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The Best Science Writing Online 2012 (2012)

by Bora Zivkovic(Favorite Author)

4.06 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

0374533342 (ISBN13: 9780374533342)

languge

English

genre

Nonfiction

publisher

Scientific American / Farrar, Straus and Giroux

review 1: I really enjoyed the breadth of the articles in this book. They cover all kinds of science and are written in all kinds of styles. Only one story was kind of beyond my grasp of the scientific concepts covered. Many of the articles were funny; others were poignant. The authors of the articles were science writers and scientists.Some of my favorites were: "Saving Ethiopia's Church Forests" (did you know that acres of forest surround churches in the Ethiopian countryside?); "I Love Gin and Tonics" (gin and tonic water complement each other chemically; this article explains how); "How Addiction Feels: The Honest Truth" (a science writer reflects on her life with narcolepsy and how she deals with its limitations); "The Dodo is Dead, Long Live the Dodo" (almost everything you TH... moreINK you know about the dodo is wrong); and "The Human Lake" (how your body is like a pond and all the life that lives inside that pond).If you have a smidgen of interest in science this is well worth your time. Also, you can find other writing by these authors on their blogs and websites.
review 2: Admittedly, I might be a bit biased in favor of this book, as I have a piece in it (!!) But bias aside, this is a truly great collection of science writing, and I feel honored to be in the company of these amazing writers. Everyone will have their own preferences, but my particular favorite pieces (other than my own, of course!) were (1) Kate Clancy’s piece on menstruation, (2) Greg Gbur’s fascinating description of the sometimes-unpredictable nature of science, (3) Christie Wilcox’s takedown of uninformed science reporting in the media, (4) Matthew Hartings’ awesome explanation of why “gin and tonics” can taste so different from gin and tonic water consumed separately, and (5) Andrea Kuszewski’s piece on how chessboxing (yes, chess + boxing) can be used to train emotion regulation and curb problematic behaviors like bullying (a piece that I fully intend to assign in my Intro Social Psych class during the aggression section!)But really, all of the pieces are phenomenal. One of the amazing things about the blog format is that the pieces – even the long-form ones – are short enough to be easily digestible. I tend to find some of the hard sciences to be difficult to grasp, but there were a number of great pieces in here on chemistry, physics, and math that I found really intuitive and interesting.Overall, I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in learning some really interesting stuff about all different kinds of science! less

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