A delightful book by an author filled with enthusiasm for the natural world and in possession of just the right touch for...
What you never knew about bumblebees, from a man who is both passionate and knowledgeable.
Bumblebee Conservation Trust founder Goulson (Biological and Environmental Sciences/Univ. of Stirling) has been fascinated with nature since his childhood. His tales of collecting insects, raising frogs and snakes, dissecting roadkill and even teaching himself taxidermy as a child serve as a light, engaging introduction to this often humorous but deadly serious account. During his lifetime, wild bumblebees have been disappearing at an alarming rate, and Goulson makes clear why this has happened and why we should care about it. He examines their mating behaviors, life cycle, genetics, nesting habits (unlike honeybees, they don’t build hives), foraging techniques (smelly footprints help them tell which flowers have been recently drained of nectar), navigation skills and their many enemies. The extreme measures he and his research assistants take to study bumblebees will astonish—attaching antennas to bees is a tricky business, and collecting their feces is even more difficult. Even finding bees can be a challenge, as the author relates in stories about attempts to restore Great Britain’s short-haired bumblebee population by capturing queen bees in New Zealand, to which the species had been exported in the 19th century. The success of another project—releasing bees imported from Sweden into an area around Dungeness—remains to be determined. Goulson also relates his adventures turning a dilapidated French farm into a thriving bumblebee reserve. Educating the public about bumblebees and encouraging creation of habitats beneficial to them are two of the goals of the BBCT, and they are surely the impetus behind Goulson’s impressive debut.
A delightful book by an author filled with enthusiasm for the natural world and in possession of just the right touch for sharing it with others.Pub Date: May 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-250-04837-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Picador
Review Posted Online: March 11, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A quirky wonder of a book.
A Peabody Award–winning NPR science reporter chronicles the life of a turn-of-the-century scientist and how her quest led to significant revelations about the meaning of order, chaos, and her own existence.
Miller began doing research on David Starr Jordan (1851-1931) to understand how he had managed to carry on after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake destroyed his work. A taxonomist who is credited with discovering “a full fifth of fish known to man in his day,” Jordan had amassed an unparalleled collection of ichthyological specimens. Gathering up all the fish he could save, Jordan sewed the nameplates that had been on the destroyed jars directly onto the fish. His perseverance intrigued the author, who also discusses the struggles she underwent after her affair with a woman ended a heterosexual relationship. Born into an upstate New York farm family, Jordan attended Cornell and then became an itinerant scholar and field researcher until he landed at Indiana University, where his first ichthyological collection was destroyed by lightning. In between this catastrophe and others involving family members’ deaths, he reconstructed his collection. Later, he was appointed as the founding president of Stanford, where he evolved into a Machiavellian figure who trampled on colleagues and sang the praises of eugenics. Miller concludes that Jordan displayed the characteristics of someone who relied on “positive illusions” to rebound from disaster and that his stand on eugenics came from a belief in “a divine hierarchy from bacteria to humans that point[ed]…toward better.” Considering recent research that negates biological hierarchies, the author then suggests that Jordan’s beloved taxonomic category—fish—does not exist. Part biography, part science report, and part meditation on how the chaos that caused Miller’s existential misery could also bring self-acceptance and a loving wife, this unique book is an ingenious celebration of diversity and the mysterious order that underlies all existence.
A quirky wonder of a book.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5011-6027-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
An intriguing meditation on the nature of the universe and our attempts to understand it that should appeal to both...
Italian theoretical physicist Rovelli (General Relativity: The Most Beautiful of Theories, 2015, etc.) shares his thoughts on the broader scientific and philosophical implications of the great revolution that has taken place over the past century.
These seven lessons, which first appeared as articles in the Sunday supplement of the Italian newspaper Sole 24 Ore, are addressed to readers with little knowledge of physics. In less than 100 pages, the author, who teaches physics in both France and the United States, cogently covers the great accomplishments of the past and the open questions still baffling physicists today. In the first lesson, he focuses on Einstein's theory of general relativity. He describes Einstein's recognition that gravity "is not diffused through space [but] is that space itself" as "a stroke of pure genius." In the second lesson, Rovelli deals with the puzzling features of quantum physics that challenge our picture of reality. In the remaining sections, the author introduces the constant fluctuations of atoms, the granular nature of space, and more. "It is hardly surprising that there are more things in heaven and earth, dear reader, than have been dreamed of in our philosophy—or in our physics,” he writes. Rovelli also discusses the issues raised in loop quantum gravity, a theory that he co-developed. These issues lead to his extraordinary claim that the passage of time is not fundamental but rather derived from the granular nature of space. The author suggests that there have been two separate pathways throughout human history: mythology and the accumulation of knowledge through observation. He believes that scientists today share the same curiosity about nature exhibited by early man.
An intriguing meditation on the nature of the universe and our attempts to understand it that should appeal to both scientists and general readers.Pub Date: March 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-399-18441-3
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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