Transient and strange : notes on the science of life

First Title Value for Searching:

Personal Author:

Greenfieldboyce, Nell

Edition:

First edition.

Physical Description:

x, 214 pages ; 22 cm.

Genre:

Essays.

Summary:

In her career as a science reporter, Nell Greenfieldboyce has reported from inside a space shuttle, the bottom of a coal mine, and the control room of a particle collider; she’ s presented news on the color of dinosaur eggs, ice worms that live on mountaintop glaciers, and signs of life on Venus. In this, her debut book, she delivers a wholly original collection of powerful, emotionally raw, and unforgettable personal essays that probe the places where science touches our lives most intimately. Expertly weaving her own experiences of motherhood and marriage with an almost devotional attention to the natural world, Greenfieldboyce grapples with the weighty dualities of life: birth and death, constancy and impermanence, memory and doubt, love and aging. She looks for a connection to the universe by embarking on a search for the otherworldly glint of a micrometeorite in the dust, consults meteorologists and storm chasers on the eerie power of tornadoes to soothe her children’ s anxieties, and processes her adolescent oblivion through the startling discovery of black holes. Inspired throughout by Walt Whitman’ s invocation to the “ transient and strange, ” she remains attuned to the wildest workings of our world, reflecting on the incredible leap of the humble flea or the echoing truth of a fetal heartbeat. A beautiful blend of explanatory science, original reporting, and personal experience, Transient and Strange captures the ache of ordinary life, offering resonant insights into both the world around us and the worlds within us.

Subject Term:

Science -- Moral and ethical aspects

Science -- Philosophy

Science -- Social aspects

Publication Information:

New York, N.Y. : W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2024.

Subject:

Science -- Moral and ethical aspects

Science -- Philosophy

Science -- Social aspects

Essays.

Science and ethics

Normal science

Philosophy of science

Science and society

Sociology of science

SAILS ISBN:

9780393882346

Available:

Library	Shelf Number	Shelf Location	Status
Searching... Bridgewater Public Library	814.6 GREENFIELDBOYCE 2024	NEW NONFICTION	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Carver Public Library	814.6 GRE	NONFICTION	Searching... Unknown
Searching... East Bridgewater Public Library	814.6 GRE 2024	NEW NONFICTION	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Fall River Main	814.6 G812	LOBBY	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Foxboro - Boyden Library	814.6 GREENFIELDBOYCE	NEW NONFICTION	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Pembroke Public Library	814.6 GRE	NEW NONFICTION	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Seekonk Public Library	814.6 GREENFIELDBOYCE	NONFICTION	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Somerset Public Library	814.6 GRE 2024	NEW NONFICTION	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

In her career as a science reporter, Nell Greenfieldboyce has reported from inside a space shuttle, the bottom of a coal mine, and the control room of a particle collider; she's presented news on the color of dinosaur eggs, ice worms that live on mountaintop glaciers, and signs of life on Venus. In this, her debut book, she delivers a wholly original collection of powerful, emotionally raw, and unforgettable personal essays that probe the places where science touches our lives most intimately.

Expertly weaving her own experiences of motherhood and marriage with an almost devotional attention to the natural world, Greenfieldboyce grapples with the weighty dualities of life: birth and death, constancy and impermanence, memory and doubt, love and aging. She looks for a connection to the universe by embarking on a search for the otherworldly glint of a micrometeorite in the dust, consults meteorologists and storm chasers on the eerie power of tornadoes to soothe her children's anxieties, and processes her adolescent oblivion through the startling discovery of black holes. Inspired throughout by Walt Whitman's invocation to the "transient and strange," she remains attuned to the wildest workings of our world, reflecting on the incredible leap of the humble flea or the echoing truth of a fetal heartbeat.

A beautiful blend of explanatory science, original reporting, and personal experience, Transient and Strange captures the ache of ordinary life, offering resonant insights into both the world around us and the worlds within us.

Reviews (2)

Publisher's Weekly Review

This artful debut essay collection from NPR science correspondent Greenfieldboyce mixes scientific anecdotes with intimate personal reflections. In "What Else Is There," Greenfieldboyce describes the achievements of Harvey Nininger, a 20th-century amateur meteorite researcher known for discovering large amounts of space debris on Earth, while framing her own quest to find tiny meteorites on her property as a quixotic attempt to come into contact with "something ethereal that I'm not equipped to recognize and probably won't ever truly understand." "A Very Charming Young Black Hole" recounts Greenfieldboyce's struggle to determine if she should trust a note from her younger self suggesting her first kiss was a 22-year-old who hit on her in a hotel lobby when she was 12, though she can't remember kissing him. She traces how the scientific understanding of black holes has developed since her birth in 1974 and uses the cosmic entity as a metaphor to interrogate whether her memory of what happened that night is, like anything that enters a black hole, irretrievable. Elsewhere, Greenfieldboyce touches on her son's fear of tornadoes, her ambivalent efforts to ensure her children didn't inherit her husband's genetic kidney disease, and the "symbolic power" of fleas ("Is there not something to be said for the universe and all generations re-created in the small and unremarkable?"). The inventive juxtaposition of science with autobiography yields unexpected insights buoyed by evocative prose. Greenfieldboyce dazzles with her auspicious first outing. (Jan.)

Booklist Review

The large and small phenomena revealed in this collection of essays fit into two categories; the natural world (black holes, meteorites, tornadoes, the beating heart, fleas) and the author's personal life (pregnancy, motherhood, young children, aging parents, husband). NPR science reporter Greenfieldboyce metaphorically stitches these two realms together. An essay on meteorites striking the earth conjures her concern over elderly parents also falling to the ground. A discussion of black holes gobbling up pieces of the galaxy calls to mind her adolescent lies that disassembled truth. A treatise on twisters introduces the curiosity and fears of her two youngsters. A few of these essays fizzle out, such as an homage to her parent's toaster, a look at doodling, and contemplating a spider. But the final essay, "My Eugenics Project," is a masterpiece jam-packed with ethical considerations, multiple kinds of love, and grace. It weaves together her husband's genetic polycystic kidney disease and the couple's desire, trepidation, and attempts to get pregnant. She writes, "Our marriage now had become two simultaneous medical campaigns, one to produce a kid and one to procure a kidney." The collection's title is borrowed from a phrase in a Walt Whitman poem. He surely would be pleased to be linked to Greenfieldboyce's display of inquiry and imagination, inevitability and possibilities.