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Nature and Science October 2018
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| The World in a Grain: The Story of Sand and How It Transformed Civilization by Vince BeiserWhat it is: the story of sand. (Yes, sand.)
Why you should read it: From concrete to glass to computer chips, sand is the "literal foundation of modern civilization."
Fun fact: Due to increasing demand and dwindling supply, there now exists a black market for sand, run by ruthless sand cartels who control the supply to industry. |
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| The Disordered Mind: What Unusual Brains Tell Us About Ourselves by Eric R. KandelWhat it's about: Bridging psychology and neuroscience, this illuminating book reveals what we can learn about human cognition by studying brain disorders.
Includes: discussions of autism, mood disorders, schizophrenia, dementia, PTSD, and addiction, to name just a few.
About the author: Eric R. Kandel is a Nobel Prize-winning neuroscientist. |
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| The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life by David QuammenWhat it's about: molecular phylogenetics, which uses biopolymers (DNA, RNA, and proteins) to study the evolutionary history of organisms and determine relationships between species.
Contains: three "big surprises" that will make you rethink your understanding of evolution: the domain of Archaea, the process of horizontal gene transfer, and a probable ancestor of humans previously unknown to science. |
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| Accessory to War: The Unspoken Alliance Between Astrophysics and the Military by Neil deGrasse Tyson and Avis LangWhat it is: a thought-provoking examination of the long-standing relationship between science and the military-industrial complex, with a special focus on astrophysics and the aerospace industry.
Who it's for: readers interested in the intersection of science, industry, and politics; anyone who wonders what the proposed U.S. Space Force might look like.
Author alert: Well-known astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson teams up with longtime editor and frequent collaborator Avis Lang for this eye-opening book. |
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Growing a revolution : bringing our soil back to life
by David R. Montgomery
A MacArthur Fellow draws on the lessons of the ancient world and the practices of developing regions to present an impassioned argument in favor of no-till planting, covering crops and diversifying crop rotations.
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The Penguin book of outer space exploration : NASA and the incredible story of human spaceflight
by John M. Logsdon
Using items in the NASA archive together with expert narrative guidance, this history of how Americans got to space begins with Wernher von Braun's vision for voyaging to Mars and ends with Elon Musk's contemporary plan to get there. It covers the founding of NASA, the first American astronauts in space, the moon landings, the Challenger disaster, and the Hubble Telescope repairs
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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Culpeper County Library 271 Southgate Shopping Center Culpeper, Virginia 22701 540-825-8691
www.cclva.org
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