Lucy to Language, by Donald Johanson and Blake Edgar (NASW) published by Simon & Schuster.
Edgar, freelance and associate editor of Pacific Discovery magazine in San Francisco, has co-authored a second book with paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson, the discoverer of Lucy. From Lucy to Language is an encyclopedic survey of human origins, featuring essays on major topics in the field and profiles of the most significant fossil specimens. The fossils appear in stunning, actual-size color photos that provide a face-to-face encounter with the evidence for our evolution. The book has been selected as one of the best of the year by Publishers Weekly and The Los Angeles Times and has received rave reviews in The New York Times, New Scientist, and Scientific American. Edgar can be reached at 415-750-7116 or by e-mail: bedgar@calacademy.org. The PR for the book is Kerri Kennedy at 212-698-7537.
Parade Family Health Companion, by Earl Ubell (NASW) with Randi Londer Gould (NASW) published by Prima Publishing
Ubell-whom I admired for his great leads when he worked on the old Herald Tribune-is the health editor for Parade magazine where his "Health on Parade" column and other articles are offered to 81 million readers. He also spent many years as the Health and Science editor for WCBS-TV in New York City. In this new book, readers can browse through up to 500 health topics and conditions, while learning the stories of real people coping with the disorders. Family Health Companion explains health issues to guide families to better health. Freelance Gould is widely published on health and science topics in publications including Parade and Family Circle. Ubell can be reached at 212-807-9686B by phone: 212-741-3288 by FAX and 74442,3477 @Compuserve. The PR for the book is Christine Lemmon at 916-632-440; by FAX 916-632-1232 and by e-mail chrisl@primapub.com.
WEBONOMICS:Nine Essential Principles for Growing Your Business On the World Wide Web, by Evan I. Schwartz (NASW), published by Broadway Books
The World Wide Web has become the most important new communications medium since television, according to Schwartz, a contributor to Wired and a Brookline, Massachusetts, freelance. He says with tens of millions of people now online and Web sites springing up at a rate of one per minute, a new digital marketplace has been created where consumers can search for the best deals and services in an instant. While almost everyone agrees that the Web provides excellent marketing opportunities, many businesses don't know how to use it effectively, and have been losing millions of dollars because of it. In addition to offering practical wisdom, Webonomics tells a larger story-about life in the Information Age, rising new communities, the next phase of capitalism, a shift in the role of government, and surviving amidst accelerating change. Schwartz can be reached by phone at: 617-278-9851 and on the web at eis@murrow.tufts.edu.The publicist for the book is Jennifer Swihart at 212-782-8943.
A Consumer's Dictionary of Medicines: Prescription, Over-the-Counter, Homeopathic and Herbal Plus Medical Definitions, by Ruth Winter (NASW), published by Crown.
A new, expanded updated edition with 2000 new entries, the book lists drugs by their various generic, brand, scientific and common names and provides information about their purposes, side effects, interactions with other substances, and administration. The PR for Crown is Mary Ellen Briggs who can be reached by phone at 212-572-2542 and by FAX at 212-940-7868.
Life Itself: Exploring the Realm of the Living Cell, by Boyce Rensberger, published by Oxford University Press
A review in the February 23 New York Times Book Review by David Papineau, a professor of philosophy at King's College, London, calls the book "a wonderfully readable digest of everything currently known about the mechanisms by which living cells perform their myriad tasks... He is unusual among popular-science writers in allowing his story to tell itself. His heroes are the cells, not scientists who work on them." The book started out as a series of five front-page articles in The Washington Post that received a "huge positive response."
The DNA Mystique: The Gene As a Cultural Icon, by Dorothy Nelkin and M. Susan Lindee, published in paperback by W.H. Freeman & Co.
The authors reveal how popular culture and ambitious science are intersecting and interacting to create what may be "one of the most naive and potentially dangerous ideologies any society ever embraced." Professors at New York University and University of Pennsylvania respectively, they have sifted through the artifacts of our society in an effort to reveal how the gene now possesses a cultural meaning independent of its precise biological properties. Nelkin and Lindee term this phenomenon, which reduces the self to a molecular entity and equates human beings in all their social, historical and moral complexity with their DNA, genetic essentialism. The PR for the book is Stacey Landown 212-561-8221.
Strong Women Stay Young, by Miriam E. Nelson, PhD and Sarah Wernick, PhD, published by Bantam Books
Nelson, a Tufts University professor, studied postmenopausal women for a year. All were healthy but sedentary; none took hormones. The control group maintained their usual lifestyle. The rest came to Tufts twice a week and lifted weights. The results were first published in The Journal of The American Medical Association. The active participants had a reduced risk of fractures from osteoporosis, better weight control, and increased vitality. The Bantam publicist, Meryl Zegarek, can be reached at 212-782-9186.
The Eleventh Plague: The Politics of Biological and Chemical Warfare, by Leonard A. Cole, published by W.H. Freeman & Company
Anyone can make biological warfare weapons in his or her kitchen, according to Cole, adjunct professor of political science and a faculty associate in the Program in Science, Technology, and Society at Rutgers University, Newark, NJ. He says biological weapons are the "poor man's atomic bomb." With a small kitchen, $10,000 worth of equipment, and some mail-order germs, virtually anyone can develop a biological weapons arsenal that could kill millions, he writes. As lethal as chemical weapons are, biological weapons, he maintains, pose a worse nightmare. As biological weapons become established in the environment, they may increase in numbers and become more dangerous with the passage of time. The author reveals how more than 25 countries are now suspected of having chemical weapons or the ability to produce them. Of the seventeen countries that have been named biological weapons suspects, five, says Cole, have histories of militant behavior. The PR for the book is Stacey Landowne 212-8221.