Assorted revelations for enquirers who prefer their science straight up but not without occasional (semi-) comical relief.
More answers to questions common and otherwise from the veteran author of Ask a Science Teacher (2013).
Scheckel groups his queries into broad categories such as “The Exquisite Human Body” and “At the Fringes of Science” and often expands on informal but direct explanations with further comments on related topics—plus brief instructions for spinning eggs, making campfires burn different colors, and like homespun experiments or activities. There are some rough edges. The folksiness turns heavy-handed with an anecdote about a dog from his youth who was afraid of thunderstorms (“Her fears were misplaced. She got run over by a pickup truck. Doggone!”), and claims that there is no single scientific method and that tennis balls can be recycled as homes for “Eurasian field mice” really need unpacking. While verbal descriptions of, for instance, the lungs’ “remarkable dance” or what causes seasons are serviceable, readers will still probably long for pictures and diagrams. Still, along with trucking in physical principles to explain why cats land on their feet (it has to do with conservation of angular momentum) and like standard-issue mysteries, he poses some head-scratchers (“Why is there a big E on the top of the eye chart?”) that will startle and maybe enlighten even older readers.
Assorted revelations for enquirers who prefer their science straight up but not without occasional (semi-) comical relief. (Nonfiction. 11-14)Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-943431-29-8
Page Count: 220
Publisher: Tumblehome Learning
Review Posted Online: Sept. 25, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2017
A serviceable introduction both to this CSI-related field and to the relevant human anatomy.
How does science work to identify corpses of the unknown?
Murray’s compact, textbook look at the basics of forensic anthropology provides comprehensible introductions to individually unique anatomical and physiological characteristics and to the timetable for the decay or decomposition of each. Eight “case files” are presented to provide a story to illustrate the techniques of post-mortem identification in practical contexts and to provide human interest to accompany the straightforward text. Unsurprisingly gruesome, each involves the discovery of a body (or in one, the separate limbs and severed head of a young woman) of an unknown person whose identification is challenged by decomposition. Three main chapters look at current forensic technology from the outside in—the first describes skin, hair, scars, tattoos, fingerprints and their reconstruction, while the second provides a look at how bones, teeth and implants provide structural identification. Murray describes the gold standard of identification—nuclear DNA profiling—in the last chapter with satisfyingly clear instruction in the essential features of forensic DNA. About 20 percent of the text is printed in white on a dark background, including all of the case-file narratives. File photos are used throughout to illustrate the points being made.
A serviceable introduction both to this CSI-related field and to the relevant human anatomy. (index, bibliography, sources for more information) (Nonfiction. 11-14)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-7613-6696-6
Page Count: 72
Publisher: Twenty-First Century/Lerner
Review Posted Online: Aug. 21, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Cogent of topic, but for readability, it’s aptly titled.
In urgent tones, a call for action as climate change and continuing waste and pollution of available fresh water pose imminent threats to human health and agriculture.
Drawing from recently published reports and news stories, Kallen paints an alarming picture. Aquifers are being sucked dry by large-scale agriculture, lake levels are falling, and water sources above- and belowground are being polluted. Though he points to a few significant counterefforts—the Clean Water Act (1972) in the United States and local initiatives elsewhere, such as “rainwater harvesting” ponds in India and Kenya—these come off as spotty responses that are often hobbled by political and corporate foot-dragging. He also points to shrinking glaciers and snow packs (plus, for added gloom, superstorms like Sandy) as harbingers of climate change that will lead to widespread future disaster. Aside from occasional incidents or examples and rare if telling photos, though, this jeremiad is largely composed of generalities and big numbers—not a formula for motivating young readers. Nor does the author offer budding eco-activists much in the way of either hope or ways to become part of the solution; for the latter, at least, Cathryn Berger Kaye’s Going Blue: A Teen’s Guide to Saving Our Oceans, Lakes, Rivers, & Wetlands (2010) is a better choice.
Cogent of topic, but for readability, it’s aptly titled. (source notes, multimedia resource lists, index) (Nonfiction. 12-14)Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4677-2646-7
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Twenty-First Century/Lerner
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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