Synopses & Reviews
Gathered from the nation's leading publications by award-winning author Timothy Ferris,
The Best American Science Writing 2001 is a dynamic, up-to-date collection of essays and articles by America's most prominent thinkers and writers, addressing the most controversial, socially relevant topics that recent developments in science pose.
Among the contributors: Richard Preston examines the contentious business of decoding the human genome. Malcolm Gladwell follows investigators who aim to revolutionize birth control. Tracy Kidder profiles a modern Dr. Schweitzer. Alan Lightman laments what was lost in his transformation from astrophysicist to fiction writer. Natalie Angier makes some surprising discoveries about gender in mandrill society. Stephen Jay Gould investigates the strange contrast between the 1530 poem by a physician that gave us the name for syphilis and the poetry that can be found in the map of the pathogen's genome. Legendary physicist John Archibald Wheeler celebrates the mysteries of quantum mechanics, which still perplex a century after its discovery. And John Updike contributes a witty verse musing on a biological theme.
For anyone who wants to journey to science's frontiers, understand more fully its ever-expanding role in our lives, or simply enjoy the thrill of powerful writing on fascinating topics, The Best American Science Writing 2001 is indispensable.
Synopsis
Edited by Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award nominee Timothy Ferris, here is the second annual series collecting the best science writing of the year.
This "richly informative, wide-ranging, and intellectually provocative" (Alan Lightman) annual series covers the full range of scientific inquiry-from biochemistry, physics, and astronomy to genetics, evolutionary theory, and cognition.
Contributors to the 2001 volume include:
- John Updike
- Stephen Jay Gould
- Natalie Angier
- Richard Preston
- Tracy Kidder
- Alan Lightman
About the Author
Timothy Ferris's works include
Seeing in the Dark,
The Mind's Sky (both
New York Times best books of the year), and
The Whole Shebang (listed by
American Scientist as one of the one hundred most influential books of the twentieth century). A fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Ferris has taught in five disciplines at four universities. He is an emeritus professor at the University of California, Berkeley and a former editor of Rolling Stone. His articles and essays have appeared in
The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, Vanity Fair, National Geographic, Scientific American, The Nation, The New Republic, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Book Review, and many other publications. A contributor to CNN and National Public Radio, Ferris has made three prime-time PBS television specials:
The Creation of the Universe, Life Beyond Earth, and Seeing in the Dark. He lives in San Francisco.
Jesse Cohen is a writer and freelance editor. He lives in New York City.