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Nature and Science June 2025 |
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The cure for women : Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi and the challenge to Victorian medicine that changed women's lives forever
by Lydia Reeder
"How Victorian male doctors used false science to argue that women were unfit for anything but motherhood-and the brilliant doctor who defied them After Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman to graduate from medical school, more women demanded a chance to study medicine. Barred entrance to universities like Harvard, women built their own first-rate medical schools and hospitals. Their success spurred a chilling backlash from elite, white male physicians who were obsessed with eugenics and the propagation of the white race. Distorting Darwin's evolution theory, these haughty physicians proclaimed in bestselling books that women should never be allowed to attend college or enter a profession because their menstrual cycles made them perpetually sick. Motherhood was their constitution and duty. Into the midst of this turmoil marched tiny, dynamic Mary Putnam Jacobi, daughter of New York publisher George Palmer Putnam and the first woman to be accepted into the world-renowned Sorbonne medical school in Paris. As one of the best-educated doctors in the world, she returned to New York for the fight of her life. Aided by other prominent women physicians and suffragists, Jacobi conducted the first-ever data-backed, scientific research on women's reproductivebiology. The results of her studies shook the foundations of medical science and higher education. Full of larger than life characters and cinematically written, The Cure for Women documents the birth of a sexist science still haunting us today as the fight for control of women's bodies and lives continues"
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The living medicine : how a lifesaving cure was nearly lost--and why it will rescue us when antibiotics fail
by Lina Zeldovich
"A remarkable story of the scientists behind a long-forgotten and life-saving cure: the healing viruses that can conquer antibiotic resistant bacterial infections First discovered in 1917, bacteriophages-or "phages"-are living medicines: viruses that devour bacteria. Ubiquitous in the environment, they are found in water, soil, inside plants and animals, and in the human body. When phages were first recognized as medicines, their promise seemed limitless. Grown by research scientists and physicians in France, the Soviet Union, and elsewhere to target specific bacteria, they cured cholera, dysentery, bubonic plague, and other deadly infectious diseases. But after Stalin's brutal purges and the rise of antibiotics, phage therapy declined and nearly was lost to history-until today. In The Living Medicine, acclaimed science journalist Lina Zeldovich reveals the remarkable history of phages, told through the lives of the French, Soviet, and American scientists who discovered, developed, and are reviving this unique cure for seemingly-intractable diseases. Ranging from Paris to Soviet Georgia to Egypt, India, South Africa, remote islands in the Far East, and America, The Living Medicine shows how phages once saved tens of thousands of lives. Today, with our antibiotic shield collapsing, Zeldovich demonstrates how phages are making our food safe and, in cases of dire emergency, rescuing people from the brink of death. They may be humanity's best defense against the pandemics to come. Filled with adventure, human ambition, tragedy, technology, irrepressible scientists and the excitement of their innovation, The Living Medicine offers a vision of how our future may be saved by knowledge from the past"
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| The Age of Diagnosis: How Our Obsession with Medical Labels Is Making Us Sicker by Suzanne O'SullivanAccording to neurologist Suzanne O’Sullivan, a combination of expanding disease definitions and advances in medical screening is causing diagnoses to increase drastically, which taxes healthcare systems, feeds health anxiety in patients, and gives rise to the “nocebo effect,” where giving a patient a disease label can actually produce symptoms. Readers looking for other interesting books about physician-patient communication should try How Medicine Works and When It Doesn’t by F. Perry Wilson. |
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Going to Maine : all the ways to fall on the Appalachian Trail
by Sally Chaffin Brooks
"Sally has no reason to upend her comfortable, conventional life to spend 5 months hiking the Appalachian Trail; no reason except that her charismatic best friend, Erin, asked her to come along. A woefully out-of-shape Sally quickly realizes that she maynot actually be prepared for the realities of thru-hiking...As she and Erin trek from Georgia to Maine, they collect a ragtag band of hikers and together stumble from one hilarious (and sometimes scary) predicament to another. By the time she reaches Maine...readers will cheer for the stronger, more self-assured Sally that has emerged"
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| Is Anyone Listening? What Animals Are Saying to Each Other and to Us by Denise L. HerzingDenise L. Herzing, a marine biologist involved in the Wild Dolphin Project, details her fascinating work analyzing dolphin sounds, the patterns of which suggest that these animals might have developed a primitive form of grammar. The use of AI promises further insight into this behavior, as well as the possibility of inter-species communication. Looking for other surprising stories about animal intelligence? Try Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? by Frans de Waal. |
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| Why Animals Talk: The New Science of Animal Communication by Arik KershenbaumUniversity of Cambridge zoologist Arik Kershenbaum has been in the field of animal communication for decades. His study of the speech-like sounds and songs emitted by creatures including wolves, parrots, dolphins, and chimpanzees runs afoul of the idea that humans are Earth’s sole language users, and posits that “animals have much to say to each other -- but also to us” (Kirkus Reviews). |
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Saving the last rhinos : the life of a frontline conservationist
by Grant Fowlds
The remarkable story of Grant Fowlds, who has dedicated his life to saving the imperiled rhinos, vividly told with Graham Spence, co- author of the bestselling The Elephant Whisperer. Growing up on a farm in the eastern Cape of South Africa, Grant developed a deep love of nature, turning his back on the hunting to focus on saving wildlife of all kinds and the environment that sustains both of them and us. He is a passionate conservationist who puts himself on the front line protecting rhinos in the wild-right now, against armed poachers- and in the long term, through his work with schoolchildren, communities, and policymakers, where the natural world and the lives of these incredible creatures need to be valued as priceless and irreplaceable wonders to ensure their protection
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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