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Nature and Science February 2021
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| An Outsider's Guide to Humans: What Science Taught Me About What We Do and Who We Are by Camilla Pang, PhDWhat it does: examines human behavior through the lens of autism, while using a variety of scientific concepts to explain it.
Topics include: what biochemistry can teach us about friendship, how game theory informs social etiquette, and why machine learning offers insight into human decision-making.
About the author: Camilla Pang, a biochemist with autism, ADHD, and generalized anxiety disorder, is both the youngest writer and the first person of color to win the Royal Society Science Book Prize. |
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| Oak Flat: A Fight for Sacred Land in the American West by Lauren RednissWelcome to: Oak Flat, a federally protected region of Arizona situated 15 miles west of the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation.
What you should know: Sacred to numerous tribes, this area is also of great interest to mining companies, which have been trying to gain access to its copper deposits for decades.
Why you might like it: This journalistic work of "visual nonfiction" follows two families, one Apache and one white, as it reveals the natural and human history of a unique place. |
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| Fundamentals: Ten Keys to Reality by Frank WilczekWhat it is: a concise, accessible physics primer by a Nobel laureate that explains ten challenging yet essential concepts to non-scientists without sacrificing accuracy.
What sets it apart: Physicist Frank Wilczek places scientific discoveries in their historical context and clearly distinguishes between what we know and what we do not (yet) know.
For fans of: Carlo Rovelli's Seven Brief Lessons on Physics or Brian Greene's Until the End of Time. |
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| When Brains Dream: Exploring the Science and Mystery of Sleep by Antonio Zadra and Robert StickgoldThe big idea: To explain why we dream, sleep scientists Antonio Zadra and Robert Stickgold introduce their NEXTUP (network exploration to understand possibilities) model, a form of "sleep-dependent memory process" that enables our sleeping minds to make connections that may elude us while we're awake.
You might also like: Matthew Walker's Why We Sleep or Alice Robb's Why We Dream. |
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| Elderhood: Redefining Aging, Transforming Medicine, Reimagining Life by Louise AronsonWhat it is: a thoughtful, comprehensive exploration of aging, from medical concerns to identity issues to depictions of the elderly in pop culture.
Why you should read it: We all grow old (if we're lucky), but aging also affects our families, our economies, and our societies.
For fans of: Being Mortal by Atul Gawande, Spring Chicken by Bill Gifford. |
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| Clean: The New Science of Skin by James HamblinWhat it's about: the history of human hygiene, the rise of the cosmetics industry, and the microbiome that keeps our skin healthy.
Why you might like it: Physician and Atlantic staff writer James Hamblin (who stopped showering while writing this book) presents a wealth of information in entertaining vignettes.
Further reading: Monty Lyman's The Remarkable Life of the Skin, Ed Yong's I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life. |
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Breath: the New Science of a Lost Art
by James Nestor
"No matter what you eat, how much you exercise, how resilient your genes are, how skinny or young or wise you are, none of it matters if you're not breathing properly. There is nothing more essential to our health and wellbeing than breathing: take air in, let it out, repeat 25,000 times a day. Yet, as a species, humans have lost the ability to breathe correctly, with grave consequences. Science journalist James Nestor travels the world to figure out what went wrong with our breathing and how to fix it."
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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