"Science is about not knowing and wanting badly to know. Science is about flawed and complicated human beings trying to use whatever tools they've got, along with their minds, to see something strange and new. In that sense, writing about science is just another way of writing about the human condition." -- from the introduction by Richard Preston The twenty-eight pieces in The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2007 span a wide range of topics, from the farthest reaches of space to the everyday world around us to the secrets hiddin in our own bodies. Michael Lemonick travels to an extinct volcano in Hawaii, where telescopes at the summit are providing researchers with a glimpse of the most distant galaxy ever seen -- and profound new insights into the creation of the universe. Neil deGrasse Tyson takes a sharp, witty look at Americans' delirium over space travel. And with surgical precision Michael Perry describes how a medical autopsy is performed. Dead men can tell tales. Here we also see examinations of the sometimes harmful impact of science on the natural world. Susan Casey gives an alarming portrait of plastic waste pollution in the world's oceans, including a dead zone in the mid-Pacific that's twice the size of Texas. Michael Shnayerson heads to West Virginia, where the Appalachians are being blasted at the rate of several ridgetops a week, all in the pursuit of ever-elusive coal. And Paul Bennett goes deep beneath Rome's streets, where cutting-edge excavation techniques are revealing newfound treasures in one of the world's oldest cities. A profile of a late, distinguished British ornithologist by John Seabrook reveals that the man's personal collection of bird skins, now in the British Natural History Museum, was largely stolen or bought and intentionally mislabeled. Richard Conniff visits a former Brooklyn social worker turned primatologist who has become a fierce advocate of the lemur. And Patricia Gadsby takes us into the kitchens of Europe's finest chefs to explain how the new field of molecular gastronomy is revolutionizing fine cuisine.
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0
All the best together:
Very good collection. I subscribe to many of the magazines these articles come from and I still love this series. Very often reading about science can be laborious. This is a great collection of wide-ranging topics that give you a taste of many different areas.
weaker than previous years:
This year's Best American series seems to be the weakest one yet, and the science and nature writing is no exception, it too is weaker than the previous volumes I've read (and Preston's intro is dull, droll and seems to just go on and on). That being said, it is still a great volume of essays. There are quite a few really great ones and most were good, though there were a larger than normal amount of dull essays, and one (Rough) that I wasn't quite sure what it was or why it was in there. All in all though,... more info
A smorgasbord of treats:
Depending on your viewpoint, the volumes in this series are either treasure houses or minefields. The jewels are essays providing new topics and information to consider. That's also the danger. Most of these articles present the reader with a challenge - "Should I be concerned about this? Should I take some action?" It's almost wearying to turning the pages and be confronted with the need for a decision. Yet, those prompts are not artificial. Preston, author of "The Demon in the Freezer" and "The Wild... more info
Superb selections:
Great stuff on science and nature contained in twenty-eight selections, of which I liked most: Plastic Ocean, Notes on the Space We Take, Health Secrets From the Morgue, and the Introduction (by Robert Preston) and least: The Rabbit on Mars, The Final Frontier, and How to Get a Nuclear Bomb. Without necessarily agreeing with all of them, I found the following facts, statements, and/or opinions especially interesting (Pp 12, 47, 57, 96, 100-101, 120, 173, 261, 278 respectively): "...by weight, [the... more info
