{"id":19164,"date":"2016-11-25T22:26:24","date_gmt":"2016-11-25T14:26:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/holiday-guide-to-science-books-about-life-the-universe-and-everything\/"},"modified":"2016-11-25T22:26:24","modified_gmt":"2016-11-25T14:26:24","slug":"holiday-guide-to-science-books-about-life-the-universe-and-everything","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/holiday-guide-to-science-books-about-life-the-universe-and-everything\/","title":{"rendered":"Holiday guide to science books about life, the universe and everything"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_291274\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-291274\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-291274 size-full-width\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/161123-cell-book-630x665.jpg\" alt=\"161123-cell-book\" width=\"630\" height=\"665\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/161123-cell-book-630x665.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/161123-cell-book-768x810.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/161123-cell-book-1175x1240.jpg 1175w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/161123-cell-book.jpg 1195w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-291274\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">\u201cThe Cell\u201d turns the inner workings of life into a coffee-table book. (University of Chicago Press)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Fans of the late science-fiction humorist Douglas Adams know that the answer to the ultimate question of&nbsp;life, the universe and everything is 42&nbsp;\u2013 but what\u2019s the answer to the annual holiday gift conundrum?<\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019re buying a gift for a science geek, the answer just might come in the form of books about life, the universe and everything. There are far more than 42 volumes that could serve, but we\u2019ll go halfway with a roundup of 21 science books suitable for holiday giving (and reading):<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Life \u2026<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><iframe title=\"Bill Gates talks to Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/yNlRE2WmcQc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2018The Gene: An Intimate History\u2019:<\/strong> Physician Siddhartha Mukherjee has already won a Pulitzer for his book about cancer and the quest to cure the disease, \u201cThe Emperor of All Maladies.\u201d His follow-up tome about the history of genetics and its promise for the future has won similar kudos from the likes of Bill Gates.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2018Modern Prometheus: Editing the Human Genome With CRISPR-Cas9\u2019:<\/strong> Gene-editing technology is the hottest thing in genetics right now, but it doesn\u2019t figure in Mukherjee\u2019s book until the very end. For the full treatment, look into Jim Kozubek\u2019s \u201cModern Prometheus,\u201d which is best taken in small doses. For an alternate selection, try John Parrington\u2019s \u201cRedesigning Life.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2018The Cell: A Visual Tour of the Building Block of Life\u2019:<\/strong>&nbsp;Even if you have no interest in biology, you\u2019ll marvel over the colorful photomicrographs on the pages of this coffee-table book. Chances are you\u2019ll get sucked in by the story of how scientists figured out what living things were made of. This is just one of the finalists&nbsp;for the AAAS\/Subaru SB&amp;F Prize. Check out the full list for even more reading suggestions suitable for&nbsp;children and young adults.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2018Virus: An Illustrated Guide to 101 Incredible Microbes\u2019:<\/strong>&nbsp;The rise of the Zika virus was one of the most troubling medical stories of the past year \u2013&nbsp;and yes, it\u2019s covered in this richly illustrated&nbsp;rogue\u2019s gallery by virologist Marilyn J. Roossinck. There\u2019s also a graphic explanation of the inner workings of viruses, and a foreword by renowned science writer Carl Zimmer.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2018Lab Girl\u2019:<\/strong> Geobiologist Hope Jahren started out writing a textbook, but ended up writing a memoir that weaves her personal story into an exploration of botany, paleontology and soil studies. \u201cLab Girl\u201d already has found a place on plenty of \u201cbest book\u201d lists for 2016, and it\u2019s definitely on my shopping list for holiday giving.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2018I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life\u2019:<\/strong>&nbsp;Science writer Ed Yong provides a \u201cmicrobe\u2019s-eye view\u201d of the world that reveals how bacteria and other critters work for us as well as against us. The title is inspired by a Walt Whitman poem, and Yong\u2019s exploration of&nbsp;the microbiome and the interconnectedness of living things is poetic as well.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2018Deep Life: The Hunt for the Hidden Biology of Earth, Mars and Beyond\u2019:<\/strong> Extreme environments beneath Earth\u2019s surface could well be the crucible where life was forged, and studying the weird creatures that live in such locales could well shed light on how life could endure in&nbsp;Mars\u2019 deep crust or Europa\u2019s hidden ocean. Geoscientist Tullis C. Onstott brings you along on the hunt.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>The universe \u2026<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><iframe title=\"Mars 101 | National Geographic\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/D8pnmwOXhoY?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2018Mars: Our Future on the Red Planet\u2019:<\/strong> Veteran space reporter Leonard David goes way beyond National Geographic Channel\u2019s \u201cMars\u201d miniseries to trace the past, present and future of Mars exploration in a coffee-table book that\u2019s crammed chock full of pictures and graphics. Famed filmmaker Ron Howard, one of the executive producers for the miniseries, has written the foreword for this companion book.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2018Earth in Human Hands: Shaping Our Planet\u2019s Future\u2019:<\/strong> Astrobiologist David Grinspoon starts out by examining the Anthropocene Age on Earth, in which humanity has essentially taken control of the planet and its long-term fate. But he doesn\u2019t stop there: The focus of the story widens to take in the search for life elsewhere in the universe, and what the search is teaching us about our own species.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2018Night Sky With the Naked Eye: How to Find Planets, Constellations, Satellites and Other Night Sky Wonders Without a Telescope\u2019: <\/strong>Amateur astronomer Bob King, aka Astro Bob, provides easy-to-follow instructions for enjoying the simple pleasures of the sky and fills you in on the science behind the sights. This book will help you get ready&nbsp;for the total solar eclipse&nbsp;visible from the United States next August.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2018Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos\u2019:<\/strong> Universe Today\u2019s Nancy Atkinson tells the stories behind space missions ranging from Apollo\u2019s moonshots, to the Mars rovers\u2019 perambulations, to the tribulations of NASA\u2019s planet-hunting Kepler telescope. I particularly like the fact that she leads off with the New Horizons mission to Pluto, my favorite dwarf planet.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2018Welcome to the Universe: An Astrophysical Tour\u2019:<\/strong> Astrophysicists Neil deGrasse Tyson, Michael Strauss and J. Richard Gott team up for a readable survey of the universe, from our solar system\u2019s worlds to cosmic inflation and the multiverse. They don\u2019t stint on the details, and yes, there\u2019s some math involved, but it\u2019s well worth the journey. Just one thing: Neil, I still beg to differ with the chapter titled \u201cWhy Pluto Is Not a Planet.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2018Visions of the Universe: A Coloring Journey Through Math\u2019s Great Mysteries\u2019:<\/strong> And now for something completely different \u2026 a coloring book for grown-ups (or kids) who appreciate the beauty of math. This is a follow-up to a similarly mathemagical book by Alex Bellos and Edmund Harriss, titled \u201cPatterns of the Universe.\u201d Fill in the shapes with your coloring tools of choice \u2013 pencils or crayons work best \u2013 and learn about such curiosities as Brownian trees and the Kolakoski sequence&nbsp;along the way.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>And everything<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Mary Roach Introduces Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/gfrGhatevvs?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2018Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War\u2019:<\/strong>&nbsp;Best-selling author Mary Roach has delved into the science of spooks, stiffs, sex, space travel and the alimentary canal, all with a touch of humor. In her latest book, she takes on all the scientific angles associated with soldiering. You\u2019ll find out how warfighters deal with heat exhaustion, bird strikes, wounds, flies and a case of the runs. Roach rarely pulls her punches, or her punch lines.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2018Eruption: The Untold Story of Mount St. Helens\u2019:&nbsp;<\/strong>It\u2019s been 36 years since Mount St. Helens blew its top, causing a billion dollars\u2019 worth of damage and killing 57 people. That\u2019s long enough for Seattle-based science writer Steve Olson to put Washington state\u2019s best-known geological cataclysm into perspective, but still recent enough to get&nbsp;the eyewitness stories of those whose lives were touched.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2018Ada Byron Lovelace and the Thinking Machine\u2019:<\/strong> This 40-page picture&nbsp;book, aimed at readers in grades 1 through 4, recounts the story of Ada Lovelace, the 19th-century countess who is often counted as history\u2019s first computer programmer. The author is Laurie Wallmark, and the illustrator is April Chu. This is one of the books recommended by the National Science Teachers Association for K-12 students. Check out the NSTA\u2019s full list.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2018Oh, Ick! 114 Science Experiments Guaranteed to Gross You Out\u2019:<\/strong> Want to make a sweet snot sandwich? A farting slime bag? The how-to\u2019s devised by Joy Masoff (with Jessica Garrett and Ben Ligon) aren\u2019t as icky as they sound, but they could be fun for curious kids aged 8 or older. One experiment turns the kids into DNA detectives&nbsp;\u2013 and shows them how to extract strands of DNA from a glass of slimy, soapy lentil juice. Yum!<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2018Treecology: 30 Activities and Observations for Exploring the World of Trees and Forests\u2019:<\/strong> Monica Russo\u2019s book can pull&nbsp;your science-minded kiddos away from the reading chair and get them out in the woods. The activities laid out in the book will help students in grades 3 through 7 identify plants and figure out how trees are put together. This could be the beginning of a beautiful botanical relationship.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2018Pedro \u2018n\u2019 Pip: A Rock \u2018n\u2019 Roll Odyssey\u2019:<\/strong> Here\u2019s a \u201cmultimedia children\u2019s book experience\u201d from Taylor Barton, created with an assist from her husband, musician GE Smith (best known for his decade-long stint as the bandleader on \u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d). It\u2019s&nbsp;an environmentally&nbsp;themed&nbsp;tale about a 10-year-old girl named Pip and her eight-armed friend Pedro, a \u201crockoctopus\u201d she met while scuba diving after the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The book, suitable for ages 8 to 12, is illustrated by Dana Cooper and comes with online access to more than a dozen songs that are woven into the story. Performers include Barton and Smith.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2018Version Control\u2019:<\/strong> How will self-driving cars and artificial intelligence change our lives? What if you throw in a causality violation device, also known as a time machine? Dexter Palmer\u2019s novel is on my holiday reading list, based on the strength of reviews&nbsp;like this one from NPR: \u201c\u2018Version Control\u2019 is a thoughtful, powerful overhaul of the age-old time travel tale, one that doesn\u2019t radically deconstruct the genre so much as explore it more broadly and deeply.\u201d An alternate selection would be Seattle author Ted Chiang\u2019s \u201cStories of Your Life and Others,\u201d which includes the short story on which the movie \u201cArrival\u201d is based.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2018The Origins of Everything in 100 Pages (More or Less)\u2019:<\/strong> What\u2019s a roundup of books about everything without a book that\u2019s <em>specifically about everything<\/em>. Geophysicist David Bercovici traces 13.8 billion years of history about cosmology, civilization and everything in between, in just 112 pages. For a classic alternate selection, check out Bill Bryson\u2019s \u201cA Short History of Nearly Everything.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>For still more reading suggestions, check out GeekWire\u2019s books coverage as well as the Cosmic Log backlist.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cThe Cell\u201d turns the inner workings of life into a coffee-table book. (University of Chicago Press) Fans of the late science-fiction humorist Douglas Adams know that the answer to the ultimate question of&nbsp;life, the universe and everything is 42&nbsp;\u2013 but what\u2019s the answer to the annual holiday gift conundrum? If you\u2019re buying a gift for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4418,5483,21],"class_list":["post-19164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-books","tag-holidays","tag-space"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19164"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19164\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}