NASW Science Bookstore
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Hollywood Science: Movies, Science, and the End of the World
Sidney Perkowitz
Columbia University Press
Sidney Perkowitz is the Charles Howard Candler Professor of Physics at Emory University. He is also a dedicated film enthusiast. In this entertaining book, he discusses the portrayal of science in more than 100 films, including scientific biographies and documentaries.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Spring 2008
The Ultimate Guide to Your Microscope
Shar Levine and Leslie Johnstone
Sterling
Levine is an award-winning author of children's science books and science toys/kits; Johnstone is head of a high school science department. The two Canadians have written more than 50 books. This book describes how to buy and use a microscope. Each step is illustrated and explained.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Spring 2008
When the Earth Moves: Rogue Earthquakes, Tremors, and Aftershocks
Patricia Barnes-Svarney
Thunder Mountain Press
A freelance Endicott, NY writer/photographer, Barnes-Svarney says the concept for the book started with about 500 scientists — a group of geophysicists who crunched a bunch of data and developed a global seismic hazard map. When the Earth Moves is an account of everything you wanted to know about the fault line that runs through Manhattan's Upper West Side, tsunamis, and sea volcanoes — and how to prepare yourself for the earthquake that just might be waiting in your own backyard.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Spring 2008
Addiction Treatment: Science and Policy For The 21st Century
Jack Henningfield, Patricia Santora, and Warren Bickel, Ph.D., eds.
Johns Hopkins University Press
Two of the editors are clients of Dennis Tartaglia (NASW). The book features two dozen provocative original essays by leading scientists, policymakers, advocates, and artists. Tartaglia says the text provides material for anyone covering drug addiction and its treatment: "It will stimulate new thinking and perhaps provoke some readers — but it will never bore."
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Spring 2008
Side Effects: A Prosecutor, a Whistleblower and the Truth about a Bestselling Antidepressant
Alison Bass
Algonquin Books
As the mental health reporter for the Boston Globe, Bass's front-page reporting on conflicts of interest in medical research, and her series on sexual misconduct among psychiatrists earned a Pulitzer Prize nomination. In this book she turns her investigative skills to a controversial case that exposed the increased suicide rates among adolescents taking antidepressants such as Paxil, Prozac, and Zoloft. Side Effects tells the tale of a gutsy assistant attorney general who, along with an unlikely whistle-blower at an Ivy League university, uncovered evidence of deception behind one of the most successful drug campaigns in history.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Spring 2008
Humans and the Natural Environment: The Future of Our Planet
Dana Desonie, Ph.D.
Chelsea House
An Arizona freelance, Desonie writes "I have been an NASW member for over a decade and finally now have something to report. I have a set of eight reference books on environmental issues aimed at grades 6 to 13 coming out. They are being published by Chelsea House/Facts on File. The first are already out and I just found out this morning that Booklist has named Oceans: How We Use the Seas one of the top 10 environmental books for youth!"
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Spring 2008
Body Signs: How to Be Your Own Diagnostic Detective
Joan Liebmann-Smith, Ph.D. and Jacqueline Nardi Egan
Bantam
We all notice things about our bodies that don't seem quite right. But when are these simply harmless physical quirks and when are they signs that a visit to the doctor is in order? Liebmann-Smith, a New York City freelance, produced this comprehensive guide which covers every body part from head to toe — and everything in between — to help you decode the often mysterious messages your body sends you.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Spring 2008
Science Whiz: How One Student Used Science to get into College and Win $100,000 in Scholarships (and You Can, Too!)
Jerry Guo
SuperCollege LLP
A scholarship and college guide for aspiring scientists, the Science Whiz shows you how to take your interest in science to the next level while still in high school by developing powerful independent research projects, win competitions and scholarships, land a coveted research internship, get published, spend summers traveling the world on scientific expeditions, and more. Guo, a freelancer for Science, Nature, The Scientist, and Smithsonian, is a student at Yale who has won more than $120,000 in unrestricted scholarships.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Spring 2008
Microsoft Word for Medical and Technical Writers
Peter G. Aitken and Maxine M. Okazaki
Piedmont Medical Writers LLC
The authors, both on the Duke University faculty, write that Word can be particularly problematic because the creation of long, complex documents puts unusual demands on the program. Sitken and Okazaki say they have developed techniques to avoid, minimize, or work around most of them. Aitken has been working in scientific and technical fields for his entire career and Okazaki is a pharmacologist. They can be reached at www.piedmontmedicalwriters.com.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Winter 2007-08
The Life of James Van Allen: The First Eight Billion Miles
Abigail Foerstner
University of Iowa Press
James Van Allen, astrophysicist and space pioneer for whom the Van Allen radiation belts are named, was among the principal scientific investigators for 24 space missions. Foerstner, who teaches science writing in the graduate program at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism and a former science reporter for the Chicago Tribune, drew on the astrophysicist's correspondence and publications, as well as interviews with more than 100 other scientists, for this biography.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Winter 2007-08
King's Gambit: A Son, A Father, And The World's Most Dangerous Game
Paul Hoffman
Hyperion
Editor and chief of Discover, Hoffman's book is part memoir (the story of his childhood in Greenwich Village with a brilliant, bohemian, Ping-Pong-hustling dad, and his escape into chess to avoid facing unpleasant truths about his father) and part an insightful look at the crazy world of championship chess, including the stereotypical lunatic Russian grandmasters (one asked that his chair be x-rayed and dismantled to make sure Bobby Fischer hadn't implanted a harmful radiation emitter inside it).
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Winter 2007-08
The Science of Dune
Kevin R. Grazier
BenBella Books
Several NASW members (Sibylle Hechtel, Carol Hart, Sergio Pistoi, and David M. Lawrence) contributed chapters to this exploration of science-fiction author Frank Herbert's world in his popular Dune series. Hechtel contributed the chapter on "The Biology of the Sandworm" after received an unexpected e-mail asking if she'd tackle such an assignment. She was more than interested. "I'd first read Dune in high school and later read all the sequels," she said.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Winter 2007-08
Who's Afraid of Marie Curie? The Challenges Facing Women in Science and Technology
Linley Erin Hall
Seal Press
Women comprise 51 percent of the work force but hold only 26 percent of all IT jobs, and they are underrepresented by a 2-to-1 ratio in physical science fields such as chemistry and physics. Hall, a Berkeley, Calif., freelance uncovers the subtle and not-so-subtle gender bias that begins in early childhood and continues through the hiring process and in the workplace environment.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Winter 2007-08
Hurricanes and the Middle Atlantic States
Rick Schwartz
Blue Diamond Books
The first book-length reference that examines the 400-year recorded tropical cyclone history of the region. It offers chronological profiles of significant storms, from Jamestown to the present. Schwartz says he wrote the book to fill a vital need for accurate historical information concerning mid-Atlantic states' hurricanes. His book contains a collection of dramatic encounters — tales gleaned from articles and books, private journals, and interviews.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Winter 2007-08
The Connected Child: Bring Hope and Healing to Your Adoptive Family
Karyn B. Purvis, David R. Cross and Wendy Lyons Sunshine
McGraw-Hill
Adopted children bring great joy to a family, but they can also present unique parenting challenges. How has the past affected my child? What is the real message behind the challenging behavior? How can we build more joyful family relationships? Wendy Sunshine met her co-authors while reporting on them for a Texas newspaper. "They felt I 'got' their work and invited me to co-author a book," she said.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Winter 2007-08
Science for Sale: The Perils, Rewards, and Delusions of Campus Capitalism
Daniel Greenberg
University of Chicago Press
In recent years, the news media have been awash in stories about increasingly close ties between college campuses and multimillion-dollar corporations. Our nation's universities, the story goes, reap enormous windfalls patenting products of scientific research that have been primarily funded by taxpayers. Meanwhile, hoping for new streams of revenue from their innovations, the same universities are allowing their research — and their very principles — to become compromised by quests for profit. "But is that really the case?" Greenberg questions. "Is money really hopelessly corrupting science?"
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Winter 2007-08
Science 101: Forensics
Edward Ricciuti
Smithsonian/Collins
Forensics deals with subjects as varied as the timing of a rainfall and the trajectory of a bullet. Its practitioners use tools as uncomplicated as a simple envelope to hold a fragment of evidence to a complicated scanning electron microscope to probe the molecular structure of a piece of evidence. In his history of forensics Edward Ricciuti, a Connecticut freelance, describes what is believed to be its first use.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Winter 2007-08
Dr. Bernstein's Diabetes Solution: The Complete Guide to Achieving Normal Blood Sugars Newly Revised and Updated
Richard K. Bernstein
Little, Brown and Co.
In his newly revised and updated book, Bernstein provides an accessible, detailed guide to his approach to controlling blood sugars. He offers the most up-to-date information on new products, medications, and supplements. He explains the connection between obesity and type 2 diabetes, describes how to interrupt the cycle of obesity and insulin resistance, and reveals a new method for losing weight quickly and easily. He also explains the most recent breakthrough science and potential cures.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Fall 2007
Science 101: Ecology
Jennifer Freeman
HarperCollins
A general interest introduction to the field of ecology, the book's topics range from carbon basics to environmental ethics. "My aim is to help readers understand how ecology — unraveling the mysteries of the Earth's intricate and interconnected processes — can help chart a sustainable course for humans and other life on Earth," Freeman says. In the past, she's written on ecology and environmental topics for The Earth Institute at Columbia University, Union of Concerned Scientists, Natural Resources Defense Council, and other informed audiences with a strong, often professional interest in the topics.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Fall 2007
All in a Day's Work: Careers in Science
Megan Sullivan
NSTA Press
Sullivan says this, her first book, is aimed at giving students of all ages a taste of the diversity of careers in which science is used. The book profiles 34 people who use science in their daily work and provides readers with a glimpse of what it is like to actually apply science in the real world. The careers range from the expected — high school science teacher, microbiologist, and forensics technician — to the perhaps unexpected — firefighter, landscape architect, and historical archaeologist — to the adventurous — astronaut, deep-cave explorer, and oceanographer — to the offbeat — roller coaster designer, perfumer, and sports biomechanist.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Fall 2007
The Far Traveler: Voyages of a Viking Woman
Nancy Marie Brown
Harcourt
This 20-volume set is written by more than 5,000 international leaders in science and technology, including 35 Nobel Prize laureates, all selected and invited to contribute by McGraw-Hill's board of consulting editors. Readers will find over 7,000 articles covering nearly 100 fields of science, more than 1,700 new and updated articles, and 12,000 illustrations. The encyclopedia spans 97 subject areas, covering major disciplines in science and technology.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Fall 2007
The Encyclopedia of Science & Technology (10th Edition)
Various authors
McGraw-Hill
This 20-volume set is written by more than 5,000 international leaders in science and technology, including 35 Nobel Prize laureates, all selected and invited to contribute by McGraw-Hill's board of consulting editors. Readers will find over 7,000 articles covering nearly 100 fields of science, more than 1,700 new and updated articles, and 12,000 illustrations. The encyclopedia spans 97 subject areas, covering major disciplines in science and technology.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Summer 2007
Nutrition Almanac (6th Edition)
John D. Kirschmann
McGraw-Hill
When first published 30 years ago, this was one of the first books to address "nutrition in practice" and sold millions of copies through the years. Among the topics in this fully revised, updated edition are "how what you eat can affect more than 100 ailments (and) what science can tell us about dietary supplements."
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Summer 2007
Cancer Activism: Gender, Media, and Public Policy
Karen Kedrowski and Marilyn Stine Sarow
University of Illinois Press
The authors analyze the efforts of breast cancer and prostate cancer activist groups over a 20-year period to show how these groups continue to be successful in sustaining or increasing federal spending on genderrelated cancers. In tracing the rise of each movement, the book explores how discussions about the diseases appeared in the media and as part of public and government agendas and how those agendas affected one another.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Summer 2007
Mushrooms, Molds, and Miracles
Lucy Kavaler
Author's Guild Back-in-Print Books
When Lucy Kavaler first sent her manuscript to her agent, the receptionist called to say she thought fungi had to be boring, but she read a few pages and was so caught up, she took it home and read it through the night. When the galleys went out to reviewers, Time magazine sent a photographer to Kavaler's house, she went on tour, and the book was a tremendous success. But alas, after many years, the publisher let it go out of print. Despite that, Kavaler kept getting contacted by people discovering it in libraries and a Cornell professor based an entire course on the book. She wanted new readers to think of fungi in a new way. Since the last paperback was falling apart, the Author's Guild was able to get the printer to scan the hard cover.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Summer 2007
Across the Wide Ocean: The Why, How, and Where of Navigation for Humans and Animals at Sea
Karen Romano Young
Green Willow
When Karen Romano Young was growing up, she and her sisters and brother spent most of their time exploring the wetlands down the road. The mill there was home to a woman who taught her about the wetlands and only once yelled at her for destroying frog eggs by stepping on them. These days the author lives near a marsh full of frogs in Bethel, Conn., with her husband, three children, two guinea pigs, a dog, and a cat. As part of her research for this colorful book, she went to sea for a month on the research vessel Atlantis and dived to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean in the submarine Alvin to see hydrothermal vents. She says the ocean is "our unknown territory close to home."
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Summer 2007
The Grid: A Journey Through the Heart of Our Electrified World
Philip F. Schewe
Joseph Henry Press
Philip Schewe, chief science writer for the American Institute of Physics, says he was writing a book about the forces of nature, but it became too sprawling. "I decided I needed to write a more focused, more practical book," he said. At that point, Schewe was preparing to write about how electricity came to be an applied technology. "The backdrop was to be the massive blackout in the Northeast in November 1965 — then the largest electrical failure in history. That became the topic of my book."
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Summer 2007
Do Not Go Gentle
Terra Ziporyn
iUniverse
Terra Ziporyn, a Maryland freelance, former associate editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association, and author of a number of science books including The New Harvard Guide to Women's Health, uses a novel to delve into the mind of a serial murder. Ziporyn's atypical childhood, she says, sparked her interest in mass murderers and the psychology behind their crimes. Her father was the chief psychiatrist at Cook County Jail.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Summer 2007
A Woman's Guide to Heart Attack Recovery: How to Survive, Thrive, and Protect Your Heart
Harvey M. Kramer, M.D., Charlotte Libov
M. Evans
This book is aimed at helping heart-attack survivors empower themselves by learning as much as they can about their hearts, heart-attack treatments, recuperation, and what to do in the event of another heart attack. Chapters on high blood pressure, diabetes, weight control, diet, and exercise address these specific issues.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Summer 2007
Anti Gravity: Allegedly Humorous Writing from Scientific American
Steve Mirsky
The Lyons Press.
John Rennie, editor in chief of Scientific American says in the books' foreword, "Inside the walls of Scientific American's laboratory offices in the Fortress of Sullenness, at the North Pole, the editors toil endlessly — leaving them little time for merriment. Steve Mirsky is the exception. He rolls into our office bursting with good humor and wrath at political outrages."
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Summer 2007
How Things Work: Time for Learning
Amy S. Hansen
Publications International
This is the book for any child (or grown-up) who has ever asked, "How does it do that?" Race cars and MP3s, cell phones and traffic signals, roller coasters, and bridges: It's all in this book with full-color photographs; screens that pull out, push in, and twirl.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Summer 2007
When the Man You Love Is Ill: Doing Your Best For Your Partner Without Losing Yourself
Dr. Dorree Lynn and Florence Isaacs
Marlowe & Company
This book deals with the emotional and practical problems that occur when your mate falls seriously ill. In author Florence Isaacs' case, her husband had been ill on and off since his midforties. "We learned a lot along the way about ourselves and about the medical establishment," she said. Isaacs knew she had a lot to say to other women about how to get through serious illness together and not only survive, but even emerge stronger.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Summer 2007
Feed Your Family Right: How to Make Smart Food and Fitness Choices for a Healthy Lifestyle
Elisa Zied with Ruth Winter
Wiley
Zied is a registered dietitian, a national spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association, and the co-author (with Winter) of So What Can I Eat?! Feed Your Family Right contains nutritional guidelines and recipes designed to make family meals simple, healthy, and delicious. It shows how to make a nutrition plan for each member of the family, set realistic goals, and achieve, and maintain a healthy weight.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Spring 2007
The Mother's Group: Of Love, Loss, and AIDS
Suzanne Loebl
ASJA/ iUniverse
Loebl, a Brooklyn, N.Y., freelance, writes about AIDS not only as a science writer but as a mother who lost a son to the disease. She says that in 1983 many parents turned their backs on their children with AIDS, while a few rallied to their side. When the virus infected Loebl's son, David, she jointed a support group that came to be known as the Mothers' Group. Her book chronicles the lives of the members who fiercely and tenderly stood by their children.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Spring 2007
The Fourth Horseman: One Man's Secret Mission to Wage the Great War in America
Robert L. Koenig
PublicAffairs/Perseus Books Group
The Fourth Horseman tells the story of the 20th century's first foray into biological warfare, a World War I German Army sabotage campaign that featured a "germ factory" in the basement of a cottage in Washington, D.C. The book's main character is a Virginia-born doctor and German spy, Anton Dilger, who studied medicine at the University of Heidelberg and Johns Hopkins University, and was the descendant of a great German physiologist.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Spring 2007
Iron Ties
Ann Parker
Poisoned Pen Press
Parker's book is the sequel to her first historical mystery, Silver Lies. She says she originally became interested in Leadville, Colo. in the late 1990s when she first learned her paternal grandmother had been raised there — something she learned about long after her grandmother's death.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Spring 2007
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Microbiology
Jeffrey J. Byrd and Tabitha M. Powledge
Alpha
Like all the Complete Idiot's Guides, this paperback is a primer. It explains the basics on bacteria, viruses, and the lesser-known microbes (protozoa, algae, fungi, prions, and the brand-new archaea). The Complete Idiot's Guide to Microbiology concentrates on infectious diseases but also explains other features of the invisible world that governs all life on earth.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Winter 2006-07
The Medical Science of House, M.D.
Andrew Holtz
Berkley Publishing Group
Holtz, chief of the HoltzReport and former CNN medical correspondent, takes readers into the science behind the FOX TV drama, "House M.D.," starring Hugh Laurie as Dr. Gregory House, a diagnostician who unravels medical mysteries in each episode.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Winter 2006-07
Secrets of The Lean Plate Club
Sally Squires
St. Martin's Press
Squires, a health reporter and columnist for the Washington Post, presents an eight-week program. Each week, readers find two new goals — one for food and one for activity. Weight Watchers International, Inc. says of the book: "Sally Squires shows her stuff — expert knowledge about what it takes to lose weight successfully, understanding of the trials and tribulations that people struggling with weight issues face, and conviction that lasting weight loss is possible."
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Winter 2006-07
The Cure: How a Father Raised $100 Million — and Bucked the Medical Establishment — in a Quest to Save His Children
Geeta Anand
Regan Books
Anand, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for the Wall Street Journal, has written the story of one father's race against time to found a business that would cure his sick children. John and Aileen Crowley were on top of the world. With a brand-new Harvard Business School degree, three beautiful children, a new house, and a great job, they thought that they had just entered the best years of life. Then doctors diagnosed their two youngest children with Pompe disease, a degenerative disease so rare that no company had bothered spending the money needed to sponsor research.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Winter 2006-07
Get the Trans Fat Out: 601 Simple Ways to Cut the Trans Fat Out of Any Diet
Suzanne Havala Hobbs
Three Rivers Press
Hobbs is a licensed, registered dietitian with a doctorate in public health from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she is a clinical assistant professor, registered dietitian, and columnist. She has written a guidebook on how to create a healthier, trans fat-free diet while keeping taste and pleasure alive in the foods we eat.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Winter 2006-07
The Demon Under the Microscope: From Battlefield Hospitals to Nazi Labs, One Doctor's Heroic Search for the World's First Miracle Drug
Tom Hager
Harmony Books
Hager, an Oregon freelance, says he wrote the book to help readers understand modern medicine. Kirkus Reviews wrote that The Demon Under The Microscope described "the fascinating story of the world's first antibiotic ... A rousing, valuable contribution to the history of medicine" and Library Journal recommends it highly.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Winter 2006-07
The Rough Guide to Climate Change
Robert Henson
Rough Guides
Henson, a writer for The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), has written a book about a subject we almost always mention in conversation — the weather. Henson maintains weather has become a polarized subject and yet, he maintains, the basic science behind global climate change is rock-solid and accepted by virtually all parties.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Winter 2006-07
Kicking the Carbon Habit: Global Warming and the Case for Renewable and Nuclear Energy
William Sweet
Columbia University Press
Sweet is senior news editor of IEEE Spectrum. From the mid-70s through the 80s, he worked as a journalist specializing in nuclear arms control and all related matters. Publisher's Weekly wrote of the book: "Polar icecaps are melting, ocean levels are rising, greenhouse gas emissions are accelerating — and, says Sweet, the villain of catastrophic climate change is coal, whose sooty carbon emissions make it the single worst energy source."
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Winter 2006-07
A Place for Butterflies
Melissa Stewart
Peachtree
Stewart has written more than 70 science books for young people. A Massachusetts freelance, she says this book, aimed at 5 to 8 year olds, was definitely a labor of love: "It is my hope that the book's stunning illustrations and clear, simple language will inform young readers and inspire them to take action. Butterflies have lived on Earth for more than 140 million years."
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Winter 2006-07
Return of the Condor
John Moir
The Lyons Press
The book tells the story of the race to save our largest bird from extinction. The storyline transports readers deep into the world of the California condor and describes how the condor symbolizes the extinction crisis facing our planet. Moir says he had been writing articles about the condor recovery program for newspapers and magazines for several years. "In 2004, I was asked to do a feature story on the recovery effort for Birding magazine. Researching this article took me deeper into the world of the condor and the biologists who are trying to save it, and I realized that the story of this iconic bird would make a great book. I've spent the past year and half researching, traveling, and writing the book." Moir can be reached at John@Jmoir.com. The press representative is Theresa Eldredge at 203-458-4539 and theresa.eldredge@globepequot.com.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Fall 2006
The Rock From Mars: A Detective Story on Two Planets
Kathy Sawyer
Random House
Sawyer, a former science writer for the Washington Post, tells the story of the passionate scientific dispute that engulfed a rock from Mars that landed in Antarctica 13 millennia ago. At the core of the drama is one team's 1996 claim that the rock might harbor the first known signs of extraterrestrial life, but the narrative encompasses broader themes: How scientists think and work and feel, how journalists and politicians — all the way to the White House — interact with science, and how the controversy ultimately changed scientists' approach to such mysteries as how life begins on any planet, including Earth. Sawyer can be reached at kathy@kathysawyer.com. Publicist is Jennifer Jones is at jmjones@randomhouse.com.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Fall 2006
A Scientist's Guide To Talking With The Media: Practical Advice from the Union of Concerned Scientists
Richard Hayes and Daniel Grossman
Rutgers University Press.
This book may help us as much as it helps the scientists. Hayes is the media director of the Union of Concerned Scientists and Grossman is a science journalist, radio, and Web producer. They advise, for example, "Preparing for a Press Conference. In advance of the event, create your compass of main messages and talking points. If more than one person will be speaking, each person should choose one or two of the messages as their main focus of discussion. Brain storm all the possible questions reporters may ask you, and have your answers ready, always aiming to bridge back to your talking points. If possible, try to schedule your press conference at 10 a.m. or 11 a.m. That will give newspapers and television reporters plenty of time to put their stories together for the evening news or the next day's paper." Among the other subjects are "Hope for the Best, Prepare for the Worst" and "Do You Hear What You Are Saying?" NASW's Deborah Blum has a quote on the back of the book: " ... now more than ever we need an improved public understanding of science and the way it affects our lives." The press representative is Aaron Huertas at 202-331-5458 and ahertas@ucsusa.org.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Fall 2006
Inside Out Down Under: Stories from a Spiritual Sabbatical
Diana Somerville
Beechworth Press
Somerville lived for a year in rural Australia and writes that ancient rocks and warbling birds taught her to listen in new ways. Seeking her own "songlines," she found powerful teachings in the spiritual links between Australian Aborigines and Earth's oldest continent and traditional ways that echo Native American cultures while contrasting vividly with the rugged individualism of the American West. She writes, "Approaching 50, that midlife milestone, I overflowed with questions. Undertaking a physical journey can be not only a metaphor for the spiritual journey but embody it." A freelance from Washington State, she says the book began as an assignment for the late Earth magazine but it became mainly her "own spiritual seeking to go 'inside out' spiritually by going 'down under geographically.'" The book is a mixture of her perceptions, surprises, wanderings, and encounters with the culture, the personalities, the landscape of Oz, and herself. She writes being a science writer gave her lots of practice delving into a completely unfamiliar topic, following her nose, trying to figure out whether or not it was interesting enough to write about. You can share her journey and take note of "new ways to some of the world's ancient truths." Somerville can be contacted at 360-452-1212 or writer@olypen.com. The press representative is Elizabeth West at 360-670-5491.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Fall 2006
FED UP! Winning the War Against Childhood Obesity
Susan Okie M.D.
Joseph Henry Press
Harvard-trained family physician Okie writes, "Carefully limiting your child's 'screen time' is one of the most effective things you can do as a parent to reduce your children's obesity risk. This isn't just speculation. A double-blind, randomized trial by Stanford University researchers found that reducing the amount of time that kids spent weekly watching TV was associated with lower obesity rates." The problem, Okie points out, is serious. "Today's kids may be the first generation of children to have a shorter life expectancy than their parents. The cause for that startling fact is obesity." She points out, according to the TV Turnoff Network, on average, children in the U.S. will spend more time in front of the television (1,023 hours) than in school (900 hours) this year. In her new book, FED UP!, Okie goes into detail about how reducing your child's screen time — which includes their time in front of a computer — can help fight the obesity epidemic. "Turning off the TV probably works in multiple ways to protect kids from unhealthy weight gain," Okie explains. "It makes them more likely to be physically active. It may help to limit the kind of unconscious snacking that many kids do while watching TV. And it reduces their exposure to commercials for high-calorie food and drink products." She calls on more parents to employ television monitors, devices that can be hooked up to your television or computer and set to allow the device to be on only for a certain number of hours per week. Once the time runs out, the child is prevented from watching additional television. Another important strategy for parents looking to limit their child's TV time? According to Okie, "Never put a television set in a child's bedroom!" In the end, FED UP! advocates a combination of healthy eating and healthy living and presents the obesity epidemic in terms that parents can understand and do something about. Okie can be reached at 202-223-3032 or susan.okie@verizon.net. The publicity representative is Robin Pinnel at 202 334-1902 and rpinnel@nas.edu.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Fall 2006
Regaining Bladder Control: What Every Woman Needs To Know
Rebecca G. Rogers, Janet Yagoda Shagam, Ph.D. and Shelley Kleinschmidt
Prometheus Books
Shagam is an Albuquerque, N.M. freelance writer; Rogers is director of the Division of Urogynecology, at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center; and Kleinschmidt, also of Albuquerque, is a proposal manager for Tier Technologies. There are more than 15 million women in America who experience chronic bladder-control problems. The authors say that the good news is that eight out of 10 women can improve their continence with simple exercises and dietary changes detailed in the book. Regaining Bladder Control includes work sheets, self-assessment questionnaires, a glossary, and frequently asked questions to help readers evaluate and discuss their condition with their doctors. Shagam can be reached at 505-298-2163 or janetyagooda@ nasw.org. The press representative is Lynn Pasquale at 800-853-7545 and lpasquale@prometheusbooks.com.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Fall 2006
Embargoed Science
Vincent Kiernan
University of Illinois Press
Those of us who have suffered embargos on hot stories will find Kiernan's book of great interest. A senior writer at The Chronicle of Higher Education, he writes that the popular notion of a lone scientist privately toiling long hours in a laboratory, striking upon a great discovery, and announcing to the world is romanticized fiction. Kiernan offers insight into how embargo's impact on public knowledge of science and medical issues. He points out that members of the general public aren't the only readers of newspapers and watchers of TV. Scientists, he says, often learn about new research through the mass media, long before the journal article describing the research arrives in the mail. "Thus," he writes, "the distorted picture of science that can be blamed on the embargo may also skew the understanding of scientific developments by scientists and physicians." Kiernan can be be reached at 202-466-1061 or kiernan@nasw.org. The press representative is Michael Roux at 217-244-4689 or mroux@uillinois.edu.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Fall 2006
Right Answers: Short Takes On Big Issues Separating Fact From Fantasy
Alan Caruba
Merril Press
Alan Caruba's book is on topics ranging from Islam to immigration and environmentalism to education. He maintains the text is "documented, attributed, and opinionated!" The book emanates from The National Anxiety Center (NAC), which he founded in 1990. The NAC is, he says, a "clearing house for information about 'scare campaigns' designed to influence public opinion and policy." In the book he takes on "food cops," advocates of technophobia, environmental corruption, global warming, and the green agenda. "Whether you agree with him or not, you will find his opinions thought provoking and fun and often quoted in the media. He says he didn't start out to become a pundit or a conservative but became disillusioned with the United Nation's peace efforts, the United States' educational system, government funding of social security and Medicare as well as the supreme court's ability to protect the inherent rights of citizens and property rights. Caruba can be reached at acaruba@aol.com or 973-763-6392. More information on NAC at www.anxietycenter.com.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Fall 2006
The Sun
Steele Hill and Michael Carlowicz
Harry N. Abrams Books
Michael Carlowicz, a science writer/editor affiliated with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, has a photo-essay book focused on the only star we can study up close and the only one that has a real impact on our lives on Earth. He says: "Our voyage to The Sun began nine years ago when Steele (Hill) and I shared an office at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Day after day, we traded ideas and images that could engage and educate the public about our nearest star. We watched the Sun and the aurora alongside the scientists and investigators of SOHO and the International Solar-Terrestrial Physics program, learning as they learned. It was a rare privilege for a couple of liberal arts majors to be part of the greatest solar-terrestrial observing campaign in history. We collaborated with scientists on posters, Web sites, press conferences, and educational products, but none of them did justice to the amazing new (and archival) views of the Sun we found. Hence this book, which attempts to bring together the full breadth of solar imagery from ancient cultural sites to satellite-era close-ups." Carlowicz can be reached at 508-477-1450 or mikewicz@nasw.org. The book's publicist is Lisa Sherman-Cohen at 212 519-1202 or lsherman@hnabooks.com.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Fall 2006
Nature's Restoration: People and Places on the Front Lines of Conservation
Peter Friederici
Island Press/Shearwater Books
Peter Friederici, a Flagstaff, Ariz. freelance, profiles some of the dedicated citizens working to return sizable tracts of the American landscape to nature, and to health. He believes a restoration movement is sweeping North America and that it offers a new way for people to coexist with nature — one that is neither domineering nor simplistic, but rather both difficult and deeply rewarding.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Summer 2006
The Ghost Hunters
Deborah Blum
Penguin Press
Pulitzer Prize winner Blum, professor of science journalism at the University of Wisconsin, has written about what she is says is actually a "cool story" for a science writer. She starts out with the question: "What if a world-renowned professor of psychology at Harvard University, a doctor and scientist acclaimed as one of the leading intellects of the time, suddenly announced that he believes in ghosts?" Blum writes that William James and two other outstanding thinkers, Richard Hodgson and James Hysop, staked their reputations, their careers, even their sanity on one of the most extraordinary (and entertaining) psychological quests ever undertaken.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Summer 2006
Underwater to Get Out of the Rain: A Love Affair with the Sea
Trevor Norton
Da Capo Press
Trevor Norton is a professor of marine biology at the University of Liverpool. From a starred Publisher's Weekly review: "This delightfully wry account of a lifetime enchanted by the sea should enshrine marine biologist Norton in the pantheon of sea-struck pioneers he brilliantly profiled in his earlier Stars Beneath the Sea."
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Summer 2006
Daring Docs: High Drama in Journal AMA Papers and Other Investigative Reporting
Milton Golin
ASJA Press
A decorated U.S. Air Force transoceanic navigator, and certified meteorologist for his flights across the Himalayan "Hump" in World War II, Golin in his book, runs the gamut of perilous war-and-peace events, from the dynamiting of an airliner to the heroism of 40 physicians in a deadly hurricane.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Summer 2006
Great Feuds in Mathematics: Ten of the Liveliest Disputes Ever
Hal Hellman
John Wiley and Sons, Inc.
This is Hal Hellman's 13th book and the fourth in his Great Feuds series. Aimed squarely at those who think math is an exact and staid field of endeavor, he writes "When my editor at Wiley suggested that I do a book on Great Feuds in Mathematics, I was not excited by the idea ... Mathematics, I felt, is a cold, logical discipline where questions can be decided, if not quickly, at least objectively and decisively ... How could there be feuds in mathematics? But my editor persisted. So I did it. It was tough, and took a full two and a half years, but it was an eye-opener."
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Summer 2006
Down to the Sea for Science: 75 Years of Ocean Research, Education, and Exploration
Vicky Cullen
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Cullen, a 32-year veteran of the organization's communications staff, has written an abundantly illustrated 184-page book that chronicles pivotal moments in the formation and history of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI).
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Summer 2006
Shattered Nerves: How Science Is Solving Modern Medicine's Most Perplexing Problem
Victor D. Chase
Johns Hopkins University Press
Victor Chase takes the reader on a journey into a new medical frontier, where a category of implants known as neural prosthetics returns sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, and movement to the paralyzed. These devices which replace damaged circuitry in the nervous system, also hold the potential to resolve psychiatric illnesses, restore the ability to form memories in damaged brains, and even to endow the able-bodied with superhuman powers by increasing learning capacity and extending the visible and audible wavelengths.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Summer 2006
So What Can I Eat?! How to Make Sense of the New Dietary Guidelines for Americans and Make Them Your Own
Elisa Zied and Ruth Winter
Wiley
NASW member (and ScienceWriters columnist) Ruth Winter has published her 35th book. Co-authored with Elisa Zied, a registered dietitian and highly visible spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association, the book is a blueprint for developing a nutritious, balanced eating plan for life.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Spring 2006
Perfect Passwords: Selection, Protection, Authentication
Mark Burnett
Syngress Publishing, Inc.
Traditional security policies for passwords may work against you, resulting in greater insecurity, warns security researcher and author Mark Burnett. According to Burnett, users find password policies too restrictive and respond with patterns of weak and predictable passwords.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Spring 2006
Health Politics: Power Populism and Health
Mike Magee
Spencer Books
You may find this a good reference book. Designed as a classroom resource, it contains 76 essays grouped in nine categories with references at the end of each essay. The subjects are "the megatrends that are rapidly transforming our health care system."
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Spring 2006
Delivery System Handbook for Personal Care and Cosmetics: Technology, Applications and Formulations
Meyer Rosen, editor
William Andrew Publishing
Meyer Rosen, president of Interactive Consulting, says this 1,000-page book "creates a foundation text for technology to improve skin and teaches readers about techniques called delivery systems for providing consumer products with anti-wrinkle and other skin needs."
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Spring 2006
The New Medicines: How Drugs Are Created, Approved, Marketed And Sold
Bernice Schacter
Praeger
Bernice Schacter, a Wilmington, Del. freelance, says her book is intended to demystify for a general audience the process of getting prescription drugs from the lab to the drug store. Schacter has over 20 years of biomedical research experience in both academia and industry.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Spring 2006
Adventure on Dolphin Island
Ellen Prager
iUniverse
Ellen Prager, president of Earth2 Ocean, Inc., in Tierra Verde, Fla. wrote this book that is both fiction and fact about dolphins "as a new way to engage young readers (and their parents) in learning about the ocean and to engage them to want to learn more."
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Spring 2006
Mental Fitness for Life: 7 Steps to Healthy Aging
Sandra Cusack and Wendy Thompson
Bull Publishing Company
Sandra Cusack is Guttman-Gee Research Fellow and adjunct professor in Educational Gerontology at Simon Fraser University, in Vancouver, Canada. She is a member of the American Society on Aging and the National Council on Aging. Thompson is an educational gerontologist and the author of five books. A former Olympic speed skater, she has encouraged thousands as a speaker and trainer. The authors insist that by establishing and continually pursuing mental clarity throughout life you can actually help prevent degenerative brain diseases further down the road.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Spring 2006
The First Human: The Race to Discover Our Earliest Ancestors
Ann Gibbons
Doubleday
Ann Gibbons, a contributing correspondent for Science, has written a chronicle of the race to find the missing links between humans and apes involving the highly competitive world of fossil hunting and the lives of the ambitious scientists intent on pinpointing the dawn of humankind. Her book tells the story of four international teams obsessed with solving the mystery of human evolution and of the intense rivalries that propel them.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Spring 2006
Nature's Restoration
Peter Friederici
Island Press
Peter Friederici, a Flagstaff, Ariz. freelance, wrote this book about people who really care and put their efforts into restoration of ailing Mother Nature. He writes that from the Hawaiian Islands to Appalachia's forests ordinary citizens are changing the way we think about nature. In Chicago and its suburbs, for example, legions of volunteers replant prairies in the shadow of freeways. On a deserted Bermudan island, a man has spent 40 years single-handedly restoring the nesting habitat of a rare seabird.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Spring 2006
Broken Genius: The Rise and Fall of William Shockley, Creator of the Electronic Age
Joel N. Shurkin
Macmillan Science
Joel Shurkin, a Baltimore, Md. freelance, has written the first biography of William Shockley, founding father of Silicon Valley, whom he labels "one of the most significant and reviled scientists of the 20th century." Shockley won a Nobel Prize for inventing the transistor, upon which almost everything that makes the modern world is based. Shurkin maintains little has affected history as much as this device, developed along with John Bardeen and Walter Brattain at AT&T's Bell Telephone Laboratories in the mid-1940s. "Shockley," Shurkin says, "is remembered more for one of the most vicious controversies in modern science. His campaigning about race, intelligence and genetics saw him donating to the Nobel Prize sperm bank, being vilified on national TV, and ultimately destroyed his reputation."
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Spring 2006
The Star Wars Enigma: Behind the Scenes of the Cold War Race for Missile Defense
Nigel Hey
Potomac Books
Nigel Hey, an Albuquerque, N.M., freelance, has written a book that explores President Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), including the possibility that it was the greatest bluff in history. Hey started researching the book in 1999 with encouragement from Adm. James Watkins, who was an important voice in encouraging Reagan to endorse strategic defense, and Gerold Yonas, a Sandia labs colleague (and neighbor) who was SDI's first chief scientist. Both, for quite different reasons, said they thought the SDI story should be told for what it was, in understandable prose.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Spring 2006
State of the Wild 2006: A Global Portrait of Wildlife, Wildlands, and Oceans by Wildlife Conservation Society
Sharon Guynup, Editor
Island Press
Sharon Guynup, a Hoboken, N.J., freelance, says the Wildlife Conservation Society hired her to create, sell, and launch a State of the Wild book series. Why preach only to the choir? Thus she chose hunting and the wildlife trade as the cover topic for this first volume, which focuses about one-third of content on issues such as the trade in animals for the traditional Asian medicine trade, bycatch, and diseases that could come with a bushmeat dinner (or your new, exotic pet).
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Winter 2005-06
Halley's Quest: A Selfless Genius and His Troubled Paramore
Julie Wakefield
Joseph Henry Press
Julie Wakefield, a Virginia freelance, said she wrote the book because she found it fascinating that Edmond Halley, although famed for his comet work, undertook the first mission funded by a government for the sake of science, and for the most part, his adventures 300 years ago aboard the Paramore represented an untold story. Moreover, his role as the founder of geophysics was not widely appreciated.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Winter 2005-06
Time To Lose: Using Creative Time Management Principles to Finally Win Your Battle with Weight
Jan Yager, Ph.D.
Hannacroix Creek Books
Time management and relationships consultant Jan Yager says she noticed something important about the weight challenge: "Too many approached it in a haphazard way or failed to apply — to the goal, losing weight, and maintaining the weight loss — the business that were working." That idea led her to create the motivational guide intended to be read and used alongside any healthy diet being monitored by a physician, nutritionist, or weight loss specialist.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Winter 2005-06
Black Bodies and Quantum Cats: Tales From the Annals of Physics
Jennifer Ouellette
Penguin
Jennifer Ouellette traces key developments in the field, setting descriptions of the fundamentals of physics in their historical context, as well as against a broad cultural backdrop. For example, Newton's laws as found in the film "Addams Family Values," and the finer points of relativity in "Back to the Future." Edgar Allan Poe's "The Purloined Letter" serves to illuminate the mysterious nature of neutrinos, and Jeanette Winterson's novel Gut Symmetries provides an elegant metaphorical framework for string theory.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Winter 2005-06
Help at Any Cost: How the Troubled-Teen Industry Cons Parents and Hurts Kids
Maia Szalavitz
Riverhead Books
Maia Szalavitz, a New York freelance specializing in neuroscience, brings unique credentials to the writing of this book. Her research included hundreds of interviews with teens, their parents, program employees, and former employees — as well as psychologists, sociologists, psychiatrists, and attorneys. The book covers tough-love residential treatment for disturbed teens and shows how, despite a complete lack of evidence for efficacy or safety, a billion-dollar industry has grown to sell such programs to desperate and vulnerable parents.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Winter 2005-06
A Chaos of Delight
Geoffrey Dobson, PhD
Equinox Publishing
Geoffrey Dobson, associate professor of molecular science, James Cook University, Queensland, Australia, has to be admired for taking on a comprehensive tour into the succession of ways human beings have constructed order and meaning about the world and their place in it. Dobson says the book was conceived when he was working at NIH and his neighbors asked him what he did during the day and why science was important.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Winter 2005-06
Food at Work: Workplace Solutions for Malnutrition, Obesity and Chronic Diseases
Christopher Wanjek
International Labor Organization
This book addresses a simple question: "How do workers eat while at work?" This question is not always given much thought, despite the obvious fact that food is the fuel that powers production. Christopher Wanjek makes a case for subsidized workplace meal programs to curb obesity and chronic diseases (in wealthy countries) and malnutrition (in poor countries).
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Fall 2005
A Left-Hand Turn Around the World: Chasing the Mystery and Meaning of All Things Southpaw
David Wolman
Da Capo Press
Wolman, a Portland, Ore. freelance, committed a year of his life to traveling the world in order to explore left-handedness — specifically, what causes it and how left-handers might differ from the right-handed majority. Lefties are about 10-12 percent of the population. Wolman's travels took him to see neuroscientists in Berkeley, lefty golf enthusiasts in Japan, psychologists in London, a double amputee in Illinois, palm readers in Quebec, and centuries-old brains in Paris.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Fall 2005
Infinite Worlds: An Illustrated Voyage to Planets beyond Our Sun
Ray Villard and Lynette R. Cook
University of California Press
Merely a decade ago there were no known planets orbiting sun-like stars outside our solar system. In the past ten years, however, fast-paced developments in astronomy have revealed over 140 extrasolar planets — with more discoveries surely on the way. Though it will be years before we have direct images of these far-flung worlds, this lavishly illustrated book gives us an idea of what they might look like.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Fall 2005
The E-Bomb: How America's New Directed Energy Weapons Will Change the Way Future Wars Will by Fought
Douglas Beason, PhD
Da Capo Press
In the introduction to the book, Beason, a key architect of directed-energy research who has worked as an advisor to both the Clinton and Bush administration, describes a scenario in the introduction. Called Active Denial, it is one of the many non-lethal directed-energy weapons being tested today. Beason, a retired colonel, says had the funding for it not been cut in the late 1990s, it could have been used to quell the urban warfare in Baghdad and Fallujah — and hundreds of lives could have been saved.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Fall 2005
50 Simple Ways To Live A Longer Life: Everyday Techniques From The Forefront of Science
Suzanne Bohan and Glenn Thompson
Sourcebooks
Bohan, a correspondent for the Sacramento Bee and a winner of the David Perlman Award for Excellence in Medical Journalism for coverage of ER overcrowding, has written an anti-aging book with her husband, lawyer Glenn Thompson. Each chapter contains a different way to extend life. Advice includes skipping meals, socializing, drinking tea, and making your legs stronger.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Fall 2005
The One Best Way: Frederick Winslow Taylor and The Enigma of Efficiency
Robert Kanigel
MIT Press
Kanigel, professor of Science Writing and Director of the Graduate Program in Science Writing at MIT, wrote this book about Taylor who was the first efficiency expert and the father of scientific management. Kanigel shows that Taylor bequeathed to us a clockwork world of tasks time to the hundredth of a minute. He writes that the subject of this biography helped instill in us the obsession with time, order, productivity, and efficiency that marks our age.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Fall 2005
Archives of the Universe: A Treasury of Astronomy's Historic Works of Discovery
Marcia Bartusiak
Pantheon Books
For her fourth book, Marcia Bartusiak, a visiting professor in the MIT Graduate Program in Science Writing, chronicles the history of astronomy through excerpts of 100 primary documents, from Aristotle's proof that the Earth is round to the papers that revealed that cosmic expansion is accelerating.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Summer 2005
The Drug Trial: Nancy Olivieri and the Science Scandal that Rocked the Hospital for Sick Children
Miriam Shuchman
Random House
In August 1998, a story about a doctor named Nancy Olivieri grabbed headlines in Toronto. The articles stated that Olivieri had discovered serious problems with an experimental drug manufactured by Canada's largest pharmaceutical company, a Toronto-based generics manufacturer called Apotex. The drug at the center of the scandal is a white tablet called L1, or deferiprone, intended for use by patients with the inherited blood disorder thalassemia. Olivieri planned to tell patients about the problems, as required by her hospital. But Apotex ejected her from its research program, canceling the study she was running to test the drug, and threatening her with court action if she went public.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Summer 2005
RFID Applications, Security and Privacy
Simson Garfinkel and Beth Rosenberg
Addison Wesley
Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology is rapidly becoming ubiquitous as businesses seek to streamline supply chains and respond to mandates from key customers. But RFID and other new wireless ID technologies raise unprecedented privacy issues. Garfinkel, a computer security researcher, brings together contributions from the stakeholder community — from RFID suppliers to privacy advocates. His contributors introduce today's leading wireless ID technologies, trace their evolution, explain their promise, assess their privacy risks, and evaluate proposed solutions — technical, business, and political.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Summer 2005
Stargazer: The Life and Times of the Telescope
Dr. Fred Watson
DaCapo Press
Watson is astronomer-in-charge of the Anglo-Australian Observatory in central New South Wales. His book traces the history of the telescope, from its origins with Tycho Brahe, whose king gave him an island on which he could pursue his scientific investigations, to NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, which has shown new galaxies.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Summer 2005
Parkinson's Disease and the Family: A New Guide
Nutan Sharma, M.D. and Elaine Richman, Ph.D.
Harvard University Press
Richman, president of Richman Associates, LLC, in Baltimore, M.D. and her co-author, Dr. Sharma, an assistant in neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital, and an instructor at Harvard Medical School, have written about a movement disorder that is diagnosed in 500,000 people in the United States. They have written not only for those with the diagnosis, they say, but also for their loved ones.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Summer 2005
Just A Little Too Thin: How to Pull Your Child Back from the Brink of an Eating Disorder
Dr. Michael Strober and Meg Schneider
DaCapo Press
The aim of the book is to help parents recognize if their teenager's desire to be thin is a simple quest for a smaller skirt size or something that is mutating into a struggle to feel good. It is not a book about anorexia, but rather about those who have a problem with food because of deep emotional battles.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Summer 2005
Waking the Warrior Goddess: Harnessing the Power of Nature & Natural Medicine to Achieve Extraordinary Health
Christine Horner, MD
Basic Health Publications
Horner presents a 30-step program to help women incorporate healthy lifestyle changes to prevent and fight breast cancer naturally. She points out that the incidence of breast cancer has risen 21 percent in the last four years, which she believes is related to "greater cultural affluence.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Spring 2005
Reading the Rocks: The Autobiography of the Earth
Dr. Marcia Bjornerud
Perseus/Basic/Westlaw
Over more than four billion years the planet has unintentionally kept a rich and idiosyncratic journal of its past — written, very literally, in stone. It is a story that all earthlings, and not just geologists, should know how to read.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Spring 2005
A Consumer's Dictionary of Cosmetic Ingredients 6th Edition
Ruth Winter
Three Rivers Press/Crown
Cosmetics have always been a low priority at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, but now the agency's regulatory powers have been weakened to the point where they are almost nonexistent. The author points out that if a cosmetic has a systemic effect — and many do — then they are really drugs, not cosmetics and therefore should have to be proven safe and effective.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Spring 2005
The Diabetes Diet: Dr. Bernstein's Low-Carbohydrate Solution
Richard K. Bernstein, MD
Little, Brown & Company
Bernstein, a Type 1 diabetic, says he would have been dead by now if he had continued the high-carbohydrate, low-fat diet prescribed for him in his youth. His book focuses on protein, fat, and slow-acting carbohydrate, such as leafy and whole-plant vegetables and some kinds of root vegetables, which tend to be broken down more slowly and continuously, creating a satisfied feeling for a longer time after eating.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Winter 2004-05
Career Opportunities in The Publishing Industry: Newspapers, Magazines, and Books
Fred Yager and Jan Yager
Facts on File, Inc.
An extensive guide to 86 careers in the publishing industry including newspapers, magazines, and books covering editorial, writer, marketing, art, production, management, and related jobs. Each profile includes an overview of that position as well as salary range, employment and advancement prospects, educational and training, experience, special skills and personality traits, a career ladder, and tips for entry.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Winter 2004-05
A Consumer's Dictionary of Food Additives, 6th Edition
Ruth Winter
Three Rivers Press/Crown
Expanded and updated, the book describes the relative safety and side effects of more than 12,000 ingredients that end up in our food. This includes new dangers such as bioterrorism and old problems such as antibiotic and hormone residues used in raising farm animals and crops.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Winter 2004-05
Let's Stop Destroying Our Children: Society's Most Pressing Problem
Shirley Camper Soman
iUniverse
This updated book, first published in 1974, is even more pertinent today as busy, working parents often do not take time to predict perils to their children such as inadequate caregivers and lurking predators. Soman, a social worker, maintains that "Many of America's severe problems — crime, discontent, family breakdown, drug addiction — would have been considerably far less severe (and ameliorated to a large extent) if our society chose to put its money where its mouth is with the programs and plans that most directly affect the well-being of the population group known as the young.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Winter 2004-05
Buzz: The Intimate Bond Between Insects and Humans
Josie Glausiusz with photographs by Volker Steger
Chronicle Books
Glausiusz says she and Volker first came to know one another as a result of the article "Dining on the Fly" that appeared in Discover magazine (Feb. 1998). Volker had sent the magazine an extraordinary set of never-before-published electron micrographs that showed various insects in the act of eating one another. "The then editor of Discover, Marc Zabludoff, liked the pictures so much that he decided to print them and asked me to write the accompanying text. I did so, and found the experience of working with Volker a highly rewarding one. Later, when Volker decided to publish an entire book of his insect shots, he asked me to compose the text."
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Summer 2004
Deep-Sea Detectives
Peter Limburg
ECW Press
Limburg, a Bedford, N.Y., freelance specializing in oceanography and marine science, has written about the art, science, and technology of locating the wreckage of ships and aircraft — and their unfortunate passengers. In the past, wrecks have often sunk in waters too deep for conventional divers to gather evidence that could be used for interpretation in shore-side labs. Behind each wreck, Limburg writes, is the human tragedy, and behind that lies all too often corporate greed, official corruption, and individual villainy.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Summer 2004
Acquainted with the Night: A Parent's Quest to Understand Depression and Bipolar Disorder in His Children
Paul Raeburn
Broadway Books
Raeburn says he began Acquainted with the Night thinking it would be a science writer's account of mental illness in children. He begins the story with a prologue relating his own experiences with his children, one of whom has bipolar disorder and one of whom has depression. When he finished the prologue, he says, "I felt I had more to say about the personal story before I moved to the journalism." Eventually, he discovered he could not let go of the personal story — it took over the book. Among the many issues raised in the book are the ways in which schools, psychiatrists, therapists, hospitals, the insurance industry, and the research establishment are failing our mentally ill children.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Summer 2004
Women of Space: Cool Careers on the Final Frontier
Laura S. Woodmansee
Apogee Books
Laura Woodmansee, author of Women Astronauts, continues her exploration of what it's like to be women in space. She introduces readers to more than 100 females who explore space in different ways, and the challenges they had to overcome. Among her subjects are Mars Pathfinder Engineer Donna Shirley, Director of the Center for SETI Research Jill Tarter, Astrophysicist Celestial Musician Fiorella Terenzi, Astronomer Sandra Faber, and Space Artist Lynette Cook.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Spring 2004
Great Feuds in Technology; Ten of the Liveliest Disputes Ever
Hal Hellman
John Wiley and Sons, Inc.
Who really invented the telegraph, the automobile, the airplane, television? Conflicting claims over the answers have led to some of the longest and bitterest battles in the history of technology. For example, why Thomas Edison lost the biggest battle of his career, which may explain why we have regional blackouts today, and how one small, rude, and brilliant admiral flogged the United States into creating a nuclear navy.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Spring 2004
Burn Unit: Saving Lives After The Flames
Barbara Ravage
DaCapo Press
If you like TV's ER, you'll love Ravage's book about the riveting inside look at the burn unit at Massachusetts General Hospital, one of the outstanding facilities in the world. She describes everyday heroes and their incredible but punishing work. She quotes a senior nurse who tells her, "I cry all the time. That's what I do. I don't blubber, but I'll just tear, and a long time ago I stopped trying to even — I'm going to cry, it's part of me, it's who I am.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Spring 2004
Visions of the Cosmos
Carolyn Collins Petersen and John C. Brandt
Cambridge University Press
This illustrated book is a comprehensive exploration of astronomy through the eyes of the world's observatories and spacecraft missions. Featuring stunning images, it provides a picture of the beauty of the cosmos. The accompanying text is an accessible guide to the science behind the wonders and includes clear explanations of all the major themes in astronomy.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Spring 2004
Pandora's Baby: How the First Test Tube Babies Sparked the Reproductive Revolution
Robin Marantz Henig
Houghton Mifflin
Robin Henig finds parallels between the controversy over in vitro fertilization (IVF) when it began more than 25 years ago and today's debates over human cloning and germ-line engineering. She points out opponents of IVF argued it posed significant threats to society, including the risk of chromosomally damaged babies, the derangement of family relationships, and the incursion of science into matters of procreation best left to nature and God. IVF was feared as the precursor to surrogate mothers, frozen embryos, genetic engineering of babies, and human cloning.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Spring 2004
Super Vision: A New View of Nature
Ivan Amato
Harry N. Abrams
This book's more than 200 images range from the realm of subatomic particles to the entire universe. Amato, a Maryland freelance specializing in technology, says he has always been smitten by the stunning visual appeal of scientific data: "In the 15 years since I have been writing about science, the aesthetic values of imagery emanating from almost any particular field has multiplied manyfold. To leaf through the covers of Science and Nature is to experience what amounts to an art gallery distributed over time."
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Winter 2003-04
Almost Heaven: The Story of Women in Space
Bettyann Kevles
Basic Books
Kevles, who recently held the Charles A. Lindbergh Chair at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., and now teaches at Yale University, describes many of the obstacles faced by the 40 women who have been in space as well as the excitement associated with space travel.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Winter 2003-04
Leaving Earth: Space Stations, Rival Superpowers, and the Quest for Interplanetary Travel
Robert Zimmerman
Joseph Henry Press
Zimmerman, a Maryland freelance specializing in space and astronomy, tells the story of how far-sighted dreamers in both the United States and Russia struggled to assemble the first interplanetary spaceships. For many political reasons, they called them space stations, pretending that their sole function was to orbit the earth and perform scientific research in space.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Winter 2003-04
Killer Rocks from Outer Space: Asteroids, Comets, and Meteorites
Steven N. Koppes
Discovery
This book is not about astronauts or space technology but about dinosaurs. Koppes, a science writer at the University of Chicago News Office, describes the sudden and mysterious extinction of dinosaurs 65 million years ago. He says scientists primarily believe that dinosaurs' disappearance was due to a huge cosmic bomb — a comet or asteroid approximately six miles in diameter that blasted into the surface of the planet.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Winter 2003-04
Killer Animals: Shocking True Stories of Deadly Conflicts Between Humans and Animals
Edward R. Ricciuti
The Lyons Press
Ricciuti, a Connecticut freelance, has evidently anticipated recent headlines such as a man who kept an alligator and lion in his New York apartment and the woman who collected tigers in New Jersey. In his book, he not only describes the battles between beasts and humans, he laments wild pets taken into the home means less animals in the wild.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Winter 2003-04
Killers of The Seas: Dangerous Creatures that Threaten Man in an Alien Environment
Ed R. Ricciuti
The Lyons Press
In this book, Ricciuti focuses on the hypocrisy, sentimentalism, and commercialization that pervade today's animal "industry," and he comments on the evolutionary and environmental factors that make animals behave as they do — especially when humans enter and usurp their habitats. Ricciuti ultimately concludes that the darker side of these creatures is something we often bring upon ourselves.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Winter 2003-04
Silver Lies
Ann Parker
Poisoned Pen Press
Would you like to write a novel? Many science writers think about it, but Ann Parker has done it. The book takes place as 1879 draws to a close. Like today's headlines, her tale involves corruption, love, and blackmail.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Fall 2003
The Barbary Plague: The Black Death in Victorian San Francisco
Marilyn Chase
Random House Trade
"Here's another story behind the story. Marilyn Chase is a medical reporter at the Wall Street Journal and a longtime NASW member. In this, her first book, she writes about the 1900 outbreak of bubonic plague in San Francisco, caused by ship-borne rats. The plague was denied by local politicians and the business community. The protracted cover-up allowed the infection to spread beyond the city into the rural West.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Fall 2003
The Greatest Experiment Ever Performed on Women: Exploding the Estrogen Myth
Barbara Seaman
Hyperion
For almost a century, women have been taking some form of estrogen to combat the effects of menopause and aging, and, more recently, to prevent a whole host of diseases including osteoporosis, tooth loss, Alzheimer's disease, heart ills, and breast cancer. Add to that the birth control pill and millions of women have been exposed to significant doses of this powerful female hormone.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Fall 2003
Inspiring Science: Jim Watson and the Age of DNA
John Inglis, Joe Sambrook, and Jan Witkowski, eds.
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press
Watson, of course, is one of the most famous contemporary scientists. Known not only for his role in the discovery of the DNA double helix and his leadership of the Human Genome Project and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, but also for his outspokenness. This book of 43 essays has been published to celebrate Watson's 35 years at Cold Spring Harbor.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Fall 2003
Barron's How to Prepare for the Sat II: Biology and Biology E/M
Maurice Bleifeld
Barron's Educational Series
A retired high school principal and biology teacher at the Bronx High School of Science, Maurice Bleifeld first wrote this book in 1963. The latest edition is based on the modern emphasis of the test on ecology (E) and molecular biology (M).
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Fall 2003
In the Blink of an Eye
Andrew Parker
Perseus Publishing
Half a billion years ago after a long dark era, there was a sudden and great flourishing of life. During this blink of an eye in history, all the major animal groups found today evolved hard parts and became distinct shapes, simultaneously and for the first time. This become known as the "Cambrian Explosion." But what lit the Cambrian fuse?
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Summer 2003
The Beast in the Garden
David Baron
Norton
A cautionary tale and a parable for our times, The Beast in the Garden is the true story of what transpired when a large, predatory species descended on a town to reclaim its ancestral home. The time: the late 1980s. The place: Boulder, Colorado.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Summer 2003
An Obsession With Butterflies: Our Long Love Affair with a Singular Insect
Sharman Apt Russell
Perseus Publishing
From Hindu mythology to Aztec sacrifices, butterflies have served as a metaphor for resurrection and transformation. Even during World War II, children in a Polish death camp scratched hundreds of butterflies onto the walls of their barracks. But as Sharman Apt Russell, a teacher of writing at Western New Mexico University and at Antioch University in Los Angeles, writes in her book, butterflies are above all objects of obsession.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Summer 2003
Mirror Mirror: A History of the Human Love Affair with Reflection
Mark Pendergrast
Basic Books
You won't take your mirror for granted after reading Pendergrast's book. He maintains that mirrors are the first technology for contemplation of self and that its invention is arguably as important as that of the wheel. He describes the 2,500-year history of the mirror including the bloodthirsty smoking gods of the Toltecs to the mirrored rooms of wealthy Romans created for their orgies to the mirror's key role in the use and understanding of light.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Summer 2003
The Wright Sister: Katharine Wright and Her Famous Brothers
Richard Maurer
Roaring Brook Press
Probably the only person ever to win both the American Institute of Physics Science Writing Award and the Western Writers of America Spur Award, Maurer ventures into a new field with this young-adult book telling the bittersweet story of Katharine Wright, little sister to the Wright brothers. She was the only member of the family to attend college, where she excelled in Latin and Greek, but found her adult life constrained by a domineering widower father and two flight-obsessed bachelor brothers.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Summer 2003
Practical Unix & Internet Security (Third Edition)
Simson Garfinkel, Gene Spafford, and Alan Schwartz
O'Reilly
The first edition quickly became a classic among Unix system administrators. Garfinkel, a New England freelance, and his colleagues have produced a 1,000-page book for techies and those seriously interested in computer security.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Summer 2003
The IG Nobel Prizes: The Annals of Improbable Research
Marc Abrahams
Dutton
The editor and cofounder of the science-humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research (AIR), Abrahams holds an annual IG Nobel Prize Ceremony at Harvard University. His book contains many examples of research called "breakthroughs" including: The happiness of clams, the physics professor who determined that toast does indeed fall buttered side down, and the Southern Baptist Church of Alabama which won the prize in mathematics for devising a formula to determine how many Alabamans will go to Hell.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Summer 2003
The Pathological Protein: Mad Cow, Chronic Wasting, and Other Deadly Prion Diseases
Philip Yam
Copernicus Books
Philip Yam, Scientific American's news editor, chronicles the emergence of prion diseases. These illnesses, which can be both inherited and transmitted, seem to result from misfolded proteins that attack the brain, often puncturing it with spongy holes.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Summer 2003
Signor Marconi's Magic Box: The Most Remarkable Invention of the 19th Century and the Amateur Inventor Whose Genius Sparked a Revolution
Gavin Weightman
Da Capo Press
Marconi was one of the first to win the Nobel Prize in physics. He had rigged up two wooden boxes containing a device to transmit messages "through the ether." It was the birth of the radio, and no scientist in Europe or America, not even Marconi, could at first explain how it worked.
Reviewed in ScienceWriters: Summer 2003