Reviews

  1. Ecosystems

    BOOK LIST | Trees, Truffles, and Beasts: How Forests Function

    An argument that simple policies will not save complex forests.Rutgers Univ. Press, 2008, 280 p., $26.95 (paperback). TREES, TRUFFLES, AND BEASTS: HOW FORESTS FUNCTION

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  2. Humans

    BOOK REVIEW | Curiosity and Enlightenment: Collectors and Collections from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Century

    Review by Amy Maxmen.

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  3. Health & Medicine

    BOOK REVIEW | Microcosm: E. coli and the New Science of Life

    Review by Elizabeth Quill.

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  4. Life

    BOOK LIST | Manipulative Monkeys: The Capuchins of Lomas Barbudal

    Primatologists follow the social lives of these big-brained Costa Rican monkeys. Harvard Univ. Press, 2008 358 p. $45 MANIPULATIVE MONKEYS

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  5. Math

    BOOK LIST | Guesstimation: Solving the World’s Problems on the Back of a Cocktail Napkin

    Learn to use simple arithmetic to approximate anything. Princeton Univ. Press, 2008, 300 p. $19.95 GUESSTIMATION

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  6. Space

    BOOK LIST | Newton: Ackroyd’s Brief Lives

    The book promises a personal history of Isaac Newton. Ackroyd also wrote Shakespeare: The Biography and London: The Biography. Nan A. Talese, 2008 176 p. $21.95 NEWTON: ACKROYD’S BRIEF LIVES

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  7. Plants

    BOOK LIST | Winter Trees

    In this picture book, a child uses sight and touch to identify seven common trees, even after they’ve lost their leaves. Charlesbridge Publishing, 2008, 30 p. $15.95 WINTER TREES

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  8. Health & Medicine

    BOOK REVIEW | A Portrait of the Brain

    Review by Tina Hesman Saey.

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  9. Earth

    BOOK LIST | A Grain of Sand: Nature’s Secret Wonder

    Beautiful photos of sand grains up close reveal surprising diversity. Text describes a sand grain’s journey from mountain to beach. A GRAIN OF SAND Voyageur Press, 2008, 112 p. $20.

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  10. Planetary Science

    BOOK LIST | Titan Unveiled

    Astronomer Lorenz and science writer Mitton provide the details of what we know so far about Saturn’s moon. TITAN UNVEILED Princeton University Press, 2008, 243 p., $29.95

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  11. Astronomy

    BOOK LIST | Archimedes to Hawking: Laws of Science and the Great Minds Behind Them

    Pickover, who has authored 40 books on many aspects of science and mathematics, discusses how the works of great minds from Archimedes to Stephen Hawking have changed humankind’s understanding of the universe. BIG IDEAS, AND BIG THINKERS, IN COSMOLOGY Oxford University Press, 2008, 514 p., $27.95.

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