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Nature and Science October 2020
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| The Last Stargazers: The Enduring Story of Astronomy's Vanishing Explorers by Emily LevesqueWhat it's about: an astronomer recounts her career in science while contemplating the past, present, and future of her field.
Don't miss: visits to Hawaii's Mauna Kea Observatories, Chile's Paranal Observatory, and the airborne Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA).
Did you know? Professional astronomers spend relatively little time looking through giant telescopes (and a lot of time on laptops). |
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| The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking) by Katie MackWhat it is: theoretical cosmologist Katie Mack's engaging survey of five potential ways in which the universe could end: the Big Crunch, Heat Death, the Big Rip, Vacuum Decay, and the Bounce.
Reviewers say: a "rollicking tour through the nooks and crannies of physics" (New Scientist).
Further reading: Brian Greene's Until the End of Time (for a more philosophical take on cosmology). |
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| Tales from the Ant World by Edward O. WilsonWhat it is: a memoir by acclaimed biologist Edward O. Wilson, in which he shares his passion for myrmecology (the study of ants) while reflecting on a lifetime of studying the natural world.
Lessons learned? "There is nothing I can even imagine in the lives of ants that we can or should emulate for our own moral betterment."
Reviewers say: a "rapturously unapologetic hymn of praise to the roughly one quadrillion ants on the planet" (The Boston Globe). |
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Focus on: The Lighter Side of Science |
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| Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? Big Questions from Tiny Mortals about Death by Caitlin Doughty; illustrated by Dianne RuzThe premise: a mortician answers children's questions about death in an engaging and matter-of-fact style.
About the author: Funeral director Caitlin Doughty is the creator of the web series "Ask a Mortician" and the author of Smoke Gets in Your Eyes and From Here to Eternity.
So...will your cat eat your eyeballs? Not immediately. (Not when there are tastier tidbits like eyelids.) |
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| The Mystery of the Exploding Teeth: And Other Curiosities from the History of Medicine by Thomas MorrisWhat it is: Historian and blogger Thomas Morris' well-researched and eye-opening compendium of medical oddities.
Is it for you? As you might expect from a book containing chapters dedicated to "Horrifying Operations," "Unfortunate Predicaments," and "Dubious Treatments," these case studies are not for the squeamish.
For fans of: Sam Kean's The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons or Arnold van de Laar's Under the Knife. |
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