culture, books

In Chapter 4, “The quantum beat,” authors Johnjoe McFadden and Jim Al-Khalili rethink Newton’s apple from a quantum-biological perspective.

Stoned, Anxious, The Deeper Genome, and Testosterone

Conflict between science and religion continues, with effects on health, politics, and the environment.

In Chapter 1, “The Problem,” author Jerry Coyne sets the historical stage for his suggestion that science and religion are not compatible and never will be.

As the science of paleoanthropology developed, human evolutionary trees changed as much as the minds that constructed them.

How to Clone a Mammoth, The Upright Thinkers, The Thirteenth Step, and Humankind

In the prologue, “Lemurs and the Delights of Fieldwork,” author Ian Tattersall shares the paleoanthropological lessons he learned from studying non-human primates in Madagascar.

While some in the scientific and religious communities have declared an end to the tensions between faith and fact, the conflict continues to have impacts on health, politics, and the environment.

The Genealogy of a Gene, On the Move, The Chimp and the River, and Domesticated

A close cooperation between science, politics, and economics has helped to control one of history’s most destructive epidemics.
 

Junk DNA, Cuckoo, Sapiens, and Cool

The tale of p53, a widely studied tumor suppressor gene, illustrates the inventiveness of researchers who turn mishaps into discoveries.

In Chapter 12, "Of Mice and Men," author Sue Armstrong recounts the point at which researchers moved from working with p53 in tissue culture to studying the gene in animal models.

In Chapter 4, “A Show-Me State of Mind,” author Alice Dreger describes the start of her journey studying scientists who had conducted controversial research.

How to navigate the slings and arrows of conducting “controversial” research

In the introduction to his latest book, author Melvin Konner explains why he considers maleness a departure from normal physiology.

Touch, The Altruistic Brain, Is Shame Necessary?, and Future Arctic

The era of human male domination is ending. Will modern culture welcome the dawn of a new gender equality?

In Chapter 1, “Yin and Yang,” author Roberta B. Ness explores the dynamic tension between innovation and risk aversion in science past and present.

Is the fear of funding and doing fundamental, risky research killing our ability to make breakthroughs?