New Books in Science

Every medical decision—whether to have chemotherapy, an X-ray, or surgery—is a risk, no matter which way you choose. In You Bet Your Life: From Blood Transfusions to Mass Vaccination, the Long and Risky History of Medical Innovation (Basic Book, 2021), physician Paul A. Offit argues that, from the first blood transfusions four hundred years ago to the hunt for a COVID-19 vaccine, risk has been essential to the discovery of new treatments. More importantly, understanding the risks is crucial to whether, as a society or as individuals, we accept them.Told in Offit’s vigorous and rigorous style, You Bet Your Life is an entertaining history of medicine. But it also lays bare the tortured relationships between intellectual breakthroughs, political realities, and human foibles. Our pandemic year has shown us, with its debates over lockdowns, masks, and vaccines, how easy it is to get everything wrong. You Bet Your Life is an essential read for getting the future a bit more right.Sine Yaganoglu trained as a neuroscientist and bioengineer (PhD, ETH Zurich). She currently works in innovation management and diagnostics.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science

Science and Religion in India: Beyond Disenchantment (Routledge, 2021) provides an in-depth ethnographic study of science and religion in the context of South Asia, giving voice to Indian scientists and shedding valuable light on their engagement with religion. Drawing on biographical, autobiographical, historical, and ethnographic material, the volume focuses on scientists’ religious life and practices and the variety of ways in which they express them. Renny Thomas challenges the idea that science and religion in India are naturally connected and argues that the discussion has to go beyond binary models of ‘conflict’ and ‘complementarity.’ By complicating the understanding of science and religion in India, the book engages with new ways of looking at these categories.Tiatemsu Longkumer is a Ph.D. scholar working on ‘Anthropology of Religion’ at North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong: India. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science

Humans from the earliest civilizations through today have craned their necks each night, using the stars to orient themselves in the large, strange world around them. Stargazing is a pursuit that continues to fascinate us: from Copernicus to Carl Sagan, astronomers throughout history have spent their lives trying to answer the biggest questions in the universe. Now, award-winning astronomer Emily Levesque shares the stories of modern-day stargazers in this new nonfiction release, the people willing to adventure across high mountaintops and to some of the most remote corners of the planet, all in the name of science.From the lonely quiet of midnight stargazing to tall tales of wild bears loose in the observatory, The Last Stargazers: The Enduring Story of Astronomy's Vanishing Explorers (Sourcebooks, 2021) is a love letter to astronomy and an affirmation of the crucial role that humans can and must play in the future of scientific discovery.In this sweeping work of narrative science, Levesque shows how astronomers in this scrappy and evolving field are going beyond the machines to infuse creativity and passion into the stars and space and inspires us all to peer skyward in pursuit of the universe's secrets.Galina Limorenko is a doctoral candidate in Neuroscience with a focus on biochemistry and molecular biology of neurodegenerative diseases at EPFL in Switzerland. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science

The average person produces about four hundred pounds of excrement a year. More than seven billion people live on this planet. Holy crap!Because of the diseases it spreads, we have learned to distance ourselves from our waste, but the long line of engineering marvels we've created to do so--from Roman sewage systems and medieval latrines to the immense, computerized treatment plants we use today--has also done considerable damage to the earth's ecology. Now scientists tell us: we've been wasting our waste. When recycled correctly, this resource, cheap and widely available, can be converted into a sustainable energy source, act as an organic fertilizer, provide effective medicinal therapy for antibiotic-resistant bacterial infection, and much more.In The Other Dark Matter: The Science and Business of Turning Waste Into Wealth and Health (U Chicago Press, 2021), Lina Zeldovich documents the massive redistribution of nutrients and sanitation inequities across the globe. She profiles the pioneers of poop upcycling, from startups in African villages to innovators in American cities that convert sewage into fertilizer, biogas, crude oil, and even life-saving medicine. She breaks taboos surrounding sewage disposal and shows how hygienic waste repurposing can help battle climate change, reduce acid rain, and eliminate toxic algal blooms. Ultimately, she implores us to use our innate organic power for the greater good. Don't just sit there and let it go to waste.Galina Limorenko is a doctoral candidate in Neuroscience with a focus on biochemistry and molecular biology of neurodegenerative diseases at EPFL in Switzerland. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science

Today I talked to Leonard Mdlodinow about his new book Emotional: How Feelings Shape Our Thinking (Pantheon, 2022)."On or around December 1910, human character changed,” Virginia Woolf memorably wrote, citing the rise of Modernism. Take things ahead a century, and Leonard Mdlodinow is making a similarly striking statement that advances in how neuroscientists can trace the connectivity of neurons has led to another striking advancement in intellectual life since approximately 2010. From the 1980s until that date, psychologists and neuroscientists were both appreciating and refining the concept of emotions as inherited from Charles Darwin. Since then, what emotions are and how they operate has undergone a conceptual revolution. This episode follows Mlodinow’s guidance as he outlines how scientists today focus on emotions as functional agents, thoroughly emmeshed in how we selectively perceive and adapt to the circumstances we find ourselves in. One tangible example of the revolution: now we know that childhood can literally change our DNA as we react and adjust to emotionally-laden experiences that leave their emotional fingerprint on us all.Leonard Mlodinow received his PhD in theoretical physics from the University of California, Berkeley, was a fellow at the Max Planck Institute, and has been on the faculty at CalTech. His previous, award-winning books include two written with Stephen Hawking, and another written with Deepak Chopra.Dan Hill, PhD, is the author of nine books and leads Sensory Logic, Inc. (https://www.sensorylogic.com). His new book is Blah, Blah, Blah: A Snarky Guide to Office Lingo. To check out his related “Dan Hill’s EQ Spotlight” blog, visit https://emotionswizard.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science

Walter Tschinkel has spent much of his career investigating the hidden subterranean realm of ant nests. This wonderfully illustrated book takes you inside an unseen world where thousands of ants build intricate homes in the soil beneath our feet.Tschinkel describes the ingenious methods he has devised to study ant nests, showing how he fills a nest with plaster, molten metal, or wax and painstakingly excavates the cast. He guides you through living ant nests chamber by chamber, revealing how nests are created and how colonies function. How does nest architecture vary across species? Do ants have “architectural plans”? How do nests affect our environment? As he delves into these and other questions, Tschinkel provides a one-of-a-kind natural history of the planet’s most successful creatures and a compelling firsthand account of a life of scientific discovery.Offering a unique look at how simple methods can lead to pioneering science, Ant Architecture: The Wonder, Beauty, and Science of Underground Nests (Princeton UP, 2021) addresses the unsolved mysteries of underground ant nests while charting new directions for tomorrow’s research, and reflects on the role of beauty in nature and the joys of shoestring science.Galina Limorenko is a doctoral candidate in Neuroscience with a focus on biochemistry and molecular biology of neurodegenerative diseases at EPFL in Switzerland. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science

Inside our heads we carry around an infinite and endlessly unfolding map of the world. Navigation is one of the most ancient neural abilities we have―older than language. In Dark and Magical Places: The Neuroscience of Navigation (Norton, 2022), Christopher Kemp embarks on a journey to discover the remarkable extent of what our minds can do.Fueled by his own spatial shortcomings, Kemp describes the brain regions that orient us in space and the specialized neurons that do it. Place cells. Grid cells. He examines how the brain plans routes, recognizes landmarks, and makes sure we leave a room through a door instead of trying to leave through a painting. From the secrets of supernavigators like the indigenous hunters of the Bolivian rainforest to the confusing environments inhabited by people with place blindness, Kemp charts the myriad ways in which we find our way and explains the cutting-edge neuroscience behind them.How did Neanderthals navigate? Why do even seasoned hikers stray from the trail? What spatial skills do we inherit from our parents? How can smartphones and our reliance on GPS devices impact our brains? In engaging, engrossing language, Kemp unravels the mysteries of navigating and links the brain’s complex functions to the effects that diseases like Alzheimer’s, types of amnesia, and traumatic brain injuries have on our perception of the world around us.A book for anyone who has ever felt compelled to venture off the beaten path, Dark and Magical Places is a stirring reminder of the beauty in losing yourself to your surroundings. And the beauty in understanding how our brains can guide us home.Galina Limorenko is a doctoral candidate in Neuroscience with a focus on biochemistry and molecular biology of neurodegenerative diseases at EPFL in Switzerland. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science

Human-made climate change may have begun in the last two hundred years, but our species has witnessed many eras of climate instability. The results have not always been pretty. From Ancient Egypt to Rome to the Maya, some of history's mightiest civilizations have been felled by pestilence and glacial melt and drought.The challenges are no less great today. We face hurricanes and megafires and food shortages and more. But we have one powerful advantage as we face our current crisis: the past. Our knowledge of ancient climates has advanced tremendously in the last decade, to the point where we can now reconstruct seasonal weather going back thousands of years and see just how people and nature interacted. The lesson is clear: the societies that survive are those that plan ahead.Brian Fagan and Nadia Durrani's Climate Chaos: Lessons on Survival from Our Ancestors (PublicAffairs, 2021) is a book about saving ourselves. Brian Fagan and Nadia Durrani show in remarkable detail what it was like to battle our climate over centuries and offer us a path to a safer and healthier future. Galina Limorenko is a doctoral candidate in Neuroscience with a focus on biochemistry and molecular biology of neurodegenerative diseases at EPFL in Switzerland. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science

From mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue to chronic bacterial infections such as yaws, Southeast Asia is home to a wide range of tropical diseases. For a long time, the arrival in the region of these and other dangerous tropical diseases was believed to be connected to the introduction of agriculture. But how long have these diseases really been around for? How are they connected to the region’s fluctuating social and environmental conditions? And how have they impacted the human populations of Southeast Asia over time?Joining Dr Natali Pearson on SSEAC Stories, bioarchaeologist Dr Melandri Vlok sheds light on the complex science of paleoepidemiology and its use of advanced analytical practices such as DNA ancestry, skeletal studies, and teeth calculus to uncover ancient stories of illness and disease. She explains that far from being mere remnants of the past, archaeological human remains can help us understand the evolution and spread of pathogens, and inform strategies to curb the spread of infectious diseases in human populations.About Melandri Vlok:Dr Melandri Vlok is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Sydney Southeast Asia Centre. Melandri specialises in palaeopathology/ bioarchaeology and researches the implications for migration and trade on the presence of infectious and nutritional diseases in past populations in Asia. Melandri's work, funded by grant bodies including National Geographic and the Royal Society of New Zealand, has involved the analysis of human skeletal remains from Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, Japan, Mongolia, New Zealand and the Philippines. She is also involved with repatriation efforts focused on returning Māori and Moriori ancestral remains to iwi and imi (tribes) in New Zealand.For more information or to browse additional resources, visit the Sydney Southeast Asia Centre’s website: www.sydney.edu.au/sseac. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science

Lives of Weeds: Opportunism, Resistance, Folly (Cornell UP, 2021) explores the tangled history of weeds and their relationship to humans. Through eight interwoven stories, John Cardina offers a fresh perspective on how these tenacious plants came about, why they are both inevitable and essential, and how their ecological success is ensured by determined efforts to eradicate them. Linking botany, history, ecology, and evolutionary biology to the social dimensions of humanity's ancient struggle with feral flora, Cardina shows how weeds have shaped—and are shaped by—the way we live in the natural world.Weeds and attempts to control them drove nomads toward settled communities, encouraged social stratification, caused environmental disruptions, and have motivated the development of GMO crops. They have snared us in social inequality and economic instability, infested social norms of suburbia, caused rage in the American heartland, and played a part in perpetuating pesticide use worldwide. Lives of Weeds reveals how the technologies directed against weeds underlie ethical questions about agriculture and the environment, and leaves readers with a deeper understanding of how the weeds around us are entangled in our daily choices.Galina Limorenko is a doctoral candidate in Neuroscience with a focus on biochemistry and molecular biology of neurodegenerative diseases at EPFL in Switzerland. To discuss and propose the book for an interview you can reach her at galina.limorenko@epfl.ch. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science