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Bringing science to Buddhist monks

As a senior staff scientist at the Exploratorium museum in San Francisco, Paul Doherty has taught kids, high school teachers and the audience of the Late Show with David Letterman about physics. But when he visited India last year, he had a different set of students: monks and nuns. Monks in India learn about physics, […]

SN Online

ENVIRONMENT Snow layers warm northern soils, reducing how much climate-warming carbon the ground can hold. See “Arctic’s wintry blanket can be warming.” Jeff Kanipe ON THE SCENE BLOG A Science News editor visits Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull in “Icelandic volcanoes slumber today, but not forever.” GENES & CELLS Sirtuin proteins, associated with longer life spans, also help […]

Science Future for July 14, 2012

August 1 1970s-era Soviet space artifacts go on display at the new visitor center for the Space Foundation headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colo. See bit.ly/SFspace70s August 4 The San Diego Zoo’s Black and White Overnight event offers an evening talk by a panda researcher and an early morning visit to the panda exhibit, plus other […]

Science Past from the issue of July, 1962

DEFORMED BABIES BORN AS RESULT OF SEDATIVE —Some 800 deformed babies are expected to be born in the United Kingdom as a result of their mothers taking a dangerous sleeping pill during early pregnancy. The drug, thalidomide, was previously reported in West Germany as causing some 400 abnormal births. It has now been withdrawn from […]

Letters

Redesigning flu mortality In “Designer flu” (SN: 6/2/12, p. 20), researcher Michael Osterholmis quoted as saying that even if the actual kill rate of H5N1 is 20 times lower than the current estimate of 59 percent, H5N1 would still have a mortality rate that “far exceeds” that of the 1918 flu. Wikipedia gives a 1918 […]

Bird Sense: What It’s Like to Be a Bird by Tim Birkhead

A look at what it’s like to be a bird explores avian senses and traces how scientists have studied birds through time. Walker & Co., 2012, 288 p., $25

The Universe in Zero Words: The Story of Mathematics as Told through Equations Dana Mackenzie

This history of mathematics revels in the logical beauty of 24 equations that describe the workings of the universe. Princeton Univ., 2012, 224 p., $27.95

The Value of Species by Edward L. McCord

A naturalist explores reasons to care about preserving species that don’t have practical use to people. Yale Univ., 2012, 184 p., $25

No Time to Lose: A Life in Pursuit of Deadly Viruses by Peter Piot

A microbiologist tells tales of his adventures in Africa battling infectious diseases from Ebola to AIDS. W.W. Norton & Co., 2012, 304 p., $28.95

Secret Lives of Ants by Jae Choe

Enter  the miniature world of ants and learn about their societies, from massacres and  power plays to self-sacrifice and factory-like enterprises. Johns Hopkins Univ., 2012, 156 p., $34.95

BOOK REVIEW: The Man with the Bionic Brain: And Other Victories over Paralysis by Jon Mukand

Review by Laura Sanders.

BOOK REVIEW: Dialogues on 2012: Why the World Will Not End by Christopher Keating

Review by Tina Hesman Saey.