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The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2013

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By Siddhartha Mukherjee & Tim Folger

Publisher Description

Twenty-seven of America’s best science and nature essays of 2013, selected by the author of The Emperor of All Maladies and the #1 New York Times bestseller, The Gene.

Pulitzer Prize–winning author Siddhartha Mukherjee, a leading cancer physician and researcher, selects the year’s top science and nature writing from journalists who dive into their fields with curiosity and passion, delivering must-read articles from a wide array of fields.

The Best American Science & Nature Writing 2013 includes:

“The T-Cell Army” by Jerome Groopman
“The Artificial Leaf” by David Owen
“The Life of Pi, and Other Infinities” by Natalie Angier
“Altered States” by Oliver Sacks
“Recall of the Wild” by Elizabeth Kolbert
“Super Humanity” by Robert M. Sapolsky
“Can a Jellyfish Unlock the Secret of Immortality?” by Nathaniel Rich

Contributors also include:
J. B. Mackinnon · Benjamin Hale · Tim Zimmermann · David Deutsch and Artur Ekert · Michael Moyer · Sylvia A. Earle · John Pavlus · Michelle Nijhuis · Rick Bass · Michael Specter · Alan Lightman · David Quammen · Keith Gessen · Steven Weinberg · Gareth Cook · Katherine Harmon · Stephen Marche · Mark Bowden · Kevin Dutton

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14 Reviews

3.0

abbeyx3

Created about 3 years ago

Jess Valesky

Created almost 5 years ago

Erin Crane

Created over 6 years ago

Alan Frager

Created over 8 years ago

“I love this yearly anthology and I missed the 2013 edition, so I picked it up because it featured so many of my favorite science writers - Alan Lightman (physics), Jerome Groopman (medicine), Oliver Sacks (neurology/psychology), Steven Weinberg (physics), Natalie Angier (science journalist), and David Deutsch (physics). Many magazines carry science articles - The New Yorker, Scientific American, The Atlantic, Harpers, National Geographic... - but I don't like to buy magazines. Instead I love this anthology in which a couple of excellent editors pick out great stories from a wide variety of fields in science. I always wind up reading articles I never would have read otherwise. Here is a short summary of my favorites in this edition. 1) Recall of the Wild, which was a terrific description of the Oostvaardersplassen – the “Serengeti behind the dikes” – a reserve for wild animals 15 feet below sea level, where biologists and ecologists are trying to re-create the wilderness before human settled in Europe, especially with the aurochs (the first cows) 2) Polar Express, which described an amazing ride on a huge ship with with 50,000 tons of iron ore that traveled through the Arctic ice (led by 2 nuclear-powered ice cutting ships) then down the Bering Strait to China. 3) Autism, Inc., which was about a company that seeks autistic people with special abilities that are needed in industry. 4) The Life of Pi, a discussion of different infinities. 5) Super Humanity, which explained how we have improved human life through science in an uphill battle against our own social/emotional natural predispositions. 6) The Patient Scientist, a discussion of how Ralph Steinman's studies of dendritic cells led to immunotherapy treatment for cancer, which he used to prolong his own life. He died 3 days after receiving the Nobel Prize. 7) Can a Jellyfish unlock the secrets of immortality, which focused more on the scientist – a karaoke singer – as the science: a particular small jellyfish grows younger when it is endangered until it is a single cell then it regenerates. 8) Is Facebook Making Us Lonely, which concluded that Facebook is just a tool that can cause and relieve loneliness but our society has mechanisms that make us more lonely than people were in the past. 9) The Measured Man, which describes the life of Larry Smarr, an incredible scientist who thinks we could productively use more data about his health and demonstrated it by showing how he used info to overcome his Crohn’s disease (intestinal inflammation). 10) Out of the Wild, which was about RNA and disease and explained why many diseases start in the tropics with bats, monkeys and spiders. 11) Altered States, an eye-opening piece about Oliver Sacks' experimentation with cannabis then LSD then amphetamines (to which he got addicted). 12) Which species will live, which is about triage (choosing which endangered species will survive) 13) The Larch, about larch trees, which are huge and live a long time 14) T-cell army, which is about the benefits and dangers of using T-cells to treat cancer – it works but it causes turmoil in the immune system and can kill the patient 15) Artificial Leaf, which was about the potential of artificial photosynthesis and a criticism about why it may never be commercially possible, and 16) Our Place in the Universe, which discussed the immensity of space.”

Harley Brook

Created almost 9 years ago