Reminds Me of an Old Boyfriend ...

The Knife Man: Blood, Body Snatching, and the Birth of Modern Surgery by Wendy Moore

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This was an interesting book, if a bit dry and lacking in illustration.  Hunter's controversy-bedecked life is an interesting one.  He was both admirably correct and terribly wrong on many counts, but relied on his own observations and testing and not on prevailing opinion.  His minute studies of anatomy (thanks to wholesale body-snatching and a ruinous collecting of animals) led him to the conclusion that life on earth evolves.  His study of fossils eroded away any idea that one forty day flood was responsible for the amount of life contained within.  His written work on this idea of the development of life was never published because a fellow scientist suggested he amend "thousands of centuries" to "thousands of years" because it might incite the rabble in those revolutionary times. 

His conservative methods were rejected by other surgeons, he died in debt, his brother-in-law published Hunter's work as his own and then burned the papers, but his legacy lived on through his museum and his students. 

He was not a pleasant man, but he was driven to understand and to share his knowledge, even if what he knew tomorrow was different from what he knew yesterday.  He was not so hidebound that he could not correct even his own conclusions.  A lesson for all of us.

Note: my copy had a different cover. I wish I'd had one with his portrait, so minutely described by the author but conspicuous by its absence in the book.



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Molehills Out of Mountains

Earth: An Intimate History by Richard Fortey

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


As much as I enjoyed his book on Trilobites and as interested as I am in geology, this meaty book was almost too much to handle (and I read John McPhee's Annals of the Former World. and ate it up - but, of course, that got a Pulitzer).  The literary quotations included, whilst showcasing Fortey's well-rounded education, were merely annoying and the one by D. H. Lawrence about a tortoise seemed pointless.  It took me months to read this because I had to mull over the material bit by bit to make sure I understood.  [Also, by the end I was hearing in my head Pwof. Bwyan M. Fagan weading it.] I was also disappointed in the bit about glass being a solid and yet a very, very slow-moving liquid, which I believe has been debunked - but what do I know?  [I only have a BA in Spanish. Carrumba.]
However, Fortey gives us just a taste of orogeny around the world and the make-up of the earth and only makes you want to go see it for yourself.  Of course, he also handily describes parts we will never see because they are too deep and, necessarily, hot.  I know from McPhee that there are scientists who do not subscribe to the tectonics gavotte of the plates, but none of that was brought up here.  Fortey does not eliminate controversy from the narrative.  I suspect that his trilobite hunting all over the world and other travels just made him more secure in that particular theory. 




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"Paradoxides" Bwhah-ha-ha-ha-haaa!

Trilobite!: Eyewitness to Evolution by Richard Fortey
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I don't want to give away who dunnit.
This book made me want to get a little hammer and go out looking for fossils. Okay, I've always sort of wanted to do that, but this intensified that feeling! Fortey might try just a bit too hard to be humorous which might go over well in a class but just made me groan.  It is plain that he has had a balanced education he's not letting go to waste, despite the childhood obsession that became his life's work.  Fortey weaves literature, personalities, and scandal into the trilobite story.  It was hardly necessary; trilobites and all the minutiae involved fascinate me.  Oh, and the eyes, their eyes!  I have two more Forteys in the stack to read.  They take such a gosh-awful long time to digest, but are worth it in the end.
I am also delighted that I too now know that Paradoxides is the "genus of the trilobite of the Middle Cambrian" just like Tim Brooke-Taylor.  You have to follow ISIRTA to find that funny.


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Words of One Syllable Dept.

Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex by Mary Roach

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


A light-hearted romp through the study of life's most serious business.  I picked this up because I enjoyed Stiff so much.  Roach writes the same way people chat about things, with wry humor and personal anecdote (Boy, is her husband ever game), which is engaging and yet she manages to keep it informative.  I am amazed that these researchers let her anywhere near them, considering the official opinion on their research. 




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And Don't Leave Out the Juicy Bits

The Man Who Loved China: Joseph Needham and the Making of a Masterpiece by Simon Winchester


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
This is a review of the audiobook.
I'd read almost anything by Simon Winchester. You wouldn't think that a book about a man who WROTE a book ("a" book - ha ha) would be that interesting without, say, a parallel story about a fiendish murderer, but again Winchester takes what could be the driest story on earth and injects it with his usual enthusiasm, making it palatable to those who would doubt him. And I did doubt it would capture my interest, but I picked it up anyway because it was an audiobook read by the author.
And I loved it. Okay, I loved his reading.
Needham was a socialist, a biologist, a womanizer, a nudist, and an unrepentant Morris dancer. Consequently, he was a Renaissance man. His life-long passion for women led him to China which took him from biology to the study of the history of science and invention in China. Apparently, all we know about the Chinese firsts (abacus, wheelbarrow, kite, gunpowder, etc.) come to us courtesy of Needham. That later he was a dupe of Korean War propaganda was the only glitch in a stellar career. Oh, that and the Morris dancing.
[The author of this review holds no known hostility to Morris dancing, having never been subjected to it, and is merely parroting other sources in an attempt to be Humorous.:]

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At Last ...

It's more than a month in the making ... but here is the Science in Second Life slideshow:
(Cross your fingers)

Even Moron Sploland

Lludmila explores the sunken ship. The sharks on the other side made her nervous, so she had to leave.
A Penn and Teller moment: are avatars really shot from the cannon? The truth is captured here in this exclusive photo! Ninia, our Schroedinger's Cat, appears to be both in the cannon and being launched from it! That is her head peeking out of the end of the cannon, still aiming straight for Boythorn's chest, which he was willing to sacrifice in the interests of science. That is also her body upright seemingly lodged in the middle of the cannon. Are there two Ninias? Is this some quantum dilemma? Or is this just some godless humanist trick?

I loooooove this place!

Moron, ummm, More On Sploland

Here the exhibit designers lash back at museum goers.

You might have to click on this to make it bigger so you can read the teeny print. What it says, for those who don't have the patience, is that most folks don't follow the instructions on exhibits and instead use the mirror to look at themselves instead of a blend of the people on either side of the glass. So why pretend otherwise? Have at it. Just sit and admire yourself. After all, it's all about you, innit?

Lludmila bellydances on the molecular dancefloor,

whilst our guide, Boythorn, turns aside in mortification.

So embarrassing. I didn't know how to stop it. Heck, I didn't want to stop it! Woo-hoo!

I Just Love Being a Humanist!

Lludmila contemplates the somewhat scary entrance to Sploland

I cannot begin to tell you about this week's Humanism Field Trip. We've had some winners in the past (the Star Trek Science Museum for one), but the fun never stopped at Sploland. A herniation from the actual museum, Exploratorium, into the SecondLife dimension by way of Oppositeland, the exhibits parody known puzzles, exhibits, and ... erm, other things non-scientific. The chat box was not big enough to hold all my laughter. Outside the museum there is even more: explore a sunken ship and sealife, bellydance on the molecular dancefloor, and get yourself blown out of a cannon! Too soon the call came from our Fearless Leader to return to the Roma gardens to discuss ... I dunno, I forget. I'm still laughing.

Use the telescope to view the "black hole" (yes, that's the black disc in front of it - no, it's not the big ball of twine), bounce sideways off the trampoline on the wall, and see a face in the toast popping out of the toaster in the background (in the background ... is it Jesus? Mary? No! It's Albert Einstein! Funny what people see in things).

This Weekend in SecondLife

Each week the Humanists of SecondLife get together for a field trip to some interesting place in SecondLife and then a meeting for discussions. (It's rather hilarious that we meet on Sundays, just like the Christians.) This weekend we visited the Star Trek Museum of Science, which was great. It was very well put together and coupled information about the television shows with actual scientific information. I achieved a lifelong ambition by making myself a science officer. I told my husband that I had gotten a Star Fleet uniform and he suddenly said, "Not the red one?!" No, of course not. Those people in the red shirts in the away teams are the first ones to die! This would be a great resource for teens who might accidentally learn some facts. Unfortunately, it's not on the teen grid (there is a separate SecondLife for the underaged). Or maybe it is. I'm not allowed on the teen grid, so I don't really know.
One of the best (and by "best" I guess I mean "funniest") exhibits at the STMofS is a display of How Has Star Trek Changed Your Life? In it the "communicator" is compared to the cell phone and so on. Of course, the cell phone doesn't have a little dial on it like radios in the 1960s. Sorry that the "photo" of the display isn't all that clear.* You can almost read everything. If you are really interested, go there and look at it yourself!
SecondLife is not all gamers shooting each other or "lusers" gettingthe virtual sex that they can't get in Real Life because they are lumpy mousepotatoes. There's something there for us old folks who like to chat with people in real time, while being lumpy and eating Doritos.
That's me in the science unit costume and the white hair. My handle is Lludmila Mirrikh. Drop by some time and chat with me.

*I've added what I hope is a clearer copy.