induce is rage. It succeeds
June 14, 2021
Usually, when I pick up an edition of the Best American Science and Nature Writing, I devour it in one sitting. I read this one for many weeks with long gaps in between.
One mental hump I had was with the title of the edition. This was mostly the “Best American Health and Nature Writing”, because a majority of the articles were about nature or health, or nature and health. Occasionally, there was an article about technology (eg: about NASA's Deep Space Network, or Printer paper jams), but they were far and few between.
Then, some of the articles were descriptive, but not detailed. They were eloquently written and persuasive, but often, I found myself getting impatient to get to the meat of the stories. As a vegetarian, this is what I imagine eating fish on the bones feels like. Depending on who you ask, it’s either cumbersome or joyous. For me, the bone came in the way of the enjoyment. The bone here was the occassional bad example or oversimplification or hasty conclusion. I had to try not to let the fallacies come in the way of the overall story! This wasn’t always easy.
But, over the years, I’ve come to appreciate how much each collection of the Best American Science and Nature Writing is representative of the Editor’s taste.
For instance, Siddhartha Mukherjee’s choices are packed with facts and verities. You are not spoon-fed what to think or how to feel, but spend all your time soul-searching as you read the essays. So you come out of each one with both new knowledge and ways to think about different topics.
Rebecca Skloot chose articles that humanized science. They compel you to act and contribute to change!
Montgomery’s choices are ‘journey’ focussed. So you spend as much time discovering the places and people, as you do the work. It required a lot more patience from me. I am not that reader who can skip through lines, even if they are tedious. But, I am glad to have sat through this one.
Once I came to terms with the fact that the articles are mostly about nature and health, I was impressed with the range. She touched on everything from extinction, to gene editing, to early life in the Atacama desert, to the consequences of the space race, hydrocarbon gases in the environment putting oracles in a trance… I learned that a lot of environmental issues need a grand approach and real experts to solve them through scientific inquiries. There is a lot that environmental activists do too, but in Montgomery’s picks, the scientists are the real heroes. She helped me appreciate the scale and scope of their work. Some stories and articles are borderline repetitive (eg: about the land purchased by NASA). When read together, you feel like the magazine is belaboring the same point, but those stories are presented in different contexts, so it’s only coincidental that they share the same examples.
The health articles were powerful too. I was quite shaken when I read the one about the high child and maternal mortality rates among African Americans. The one on sexual deviancies and disorders changed how I look at people who do perverse acts of sex. The one on 21st-century epidemics made me realize how blind we have all been to the pandemics around us until one directly hit close to home. The articles on how one can become incapacitated during a medical crisis either because of the costs or paper trails made me anxious. The one on feminization surgeries left me with as many ethical questions as answers.
If you’re willing to be patient, there’s a lot of learning here. If you enjoy descriptive writing, you’ll find this to be a real treat! But, if you’re looking for ‘detail’, not all articles will satisfy you, but there’s enough there to keep you engaged and wanting more. And if you are one of those who distrusts scientific articles with flowery detail, some of the articles will test you, even though the articles are evidence-based. Don’t let one unsound argument topple the whole article.
If you want to start with the environment-focussed articles, start from the front to back. If you want to start with the health articles, go from back to front.
(Note: Some of the original articles come with pictures. So I googled each article and read them on their websites. I hope the magazine finds a way to incorporate pictures in the newer editions).
One mental hump I had was with the title of the edition. This was mostly the “Best American Health and Nature Writing”, because a majority of the articles were about nature or health, or nature and health. Occasionally, there was an article about technology (eg: about NASA's Deep Space Network, or Printer paper jams), but they were far and few between.
Then, some of the articles were descriptive, but not detailed. They were eloquently written and persuasive, but often, I found myself getting impatient to get to the meat of the stories. As a vegetarian, this is what I imagine eating fish on the bones feels like. Depending on who you ask, it’s either cumbersome or joyous. For me, the bone came in the way of the enjoyment. The bone here was the occassional bad example or oversimplification or hasty conclusion. I had to try not to let the fallacies come in the way of the overall story! This wasn’t always easy.
But, over the years, I’ve come to appreciate how much each collection of the Best American Science and Nature Writing is representative of the Editor’s taste.
For instance, Siddhartha Mukherjee’s choices are packed with facts and verities. You are not spoon-fed what to think or how to feel, but spend all your time soul-searching as you read the essays. So you come out of each one with both new knowledge and ways to think about different topics.
Rebecca Skloot chose articles that humanized science. They compel you to act and contribute to change!
Montgomery’s choices are ‘journey’ focussed. So you spend as much time discovering the places and people, as you do the work. It required a lot more patience from me. I am not that reader who can skip through lines, even if they are tedious. But, I am glad to have sat through this one.
Once I came to terms with the fact that the articles are mostly about nature and health, I was impressed with the range. She touched on everything from extinction, to gene editing, to early life in the Atacama desert, to the consequences of the space race, hydrocarbon gases in the environment putting oracles in a trance… I learned that a lot of environmental issues need a grand approach and real experts to solve them through scientific inquiries. There is a lot that environmental activists do too, but in Montgomery’s picks, the scientists are the real heroes. She helped me appreciate the scale and scope of their work. Some stories and articles are borderline repetitive (eg: about the land purchased by NASA). When read together, you feel like the magazine is belaboring the same point, but those stories are presented in different contexts, so it’s only coincidental that they share the same examples.
The health articles were powerful too. I was quite shaken when I read the one about the high child and maternal mortality rates among African Americans. The one on sexual deviancies and disorders changed how I look at people who do perverse acts of sex. The one on 21st-century epidemics made me realize how blind we have all been to the pandemics around us until one directly hit close to home. The articles on how one can become incapacitated during a medical crisis either because of the costs or paper trails made me anxious. The one on feminization surgeries left me with as many ethical questions as answers.
If you’re willing to be patient, there’s a lot of learning here. If you enjoy descriptive writing, you’ll find this to be a real treat! But, if you’re looking for ‘detail’, not all articles will satisfy you, but there’s enough there to keep you engaged and wanting more. And if you are one of those who distrusts scientific articles with flowery detail, some of the articles will test you, even though the articles are evidence-based. Don’t let one unsound argument topple the whole article.
If you want to start with the environment-focussed articles, start from the front to back. If you want to start with the health articles, go from back to front.
(Note: Some of the original articles come with pictures. So I googled each article and read them on their websites. I hope the magazine finds a way to incorporate pictures in the newer editions).
May 18, 2020
I always love the breadth of these volumes and how they help me keep abreast of some of the latest scientific developments. They’re never technical, which is helpful because I’m not either. That being said, some of these essays are really, really good and engaging and informative. Others, not. There didn’t seem to be many in between.
It seems to be obligatory for these volumes to always contain several stories regarding certain favored topics. Not that these aren’t important topics, but it sometimes seems forced, as though there must be at least one or two on endangered species and one or two on climate change or (jackpot!) the effect of climate change on endangered species. It also seems to help to be slightly alarmist. This volume has its share of them, but they are still of interest.
One thing I have learned reading the Best American Science and Nature Writing series is that all scientists (at least in their own estimation) do very, very important work with planetary, species-survival-level consequences, and all of them need money. Lots of money. Now. Or else. I truly have sympathy for those who must dole out the limited funding available among so many doing such important work. How can they decide?
My favorites from this year’s entries were:
When the Next Plague Hits by Ed Yong. Oh my goodness, how prescient! Written well before coronavirus hit anywhere, this essay lays out exactly what has happened in its wake. The need for masks and other PPE as well as ventilators. His comments on how the president could help or hinder the efforts to combat a pandemic are spot on.
Why Paper Jams Persist by Joshua Rothman. Yes, an entire article on one of the primary banes of an office-dweller’s existence. This is a fascinating look at the teams of scientists who solve the myriad problems that cause (and will always cause) paper jams. Who knew?
Saving Baby Boy Green by Eva Holland. This one spoke to me because my wife worked in a NICU for years and it reminds me so much of her experiences there. It’s amazing what progress has been made in saving such tiny lives.
This Sand is Your Sand by Chris Colin. I didn’t expect an article about riparian rights along America’s western rivers to be so interesting. The law seems clear, but no one seems to care.
Deleting a Species by Rowan Jacobsen. Using CRISPR to modify insects, like mosquitoes, to help kill off an entire species. What could go wrong?
It seems to be obligatory for these volumes to always contain several stories regarding certain favored topics. Not that these aren’t important topics, but it sometimes seems forced, as though there must be at least one or two on endangered species and one or two on climate change or (jackpot!) the effect of climate change on endangered species. It also seems to help to be slightly alarmist. This volume has its share of them, but they are still of interest.
One thing I have learned reading the Best American Science and Nature Writing series is that all scientists (at least in their own estimation) do very, very important work with planetary, species-survival-level consequences, and all of them need money. Lots of money. Now. Or else. I truly have sympathy for those who must dole out the limited funding available among so many doing such important work. How can they decide?
My favorites from this year’s entries were:
When the Next Plague Hits by Ed Yong. Oh my goodness, how prescient! Written well before coronavirus hit anywhere, this essay lays out exactly what has happened in its wake. The need for masks and other PPE as well as ventilators. His comments on how the president could help or hinder the efforts to combat a pandemic are spot on.
Why Paper Jams Persist by Joshua Rothman. Yes, an entire article on one of the primary banes of an office-dweller’s existence. This is a fascinating look at the teams of scientists who solve the myriad problems that cause (and will always cause) paper jams. Who knew?
Saving Baby Boy Green by Eva Holland. This one spoke to me because my wife worked in a NICU for years and it reminds me so much of her experiences there. It’s amazing what progress has been made in saving such tiny lives.
This Sand is Your Sand by Chris Colin. I didn’t expect an article about riparian rights along America’s western rivers to be so interesting. The law seems clear, but no one seems to care.
Deleting a Species by Rowan Jacobsen. Using CRISPR to modify insects, like mosquitoes, to help kill off an entire species. What could go wrong?
March 28, 2020
I like science. Scientists spend their lives trying to answer questions about the world we live in and, in their endeavors, come up with even more interesting questions to explore. Scientists often are seeking answers to big questions such as; how do we think, what are stars are made of, where does life come from, and are we alone in the universe. The spin-off of this research often results in products that make life more enjoyable and long lasting.
I grew up doing the space race and science was everywhere. So many of the things you now take for granted were spinoffs from NASA - microwaves, ear thermometers, LASIK, solar cells, DustBusters, even your TEMPUR foam mattress. For some reason science seems to be “out” at the moment. Our current president seems to be science phobic but the lack of interest in science precedes him. Writing this review as the Coronavirus is sweeping across the globe emphasizes our need for science and I’m glad so many people decided to pursue the scientific fields.
In picking up The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2019 I had hoped to find a book that would get people excited about science. While this book contains many well-written and interesting articles, many of first ones focus on more negative issues. It isn’t the articles so much as the order in which they are presented that I object to. Perhaps if the editor had started out with the one on paper jams rather than on “raw water” it might have made the book more engaging from the start.
As you continue to read you will find this book full of fascinating stories, and science. You will learn about premies, racial differences in the deaths of mothers and babies in child birth, and the role of doulas. You will learn about river access rights, forest fires, the search for aliens, and the problem with medical records. The story about how ill prepared the US is for a pandemic was right on point two years before our current illness.
If you are into a broad sweep of scientific stories you will enjoy this book. If you are just testing out the scientific waters feel free to skip articles that you don’t find of interest as there are many that I’m sure will grab your attention. Personally, I’m looking forward to next year’s edition!
I grew up doing the space race and science was everywhere. So many of the things you now take for granted were spinoffs from NASA - microwaves, ear thermometers, LASIK, solar cells, DustBusters, even your TEMPUR foam mattress. For some reason science seems to be “out” at the moment. Our current president seems to be science phobic but the lack of interest in science precedes him. Writing this review as the Coronavirus is sweeping across the globe emphasizes our need for science and I’m glad so many people decided to pursue the scientific fields.
In picking up The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2019 I had hoped to find a book that would get people excited about science. While this book contains many well-written and interesting articles, many of first ones focus on more negative issues. It isn’t the articles so much as the order in which they are presented that I object to. Perhaps if the editor had started out with the one on paper jams rather than on “raw water” it might have made the book more engaging from the start.
As you continue to read you will find this book full of fascinating stories, and science. You will learn about premies, racial differences in the deaths of mothers and babies in child birth, and the role of doulas. You will learn about river access rights, forest fires, the search for aliens, and the problem with medical records. The story about how ill prepared the US is for a pandemic was right on point two years before our current illness.
If you are into a broad sweep of scientific stories you will enjoy this book. If you are just testing out the scientific waters feel free to skip articles that you don’t find of interest as there are many that I’m sure will grab your attention. Personally, I’m looking forward to next year’s edition!
March 9, 2020
“Science improves our lives. Science makes money. Science can help us heal our broken world,” writes Sy Montgomery in the introduction. Science also quenches our “thirst for discovery.”
This intersectional view of science is what makes these collections so great: how we can read about epidemics, space flight, birth rates, and land rights all in one book. It also reflects one of the most pressing issues of our time, climate change, and the far-reaching impacts of it, stretching from economics to society to mental health to, perhaps above all, politics.
“Science is political because politicians hold the power to make meaningful change,” writes Jaime Green in the foreword. “Science writing is political because it shows us how to care about other people, and the world.”
A couple of my favorites: “This Sand is Your Sand,” which tackles the rivalries and tension over public land use; “Little Golden Flower Room,” which blends the intimate nature of urban landscapes with that of our own personal relationships; “No Heart, No Moon,” which chronicles both the development of Disney World and the Kennedy Space Center, and how our relationships with places doesn’t have to be rooted in the notion of fate; “You Don’t Want to Know What It’s Like to Be a Right Whale These Days,” which talks of the threats right whales face and depicts in graphic detail some of their worst sufferings; “How Extreme Weather Is Shrinking the Planet,” which is a classic McKibben joint for the 2010s and ‘20s; and “When the Next Plague Hits,” a poignant, disturbing portrait of how we respond to epidemics and how unprepared we very well may be when the next one hits.
Unsurprisingly, as happens every time I read these books, I’m tempted to go back to previous years and see the good content I have missed.
This intersectional view of science is what makes these collections so great: how we can read about epidemics, space flight, birth rates, and land rights all in one book. It also reflects one of the most pressing issues of our time, climate change, and the far-reaching impacts of it, stretching from economics to society to mental health to, perhaps above all, politics.
“Science is political because politicians hold the power to make meaningful change,” writes Jaime Green in the foreword. “Science writing is political because it shows us how to care about other people, and the world.”
A couple of my favorites: “This Sand is Your Sand,” which tackles the rivalries and tension over public land use; “Little Golden Flower Room,” which blends the intimate nature of urban landscapes with that of our own personal relationships; “No Heart, No Moon,” which chronicles both the development of Disney World and the Kennedy Space Center, and how our relationships with places doesn’t have to be rooted in the notion of fate; “You Don’t Want to Know What It’s Like to Be a Right Whale These Days,” which talks of the threats right whales face and depicts in graphic detail some of their worst sufferings; “How Extreme Weather Is Shrinking the Planet,” which is a classic McKibben joint for the 2010s and ‘20s; and “When the Next Plague Hits,” a poignant, disturbing portrait of how we respond to epidemics and how unprepared we very well may be when the next one hits.
Unsurprisingly, as happens every time I read these books, I’m tempted to go back to previous years and see the good content I have missed.
May 24, 2021
It is surprising how many science disciplines might be concerned, even though only tangentially, with studies of the placebo effect -- psychology, neurscience, medical science, pharmacology, and philosophy. Beause of all the reports of new drugs tests that failed against placebo, our thinking is now accustomed to discard the placebo effect as something bad -- a "fake medicine" and altogether undesirable.
For a failed drug we can say: it had no effect, or, it had no effect distinguishable from the placebo. We are accustomed to dismiss these two distinct categories as equally bad. But are they?
Isn't placebo a powerful medical treatment dismissed by doctors at patient's expense? This is one of the stories in "The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2019", written by Gary Greenberg and first appeared in the New York Times Magazine.
There is evidence that the sugar pill works well against stress-related illnesses. Remarkably, even telling the patients in advance doesn't eliminate the remedial effect.
Despite all the evidence, the placebo effect is not part of modern doctors' tool set they apply on patients. Part of that is inertia, part of it is that it has bad reputation, and part of it is that it is not completely clear how it works. It can't be used if we don't know how it works.
One of the topics in the article is the possibility of finding a gene that can be responsible for the effectiveness of the placebo effect. Turns out there is an enzyme named COMPT that affected how people react to pain and painkillers, the is also a snippet of the genome that correlates with the levels of COMPT in the test subjects. Then they go on to demonstrate that people with low COMPT level have high susceptibility to positive placebo effect.
For a failed drug we can say: it had no effect, or, it had no effect distinguishable from the placebo. We are accustomed to dismiss these two distinct categories as equally bad. But are they?
Isn't placebo a powerful medical treatment dismissed by doctors at patient's expense? This is one of the stories in "The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2019", written by Gary Greenberg and first appeared in the New York Times Magazine.
There is evidence that the sugar pill works well against stress-related illnesses. Remarkably, even telling the patients in advance doesn't eliminate the remedial effect.
Despite all the evidence, the placebo effect is not part of modern doctors' tool set they apply on patients. Part of that is inertia, part of it is that it has bad reputation, and part of it is that it is not completely clear how it works. It can't be used if we don't know how it works.
One of the topics in the article is the possibility of finding a gene that can be responsible for the effectiveness of the placebo effect. Turns out there is an enzyme named COMPT that affected how people react to pain and painkillers, the is also a snippet of the genome that correlates with the levels of COMPT in the test subjects. Then they go on to demonstrate that people with low COMPT level have high susceptibility to positive placebo effect.
June 25, 2024
This 2019 edition is the best compared to 2017, 2018, 2021 editions (I have yet to read 2020 edition) as the last three contain excessive political narratives to the detriment of science and nature focuses. This edition harks back to the original spirit of this entire science writing series.
Chris Colin helps me see the nature of some people who has more than others and yet still want more than they deserve. Douglas Fox's story reminds me that limited nature of scientific learning plays an important part in making scientific progress toward true understanding. Gary Greenberg helps confirm serious consideration of Placebo effect that I previously read elsewhere. Joshua Rothman explains why technology is crucial in our social activities - when it fails, it causes miscarriage of justice! Ed Yong's is such a spookily prescient article of what was to come a year later!
But it is also quite an irony I see in this edition that the new series editor Jaime Green makes her manifesto in response to an e-mail to her that this series has become too much political (the same complaint I made when I reviewed 2021 edition I read a few weeks before this one) that "Science is political because it demands action from power." Well I do not disagree but she should make such a statement elsewhere that is more appropriate. It's like she goes to a science museum and expresses her opinion that Michelangelo's Pieta should be on exhibition!
I suspect that the excellently balanced turnout of this edition is the admirable effort of the guest editor Sy Montgomery (I never read a book by her yet but will try) and I praise her for such an exercise of judicious selection of articles.
Chris Colin helps me see the nature of some people who has more than others and yet still want more than they deserve. Douglas Fox's story reminds me that limited nature of scientific learning plays an important part in making scientific progress toward true understanding. Gary Greenberg helps confirm serious consideration of Placebo effect that I previously read elsewhere. Joshua Rothman explains why technology is crucial in our social activities - when it fails, it causes miscarriage of justice! Ed Yong's is such a spookily prescient article of what was to come a year later!
But it is also quite an irony I see in this edition that the new series editor Jaime Green makes her manifesto in response to an e-mail to her that this series has become too much political (the same complaint I made when I reviewed 2021 edition I read a few weeks before this one) that "Science is political because it demands action from power." Well I do not disagree but she should make such a statement elsewhere that is more appropriate. It's like she goes to a science museum and expresses her opinion that Michelangelo's Pieta should be on exhibition!
I suspect that the excellently balanced turnout of this edition is the admirable effort of the guest editor Sy Montgomery (I never read a book by her yet but will try) and I praise her for such an exercise of judicious selection of articles.
November 29, 2019
This is a great collection of mostly biology, ecology, or medical journalism! I didn't expect nearly as much medical stuff as there is here, and it's all terrifying. This collection has overlaps, like discussing underfunded federal programs, or the breeding campaign for the California condor, but I like that because I felt smarter when stuff was introduced twice. I read the collection in whatever order I wanted, and after being told it was arranged ALPHABETICALLY I think I made the right choice there. Some amazing writing here and really just stellar research and science comms on the part of the authors.
Winners:
“The Hidden Toll: Why Are Black Mothers an Babies in the United States Dying at More Than Doube the Rate of White Mothers and Babies? The Answer Has Everything to Do with the Lived Experience of Being a Black Woman in America” by Linda Villarosa, published in The New York Times Magazine
“Why Paper Jams Persist” by Joshua Rothman, published in The New Yorker
“The Fading Stars: A Constellation” by Holly Haworth, published in Lapham’s Quarterly
Connection: Rowan Jacobsen, one of the contributors, helped me teach Food Writing 101 and advise me in this journalism world.
Winners:
“The Hidden Toll: Why Are Black Mothers an Babies in the United States Dying at More Than Doube the Rate of White Mothers and Babies? The Answer Has Everything to Do with the Lived Experience of Being a Black Woman in America” by Linda Villarosa, published in The New York Times Magazine
“Why Paper Jams Persist” by Joshua Rothman, published in The New Yorker
“The Fading Stars: A Constellation” by Holly Haworth, published in Lapham’s Quarterly
Connection: Rowan Jacobsen, one of the contributors, helped me teach Food Writing 101 and advise me in this journalism world.
February 15, 2020
I have read this series for the last 6-8 years. The 2019 is by far my favorite. Nearly every essay is informative, thought-provoking and entertaining. The range of topics is wide yet sustained this reader's interest in areas as diverse as saving the last vaquitas, to digitizing medical records, to why the U. S. compares unfavorably to many other countries in maternal & neonatal mortality to the engineering expertise needed to prevent paper jams in copy machines to explaining the nature of the placebo effect in medical treatment, etc. Either it was a very good year for science writing or the thought process of the editors choosing the articles was very much in alignment with my preferences. Unlike some previous issues in this series the number of fact filled discussions of global warming or artistic descriptions of nature were downplayed in favor of articles introducing real people encountering a problem followed by an informative discussion of the possible solutions and problems thereof. In other words, I liked the problem solving emphasis the editors used in choosing articles.
March 13, 2022
I like this series, but this particular issue had a lot of very depressing articles about climate change, animal and insect extinctions, and extreme weather. There were some terrific articles that exposed and explained problems I'm glad I know about now. Molly Osberg's article, How Not to Die in America, explains how so many people suffer needlessly due to insufficient health insurance. Shannon Styrene wrote a great piece, Welcome to the Center of the Universe, which was about the Deep Space Network, which monitors all of the satellite missions to the planets and beyond. The missions are expensive and important, but the control center is deeply underfunded. The best but saddest of all the articles was by Linda Villarosa - Why are Black Mothers and Babies in the US Dying at More than Double the Rate of White Mothers and Babies. It explains in great detail with strong research support how racism in the health system is so harmful to black mothers and babies.
October 31, 2019
All the pieces Sy Montgomery included are phenomenally written but taken together many of the middle pieces blend together. I'm not sure if the Alphabetical-by-Author arrangement of articles worked for this volume. The balance of the book tips heavily toward pieces about nature and the environment (not surprising, given Montgomery's own writing choices, but it felt much less of a spectrum this year). The standout articles fall to the end of the volume - Linda Villarosa's "The Hidden Toll: Why Are Black Mothers and Babies in the United States Dying at More Than Double the Rate of White Mothers and Babies. The Answer Has Everything to Do with the Lived Experience of Being a Black Woman in America," Ed Yong's "The Next Plague is Coming. Is America ready?" and Iliana Yurkiewicz's "Paper Trails: Living and Dying with Fragmented Medical Records."
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