A must-have for fans of ancient reptiles and their lost world.
A nimble introduction to the world of dinosaurs, those supposed “dead ends in the history of life.”
We are living in a golden age of paleontology, especially as it relates to the proto-reptilian and proto-avian critters of a few hundred million years past. As Brusatte (Paleontology/Univ. of Edinburgh) notes, researchers are finding an average of a new dinosaur species every week, vastly expanding not just our inventory, but also our understanding of the evolutionary history of the dinosaurs. Americans may be delighted to learn that North America is “the single richest dinosaur ecosystem known to scientists during the entire Age of Dinosaurs anywhere in the world,” essential in understanding how the dinosaurs fit into their environments and existed alongside each other and other creatures. Granted, this North American trove began to form at a time when all the present continents were more or less together in the “supercontinent” of Gondwana; even so, Brusatte sorts out old mysteries of distribution such as why South America is so comparatively light in dinosaur fossil evidence. The author writes lyrically of the reptilian life of the era, which featured “plesiosaurs with long noodle-shaped necks, pliosaurs with enormous heads and paddlelike flippers, streamlined and finned creatures called ichthyosaurs that looked like reptilian versions of dolphins,” and so on—none of which, he adds, are quite dinosaurs in the technical sense, a distinction that, among many others, allows Brusatte plenty of room for paleontological geekiness. The author closes with an account of why the age of the dinosaurs came to an end, following a conjectural path that was once considered radical but is now mainstream. He notes that the ecological catastrophe that it entailed, once it healed “a mere five hundred thousand years after the most destructive day in the history of Earth,” opened the door onto our own mammalian world.
A must-have for fans of ancient reptiles and their lost world.Pub Date: May 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-249042-1
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
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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