Staff Picks: Spotlight on Science

Sun, 07/21/2024 - 4:25pm by lucroe

These science-based books may not be your usual summer beach reads, but they might open your mind to some new ideas, under-appreciated history, and greater respect for the world and its human and non-human inhabitants.

Weight of Nature: How a Changing Climate Changes Our Brains by Clayton Page Aldern | Request Now

This beautifully written piece examines the profound emotional and physical impacts of climate change on our planet, our personal health, and our perception of the fragility of the world we inhabit. Aldern, journalist and former neuroscientist, has researched how climate change has and will continue to affect humans from the inside out. He has gathered the most current information about for example trauma from extreme weather events that has changed the structure of the brain even in fetuses and how extremely high temps can make some people more aggressive and impulsive. An interesting and sometimes disturbing read.

Black Angels: The Untold Story of the Nurses Who Helped Cure Tuberculosis by Maria Smilios | Request Now

This book provides a much-needed chronicle of the Black nurses who were recruited from the southern United States to work in New York City during the tuberculosis epidemic of the early 20th century, before the development of antibiotics to treat the disease. They were promised good pay, a career, and an escape from the strictures of Jim Crow. But they were sent to a remote, understaffed hospital on Staten Island called Sea View, having to face racism and a rampant disease under less than adequate conditions. At the time, TB killed one in seven people. Smilios profiles some nurses who worked there 20 years against historical backdrops starting with the Great Depression through WWII and beyond.

Light Eaters: how the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth by Zoe Schlanger | Request Now

An enlightening and thoroughly engaging book about the study of plants and how they react to and perceive the world around them. Schlanger's explorations have taken her to diverse locations around the globe, including a Chilean rainforest to observe a plant that mimics others like a chameleon, the Hawaiian island of Kaua'i which hosts a staggering array of rare and endangered plant species, and the University of Bonn in Germany to meet with one of the founders of the Society for Plant Neurobiology, now known as the Society of Plant Signaling and Behavior. Schlanger also sifts through the evidence that plants can sense and respond to their environment, even if the underlying mechanisms remain unknown. In addition to chemical signaling through the air and soil, it is suggested that plants may also communicate through sound. Fascinating!

Pests: How Humans Create Animal Villains by Bethany Brookshire | Request Now

Science journalist Brookshire probes the conflicting feelings we have for animals some consider pests, like the deer eating our hostas, the squirrels feasting on the bird seed, or the raccoon ransacking the garbage. These creatures have inhabited our planet since the Pleistocene era. Now that we have encroached on their territory, they are adapting to our presence. What one person sees as cute and fuzzy; another may view as a nuisance. Cats can be adorable pets for some, while bird lovers may see those allowed outdoors as deadly predators. Big and small, Brookshire discusses the love/hate relationship we have with animals around us. She notes that humans are the consummate pest, noting that we make up 96% of the planet’s mammal biomass while wildlife population over the last 5 decades has plummeted by three-fourths. By making a home on the margins of civilization, you willingly enter a shared space with non-human inhabitants, where your objectives may conflict with those of the birds, mammals, and other long-standing occupants of the area.