Small Things Considered

Book Review: Transformer

by Janie
Here is a quote from the Hungarian biochemist Albert Szent-Györgyi: "Life is nothing but an electron looking for a place to rest." Bold statement with a good point, encapsulating the energetics and chemistry that underlies all life... This is the angle of viewing life on Earth that... Read more →

Primo Levi's periodic table, and when scientists write fiction

by Janie
There are lots of fantastic books that convey love of a science, depict the braided lines of logic and intuition and luck in experimentation, and depict scientists' lives both in and beyond the lab. Memoir, fiction, biography. Science as metaphor for life, these books will frequently allude to... Read more →

A Revisionist History of Science

by Janie
Whether read or listened to, a story is essentially a colorless armature made of words, and it's up to each reader/listener to interpret it, imagine it, and people it with appearances, colors, movements, emotions. The process depends upon the individual's own experiences, since all things present... Read more →

A Microbiology Picture Book

by Janie
Here's a fun way to get little ones interested in microbiology. In Wonderful World of the Small: A First Book of Microbiology, Lindsey Millar and Vivien Sárkány introduce the diversity of microbes on Earth. They present an anthropomorphized cast of different types of microbes... Read more →

The Lives of Fungi

by Elio
In the beginning of this gorgeous and intellectually fulfilling book, Britt tells us that, due to modern technology, fungi are now known to be "more ubiquitous than we thought" and are "much more important to the environment and, by extension, to ourselves." He proceeds to justify these statements... Read more →

Otherlands' Tour of Microbes Through Prehistory

by Janie
"It is the crucial paradox at the heart of paleontology that practically all our information about life comes only from death." This line from Thomas Halliday's Otherlands, of course, refers to the fossil record. So, it stands to reason that the entire field of paleontology is contingent upon microbes... Read more →

A Women's-History-Month Read: Her Hidden Genius (Book Review)

by Janie
March is Women's History Month. So, it was perfect timing to read a new historical fiction book on the life and work of a preeminent woman in scientific history, Rosalind Franklin. In Her Hidden Genius, author Marie Benedict sculpts a snapshot rendering of Rosalind Franklin from 1947 to 1958... Read more →

Book Review: Finding the Mother Tree

by Janie | Behind the scenes, underground, fungal networks are essential to the wellbeing of forests. Trees symbiotically associate with mycorrhizal fungi, exchanging plant-produced sugars for fungus-gathered soil nutrients and water. It's an intimate arrangement: the fungal cells thread between... Read more →

Book Review: Life's Edge

by Janie | Ask biologists what they study and the answers will quickly home in on living things, on particular lifeforms that they've spent countless hours thinking, scrutinizing, analyzing, and toiling over. Yet one further question – what exactly is a living thing? – is a sure-fire ticket to hesitation... Read more →

On Stories and Science, Plus Fish

by Janie | It's probably fair to say that people, when afraid, turn to stories and to science for solace. The last year and a half has solidified that: the yarns spun range from conspiracy theories to escapist novels that transport the reader far, far away from bleaker realities (The Midnight Library phenomenon, anyone?)... Read more →