Brightest Young Things

What's Next: Dispatches on the Future of Science By Max Brockman

This is a wonderful collection of never before published short essays from some of the world's most prominent young scientists. They've been asked to discuss aspects of their work for the general public that they're most passionate about. For the most part it succeeds. The topics range from climate change to astrophysics to evolution to sociology and more. Most are easy to digest and fascinating. For instance David M. Eagleman explores how your different senses (sight, sound, touch) interpret the world at slightly different speeds and intervals and sheds light on the mental jujitsu your brain must go through to piece together your concept of reality. Check this out - go look in the mirror, look at your left eye, and then look at your right. Go back and forth looking at each eye. In your reflection you won't see your eyes moving at all, but film yourself doing this with iPhone or whatever and you'll see your eyes are moving drastically back and forth. You perceive the shift to be instantaneous, even though it is not. Coolness. A lot of the material is cutting edge and relevant, and the scientists seem delighted to inform. I found only maybe one or two duds in the collection of 18. Oh yeah, there is this one on the brain mapping of empathy that is the must read essay of the year, explains why I'm even writing this post.

The Pluto Files: The Rise and Fall of America's Favorite Planet By Neil deGrasse Tyson

I love me some Neil DeGrasse Tyson, the charismatic director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan. He has such a passion for astronomy and seems to live in order to tell us mere mortals everything he knows. This short little book describes the silliness that ensued over the great Pluto planet debate, while at the same time letting you in on everything there is to know about the little ice ball. At times he stretches a bit to fill the pages, and some of the jokes fall flat, but it's still worth your time.

13 Things That Don't Make Sense: The Most Baffling Scientific Mysteries of Our Time By Michael Brooks

Journalist Michael Brooks, a consultant at New Scientist magazine and a holder of a PhD in quantum physics gives us an entertaining and thought provoking romp through subjects that modern scientists still don't quite have a grasp on.  He starts off big.  As we have fine tuned our observations of the known universe we've discovered something startling.  When we do the gravitational calculations on far off galaxies (mind bogglingly huge collections of stars, gas, and dust) we find out that everything is moving as if there is way more stuff there. When we plug in the observed data into our laws of mass and gravity - there should be 95% more shit out there floating around. We've dubbed this stuff Dark Matter. It's not just something from Futurama. We can't see it, we can't touch it, we can't smell it - but we see gravitational reactions to it. We've known about the dark matter problem for decades yet, we still don't have a clue what makes up 95% of our own universe. And we haven't even reached the chapter on dark energy yet.

Brooks' meticulous research give us the perfect mix of science, the key players and history of the problems, and enthusiasm about where to go next.  Ok, I don't want to give too much more away but this next anomaly is great.  How come our Pioneer spacecraft, launched in the 70's, aren't where they should be?  Probably the most effective chapter of the book, he describes the 20 years spent analyzing the data from these two probes, now 8 billion miles away.  As Pioneer 10 sent it's dying signal back to earth in 2003 it let us know, once again, it has drifted 8000 miles of course.  Every possibility has been accounted for, from software malfunctions to engineering deficiencies to cosmic dust, and nothing seems to fit.  Really smart people have spent quite a lot of time on this, and sure maybe we just haven't realized there was a gas leak or something like that.  Maybe.  Or could it be that we've gotten something wrong with our fundamental understanding of physics?

Fun stuff. Other chapters cover life, death, sex, cold fusion, the placebo effect, the wow signal, and a really scary one on free will. The homeopathy chapter is a little weak, but besides that, a great read.

Caveat: While geared toward a non-scientific audience, it's not for the faint of heart. A basic understanding of astronomy, physics, and evolution is helpful to fully comprehend some of the weighty concepts that Brooks casually lays out in a sentence or two. But as long as you have Wikipedia handy, or just glaze over some of the nitty gritty, you'll be fine.

SuperFreakonomics By Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner

Ok, this one if pretty mainstream, but at it's core it is still pretty nerdy, you just won't notice because it's so damn entertaining.  If you're one of the few who haven't read the first one, go do that right now.  No, really, go.  These guys have a basic MO, they apply statistical economic analysis to things not having to do with guns and butter and come up with shocking insights on how the world really works.  Last time they pissed off the right with their findings on abortion, this time they piss off the left with their findings on global warming.  I love these guys!  A great follow up, every turn of the page will have you going "holy shit nuh uh" and then running off to tell someone.  And don't be turned off by all the negative press, if you actually read what they have to say about some of the controversial topics instead of jumping on the hate bandwagon you'll realize their arguments are a lot more rational than some of the reviews have made them out to be.  This is one of those that will cause you to put off all life's responsibilities like eating and peeing and caring for your young until you've finished.

Time Traveler: A Scientist's Personal Mission to Make Time Travel a Reality By Ronald L. Mallett

Heavy on memoir and light on science, but that's ok cause his story is so good.  Basically he was just this average kid whose beloved father died, and then he read HG Wells' The Time Machine and decided to make one of his own and go back and save him. And then 40 years later he does just that.  Well, I mean, not really, but he does come close and becomes a prominent scientist, having kept his motivation a secret to anyone but his closest peers.  Eventually he does unlock some of the secrets to time travel and comes out of the sci-fi shame closet and becomes a sort of geek hero.  If his time machine prototype is ever able to actually be built, the moment we turn it on we could start hearing radio transmissions from the future.  And the science behind it is solid.  Let's hope the evil super villains wont develop it first.

Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters By Alan S. Miller and Satoshi Kanazawa

Probably the most lucid book on evolutionary psychology I've ever read. A wonderful intro and then page after page of life changing revelations about why we eat what we eat, why we screw who we screw, why we worship who we worship, and why we kill who we kill in cold hard evolutionary facts. A humbling and sobering ride, reducing us to the pure biological machinations that we are. That little mushroom cap on the top of the penis? That's for scooping out the semen of the previous depositor. Sorry ladies, monogamy is a modern sociological construct, we're hard wired to be polygamists. The reason the wife's mother takes care of the baby more than the husbands mother? Cause she knows it's actually related to her, the other mother can't be sure. Data and facts help back up their claims, but they aren't needed, they take you on such a logic journey holding your hand at just the right point along the way, that you'll be coming to the same conclusions regardless. Also a great primer for that non-fundamentalist Christian in your life who is open to new ideas.

Natural Selections: Selfish Altruists, Honest Liars, and Other Realities of Evolution By David P. Barash

Once you have your evolutionary psychology basics down, take a more political, humorous, and philosophical approach with David P. Baresh.  The brilliant wordsmith weaves lessons on natural selection with cultural history and a biting distaste for the illogical.  It's a surprisingly emotional work  from someone in the field, and at times a humbling reminder of how little control we have and just how unremarkable homo sapiens are.  I already want to read it again.  And again.

Physics of the Impossible By Michio Kaku

Michio Kaku may in fact be clinically insane, but I hope not, as his vision of the future sounds like so much fun.  He takes everything from sci-fi movies and let's you know exactly how, when, where, and why we'll be able to actually do these things.  From laser guns to teleportation to invisibility to interstellar travel.  Don't get too excited tho - most of this stuff is gonna take a while to get right, for instance we probably won't be able to traverse worm holes for a million years, but others are just around the corner, such as the space elevator.  This is where we attach a fixed orbit satellite to a ridiculously strong cable tethered to a base station on the surface of our planet.  Now, instead of spending billions of dollars to strap someone to the top of a giant missile, we simply get into the box and press the up button.  Kaku gets down to the nitty gritty science on a lot of these topics, but it's all easy to follow as long as you don't get blissfully distracted by thinking about how awesome it would be to have a jet pack.

Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain By Oliver W. Sacks

Best selling author Sacks let's us know everything there is about mental disorders involving music. The way our brains process music is unique from all other forms of audio, and this leads to some major malfunctions and some happy accidents along the way. He details a number of cases involving people who constantly hear music in their heads as if played from a loud radio 24 hours a day, or people who one day woke up and could no longer understand music at all as it just sounded like noise.  He unravels perfect pitch and astounds with stories of synesthesia, those that can see or taste music.   The most heart wrenching and powerful portion of the book deals with a man who was the inspiration for the film Memento.  He has lost his ability to make new memories, thus every 30 seconds he feels as if he has awakened from a deep sleep in a place he doesn't know surround by strange people.  His children are suddenly adults and the world has instantly changed.  He cannot hold a real conversation for long, does not recognize his house that he's lived in for years, and greets his wife as if it's the first time he's seen her in ages every time she walks in the room. Yet he's able to play long complex piano pieces without missing a beat. Just don't ask him afterwards what he just played as he'll have no idea what you're talking about.  Not everything in the book is quite that fascinating, but there is enough to keep you engaged throughout the entire ride and give you a entirely new perspective and appreciation for music.

Good Book: The Bizarre, Hilarious, Disturbing, Marvelous, and Inspiring Things I Learned When I Read Every Single Word of the Bible By David Plotz

Ok, I tried mainly to focus on science on this list but I'll throw in this especially nerdy book on religion as well. The title perfectly sums up what this book is about. To clarify tho, Slate contributor Plotz is a non-practicing but tradition loving Jew (oh is he ever a Jew), so this runs through the old testament only. It's like cliffs notes with jokes. And personal anecdotes. And some unscholarly, but certainly intelligent, musings on religious history and culture. Just as the old testament can be a monumental bore at times, so can Plotz as he plods thru those unfortunate chapters. But the good stuff is really good. This is by no means an atheist screed or preachy manifesto (a little to my dismay), but simply a personal journey. If you're only familiar with the stories that you learned in Sunday school this will be quite the eye opener, but there is still an ever present sweetness that runs throughout.

Previously in Misc/Awesome:

• 12/28: Terrible Boyfriend/ Girlfriend Generator.
• 12/1: The John Waters Advent Calendar-it starts today
• 11/28: It Chooses You: All I Want for Christmas is Everything from Miranda July's Pop-Up Shop
• 11/3: Things I'd Move to Minnesota For
• 9/6: PHOTOS: Maloof $$ Money Cup
• 9/2: PHOTOS: Chantilly Model Train Show
• 9/1: Libby's List: 5 Things I Want Right Now...
• 8/22: PHOTOS: Best Friends Day
• 8/10: PHOTOS: Lawn Mover Racing, Eastern Seaboard Regionals @ Bowles Farm
• 7/26: Special List: Things the BYGays Want Now That We Can Marry In DC (and NY!)