popular science

  • Toilet Reads: Fascinating Nonfiction about the Necessary Acts

     The human body is fascinating. But sometimes what is more fascinating is what we do with what comes out of the human body. The book Life of Pee, by Sally Magnusson, is a testament to some of the strange and ingenious things we have done with urine. We have used it to dye our hair,… Continue reading

  • Science: Our Family Tree

    The Richness of Life: the essential Stephen Jay Gould by Stephen Jay Gould  2007  A wide-ranging collection of essays culled from 3 decades of writing by the paleontologist known for being the passionate voice of popular science. The Reluctant Mr. Darwin: an intimate portrait of Charles Darwin and the making of his theory of evolution… Continue reading

  • Science: The Big Picture

    The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science by Natalie Angier 2007   This exuberant guided tour of the major fields of science highlights issues big (global warming) and small (ice cream melting), making it all understandable and fascinating. The Universe in a Nutshell by Stephen Hawking 2001 One of the greatest scientific… Continue reading

  • Science: Deep Thoughts, Deep Space

    Physics of the Impossible: a scientific exploration into the world of phasers, force fields, teleportation, and time travel by Michio Kaku 2008 Kaku examines the stuff of science fiction – time machines, invisibility cloaks, starships – and uses the laws of physics to judge their feasibility.   The Unfinished Game: Pascal, Fermat, and the seventeenth-century… Continue reading

  • Science: The Great Adventure

    The Ghost Map: the story of London’s most terrifying epidemic– and how it changed science, cities, and the modern world by Steven Johnson 2006  This page-turner chronicles the spread of cholera in 1850’s London and profiles the doctor who tried to persuade a skeptical medical establishment that the disease was spread by contaminated water. Bretz’s… Continue reading

  • (Reading About) The Great Outdoors

    One of the things I love about living in Seattle is our proximity to the ocean and mountains and old-growth forests. Hey, occasionally you can even see the mountains (when it’s not overcast).  Alas, I don’t seem to get out into the great outdoors as often as I would like, but the next best thing… Continue reading