The Best American Science Writing 2009

by Jesse Cohen

Book Overview

Edited by Natalie Angier, the Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist and bestselling author of Woman: An Intimate Geography, Best American Science Writing 2009 is the ninth edition of the popular annual series hailed as "superb brain candy" ( Kirkus ) and dedicated to collecting the most crucial, thought-provoking and engaging science writing of the year. Provocative and engaging, the Best American Science Writing 2009 as edited by Angier...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0061431664
• ISBN13: 9780061431661
• Release Date: September 2009
• Publisher: Ecco Press
• Length: 346 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

I love this book~

Someone recommend it to me and I really love this book. I'm also doing some scientific writing in chinses and I believe this book will be very helpful for my writing career.

Good collection of essays. Some far-out stuff included.

Another entry in the "Best American Science Writing" series. Agree with the previous reviewer that some articles (e.g. Dennis Overbye's piece on cosmology, Jennifer Margulis' piece on Giraffes) are a bit on the fluffy and speculative side. Still a good collection and great reading if you need to relax after a busy day at work. There is some overlap with stories that also appear in "Best American Science and Nature Writing 2009" and in "Best American Medical Writing 2009".

Get Your Science Fix Here

Natalie Angier is the guest editor this year for "Best American Science Writing 2009." In her words, "whatever the slumps and surges of the economy, whatever the upheavals and subductions in the media, science marches on. " For those who want to keep up with advances in science, reading this book is not a bad place to start. Algier has chosen 24 articles as her favorites, taken from 17 different magazines - the best represented magazines being The New Yorker and New York Times Magazine with 5 each. Those of us who love science get to double down because there are two yearly books - this excellent publication and "Best of Science and Nature Writing 2009." Three articles were chosen by both guest editors this year: "The Itch" by Atul Gawande from "The New Yorker:" Only 20% of the images we perceive come from the retina. The remaining 80% come from other parts of the brain controlling things like memory. In other words, what we see is a virtual reality - as given to us by our brains. Our sensations of pain, itch, nausea, and fatigue are usually protective but sometimes go awry. Millions of people have chronic pain of all sorts, phantom limb syndrome, reflex sympathetic dystrophy, tinnitus, pathological itching, or fibromyalgia - in which treatments of surgery and medication are notoriously marginal. Mirror image therapy has helped phantom limb pain. Perhaps this whole group of patients can benefit from mirror image or other virtual reality therapies - to treat problems made worse by glitches in our neurocircuitry. "Back to the Future" by J. Madeline Nash from "High Country News:" A big red band snakes through the rocks in Wyoming for 25 miles. The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum - paleontologists call it the PETM - happened 55 million years ago and the resulting climate change accelerated evolution. Above it there are horses; below it there aren't. Scientists believe that then, as now, the earth warmed in response to a precipitous release of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases. Kick up your feet and learn how geologists read the evidence left in rocks as though they were doing forensic science at a crime scene. The author closes with a quote from Mark Twain: "History does not repeat itself but it sure does rhyme." "Contagious Cancer" by David Quammen from "Harper's:" Cancer is not an infectious disease - or is it? Cancers can apparently evolve much like species. A certain cancer of the Tasmanian devil has evolved a way to be spread through bites from one devil to another, and threatens this species' very existence. This beautifully written story pauses throughout with excerpts that revisit evolutionary concepts you may recall if you had a good college biology class - and introduces more recent developments in evolution you didn't learn about. Other outstanding articles in this year's book include: "A Journey Inside the Brain" by Oliver Sacks from "The New York Review of Books:" Remarkable true story about