February 23, 2017
(NPR) – The human species is about to change dramatically. That’s the argument Yuval Noah Harari makes in his new book, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow. Harari is a history professor at Hebrew University in Israel. He tells … Read More
February 8, 2017
(Nature) – A rare probity permeates Meredith Wadman’s The Vaccine Race, the riveting story of a human fetal cell line, the scientists who established it and the front lines of vaccine research where it was deployed. In the epilogue, Wadman … Read More
January 31, 2017
(NPR) – Prolonging life might sound like a good thing, but Warraich notes that medical technologies often force patients, their loved ones and their doctors to make difficult, painful decisions. In his new book, Modern Death, he writes about a … Read More
January 25, 2017
(Nature) – Experiments in Democracy reminds me of this painting, in both its ambitious scope and its sense of unease. Science historian Benjamin Hurlbut offers a wide-angle history of US attempts at democratic deliberation on the ethics of human-embryo research. … Read More
December 20, 2016
(The Wall Street Journal) – The nonfiction book by Dr. Kalanithi, who died within 22 months of his diagnosis with stage IV lung cancer at age 37, arrived to critical raves. Beyond its literary merits, the memoir owes its success … Read More
November 16, 2016
(Nature) – To many Americans, the name Bellevue signifies ‘psychiatric facility’ as much as Bedlam does to Britons. The psychiatric unit of the New York City public hospital gained fame from the stream of cultural icons passing through its portals. … Read More
November 11, 2016
(Scientific American) – In his new book, Suggestible You: The Curious Science of Your Brain’s Ability to Deceive, Transform and Heal (National Geographic Publishing, November 2016; 288 pages), science writer and Scientific American contributor Erik Vance seeks to explain one … Read More
October 25, 2016
(The Guardian) – At times, the language in Fatal Experiments: the Downfall of a Supersurgeon is far from clinical. The documentary, which sparked controversy in Sweden earlier this year and which airs on the BBC this week, slices open the … Read More
October 11, 2016
(Scientific American) – According to the American Psychiatric Association, about 5 percent of American children suffer from Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), yet the diagnosis is given to some 15 percent of American children, many of whom are placed on … Read More
October 7, 2016
(Nature) – In Rebel Genius, science historian Tara Abraham offers a biography of McCulloch (1898–1969) that shines a light on the twentieth-century revolution in the mind sciences and cybernetics — the scientific study of automatic control in animals (including humans) … Read More
September 21, 2016
(Nature) – Two very different books on the epidemic have now emerged. Anthropologist Paul Richards’ Ebola is an original account of how Sierra Leone in general, and 26 villages there in particular, interpreted the epidemic and wider responses to it, … Read More
September 5, 2016
(The New Yorker) – To achieve today’s desirable veneer of innocence, the industry recommends a practice of constant, self-diagnostic work. This is not new, of course. “We are all chimeras, theorized and fabricated hybrids of machine and organism,” Donna Haraway … Read More
August 30, 2016
(Nature) – By the time science-fiction writer Daniel Keyes died in 2014 at the age of 86, he had lived through vast upheavals in biomedical science, from the discovery of the DNA double helix to the sequencing of the human … Read More
August 17, 2016
(Nature) – Technological innovation in fields from genetic engineering to cyberwarfare is accelerating at a breakneck pace, but ethical deliberation over its implications has lagged behind. Thus argues Sheila Jasanoff — who works at the nexus of science, law and … Read More
July 25, 2016
(National Geographic) – The gene is “one of the most powerful and dangerous ideas in the history of science,” argues Siddhartha Mukherjee in The Gene: An Intimate History. Since its discovery by Gregor Mendel, an obscure Moravian monk, the gene … Read More
July 8, 2016
(New York Times) – In “Ordinarily Well,” Kramer tills some of the same ground that he did in his previous book, but his approach this time is less philosophical and more argumentative. He is out to make the case, against … Read More
June 14, 2016
(The Guardian) – The book is a lively, speculative examination of the singular threat that Bostrom believes – after years of calculation and argument – to be the one most likely to wipe us out. This threat is not climate … Read More
June 6, 2016
(The Daily Signal) – Note: major movie spoiler alert. The lead, disabled character in the newly released movie “Me Before You” chooses to end his life, leaving the newfound love of his life instructions to “live boldly” and encourages her … Read More
June 6, 2016
(New York Magazine) – In the future, transfusions of aborted fetal stem cells might help those suffering from debilitating illness. But at the moment, it’s illegal for doctors to perform stem-cell therapy in the United States — though that doesn’t … Read More
June 6, 2016
(The Chicago Tribune) – Clearly genetics has changed the way we think about ourselves, our children, and our world in ways large and subtle, and sometimes, as the history of the 20th century shows, with deadly serious consequences. Indeed the … Read More
June 1, 2016
(Chicago Tribune) – Why is such questioning necessary? Shouldn’t life-saving be the default? Granted, it all worked out. Yet combining such hurdles with the blatant subtext of “Me Before You” — which is based on Jojo Moyes’ 2012 novel of … Read More
May 31, 2016
(News-Medical) – Our excitement with and rapid uptake of technology – and the growing opportunities for artificial brain enhancement – are putting humans more firmly on the path to becoming cyborgs, according to evolution experts from the University of Adelaide. … Read More
May 27, 2016
(Mic) – (Editor’s note: Spoilers for the plot of Me Before You below). Though the film has not been released yet, Me Before You is already drawing criticism from disability activists for its portrayal of one of the films leads, Will Traynor (Sam Clafin). … Read More
May 16, 2016
(The Wall Street Journal) – “The Gene” is an ambitious attempt to explain how we arrived at this point. Its author, Siddhartha Mukherjee, is a cancer researcher who wrote a fine book on the topic, “The Emperor of All Maladies” … Read More
May 12, 2016
(Nature) – In 2011, Siddhartha Mukherjee won a Pulitzer prize for The Emperor of All Maladies (Scribner, 2010), which intertwined science and his own experience as an oncologist. In The Gene, Mukherjee uses a personal approach to describe our understanding … Read More
