Neuroscience
Just finished a fabulous novel (Intuition, by Allegra Goodman) about the scientific process and the world of postdocs working in labs. It's getting good reviews (mostly), including some raves from the scientific community.
Gina Kolata reviewed the book for the New York Times Science section on March 21, and said "At its base, 'Intuition' is a novel about scientific fraud. A postdoctoral student becomes suspicious that another postdoc's dazzling discovery might not be all it seems. His data seem too good to be true."
Her sources agree that the book is very representative of the postdoc world: " 'I think it's a unique book because it completely nails this world,' said Dr. Jerome Groopman, an oncologist and a professor of medicine at Harvard and the director of a laboratory there." and
Tom Schwarz, a researcher at Children's Hospital in Boston, read the book early on at the request of Ms. Goodman and "... said he began to read the book and could not believe it. Ms. Goodman had not interviewed him, and she had not been to his lab. But, Dr. Schwarz said, 'I saw myself and I saw things I knew, everything from the greasy falafels from the truck parked outside to the characters.' "
The characters and the story are compelling, especially as research is being fabricated (see: South Korean stem cell scientist Hwang Woo Suk and Norwegian cancer researcher Jon Sudbo). And since I prefer my news fictionalized, this was a perfect read for me.
- Alzheimer's Disease: Rethinking Things?
A very readable piece from Gina Kolata of the New York Times: Doubt on Tactic in Alzheimer’s Battle By GINA KOLATA The New York Times Published: August 18, 2010 "The failure of a promising Alzheimer’s drug highlights the gap between diagnosis and...
- The Three-pound Enigma By Shannon Moffett
Received my copy of this new book today. Looks great! It was reviewed in Sunday's Washington Post, along with two other new neuroscience books: Read the review here. And, up in March, a book by Eric Kandel. Good times for neuroscience books written...
- Fiction / Science / Philosophy
I like when more than one of my interests combine, as they did in a 1983 book I recently read by Rebecca Goldstein. In The Mind-body Problem, Goldstein's heroine is a philosopher / graduate student at Princeton married to a math genuius. She jokingly...
- Science (fact) Writing
John the Science Librarian just blogged Cognitive Daily: How to report scientific research to a general audience in his entry called Writing about science. Since I have some time on my hands (not teaching this semester, gasp!), I've been reading a...
- The War In Science In The War
A billboard at Oak Ridge Facility in Tennessee warns people to keep silent about anything they see or hear there. Oak Ridge was a town built in 1942 to house workers and the laboratory that developed the Manhattan Project – the secret second world war...
Neuroscience
Fiction Science
Just finished a fabulous novel (Intuition, by Allegra Goodman) about the scientific process and the world of postdocs working in labs. It's getting good reviews (mostly), including some raves from the scientific community.
Gina Kolata reviewed the book for the New York Times Science section on March 21, and said "At its base, 'Intuition' is a novel about scientific fraud. A postdoctoral student becomes suspicious that another postdoc's dazzling discovery might not be all it seems. His data seem too good to be true."
Her sources agree that the book is very representative of the postdoc world: " 'I think it's a unique book because it completely nails this world,' said Dr. Jerome Groopman, an oncologist and a professor of medicine at Harvard and the director of a laboratory there." and
Tom Schwarz, a researcher at Children's Hospital in Boston, read the book early on at the request of Ms. Goodman and "... said he began to read the book and could not believe it. Ms. Goodman had not interviewed him, and she had not been to his lab. But, Dr. Schwarz said, 'I saw myself and I saw things I knew, everything from the greasy falafels from the truck parked outside to the characters.' "
The characters and the story are compelling, especially as research is being fabricated (see: South Korean stem cell scientist Hwang Woo Suk and Norwegian cancer researcher Jon Sudbo). And since I prefer my news fictionalized, this was a perfect read for me.
- Alzheimer's Disease: Rethinking Things?
A very readable piece from Gina Kolata of the New York Times: Doubt on Tactic in Alzheimer’s Battle By GINA KOLATA The New York Times Published: August 18, 2010 "The failure of a promising Alzheimer’s drug highlights the gap between diagnosis and...
- The Three-pound Enigma By Shannon Moffett
Received my copy of this new book today. Looks great! It was reviewed in Sunday's Washington Post, along with two other new neuroscience books: Read the review here. And, up in March, a book by Eric Kandel. Good times for neuroscience books written...
- Fiction / Science / Philosophy
I like when more than one of my interests combine, as they did in a 1983 book I recently read by Rebecca Goldstein. In The Mind-body Problem, Goldstein's heroine is a philosopher / graduate student at Princeton married to a math genuius. She jokingly...
- Science (fact) Writing
John the Science Librarian just blogged Cognitive Daily: How to report scientific research to a general audience in his entry called Writing about science. Since I have some time on my hands (not teaching this semester, gasp!), I've been reading a...
- The War In Science In The War
A billboard at Oak Ridge Facility in Tennessee warns people to keep silent about anything they see or hear there. Oak Ridge was a town built in 1942 to house workers and the laboratory that developed the Manhattan Project – the secret second world war...