Best Science Books of the Year

In 1997, the Raleigh News & Observer asked me to select the best science books of the year to provide readers with Christmas gift suggestions, and it has continued to do so ever since. This column usually appears around December 1, and it includes the best science books that I examined in the previous 12 months. What follows are excerpts from or additions to those columns.

2006-2007

Good Germs, Bad Germs: Health and Survival in a Bacterial World by Jessica Snyder Sachs, Hill & Wang, $25, 290 pages.

Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson. Simon & Schuster, $32, 704 pages.

The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic — and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World by Steven Johnson. Riverhead Books, $26.95. 295 pages.

The Weather Makers: How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth by Tim Flannery. Atlantic Monthly Press, $24, 357 pages.

The Grid: A Journey Through the Heart of Our Electrified World by Phillip F. Schewe. Joseph Henry Press, $27.95, 320 pages.

2005

Mendel in the Kitchen: A Scientist’s View of Genetically Modified Foods by Nina Fedoroff and Nancy Marie Brown. Joseph Henry Press, $24.95, 370 pages. The authors present a strong case for the potential of genetically modified foods (famously labeled “Frankenfoods” by opponents of the technology) to feed an ever-growing populace at low cost.

Our Inner Ape: A Leading Primatologist Explains Why We Are Who We Are by Frans de Waal. Riverhead. $25.95. 288 pages. From his many in-depth studies of chimpanzees and bonobos, de Waal produces the fascinating hypothesis that “the building blocks of morality clearly predate humanity.” Thus, he argues, morality, “our noblest achievement,” did not spring from reason or from the pens of philosophers. It did not come from culture or religion; morality is a gift from our primate ancestors.

The Proteus Effect: Stem Cells and Their Promise for Medicine by Ann B. Parson. Joseph Henry Press, $24.95, 301 pages. In this important book, Parson explains why stem cells could play a big role in defeating diseases from juvenile diabetes to Parkinson’s. She also chides President Bush about the restrictions he has placed on stem-cell research.

The Ancestor’s Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution by Richard Dawkins. Houghton Mifflin, $28, 673 pages. Loosely structured after Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales,” acclaimed zoologist Richard Dawkins takes the reader on an engaging romp backward through evolution, from humans to chimpanzees to the beginning of life itself.

Out of Eden: An Odyssey of Ecological Invasion by Alan Burdick. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $25, 325 pages. Invasive plants and animals — kudzu and the gypsy moth, for instance — that we have imported into the United States cost us billions of dollars. Burdick tells how a new breed of biologists is trying to stem the losses.

2004

“His Brother’s Keeper: A Story from the Edge of Medicine” by Jonathan Weiner. Ecco, $26.95, 356 pages. In 1998, Stephen Haywood was diagnosed with a fatal illness, ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease. Pulitzer prize winning science writer Jonathan Weiner tells the gripping story of how Stephen’s brother tries to save him by bullying, encouraging and raising money for medical researchers to find a cure.

“The End of Oil: On the Edge of a Perilous New World” by Paul Roberts. Houghton Mifflin, $26, 389 pages. World oil production will likely peak in the next decade or two. Roberts accuses the government of doing too little to cushion Americans against the economic chaos that will result as the price of oil skyrockets.

“Tycho & Kepler: The Unlikely Partnership that Forever Changed Our Understanding of the Heavens” by Kitty Ferguson. Walker & co,. $28, 402 pages. In her exhaustively researched book, Ferguson tells how two of the greatest astronomers in history teamed up, but their dysfunctional relationship hindered progress. It was only after Tycho’s death that Kepler devised his laws of planetary motion and showed that the Earth revolves around the sun.

“Aristotle’s Children: How Christians, Muslims, and Jews Rediscovered Ancient Wisdom and Illuminated the Dark Ages” by Richard E. Rubenstein. Harcourt Brace, $27, 368 pages. Faith and reason collide when Aristotle’s works are translated into Latin and appear in twelfth century Europe. In his entertaining narrative, Rubenstein addresses the antipathy between religion and reason, which is as rampant today as it was in medieval times.

2003

“Love at Goon Park: Harry Harlow and the Science of Affection” by Deborah Blum, Perseus, $26, 330 pages. This well-researched and eminently readable book tells the fascinating story of Harry Harlow, the psychologist whose seminal research on what makes baby monkeys happy led to modern parenting guidelines that emphasize affectionate contact with children.

“DNA: The Secret of Life” by James D. Watson (with Andrew Berry),
Alfred A. Knopf, $39.95, 426 pages. Jim Watson, along with Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins, won a Nobel Prize in 1962 for unraveling the structure of DNA, and he has been a prominent figure in DNA-related science ever since. In this book, he describes the progress made by molecular biologists during the last 50 years and successfully argues that the DNA revolution has more than lived up to its billing.

“The Big Splat: Or How Our Moon Came to Be” by Dana Mackenzie, John Wiley, $24.95, 232 pages. In 1974, William Hartman proposed that the moon was formed when a Mars-sized planet struck Earth about 4.5 billion years ago. Mackenzie presents compelling evidence to support the “giant impact” theory and says it is now accepted by most scientists.

“The Scientists: A History of Science Told Through the Lives of Its Greatest Inventors” by John Gribbin, Random House, $35, 646 pages. British science writer John Gribbin recaps the great breakthroughs in science during the last 500 years by telling the stories of the scientists who made them. Science buffs will love this book for the nuggets of hard-to-find information, such as a malicious Newton waiting until Robert Hooke died before publishing “Opticks” so Hooke could not claim his rightful due for some of the ideas. But the book also serves tyros as an excellent introduction to science.

“Prometheans in the Lab” by Sharon McGrayne, paperback edition from McGraw-Hill, $14.95, 224 pages. McGrayne explores both the good and the dark sides of chemistry by telling the tales of nine prominent chemists who invented products ranging from leaded gasoline (which polluted the air) to inorganic fertilizers (which enable the world to feed itself).

2002

“The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature” by Steven Pinker, Viking, $27.95, 509 pages. In this superbly researched, well-written book, Pinker fires a polemical broadside in the nature versus nurture war. He takes on the blank-slaters (those who believe that environment determines a person rather than his or her genes) and exposes the errors in their arguments.

“The Lunar Men: Five Friends Whose Curiosity Changed the World” by Jenny Uglow, Farrar Straus and Giroux, $30, 588 pages. A group of scientists and entrepreneurs meet regularly in Birmingham, England, to exchange ideas. The result is the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.

“Hubbert’s Peak: The Impending World Oil Shortage” by Kenneth S. Deffeyes, Princeton University Press, $24.95, 208 pages. Is it time to trade in your gas guzzler? Maybe so. Deffeyes convincingly argues that world oil production will begin to decline in 2004 causing gasoline prices to skyrocket.

“The Difference Engine: Charles Babbage and the Quest to Build the First Computer” by Doron Swade, Viking, $24.95, 342 pages. Swade recounts Babbage’s magnificent but failed attempt to build the world’s first computer, and then, proving that obsessions can be contagious, he built the machine himself. Today, the gleaming mechanical computer sits on the floor of the London Science Museum, a proud monument to Babbage’s obsession.

“Project Orion: The True Story of the Atomic Spaceship” by George Dyson, Henry Holt, $26, 345 pages. What’s wrong with a spacecraft powered by enough atomic bombs to destroy a small continent. Nothing, says George Dyson. Although Project Orion was killed by the government years ago, he believes that the atomic spaceship designed by the men and women who worked on the project remains mankind’s best hope for reaching the stars.

2001

“The Magic Furnace: The Search for the Origins of Atoms” by Marcus Chown, Oxford University Press, $25, 232 pages. This book tells the fascinating story of how scientists discovered that every atom on Earth (except hydrogen and helium), the constituents of every rock and every river and every person, came from stardust spewed from ancient stars.

“Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood” by Oliver Sacks, Alfred A. Knopf, $25, 329 pages. In this superb, beautifully crafted memoir, Sacks recounts his search for stability in a world made unstable by war and finds it the chemistry laboratory of his beloved Uncle Tungsten.

“The Forgetting -- Alzheimer’s: Portrait of an Epidemic” by David Shenk, Doubleday, $24.95, 290 pages. Shenk offers a comprehensive look at the disease that is becoming epidemic in America as life spans increase and recounts the stories of the scientists who are searching for a cure.

“The Principia” by Isaac Newton, University of California Press, Translated by I. Bernard Cohen and Anne Whitman, 874 pages, $35. This is a new translation of the dense, mathematical treatise that ushered in the Age of Enlightenment and is arguably the most important book ever written.

2000

In 1905, Albert Einstein showed that matter and energy are interconvertible, a finding that led to the atomic bomb and revolutionized the way we think about the universe. He later became a public icon, the fuzzy-haired, absent-minded scientist. Although much has been written about Einstein, three new books reveal that there is more to learn. In “Einstein in Love” (Viking, $27.95, 416 pages), Dennis Overbye probes into the life of this scientific idol and finds a human being, with all the flaws and complexities of any human being. We learn that Einstein was a draft-dodging bohemian who was deeply in love with physics -- and his mistress. David Bodanis’s “E=mc2” (Walker, $25, 337 pages) tells the story behind Einstein’s most famous equation, and “The Expanded Quotable Einstein” (collected by Alice Calaprice, Princeton University Press, $18.95, 407 pages) contains excerpts from the great scientist’s speeches, papers, and letters.

“Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters” by Matt Ridley, HarperCollins, $26.00, 344 pages. Einstein dominated 20th century science, which is why books are still being written about him 45 years after his death. But the 21st will likely belong to James Watson and Francis Crick, who discovered the structure of DNA. The most exciting science being done today is not aimed at understanding the stars, but in digging out the secrets of the living cell. Fittingly, the best popular science book of the year deals with that topic, with the four-letter alphabet, A, C, G, and T, which are abbreviations for the compounds that hold the famous double helix together. Ridley says that the way those letters are arranged in our genes affects everything we are and do. Surprisingly, though, our environment affects how our genes work. Thus, we are governed by a complicated feedback mechanism involving nature (our genes) and nurture (our environment). Ridley makes it clear that a scientific revolution is brewing in molecular biology, and this book is the perfect present for anyone who wants to understand that revolution.

“Stardust” by John Gribbin, Yale University Press, $24.95, 238 pages. “We are made of stardust” writes the prolific British science writer. In his latest book, he reveals the origin of every atom of every element on Earth, including those in our own bodies. Physicists now know that hydrogen and helium came from the Big Bang, but everything else was cooked up in the stars. It is not a figure of speech to say we are made from stardust, we literally are.

1999

“The Elegant Universe” by Brian Greene, Norton, $27.95, 448 pages. This year’s best-selling science book outlines how all matter is composed of one-dimensional strings vibrating in nine-dimensional space. Yet, like Stephen Hawking’s “A Brief History of Time,” this work is more admirable than readable. It would, however, make a perfect present for a budding theoretical physicist.

“Time, Love, Memory” by Jonathan Weiner, Knopf, $27.50, 300 pages. This well-written, meticulously detailed story describes the strange things scientists have done to fruit flies to establish that nature (not nurture) is the primary determinant of behavior and intelligence — at least in flies. As he tells the story, Weiner gives the reader a brief history of molecular biology, a branch of science that is far more likely to affect us than the highly speculative string theory. The work of these scientists has led to technology that is transforming the way we live. And “Time, Love, Memory” will help you to understand where it is taking us.

Other books that would make fine stocking-stuffers are Robert Kunzig’s “The Restless Sea (Norton, $24.95, 336 pages), which explores the world beneath the waves; William Schopf’s “Cradle of Life,” a report on the world’s earliest fossils and a speculation about the origins of life; and Bruce Schechter’s “My Brain is Open” (Simon & Schuster, $25.00, 224 pages), a biography of Paul Erdos, a wonderfully wacky mathematician.

1998

“The Ascent of Science” by Brian Silver, Oxford University Press, $35, 517 pages. Brian Silver died in 1997, just before Oxford published his magnum opus. The last work of this talented scientist and writer makes a wonderful gift to anyone interested in achieving scientific literacy. Although the book is not an easy read, advanced high school or college students with an interest in science will find it inspiring and useful. But it would also make a good gift for professional scientists, many of whom get so bogged down in their own specialties that they lose sight of the bigger picture that science has painted. "The Ascent of Science" is not a perfect book; it is sometimes cutesy and occasionally dense. But it is the perfect gift for aspiring young scientists or for older ones who need their batteries recharged.

1997

“The Whole Shebang: A State of the Universe(s) Report” by Timothy Ferris, Simon & Schuster, $25, 393 pages. Among the many fine science books published in 1997, This was my favorite. The book introduces the reader to every aspect of cosmology, from the big bang to black holes. The writing is crisp and clear, a pleasure to read.

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