Science and Natural History discussion

Post your questions, comments and outrages here to share and discuss with other members. Happy reading!

Anyone else reading this yet? Which essays have you enjoyed the most so far? The ones on intracellular immunity and the search for life on frozen moons have stood out most for me.

I was a little surprised at quite how much of it is on neuroscience/psychology related research.

I have to confess, I read about half of it and then tossed it across the room. I found it a mixture; some were uninteresting and others suffered badly from a lack of clarity of writing, which was really disappointing as I had found myself looking forward to it in no small amount.

Unfortunately, it doesn't appear to be on Barnes & Noble, and I have a Nook...I can read it on my Kindle ap on my laptop, but I wanted to take it with me to read on a flight, and I'm not taking my laptop...

Disappointingly I don't have the funds to purchase this at the moment and it's not in the local library system. Yes, I'm aware that I suggested it in the first place. *shame*

Got it from the library and started it today...I like it. For instance: "The fact that Earth has a large ocean has long been a mystery to planetary scientists. Given Earth's location and formation history, it should be a considerably drier, less volatile-rich world.'. How can that not be interesting?

The first essay is an acknowledgement, really, of how scientists frequently decide life couldn't have happened like this or that - and then it's shown, yes, it DID happen like that!

I finished this today. I read it while my husband watched golf. It's an interesting lazy afternoon science magazine read. It had a lot of interesting topics to explain human behaviors through existing brain structures and control/subject testing, and a few gee whiz math and astronomy and data analysis essays. The math article left me in the dust gasping 'Mommy'.

I didn't think this book was amazing but it kept me engaged. The writing was OK. In some places it was less detailed than I would have liked but I guess if you've not really written anything for a pop sci text before finding the right level is difficult. The articles were not so cutting edge but in the time the book took to get together and publish plus the added years between now and the publication date I shouldn't be surprised. It's often said research is already out of date when it's published.