The UK's Royal Society announces its shortlist for the best science books of 2009, but it misses out on some great reads Every year the Royal Society Prize for Science Books celebrates the best in popular science writing. The six shortlisted books announced this week represent a diverse array of subjects and styles, ranging from [...]
How It Ends: From You to the Universe by Chris Impey One of the fundamental curiosities of humanity is how things end. The simplest way to satisfy that curiosity is to just sit things out to the end, but sometimes we don’t have the patience to do so—hence the urge, in more mundane matters, to [...]
by Jeff Foust One thing can be said about astronomy and its related sciences: the questions they try to answer are literally as big as the universe they study. Some of the most fundamental questions of our existence fall into their realm: How was the universe created? How did our solar system form? Is there [...]
(Image: Vanessa Woods) Sue Savage-Rumbaugh In the 1920s Robert Yerkes acquired an unusual ape that he named Prince Chim. Chim was more intelligent, fun-loving, cooperative, emotionally positive and full of life than his chimpanzee companion, Panzee. Chim's vocal behaviour was so prolific and reminiscent of language that Yerkes transcribed it using musical notation. Yerkes had [...]
(Image: Image Source/Rex Features) Kayleigh Lawrence, contributor NO ONE could sensibly deny that trees play an important role in the environment. In The Global Forest, Diana Beresford-Kroeger takes this one step further and argues that trees are the very foundation that all life is reliant upon. The author's veneration and awe of the natural world [...]
The Privatization of Space Exploration: Business, Technology, Law and Policy By Lewis D. Solomon Transaction Publishers, 2008 hardcover, 128 pp. ISBN 978-1-4128-0759-3 US$39.95 One of the biggest debates about the Obama Administration’s revised space exploration plan is the emphasis it places on commercial providers to astronauts to and from low Earth orbit. For some, this [...]
Jonathan Beard, contributor WHEN we think of Leonardo da Vinci, it is usually the Mona Lisa or The Last Supper that spring to mind, but from a scientist's perspective, it is the thousands of drawings the Italian genius left behind upon his death in 1519 that are his greatest legacy. Science writer Stefan Klein examined [...]
Books and recommendations from Scientific American Rare: Portraits of America’s Endangered Species by Joel Sartore. National Geographic Focal Point, 2010 For more than 20 years photojournalist Joel Sartore has been making studio portraits of species from around the world. This book brings together 69 captivating images of organisms on the brink, from the leatherback sea [...]
Michael Hanlon's 10 Questions Science Can't Answer (Yet), now available in paperback, presents serious enquiries into matters such as the nature of time, the sentience of animals, the essence of self and the composition of the universe. Hanlon is a witty writer who takes esoteric science and makes it both intelligible and entertaining. However, 10 [...]
Among the countless achievements of Isaac Newton, any number of which would have made him a houseold name on their own, his articulation of the force of gravity in the late 17th century surely ranks near the top. The legend of Newton's inspiration coming from a falling apple is often dismissed as apocryphal, but the [...]
Quality Science & Technology news and images, which may possibly support or even inspire one's interests.
