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killstorm's review
4.0
As with all such collections of essays, even "Best ofs", there are those that will strike your fancy and those that won't. A distinct lack of astronomy for those interested in those topics.
My favorite pieces involved:
1) An overview of eczema
2) The intelligence of octopi
3) Our increasing knowledge of brain chemistry and how this impacts the law
4) The science of crowd behavior dynamics
5) The Turing Test
The other essays dealt with:
1) Bacteria in the body
2) The rise of childhood allergies
3) The history of feathers
4) Reverse engineering a dinosaur
5) Making a better mouse
6) Genetically modified mosquitoes
7) Ant society
8) Pheromones
9) Human ancestors
10) The mind to save the ocean (my least favorite)
11) Feedback loops to improve humans
12) Risk perception
13) The teenage brain
14) Atmospheric chemistry and mercury
15) The positives of urbanization
16) Developing meat in vitro
17) Moderinst cuisine
18) quantum computing and many worlds
19) bitcoin and who created it
My favorite pieces involved:
1) An overview of eczema
2) The intelligence of octopi
3) Our increasing knowledge of brain chemistry and how this impacts the law
4) The science of crowd behavior dynamics
5) The Turing Test
The other essays dealt with:
1) Bacteria in the body
2) The rise of childhood allergies
3) The history of feathers
4) Reverse engineering a dinosaur
5) Making a better mouse
6) Genetically modified mosquitoes
7) Ant society
8) Pheromones
9) Human ancestors
10) The mind to save the ocean (my least favorite)
11) Feedback loops to improve humans
12) Risk perception
13) The teenage brain
14) Atmospheric chemistry and mercury
15) The positives of urbanization
16) Developing meat in vitro
17) Moderinst cuisine
18) quantum computing and many worlds
19) bitcoin and who created it
booksaremyfavorite's review
4.0
This got recalled before I could finish it, but I've been skipping around in here and really enjoying every thing I've read so far. There is a diverse assortment of material in here, but the writing is consistently exceptional.
Picked this back up. "Deep Intellect" by Sy Montgomery was absolutely fascinating. I really enjoyed everything in here on animals, from ants to meat to creating a dinosaur from a chicken. Great selection. I look forward to reading more from this series.
Picked this back up. "Deep Intellect" by Sy Montgomery was absolutely fascinating. I really enjoyed everything in here on animals, from ants to meat to creating a dinosaur from a chicken. Great selection. I look forward to reading more from this series.
balletbookworm's review
4.0
Well...this volume hits kind of a weird middle-space for me. Taken individually, the essays in this edition of Best Science and Nature Writing are good pieces of journalism. Six come from The New Yorker, three each from Scientific American, Wired, and National Geographic, two each from Outside, The Atlantic, and Discover, and singles from California Magazine, Popular Science, and Orion. But together...somehow they strike me as lacking in breadth, if that makes sense.
After an introduction focusing in scientific paternalism, Ariely divided the essays into subjects: Bacteria/Microorganisms, Animals, Humans (the Good), Humans (the Bad), Society and Environment, and Technology. However, two of the bacteria/micro essays are about nearly the same thing (normal human microbiota and how that plays into immune response/chronic disease) while the third concerns new food allergy research and treatment. It's hard to determine what's "good" or "bad" about the human sections - I can't tell where the dividing line is ("Sleeping with the Enemy" is in the good section, yet is about how modern humans displaced/bred out the Neanderthal - and extincting species is something we seem to be good at, while "The Feedback Loop" - about how we can modify human behavior to combat speeding and medication non-compliance - is in the bad section). John Seabook's New Yorker article "Crush Point" (which I read in the original publication) is a good piece of human interest/courtroom reporting but doesn't seem to contain a lot of "science" regarding crowd dynamics. It probably would have been better to list the articles alphabetically by author rather than try to group them.
Many of the articles, no matter the scientific ground grown in from paleontology to neurobiology to computer science, apply the information therein to society as a whole. Lab-grown beef, knock-out genes in Mosquitos that could fuel reactions to GMOs, a hazy article about why humans have a connection with an auquarium (the Roberts article about Wallace J. Nichols was an odd one), urban sprawl, molecular gastronomy, an eccentric physicist and the real-world probability of a theoretical quantum computer, if we must defend our humanity from the likelihood a computer could pass the Turing Test/how to be a more "human" human - everything circles back to human or human-like behavior. Given that Ariely is a psychologist that's not surprising but it makes the collection very flat and more like a pet than a presentation of good scientific work across all disciplines.
After an introduction focusing in scientific paternalism, Ariely divided the essays into subjects: Bacteria/Microorganisms, Animals, Humans (the Good), Humans (the Bad), Society and Environment, and Technology. However, two of the bacteria/micro essays are about nearly the same thing (normal human microbiota and how that plays into immune response/chronic disease) while the third concerns new food allergy research and treatment. It's hard to determine what's "good" or "bad" about the human sections - I can't tell where the dividing line is ("Sleeping with the Enemy" is in the good section, yet is about how modern humans displaced/bred out the Neanderthal - and extincting species is something we seem to be good at, while "The Feedback Loop" - about how we can modify human behavior to combat speeding and medication non-compliance - is in the bad section). John Seabook's New Yorker article "Crush Point" (which I read in the original publication) is a good piece of human interest/courtroom reporting but doesn't seem to contain a lot of "science" regarding crowd dynamics. It probably would have been better to list the articles alphabetically by author rather than try to group them.
Many of the articles, no matter the scientific ground grown in from paleontology to neurobiology to computer science, apply the information therein to society as a whole. Lab-grown beef, knock-out genes in Mosquitos that could fuel reactions to GMOs, a hazy article about why humans have a connection with an auquarium (the Roberts article about Wallace J. Nichols was an odd one), urban sprawl, molecular gastronomy, an eccentric physicist and the real-world probability of a theoretical quantum computer, if we must defend our humanity from the likelihood a computer could pass the Turing Test/how to be a more "human" human - everything circles back to human or human-like behavior. Given that Ariely is a psychologist that's not surprising but it makes the collection very flat and more like a pet than a presentation of good scientific work across all disciplines.
brizreading's review
4.0
As usual, a series of fun and informative essays spanning the last year in science. These tended more towards human-centric stuff (Ariely's bent, as a social scientist), with some of the essays being no more than profiles of prominent scientists (interesting as they were!). As a social scientist and familiar with Ariely's work, I actually felt like I didn't learn too much with this collection. But it did push me a bit, and it was just plain interesting overall.
harrietnbrown's review
3.0
The first half of this collection felt much stronger than the second half. Or maybe that's just where my interests lie. Best piece in the anthology is "Deep Intellect," by Sy Montgomery, originally published in Orion Magazine. It's about the mind of the octopus and it's fascinating.
hilaritas's review
4.0
I thought this was a nicely curated selection of pieces. Of course, some were better than others and each topic gets only a superficial treatment, but overall it was organized along a comprehensible thematic progression. This was the first in this series that I've read and I'm inclined to pick up a few more given the strength of this volume.
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