New Books In Science

A reporter uncovers the secrets behind the scientific scam of the century.  The news breaks first as a tale of fear and pity. Doctors at a London hospital claim a link between autism and a vaccine given to millions of children: MMR. Young parents are terrified. Immunization rates slump. And as a worldwide ‘anti-vax’ movement kicks off, old diseases return to sicken and kill. But a veteran reporter isn’t so sure, and sets out on an epic investigation. Battling establishment cover-ups, smear campaigns, and gagging lawsuits, he exposes rigged research and secret schemes, the heartbreaking plight of families struggling with disability, and the scientific deception of our time. Brian Deer's The Doctor Who Fooled the World: Andrew Wakefield's War on Vaccines (Johns Hopkins UP, 2020) tells the troubling story of Andrew Wakefield: a man in search of greatness, who stakes his soul on big ideas that, if right, might transform lives. But when the facts don’t fit, he can’t face failure. He’ll do whatever it takes to succ

We live in an age in which we are repeatedly reminded—by scientists, by the media, by popular culture—of the looming threat of mass extinction. We’re told that human activity is currently producing a sixth mass extinction, perhaps of even greater magnitude than the five previous geological catastrophes that drastically altered life on Earth. Indeed, there is a very real concern that the human species may itself be poised to go the way of the dinosaurs, victims of the most recent mass extinction some 65 million years ago. How we interpret the causes and consequences of extinction and their ensuing moral imperatives is deeply embedded in the cultural values of any given historical moment. And, as David Sepkoski reveals, the history of scientific ideas about extinction over the past two hundred years—as both a past and a current process—is implicated in major changes in the way Western society has approached biological and cultural diversity. It seems self-evident to most of us that diverse ecosystems and societ

In Electric Brain: How the New Science of Brainwaves Reads Minds, Tells Us How We Learn, and Helps Us Change for the Better (BenBella, 2020), eminent neuroscientist R. Douglas Fields surveys the history and current state of scientific understanding about the brain as an electrical organ, and how the electrical activity of the brain relates to cognitive functioning and various clinical conditions. The book begins by documenting some of the fascinating and obscure history of the discovery and early science of electrical brain activity measurements, or ‘brainwaves’. It then goes on to summarize the latest cutting edge research on brainwaves in a wide variety of basic and applied areas of science and medicine - including neuroimaging, neuroplasticity, brain-machine interfaces, artificial intelligence, neurofeedback, brain stimulation therapies, and many others. Electric Brain is a highly accessible, but fact-filled and up-to-date, treatment of one of the most central - and yet still so enigmatic - topics in all o

Americans today are often skeptical of scientific authority. Many conservatives dismiss climate change and Darwinism as liberal fictions, arguing that "tenured radicals" have coopted the sciences and other disciplines. Some progressives, especially in the universities, worry that science's celebration of objectivity and neutrality masks its attachment to Eurocentric and patriarchal values. As we grapple with the implications of climate change and revolutions in fields from biotechnology to robotics to computing, it is crucial to understand how scientific authority functions--and where it has run up against political and cultural barriers. Science Under Fire: Challenges to Scientific Authority in Modern America (Harvard UP, 2020) reconstructs a century of battles over the cultural implications of science in the United States. Andrew Jewett reveals a persistent current of criticism which maintains that scientists have injected faulty social philosophies into the nation's bloodstream under the cover of neutralit

Is color a phenomenon of science or a thing of art? Over the years, color has dazzled, enhanced, and clarified the world we see, embraced through the experimental palettes of painting, the advent of the color photograph, Technicolor pictures, color printing, on and on, a vivid and vibrant celebrated continuum. These turns to represent reality in “living color” echo our evolutionary reliance on and indeed privileging of color as a complex and vital form of consumption, classification, and creation. It’s everywhere we look, yet do we really know much of anything about it?  Finding color in stars and light, examining the system of classification that determines survival through natural selection, studying the arrival of color in our universe and as a fulcrum for philosophy, DeSalle’s brilliant A Natural History of Color: The Science Behind What We See and How We See it (Pegasus Books, 2020)establishes that an understanding of color on many different levels is at the heart of learning about nature, neurobiology,

In Extraterrestrial Languages (MIT Press 2020), Daniel Oberhaus tells the history of human efforts to talk to aliens, but in doing so, the book reflects on the relationship between communication and cognition, the metaphysics of mathematics, about whether dolphins have a language, and more. The challenge of communicating with extraterrestrials forces scientists and linguists to consider a range of problems. Would these listeners recognize radio signals as linguistic? How would they decode and interpret them? Would ETs even have linguistic capacities to begin with? Oberhaus shares the stories of, and theoretical bases for, a range of attempts to communicate with ETs, along the way tackling fundamental questions in linguistics, philosophy, mathematics, science, and even art. Malcolm Keating is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Yale-NUS College. His research focuses on Sanskrit philosophy of language and epistemology. He is the author of Language, Meaning, and Use in Indian Philosophy (Bloomsbury Press, 2019)

Could extinct species, like mammoths and passenger pigeons, be brought back to life? The science says yes. In How to Clone a Mammoth: The Science of De-Extinction (Princeton UP, 2020), Beth Shapiro, evolutionary biologist and pioneer in “ancient DNA” research, walks readers through the astonishing and controversial process of de-extinction. From deciding which species should be restored, to sequencing their genomes, to anticipating how revived populations might be overseen in the wild, Shapiro vividly explores the extraordinary cutting-edge science that is being used—today—to resurrect the past. Journeying to far-flung Siberian locales in search of ice age bones and delving into her own research—as well as those of fellow experts such as Svante Paabo, George Church, and Craig Venter—Shapiro considers de-extinction’s practical benefits and ethical challenges. Would de-extinction change the way we live? Is this really cloning? What are the costs and risks? And what is the ultimate goal? Using DNA collected from

Today I talked to Daniel Lieberman about his book Exercised: How We Did Not Evolve to Exercise and What to Do about It (Pantheon, 2021). In the book Lieberman explodes 12 different myths, chief among them we’re supposed to want to exercise. Much of the conversation explores differences between Westerners and their lifestyles, including of course exercise, versus the daily energy expenditures of non-Westerners and especially people in Africa. It provides insights to show how aging and senescence are not necessarily linked, and offers some ways in which we might enjoy exercise more. Daniel E. Lieberman is the Lerner Professor of Biological Sciences in the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University. He received degrees from Harvard and Cambridge Universities. Lieberman studies and teaches how and why the human body is the way it is, and how our evolutionary history affects health and disease.  Dan Hill, PhD, is the author of eight books and leads Sensory Logic, Inc. (https://www.sensorylogic.

The Blakiston’s fish owl is the world’s largest living species of owl, with larger females of the species weighing as much as ten pounds. It lives in the Russian Far East and Northern Japan. It is also endangered: global populations are estimated to be around 1500 owls in total. The story of one conservationist’s efforts to save these owls is told in Owls of the Eastern Ice: A Quest to Find and Save the World's Largest Owl (Farrar, Straus and Giroux: 2020), the first book by Jonathan Slaght. The book traces Jonathan’s many trips to the territory of Primorye in the Russian Far East, as part of his research into where the fish owls live and hunt. In the dead of the Russian winter, Jonathan and his Russian compatriots survey the forests, listen for fish owl duets, investigate nests and capture owls in an attempt to learn more about these creatures. Jonathan Slaght is the Russia and Northeast Asia coordinator for the Wildlife Conservation Society, where he manages research projects on endangered species and coord

In this episode I talked to Russell T. Warne about his book In the Know: Debunking 35 Myths about Human Intelligence (Cambridge UP, 2020). Warne  takes on the “nature versus nurture” debate regarding the source of intelligence. It also looks at a host of other angles related to IQ: from the failures of the No Child Left Behind act to what are the disadvantages to society are of an emerging intellectual meritocracy. Along the way it explores differences in scores based on ethnic/racial origins, plus how well EQ holds up as a separate form of intelligence. Russell T. Warne is an associate professor of psychology at Utah Valley University. He earned his PhD in education psychology from Texas A&M University in 2011. Dr. Warne has published two books and nearly 60 scholarly articles. He teaches classes on statistics, psychology, research methods, psychological testing, and intelligence. Dan Hill, PhD, is the author of eight books and leads Sensory Logic, Inc. (https://www.sensorylogic.com). To check out his relate

What is life? For generations, scientists have struggled to make sense of this fundamental question, for life really does look like magic: even a humble bacterium accomplishes things so dazzling that no human engineer can match it. Huge advances in molecular biology over the past few decades have served only to deepen the mystery. In this penetrating and wide-ranging book, world-renowned physicist and science communicator Paul Davies searches for answers in a field so new and fast-moving that it lacks a name; it is a domain where biology, computing, logic, chemistry, quantum physics, and nanotechnology intersect. At the heart of these diverse fields, Davies explains, is the concept of information: a quantity which has the power to unify biology with physics, transform technology and medicine, and force us to fundamentally reconsider what it means to be alive—even illuminating the age-old question of whether we are alone in the universe.  From life’s murky origins to the microscopic engines that run the cells

In The Mutant Project: Inside the Global Race to Genetically Modify Humans (St. Martin's Press, 2020), anthropologist Eben Kirksey visits the frontiers of genetics, medicine, and technology to ask: Whose values are guiding gene editing experiments? And what does this new era of scientific inquiry mean for the future of the human species? At a conference in Hong Kong in November 2018, Dr. He Jiankui announced that he had created the first genetically modified babies—twin girls named Lulu and Nana—sending shockwaves around the world. A year later, a Chinese court sentenced Dr. He to three years in prison for “illegal medical practice.” As scientists elsewhere start to catch up with China’s vast genetic research program, gene editing is fueling an innovation economy that threatens to widen racial and economic inequality. Fundamental questions about science, health, and social justice are at stake: Who gets access to gene editing technologies? As countries loosen regulations around the globe, from the U.S. to Ind

As ancient creatures that once shared the Earth with dinosaurs, turtles have played a crucial role in maintaining healthy terrestrial and marine ecosystems for more than one hundred million years. While it may not set records for speed on land, the turtle is exceptional at distance swimming and deep diving, and some are gifted with astounding longevity. In human thought, the animal's ties to creativity, wisdom, and warfare stretch back to the world's earliest written records. In Turtle, Louise M. Pryke celebrates the slow and unassuming manner of this doughty creature, which provides a living model of endurance and efficiency. In the increasingly fast-paced world of the twenty-first century, it has never been more important to consider the natural and cultural history of this remarkable animal. Bede Haines is a solicitor, specialising in litigation and a partner at Holding Redlich, an Australian commercial law firm. He lives in Sydney, Australia. Known to read books, ride bikes and eat cereal (often). bede.ha

Butterflies have long captivated the imagination of humans, from naturalists to children to poets. Indeed it would be hard to imagine a world without butterflies. And yet their populations are declining at an alarming rate, to the extent that even the seemingly ubiquitous Monarch could conceivably go the way of the Passenger Pigeon. Many other, more obscure, butterfly species are already perilously close to extinction. For the last 20 years, Nick Haddad has worked to identify and save some of the rarest butterflies on earth, a quest that has taken him to both surprisingly ordinary and extraordinarily inhospitable areas, including a swampy, active artillery range on a military installation in North Carolina. It has also led him to some surprising conclusions about the best ways to protect these increasingly endangered butterflies. In The Last Butterflies: A Scientist’s Quest to Save a Rare and Vanishing Creature (Princeton UP, 2019), Haddad profiles five such species – the ones he has determined to be the rare

Can we correctly predict the flip of a fair coin more than half the time -- or the decay of a single radioactive atom? Our intuition, based on a lifetime of experience, tells us that we cannot, as these are classic examples of what are known to be 50-50 guesses. But mathematics is filled with counterintuitive results -- and this book discusses some surprising and entertaining examples. It is possible to devise experiments in which a flipped coin lands heads completely at random half the time, but we can also correctly predict when it will land heads more than half the time.  James D. Stein's The Fate of Schrodinger's Cat: Using Math and Computers to Explore the Counterintuitive (World Scientific, 2020) shows how high-school algebra and basic probability theory, with the invaluable assistance of computer simulations, can be used to investigate both the intuitive and the counterintuitive. This book explores fascinating and controversial questions involving prediction, decision-making, and statistical analysis i

Listen to this interview of Elisa De Ranieri, Editor-in-Chief of Nature Communications. We talk about knowing the research you have done, but communicating the message you want said. Interviewer: "When a submission lands on your desk, or better said, you call it up on your screen, what are you pleased to see, what makes your work easier?" Elisa De Ranieri: "Yeah, well, I guess what makes the job easier for an editor is to receive a paper that is well-written and well-constructed and where the authors are so experienced that they know how to pitch their story. It's nice because it, obviously, spares the editor the trouble of having to unpick what's being said. You know, there are papers where––I'm not saying that they're badly written––but they are so dense because it's not a story, it's a dump of facts, so that you have to start unpicking the facts until you've made your own version of the story that the authors are trying to tell, and only then can you assess that story based on your criteria." Daniel Shea,

An estimated 80 million people live with a neurodegenerative disease, with this number expected to double by 2050. Despite decades of research and billions in funding, there are no medications that can slow, much less stop, the progress of these diseases. The time to rethink degenerative brain disorders has come. With no biological boundaries between neurodegenerative diseases, illnesses such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's result from a large spectrum of biological abnormalities, hampering effective treatment. In Brain Fables: The Hidden History of Neurodegenerative Diseases and a Blueprint to Conquer Them (Cambridge UP, 2020), acclaimed neurologist Dr Alberto Espay and Parkinson's advocate Benjamin Stecher present compelling evidence that these diseases should be targeted according to genetic and molecular signatures rather than clinical diagnoses. There is no Parkinson's or Alzheimer's, simply people with Parkinson's or Alzheimer's. An incredibly important story never before told, Brain Fables is a wakeup c

As a scientist and practicing Catholic, Dr. Sauer brings a unique perspective to several of the important issues related to finding a space for dialogue between the at times opposing fields of science and religion. Drawing on insights from Darwin, Teilhard de Chardin, Thomas Kuhn, and many others, Dr. Sauer presents a powerful and important framework for reconciling the historically changing divide between science and religion. His take is that we need to encourage a stance of intellectual humility on all sides of the discussion as a means for finding common ground--or at least identifying points where we can have fruitful exchanges of ideas about how scientific and religious perspectives can coexist without ongoing conflict.  Points of Contact: Science, Religion, and the Search for Truth (Orbis Books, 2020) will be valuable to people who inhabit both sides of this divide and has the potential to generate more openness about what can be radically different ways of seeing the world.   Learn more about your ad

Mathematics as a subject is distinctive in its symbolic abstraction and its potential for logical and computational rigor. But mathematicians tend to impute other qualities to our subject that set it apart, such as impartiality, universality, and elegance. Far from incidental, these ideas prime mathematicians and the public to see in mathematics the answers—for example, an impartial arbiter, or a meritocratic equalizer—to many urgent societal questions. Anna Weltman's new book, Supermath: The Power of Numbers for Good and Evil (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2020), surveys a number of ways this conception of mathematics has informed scientific undertakings and public policies, not to mention our everyday behaviors, and makes a powerful case for reevaluating its assumptions. The book's five chapters contain stories of mathematical exploits from ancient to ongoing and across the spectrum from pure to applied. Many may be familiar, for example active research and journalism into the use and misuse of predictive

“What are chromosomes? And what does it mean to treat them as visual objects?” asks Soraya de Chadarevian in her new book, Heredity Under the Microscope: Chromosomes and the Study of the Human Genome (University of Chicago Press, 2020). Considering this question as she follows the history of microscope-based practices in chromosomal research across a variety of contexts—from the medical clinic to the study of human variation—de Chadarevian offers readers a new history of postwar human genetics. This approach enables her to argue that cytogenetics was far from just “old fashioned biology that was eventually superseded by molecular approaches” and to show the continuities and interdependencies between different methods for studying our DNA. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices