Science writing news

Ever heard of the Dyna-Soar? The US Air Force gave that name to a planned space-capable hypersonic glider that never got past the mockup stage. After six years and about $660 million in development costs, the project was canceled in 1963. Rob Pyle reports this story and other little-known aspects of space history in Amazing Stories of the Space Age: True Tales of Nazis in Orbit, Soldiers on the Moon, Orphaned Martian Robots, and Other Fascinating Accounts From the Annals of Spaceflight.

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For 100 years, most scientists have contended that nuclear reactions can occur only in high-energy physics experiments and in large nuclear reactors. Nuclear reactions, however, also can occur in bench top experiments, Steven B. Krivit reports. In his three-book series, Explorations in Nuclear Research, Krivit describes the emergence of low-energy nuclear reactions (LENR), a new field of science that bridges chemistry and physics, which he distinguishes from, as he says, the erroneous idea of "cold fusion."

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After traveling 9.5 years and 3 billion miles, the New Horizons spacecraft neared its closest approach to Pluto. It sent to Earth the now-famous full global view showing a huge heart-shaped area on Pluto’s surface: a giant sheet of molecular nitrogen ice. “New Horizons had just transformed Pluto from a pixilated blob — as seen by the best telescope ever built — to a spectacular world full of diversity and complexity,” Nancy Atkinson writes in Incredible Stories From Space.

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In this second, updated edition of Human Genetics: The Basics Ricki Lewis provides a concise overview of what genes are and how they function. Consideration of genes has made the practice of medicine both more precise and more personal, she says, describing benefits of genetic research to the understanding and treatment of both rare and common disorders that include cystic fibrosis, cancer, and cardiovascular and infectious disease. Genetic testing teamed with information science, she notes, now makes it possible to diagnose some inherited diseases in minutes. In wrapping up each chapter, Lewis presents dilemmas that may arise from genetic research, information, applications, and technologies.

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Smallpox lesions have been found on mummies. Skeletons thousands of years old show bone deformities that may have come from syphilis. In Outbreak!: 50 Tales of Epidemics that Terrorized the World, Beth Skwarecki chronicles the devastation caused by viruses, bacteria, fungi, parasites, prions, dietary insufficiencies, and other scourges, from those known in ancient times, including malaria and plague, to more recent outbreaks, such as those of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Ebola. Skwarecki provides 3-5 page summaries for each epidemic, telling what happened and including the current threat level, treatment, and research findings.

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From cutting down forests to polluting air, trashing oceans, and even leaving junk in space, humans are writing a new chapter in Earth’s history, David Biello asserts in The Unnatural World: The Race to Remake Civilization in Earth's Newest Age. Scientists have dubbed this new age the Anthropocene. “The choices made this century will help set the course of the entire planet for at least tens of thousands of years,” Biello contends. There’s still time, he argues, for humans to be a force for good.

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