Wednesday 24 June 2009

Science news

From the Guardian: Royal Society announces six contenders for £10,000 science book prize, a worthy line-up of books shortlisted for this year's Royal Society Prize for Science Books. They are:
  • What the nose knows: The science of scent in everyday life, by Avery Gilbert. See official site.
  • Bad Science, by Ben Goldacre. See our review and official site.
  • The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic generation discovered the beauty and terror of science, by Richard Holmes. See Guardian review.
  • Decoding the heavens: Solving the mystery of the world's first computer, by Jo Marchant. This is about the Antikythera Mechanism: see official site.
  • The drunkard's walk: How randomness rules our lives, by Leonard Mlodinow. See official site.
  • Your inner fish: The amazing discovery of our 375-million-year-old ancestor, by Neil Shubin. See official site.

And also a link recommendation today: Ptak Science Books. Like JSBlog, it's a bookshop blog with eclectic and cross-genre interests, but it focuses on science:

The History of Ideas -- unusual connections in the history of science, math, art and social history

Picked at random:

Check it out; it won't disappoint. The main bookstore site - John F Ptak Science Books - is interesting in itself: for instance, for its gallery of historical panoramic photos.
- Ray

2 comments:

  1. On the Ptak blog, did you see his post on "Richard Saunders (1613-1692) [who] was perhaps the foremost historian, astrologer and seer of human moles and their predictive forces" ?

    Of the science book prize contenders, the only one I'ver read is the Shubin's (it was a gift). I thought it was intersting, but not well written.

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  2. Holy moly, yes indeed. As to the books, I've only read Bad Science, but The Age of Wonder and Decoding the heavens look definitely up my street.

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