Using scientific information as narrative can be a powerful way to communicate.
Using scientific information as narrative can be a powerful way to communicate.
| July 1, 2012
In Chapter , "Genes, Freaks, DNA," author Sam Kean draws parallels between the lives of Gregor Mendel and Johannes Friedrich Miescher, who both made scientific discoveries that were truly ahead of their times.
In an essay entitled "Molecular Cut and Paste: The New Generation of Biological Tools," virologist William McEwan envisions a future where viruses are reprogrammed to become the workhorses of science and medicine.
The promise of viruses as biotech tools will help molecular biology fulfill its true potential.
| August 1, 2011
In Chapter 6, "Research and Teaching at the All-Administrative University," author Benjamin Ginsberg describes the perils of pursuing scholarship and teaching in the industrial environment of today's American institutions of higher learning.
Administrators have taken over US universities, and they’re steering institutions of higher learning away from the goal of serving as beacons of knowledge.
The story of the US government’s efforts to stamp out smallpox in the early 20th century offers insights into the science and practice of mass vaccination.
In Chapter 5, "The Stable and the Laboratory," author Michael Willrich explores the burgeoning vaccine manufacture industry that ramped up to combat smallpox epidemics in turn-of-the-twentieth-century American cities.
In Chapter 3, “Credibility: Validating Discovery Claims,” author Frederick Grinnell details the difficulty in making discoveries that buck current scientific paradigms.
The winding path that an interesting result takes to become a bona fide discovery is just one of the topics covered in this new book on the practice of science.