Articles

Sandra Blakeslee: Dirt is Good

What procedures, drugs, foods, environmental exposures, and everyday practices can help or harm your children in pregnancy, birth, and the first years of life? What can you do to protect your children’s health and development? In Dirt Is Good, Jack Gilbert, Rob Knight, and NASW member Sandra Blakeslee provide a parent-friendly guide to the human microbiome — the community of mostly friendly microbes that populate the human body. The Q&A format gives parents quick access to their most pressing questions, and, Blakeslee reports, streamlined the writing process.

David Baron: American Eclipse

On August 21, 2017, for the first time in 99 years, the moon’s shadow will traverse the entire breadth of the continental United States. The event presents a host of opportunities for both scientific research and media coverage. In American Eclipse, David Baron examines the total solar eclipse of 1878, which crossed western North America from Alaska to Texas and Louisiana, attracting Thomas Edison and others. “Those three minutes of midday darkness,” he writes, “would enlighten a people and elevate a nation.”

From ScienceWriters: World Conference in San Francisco

The five-day program for the 10th World Conference of Science Journalists features global issues, research topics and challenges, a chance to learn how science writing is done around the world, and a star-studded cast of headline speakers together with all the classic elements of a ScienceWriters meeting: professional development workshops, networking events, field trips, a pitch slam, and Lunch with a Scientist. The early registration discount ends on August 1.

Mark Pendergrast: City on the Verge

The Atlanta BeltLine, now in the works, aims to transform a 22-mile ring of mostly defunct rail lines running through 45 diverse downtown Atlanta neighborhoods into a green pedestrian walkway and path for runners and bikers with a possible streetcar line, an urban planner’s dream. In City on the Verge: Atlanta and the Fight for America’s Urban Future, Mark Pendergrast, an Atlanta native, explores the BeltLine’s development and potential impact on the communities through which it will run. He also addresses broader urban issues, including transportation, race, housing, education, religion, public health, and the economy.

From ScienceWriters: Conversation and storytelling connects kids with scientists

Jenny Cutraro writes about her work organizing Science Storytellers, an effort with the American Association for the Advancement of Science to break down barriers and getting children and scientists talking to each other.

Cathryn Jakobson Ramin: Crooked

Sitting too much, and exercising too little, weaken gluteal and postural muscles essential for supporting the spine, and may trigger back pain. Treatment for back pain is a microcosm of everything wrong with the health care system, Cathryn Jakobson Ramin asserts in Crooked: Outwitting the Back Pain Industry and Getting on the Road to Recovery. Ramin aims to give patients “the information they need to make good decisions, to know what works sometimes, what works rarely, and what can cause harm.”

Dennis Meredith: The Happy Chip

“Company XXX has recommendations for you based on items you purchased.…” Similar emails flood our inboxes daily. In his fifth novel, The Happy Chip, Dennis Meredith explores the impact of runaway data-grabbing. He imagines a ground-breaking nanochip people seeking to improve their lives have implanted in their bodies. The chip not only monitors behaviors, but also can control them surreptitiously. It’s 1984, a few decades on. Meredith’s non-fiction books include Explaining Research, a guidebook for scientists and science writers.

From ScienceWriters: Budget-beleaguered IRS isn't a paper tiger

Despite continuous cuts in IRS budgets and shrinking staffs, the agency remains able to deal with taxpayers who fail to file returns. Internal Revenue Code Section 6020 allows the IRS to complete returns and make assessments for taxes, penalties for failing to file, and for late payment of taxes and interest charges.

Bob Holmes: Flavor

My grandmother sprinkled salt on her grapefruit. As a child, I reached for the sugar. In Flavor: The Science of Our Most Neglected Sense, Bob Holmes explains why my grandmother made a wiser choice: salty tastes inhibit bitter ones. Most people, Holmes says, know little about the complex interplay of taste, smell, touch, sight, and even expectation that creates flavor sensations. We can learn to improve our everyday flavor experiences, however, Holmes asserts. It’s worth the effort, he says: “Paying attention to flavor makes life not just richer but deeper.”

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