The familiar call of the common cuckoo, “cuck-oo,” has been a harbinger of spring ever since our ancestors walked out of Africa many thousands of years ago. However, for naturalist and scientist Nick Davies, the call is an invitation to solve an enduring puzzle: how does the cuckoo get away with laying its eggs in […]
One thought troubles me greatly. It is entirely possible to be deluded and live your whole life through happily. A clear example is that hundreds of millions of humans believed that the Sun was moving round the Earth daily. They organised their agriculture, society, calendar and religion around this idea. For them it seems to
The Believing Brain by Michael Shermer Read More »
From the tens of thousands of books and papers on human evolution, where should one start? I would recommend Robin Dunbar’s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Dunbar) 2014 introduction Human Evolution: A Pelican Introduction. The past 12,000 years represent the only time in the sweep of human history when there has been only one human species. How did we alone survive?
Here we are at the shortest day 2014. As the year ends the plaintive cries are familiar -‘Where has the time gone? Just whizzed by. Been busier than ever, what with paying the mortgage, full time job, social whirl, taxi service for the kids, the tyranny of the smartphone, the superfluity of entertainment options. Better that
The Universe by John Brockman Read More »
Neuroscience and discussions about the brain and consciousness are powering ahead at a fomidable pace. It’s hard to keep up without being involved full time in the research. Here, though, is a book from 2014 which will take you to the cutting edge. Stanislas Dehaene (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislas_Dehaene and http://www.college-de-france.fr/site/en-stanislas-dehaene/#|m=#course|) describes the pioneering work his lab and the labs
Consciousness and the Brain by Stanislas Dahaene Read More »
There is a comparatively new discipline in biology which is ‘Behavioural Ecology’ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioural_ecology). It seeks to provide theoretical frameworks to answer questions about animal behaviour especially in relation to ecological context. It has proven to be a highly fruitful and fascinating area of study. The book examines how animals struggle to survive and reproduce. It shows how they exploit
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In this spellbinding blend of memoir, science journalism and literary criticism, Eula Biss (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eula_Biss and http://eulabiss.net/) unpacks what the fear of vaccines tells us about larger anxieties involving purity, contamination and interdependency. Deeply researched and anchored in Biss’s own experiences as a new mother, this ferociously intelligent book is itself an inoculation against bad science and superstition,
Elizabeth Kolbert (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Kolbert and http://elizabethkolbert.com/) reports from the front lines of the violent collision between human civilization and our planet’s ecosystem — from the Great Barrier Reef to her own backyard — in this, her third, book. Traveling to some of the world’s remotest corners, she examines how man-made climate change threatens to eliminate 20 to 50
The Sixth Extinction Read More »
The power of Darwin’s theory of natural selection is beyond doubt, explaining how useful adaptations are preserved over generations. But the biggest mystery about evolution eluded him: how those adaptations arise in the first place. Can random mutations over a mere 3.8 billion years solely be responsible for wings, eyeballs, knees, photosynthesis, and the rest
The Arrival of the Fittest by Andreas Wagner Read More »
