Category Archives: science

The Sun’s Heartbeat

Posted on September 16, 2012 by smellincoffee

The Sun’s Heartbeat: and Other Stories from the Life of the Star that Powers Our Planet2011 pages290 pages Consider the sun. For thousands of generations, it has loomed over our kind, radiating heat and light down from above, illuminating our … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews, science | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

The Wild Life of Our Bodies

Posted on August 29, 2012 by smellincoffee

The Wild Life of Our Bodies: Predators, Parasides, and Partners that Shape Who We Are Today© 2011 Rob Dunn290 pages You can take the man out of the jungle, but not the jungle out of the man. Such is the … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews, science | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

A Man on the Moon

Posted on August 27, 2012 by smellincoffee

A Man on the Moon:  the Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts © 1994 Andrew Chaikin670 pages Yet a higher goal was calling, and we vowed to reach it soon So we gave ourselves a decade to put fire on the moon … Continue reading →

Posted in history, Reviews, science | Tagged , , , , , , | 5 Comments

The Ghosts of Evolution

Posted on July 31, 2012 by smellincoffee

The Ghosts of Evolution: Nonsense Fruit, Missing Partners, and Other Ecological Anachronisms© 2000 Connie Barlow291 pages Grocery stores are excellent places to encounter ghosts. They lurk in the fruit section, feasting on anachronisms. The biological world is a wondrous web … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews, science | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Why We Get Fat

Posted on June 9, 2012 by smellincoffee

Why We Get Fat: and What To Do About It© 2011, 2012 Gary Taubes267 pages The secret of weight, we are told, is as simple as physics, as the laws of thermodynamics. If we take in more energy in eating … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews, science | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Why We Get Sick

Posted on June 2, 2012 by smellincoffee

Why We Get Sick: the New Science of Darwinian Medicine© 1994 Randolph M. Nesse, M.D; George C. Wiliams, Ph.D.290 pages Years ago I read an exceptional book on evolution by David Sloan Wilson. I say exceptional because it advocated for … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews, science | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

The Shallows

Posted on May 23, 2012 by smellincoffee

The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing To Our Brains© 2010 Nicholas Carr276 pages How many tabs do you have open right now? Neil Postman thought we were undoing ourselves with a distracting and busy fusion of information and entertainment … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews, science | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Catching Fire

Posted on May 9, 2012 by smellincoffee

Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human © 2009 Richard Wrangham309 pages Cooking has created a great many fantastic dish throughout the centuries, but Richard Wrangham holds that the culinary art’s greatest triumph is us — humanity, for the advent of … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews, science | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Life Ascending

Posted on March 31, 2012 by smellincoffee

Life Ascending: the Ten Great Inventions of Evolution© 2009 Nick Lane344 pages For my money, few subjects are as impressive, beautiful, and awe-inspiring as biology and evolution. Is there a greater drama in the cosmos outside the long play of … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews, science | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

The Ingredients

Posted on February 11, 2012 by smellincoffee

The Ingredients: A Guided Tour of the Elements© Phillip Ball 2002216 pages There’s antimony, arsenic, aluminum, selenium, And hydrogen and oxygen and nitrogen and rhenium […] (Tom Lehrer, “The Elements”). Chemistry is not an arcane subject solely practiced in a … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews, science | Tagged , , | 3 Comments