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April 11, 2005
New Science Library Books
Looking for something interesting to read at the Science Library? Here are just a few examples of some books recently purchased.
Faraday: The Life
James Hamilton
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2005
Science Library Stacks QC16.F2 H36 2003 -- REGULAR LOAN
From publisher: Faraday’s life was truly inspirational. Son of a Yorkshire blacksmith who moved to London in 1789, he was a self-made, self-educated man whose public life was underpinned by his devotion to a minor Christian sect (the Sandemanians) and to his wife. He was also a fine writer and brilliant lecturer.
This book is a passionate exploration of his life, work and times (he was a pioneering scientific all-rounder who also experimented with electromagnetism, techniques for preserving meat and fish, optical glass, the safety lamp, and the identification of iodine as a new element).
The Architecture and Design of Man and Woman
Alexander Tsiaras and Barry Werth
Doubleday
Science Library Stacks QM25 .T748 2004 -- REGULAR LOAN
From publisher: The Architecture and Design of Man and Woman is a milestone in science, art, and technology. As Werth writes in the Introduction, “For the first time we see the body not like something, or represented by human hands, or as a grainy negative or video, but very nearly as it is.”
The Red Ape: Orangutans and Human Origins, Revised and Updated
Jeffrey Schwartz
Published by Basic Books
Science Library Stacks GN281 .S33 2005 -- REGULAR LOAN
From publisher: We've all heard that chimpanzees are our closest relatives - that, in fact, they share 98% of their genes with us. But what evidence supports these often-repeated commonplaces? Very little, concludes physical anthropologist Jeffrey Schwartz. In his keenly insightful demolition of conventional wisdom on the family relationships between apes and humans, Schwartz provides a fresh examination of fossil evidence, modern anatomy and physiology, and DNA. He argues that it is not chimpanzees or other African apes that are humankind's closest cousins, but Asian orangutans. The result is a compelling challenge to what we think we know about the origins of humans, and about the pursuit of science. In this thoroughly revised edition of The Red Ape, Schwartz analyzes the myriad fossil discoveries made since the publication of the first edition. He reveals the embarrassing fact that orangutan and human teeth are so similar that they have commonly been misidentified for each other in the fossil record, even by experts. New material provocatively addresses whether molecules (DNA) are more reliable than fossils and anatomy in assessing evolutionary relationships. Numerous new plates and drawings illustrate the text.
Posted by erushton at April 11, 2005 12:45 PM