Reviews
- Chemistry
Three kids’ science books offer fun, fascinating experiments
No matter what interests kids, there’s a do-it-yourself science book for them. Here are three with entertaining and educational options.
- Science & Society
Monster fish, forensics and space exploration on display
Exhibits and opera infuse science into their experience.
- Neuroscience
A voyage into Parkinson’s disease, led by patient and journalist
Jon Palfreman’s Brain Storms explores Parkinson’s disease in the past, present and future.
- Tech
‘Monsters’ examines a history of technological hubris
Drawing on the Hindenburg disaster, a science writer develops criteria for recognizing risky technology.
- Tech
Moving exhibit pays tribute to lost space shuttles’ crews
At Kennedy Space Center, pieces of wreckage from the space shuttles Challenger and Columbia are on public display for the first time.
- Animals
Help ornithologists develop bird photo ID tool
Cornell ornithology lab’s computer identification of common North American avian species needs your photos.
- Paleontology
Fossils illustrate evolution of life
Paleontologist Donald Prothero takes readers through the evolution of life on Earth from the earliest oozes of goo to our recent relative Lucy.
- Science & Society
Autism’s journey from shadows to light
Science writer Steve Silberman considers autism in the modern era of neurodiversity - a movement to respect neurological differences as natural human variation - framing the relatively progressive autistic experience of today against the the conditions oppressed past.
- Science & Society
How English became science’s lingua franca
A new book explores the roles of war, politics and economics in the rise of English in scientific communication.
- Plants
Flowers’ roles considered in ecosystems and economics
In ‘The Reason for Flowers’, a pollination ecologist chronicles the science and culture of blossoms from the dawn of humanity.
- Planetary Science
Get New Horizons’ views of Pluto
The “Eyes on Pluto” app lets you ride alongside New Horizons for a simulated preview of the spacecraft’s impending encounter with the dwarf planet.
- Science & Society
‘Faith vs. Fact’ takes aim at religion
Jerry Coyne’s ‘Faith vs. Fact’ argues that science is the best – perhaps only – way of learning about the world.
