Another Bloggy Meme

I really like this particular game of Blog-Tag, because it relates to one of my favourite subjects: science books. Thanks to Christie at Observations of a Nerd for tagging me.

Imagine: YOU are asked to assign a half-dozen-or-so books as required reading for ALL science majors at a college as part of their 4-year degree; NOT technical or text books, but other works, old or new, touching upon the nature of science, philosophy, thought, or methodology in a way that a practicing scientist might gain from.

Post your list, and forward the meme to a half-dozen-or-so other science-oriented bloggers of your choosing.

Okay, so my book selection:

• John Gribbin, History of Western Science
• E.O. Wilson, Biophilia: The Human Bond with Other Species
  
• Daniel Dennett, Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life
  
• Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs and Steel: A Short History of Everybody for the Last 13,000 Years
• V.S. Ramachandran, Phantoms in the Brain
• Stephen Pinker, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature
  
• Richard Dawkins, Unweaving the Rainbow
• Carl Zimmer, Microcosm: E. coli and the New Science of Life
  

(Hmm, that's eight. And I left out a bunch. Ah well.)

And the blogs I'm tagging:

The Frontal Cortex
Richard Wiseman's Blog
Culture Dish
Pleiotropy
Bad Science

I hope they'll all carry on the meme-tag, because I'm very curious as to their choices!

Science Book Bliss

A break from uni and work has allowed me the delight of reading science just for fun. Two books (one I've finished, the other I've just started) are particularly recommended.

The first is "Microcosm: E. coli and the new science of life" by Carl Zimmer. Zimmer is a blogger (The Loom, associated with Discover Magazine) and science journalist, whose previous books include "Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea" and "Soul Made Flesh".

"Microcosm" gives a thorough overview of the evolution and functional diversity of E. coli, exploring its relation to humans and other species (as friend and foe) and the history of our understanding of the bacterium. But more significantly, Zimmer uses E. coli as a springboard to survey much beside, including cell biology, horizontal gene transfer, creationism (and its new disguise, "intelligent design"), astrobiology and the role of viruses in genetic diversity. It is written with passion and flair, and includes a comprehensive index, endnotes and bibliography, giving it great value for both biologists and general readers.

Recently, Zimmer gave a lecture on his book, podcast by Scientific American. Listen to Part 1 and Part 2.

The second book, of which I'm only just scratching the surface, I will write about in more detail when I've finished reading. It's "The Superorganism: The Beauty, Elegance and Strangeness of Insect Societies"by Bert Hölldobler and the wondrous E.O. Wilson.

One of Hölldobler and Wilson's previous books, a massive monograph titled "The Ants", won them a Pulitzer Prize. This book mainly focuses on ants in its exploration of eusocial species. The book throws the reader head-first into a reignited debate on group selection. The understated style belies what is really quite controversial material.

Anyway, more soon. Only a few hundred more pages to go...