Every writer facing a blank screen struggles with uncertainty. Embrace it, Maggie Jackson suggests in Uncertain: The Wisdom and Wonder of Being Unsure. Our uncertainty, she maintains, “equips us to envision the unimaginable, adjust to the unexpected, and value a question as deeply as an answer.” Jackson explores uncertainty in diverse realms: basic science, medicine, politics, space, AI, & more.
Dog adoptions have doubled since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. “Dogs are comfort animals for all of us,” Jen Golbeck & NASW member Stacey Colino say in The Purest Bond: Understanding the Human-Canine Connection. They tell how dogs help us connect with our families and communities, encourage us to go outside, help children learn and grow, and stabilize our lives. Recipe for pupcakes included!
Since facts can be slippery, fact-checking is a vital part of the journalistic process. In The Chicago Guide to Fact-Checking, 2nd ed, Brooke Borel describes the types of information that require fact-checking and explains what fact-checking involves. She tells how to judge a source and think like a fact-checker. She also offers exercises to help readers assess their newly acquired skills.
“Light is one of the most powerful manifestations of the forces of physics because it tells us about our reality,” David Nolte asserts in The History of Optical Interferometry and the Scientists Who Tamed Light. Nolte illuminates work leading to the detection of exoplanets orbiting distant stars, discovery of the first gravitational waves, capture of images of black holes, & much more.
“In the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, the sky is a dome over a dinner plate,” Karen Pinchin proclaims in Kings of Their Own Ocean: Tuna, Obsession, and the Future of Our Seas. The choice entrée: bluefin tuna. In tracking the transatlantic travels of a tagged tuna named Amelia, Pinchin explores new tuna management policies that aim to keep fish healthy worldwide and still let you enjoy your sushi.
Over 5000 elementary school children took part in a 1970s classic “Draw a Scientist” study. Only 28 drawings, all by girls, showed a female scientist. While many hurdles remain, growing research on bias in STEM has fostered tools and policies to boost representation and make science more just and inclusive, Lisa M.P. Munoz reports in Women in Science Now: Stories and Strategies for Achieving Equity.
Deborah Kasdan’s sister Rachel was diagnosed with schizophrenia at age 22 in 1965. The challenges her family faced in finding helpful treatment and community resources for her prompted their father to help start the National Alliance on Mental Illness, now a widely used family support group. In Roll Back the World: A Sister’s Memoir, Kasdan illuminates her family’s experiences.
Sleep, once viewed as a passive state, now is recognized as a time when the brain is as active as it is in waking. We need sufficient sleep to consolidate & retain memories, fight infections, maintain a healthy weight & more. In Mapping the Darkness: The Visionary Scientists Who Unlocked the Mysteries of Sleep, Kenneth Miller illuminates the work of 20th-21st century trailblazers in sleep science.
Encounters with snakes serve as a metaphor for challenges faced by people struggling with untreated mental illness, homelessness, and substance abuse while also seeking love and support in Ginger Pinholster’s novel Snakes of St. Augustine. Pinholster also explores the intersection of mental illness and community policing that sometimes has tragic consequences.
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