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Nature and Science February 2020
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50 Popular Beliefs That People Think Are True
by Guy P. Harrison
"Believing is easy. Being skeptical is hard," says journalist Guy P. Harrison. From Roswell to the Bermuda Triangle, Harrison's path is fraught with homeopaths, Holocaust deniers, alien abductees, and conspiracy theorists of all stripes as he applies rational thinking to popular beliefs such as UFOs, ESP, angels, and astrology...to name just a few. Distinguishing between those that are silly but essentially harmless (the Loch Ness Monster, haunted houses) and those that are potentially damaging to individuals and society (faith healing, creationism), Harrison debunks myths while presenting plausible scientific explanations for strange phenomena, arguing that fact is even more fascinating than fiction.
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| Handprints on Hubble: An Astronaut's Story of Invention by Kathryn D. SullivanSullivan, the first American woman to perform an EVA (Extravehicular Activity, a.k.a. "spacewalk"), recounts her career at NASA, one inextricably connected to the development, launch, and repair of the Hubble Space Telescope.
Did you know? Unlike most satellites, the Hubble Space Telescope only improves with age, due to its "inherently maintainable design," which allows for periodic repairs and technological upgrades. |
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A Brief History of Creation: Science and the Search for the Origin of Life
by Bill Mesler and H. James Cleaves II
From spontaneous generation to evolution, humans have always based their theories about the origins of life on their observations of the natural world. Sometimes, these observations were wrong -- for example, geese are not fish, nor are they created by mixing pine resin and sea salt (as medieval English naturalist Alexander Neckham believed). Others were ahead of their time, like Renaissance man Jan Baptist van Helmont's coining of the word "gas" when he identified carbon dioxide's role in plant growth. This sweeping, yet accessible, history of science shows how human curiosity has contributed to our understanding of how life began.
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| Snow: A Scientific and Cultural Exploration by Giles WhittellIn this wide-ranging, trivia-rich guide to the white stuff by a self-proclaimed "snow addict", you'll learn about the number of snowflakes that fall each year, the science of avalanches, the history of snow in art, the filming of the opening scene of The Spy Who Loved Me, and the estimated date that climate change will finally put an end to snow.
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| A Crack in Creation: Gene Editing and the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution by Jennifer A. Doudna and Samuel H. SternbergThis balanced and accessible book describes the research that led to the groundbreaking discovery of CRISPR-Cas9, a genome editing technique that makes possible permanent modifications within an organism's DNA, and examines the potential applications (and implications) of a revolutionary new technology. |
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| DNA is Not Destiny: the Remarkable, Completely Misunderstood Relationship... by Steven J. HeineCultural psychologist Steven Heine discusses the genomics revolution, reflecting on how ill-equipped we are to handle its revelations. Read it for the author's insightful discussion of the cognitive biases that make us susceptible to essentialist thinking, the oversimplification of complex concepts, and the lofty promises of direct-to-consumer genetic testing services.
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| The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha MukherjeeDescribing the concept of heredity as a form of information transmission, physician and science writer Siddhartha Mukherjee considers the gene, its long and winding road to discovery, and its future as bioengineering becomes more common. From Mendel and Darwin to the Human Genome Project, this sweeping, thought-provoking book by the Pulitzer Prize-winning, bestselling author of The Emperor of Maladies artfully explores both the scientific and cultural significance of genes. |
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| A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived: The Human Story Retold through Our Genes by Adam Rutherford; foreword by Siddhartha Mukherjee"Geneticists have suddenly become historians," observes author Adam Rutherford, citing discoveries that have transformed our understanding of human evolution. this book contains the (roughly) 2 million year history of the Homo genus, an accessible primer on genomics, and a discussion of what DNA can (and can't) tell us about ourselves. |
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| She Has Her Mother's Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity by Carl ZimmerThis is a comprehensive yet accessible examination of heredity that "masterfully blends exciting storytelling with first-rate science reporting" (Publishers Weekly). In addition to exploding common myths and misconceptions about the science of biological inheritance, science writer Carl Zimmer also discusses its (often unsavory) cultural history. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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Anne Arundel County Public Library 5 Harry S. Truman Pkwy. Annapolis, Maryland 21401 410-222-7371https://www.aacpl.net |
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