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The Best American Science And Nature Writing 2013 (2013)

by Siddhartha Mukherjee(Favorite Author)

3.84 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

0544003438 (ISBN13: 9780544003439)

languge

English

genre

Nonfiction

publisher

Mariner Books

review 1: As always in this series, each individual essay will likely find an audience for it that declares it the best. For me, I found it a little more hit and miss than those published in previous years. It is the first issue in this series that I have not read from cover to cover (the theoretical physics articles were hard for me to get into --and usually that's not the case). I like to read these collections when flying across the country---the articles are just long enough to occupy one's time during the stop and go of traveling. Bits and pieces of these articles rather than the whole articles stayed with me from this issue. For example the lyrical words celebrating the larch tree, the idea that a chimpanzee raised with a child would influence the child more than the vice vers... morea, etc. But, for me, probably the most memorable aspects of these articles was the spotlight it placed on the extreme diversity of human personalities. Dr. Kubota's optimistic and enthusiastic plans to learn the secret of immortality in his jellyfish, Grigori Perelman's complete and total withdrawal from society after solving one of math's most famous puzzles, Dr. Steinman's confidence in the ability of medical science and his research to unlock the keys to helping him survive cancer, Dr. Sacks' use of mind altering drugs to help him understand the nature of his chosen medical specialty i.e. neurology, and the many other examples of personalities populating the essays.
review 2: Here's the articles I enjoyed most: Shattered Genius (Playboy) about a reclusive mathematical genius who is a little crazy. The T-Cell Army (The New Yorker) about possible avenues of research and treatment for cancer. The Artificial Leaf (The New Yorker) about the future of sustainable solar energy. The Deadliest Virus (The New Yorker) about a particularly problematic strain of viruses which gives rise to all of our deadliest communicable diseases. Scary stuff! Our Place in the Universe (Harper's Magazine) all about the immensely infinitely inconceivably huge size of space, our universe, our solar system, and just how impossible it is to reach any of these points. Sounds very lonely. less

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