New Books in Science

By New Books NetworkScience Natural Sciences

New Books in Science episodes

June 12, 2014 Jane Maienschein, “Embryos Under the Microscope: The Diverging Meanings of Life” (Harvard UP, 2014)
Why do we study the history of science? Historians of science don’t just teach us about the past: along with philosophers of science, they also help us to understand the foundations and assumptions of scientific research, and guide us to reliable sources of information on which to base our policies...
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1 hr 15 min
June 02, 2014 Omar W. Nasim, “Observing by Hand: Sketching the Nebulae in the Nineteenth Century” (University of Chicago Press, 2013)
In Omar W. Nasim‘s new book, a series of fascinating characters sketch, paint, and etch their way toward a mapping of the cosmos and the human mind. Observing by Hand: Sketching the Nebulae in the Nineteenth Century (University of Chicago Press, 2013) examines the history of observation of celestial nebulae...
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1 hr 10 min
May 15, 2014 Melinda B. Fagan, “Philosophy of Stem Cell Biology: Knowledge in Flesh and Blood” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013)
Philosophy of science has come a very long way from its historically rooted focus on theories, explanations, and evidential relations in physics elaborated in terms of a rather mythical “theory T”. But even in philosophy of biology, attention has largely been on the concepts and abstract mathematics of evolutionary biology,...
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1 hr 10 min
May 14, 2014 Richard Yeo, “Notebooks, English Virtuosi, and Early Modern Science” (University of Chicago Press, 2014)
During the Great Fire of London in September 1666, Samuel Pepys went out to the garden and dug some holes. There he placed his documents, some wine, and “my parmezan cheese” for safekeeping as the buildings and streets of his city were licked and then consumed by flames. We know...
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1 hr 11 min
April 17, 2014 Oscar E. Fernandez, “Everyday Calculus: Discovering the Hidden Math All around Us (Princeton UP, 2014)
The book discussed in this interview is Everyday Calculus: Discovering the Hidden Math All around Us (Princeton University Press, 2014) by Oscar E. Fernandez, who teaches mathematics – and calculus in particular – at Wellesley College. While it can be read by someone who wants to obtain a sense of what calculus is and how...
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54 min
April 16, 2014 Robert Mitchell, “Experimental Life: Vitalism in Romantic Science and Literature” (Johns Hopkins UP, 2013)
Robert Mitchell‘s new book is wonderfully situated across several intersections: of history and literature, of the Romantic and contemporary worlds, of Keats’ urn and a laboratory cylinder full of dry ice. In Experimental Life: Vitalism in Romantic Science and Literature (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013), Mitchell argues that we are...
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1 hr 13 min
April 10, 2014 Abena Dove Osseo-Asare, “Bitter Roots: The Search for Healing Plants in Africa” (University of Chicago Press, 2014)
Abena Dove Osseo-Asare‘s wonderful new book is a thoughtful, provocative, and balanced account of the intersecting histories and practices of drug research in modern Ghana, South Africa, and Madagascar. Bitter Roots: The Search for Healing Plants in Africa (University of Chicago Press, 2014) tells the stories of six plants, all...
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1 hr 13 min
April 02, 2014 David Kaiser, “How the Hippies Saved Physics” (W.W. Norton, 2012)
David Kaiser‘s recent book is one of the most enjoyable and informative books on the history of science that you’ll read, full-stop. The deservedly award-winning How the Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture, and the Quantum Revival (W.W. Norton, 2012) takes readers into the “hazy, bong-filled excesses of the 1970s New...
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1 hr 14 min
March 23, 2014 Matthew C. Hunter, “Wicked Intelligence” (University of Chicago Press, 2013)
The pages of Matthew C. Hunter‘s wonderful new book are full of paper fish, comets, sleepy-eyed gazes, drunk ants, and a cast full of fascinating (and sometimes hilarious) members of the experimental community of Restoration London. Wicked Intelligence: Visual Art and the Science of Experiment in Restoration London (University of...
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1 hr 14 min
February 24, 2014 John Hibbing et al., “Predisposed: Liberals, Conservatives, and the Biology of Political Differences” (Routledge, 2013)
John Hibbing, Kevin Smith, and John Alford are the authors of Predisposed: Liberals, Conservatives, and the Biology of Political Differences (Routledge, 2013). Hibbing is professor of political science and psychology at the University of Nebraska, Smith is professor of political science at the University of Nebraska, and Alford is associate...
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22 min

About New Books in Science

From the publisher's feed

This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field.