5 comments about Life in the Treetops: Adventures of a Woman in Field Biology (Nota Bene Series).

1. Margaret Lowman's story, Life in the Treetops, is an inspiration for young women considering a life in science. She tells how she balanced a career as a field biologist, studying the forest canopy, with being a wife and mother, and eventually a single parent. Her stories of her experiences as a researcher and tree climber in such exotic locals as the Australian outback, Cameroon, Belize and Panama are intermingled with her observations about the inhabitants of these locals, the people she worked with and her sons. Her perseverance in a field dominated by men has given her an interesting perspective about science and life in general.



2. Margaret Lowman is a gifted biologist with a knack for finding ways to teach others the importance of her field and the need for conservation. Her adventures range from the humorous to the frightening and are guaranteed to hold the reader's interest. I held off a five-star rating only because I would have liked a little more information on some of the animals she's studied. Her impressions of Nature's little-known and often-overlooked creatures are valuable and fascinating, and I wish more space had been devoted to them. That's a minor quibble, though. As a writer on nature myself, I came away from reading this book with an improved understanding of how complex the "web of life" is, not to mention a determination to get my own children out into the forests more often.



3. Margaret Lowman writes candidly about her life... as though we were the closest of friends. I expected her to write about her research, the difficulties of climbing into the rainforest canopies, and her globe trotting. And she did. She also writes of the professional challenges, cultural clashes, and personal problems she encounters as a woman in field biology, and that makes this book something quite special.

   ON THE PERSONAL SIDE: Lowman married an Australian, had two children and lived in the outback, while conducting research on the Australian rain forests. On the personal side, she was expected to be a housewife, and mother. Her new Australian husband, and in-laws, did not understand her inner drive to spend time in her work. While clearly her new family did not support her in her work, Lowman persisted and achieved. She also made a decision to accept a teaching position at Williams College back in the US. She packed up the boys, and headed for home. She exchanged her marriage, and the boy's father, for a surprisingly supportive scientific community and her own supportive parents. Lowman tells of her personal life with candor, but without bitterness. While no one could accuse her of having an ordinary life, Lowman's book is also an every woman's story in that she chronicles the kind of day-to-day struggle of professional/career women faced (particularly in the 1970's and 1980's) in balancing career and family.

   ON THE PROFESSIONAL SIDE: To help understand the interdependence of the rainforests Lowman mostly studies the small things... leaves, and the insects that eat them. It sounds easier than it is. Most of the leaves to be studied are high up in the canopy of the rain forests. Early in her career, she gains access using ropes and harnesses, and even a cherry picker when she was pregnant; later she has the luxury of using a construction crane, a dirigible, and even a walkway. Lowman loves the forests, and her work. (Her book contains an illustration of her favorite tree, ficus watkinsiana.)

   Lowman ends the book telling us that it takes about the "same amount of energy to complain as it does to explain-but the results are incredibly different." Her book explains a great deal. I highly recommend it.




4. As a young woman who hopes with all her heart and works with all of her passion to be a scientist one day, I recommend this novel without a doubt. Dr. Lowman attacks every issue she faces head on, candidly describing her emotion and scientific endeavors as if the reader is a personal friend. As a female, I myself can relate to her described frustration of being a woman in a primarily male field. Even my closest male friends look at me with doubt and treat my five year love affair (ongoing, of course) with science as a joke simply because I am female (as the butt of their jokes imply). It's wondorous to read of other accounts involving similar emotion. On a scientific note, Dr. Lowman makes no adjustments for fear of the reader who does not care for biology; she writes about science just as she writes about emotion. For that, I urge parents to prod their children to read this memoir, adults to read, and all others to digest.



5. This unique book is about Margaret Lowman's life as a self-described field biologist who studies the mysteries of forest canopies, one of the last biotic frontiers on Earth. In Life in the Treetops, Lowman is a pioneer canopy scientist she describes the little known worlds of the treetops, their inhabitants, flowers and fruits, growth and mortality, patterns of diversity, and plant and animal interactions. Lowman writes about how, in order with the scientific hypothesis she was focusing on, a different canopy access technique was used. She's particularly good at exposing the life of a field biologist from a woman's perspective, what it was like to cope: with the demands of a challenging career; with marriage to an Australian sheep farmer; with housewifery; with motherhood to two young sons; with conflicting cultural differences about gender roles; and with divorce and single parenthood. Lowman's descriptions of her various arboreal ecological projects were fascinating. She emphasized the pleasures and intellectual rewards of studying the natural world without ignoring the projected vicissitudes of researching in wilderness settings. In the end Lowman is the director of research and conservation at the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens in Sarasota, Florida. This is an inspiring story for everyone, not just for women or those interested in careers in science, but for everyone.

1 comments about Penicillin Man: Alexander Fleming and the Antibiotic Revolution.

1. This a brief, entertaining biography of a great man whose work has saved millions of lives, including, perhaps, my own. It's the type of book one would hope every high school student would be expected to read.

1 comments about A Mathematician Grappling with His Century.

1. This book is as fascinating to anyone interested in mathematics as any other mathematician's biography, with the extra asset of his life being deeply imbedded in 20th century history. While it gives a most interesting account of the French and international mathematical world during the second half of the century (especially on Bourbaki and, of course, on the distributions), it also tales the story of a "committed" (formerly trotskist) intellectual who valued his struggle for decolonization as high as his mathematical work.

No comments about Celebrating Women in Mathematics and Science.

4 comments about Egg and Ego: An Almost True Story of Life in The Biology Lab.

1. This is an excellent book for anyone who might have some idea that they might want to be a professional scientist, working in biomedical research or as a professor in a university. Slack writes very well and he can tell an amusing anecdote. There is a some good science in it too. He is slightly curmidgeonly, perhaps, but I think this is part of his appeal. He tells it like it is. Read this book to find out that being a research scientist, perhaps unfortunately, is like being in the corporate world, and scientists have egos just like anyone else. There is a wealth of guidance for a new 'starry eyed' student. Slack is a good scientist and he portrays with a light touch some of the characters he knows, journals, government regulations and career structures. In addition he explains how he got into science and why. Anyone who is already a biological scientist will find much to chuckle at and I think that all biology students should read it - particularly if contemplating going on to take a higher degree. This book is an antidote to the ridiculous idea that scientists are 'higher beings' concerned only with 'truth'.



2. Slack interweaves real science (Cell, Molecular and Developmental Biology; frog and fly biology) with job descriptions of biologists and events in the laboratory to portray the fragile existence of academic scientists.

   As a career university biologist myself, I repeatedly found myself asking the question as I navigated through the book "Why did I get into this business in the first place?" Slack's work will certainly prompt the budding young scientist to confront their own destiny.

   To those interested in what professors do (since they are not in the classroom 8 hours per day), this is the book for you. Though clearly written, the science is still not for everyone; occasionally, Slack lapses into jargon without definition. However, the lighthearted and accurate picture of life in the laboratory will certainly provide enough entertainment for any reader, especially if you are undecided if you want to spend the rest of your life cohabitating with an academic.




3. Slack does a grand job of telling his story...life and living as a researcher working on problems of development. Slack has the ability to get you to grin as he talks about cow brains, growth factors, and other scientific adventures..."Where are the brains, Dad?" (You'll have to read the book to know what that means.) He also ably tells what it's like to be a scientist, as well as how one negotiates the politics and requirements of becoming successful as a research scientist.

   The format of the book is interesting. It includes several chapters that address what it's like ("Ego") to be a research scientist, i.e., chapters 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10. He defines what he calls "good places," as well as who "good people" are in the scientific community. If you are a budding scientist, these chapters contain nugget after nugget of wisdom and insight. This book is worth the price for them alone.

   The remaining chapters, 3, 5, 8 contain the essence of the research that Slack and his group do, thus the "Egg" portion of the book's title. There is good information about the role of growth factors in development, and a broad brush review of the essentials of some of the processes of development and their molecular bases.

   If you are up for a good read about life as a biologist, then come on along. The only reason I didn't award this book 5-stars is that there would be a strong tendency for those not trained in the sciences to get lost in the technical aspects of the chapters on developmental processes. For most biologists, however, especially for upper division undergraduate and graduate students, this book is a gem!

   4 stars for the non-scientist, and 5 stars for the science crowd.

   Kudos to Slack for this great little book (though he seems to take a rather dim view of places other than research universities -- we part ways there). There is, I believe, too strong a sentiment among researchers (represented by some of Slack's opinions) that what non-researcher biologists do, i.e., teach, is not just different, it is "less than." It all comes down to what you choose to do for your own career, and how you define success for yourself.

   I hope this review was helpful!

   Alan Holyoak, Dept of Biology, Manchester College, IN




4. As an undergraduate studying biology and hoping to pursue a career in research I found this book both informative and shocking. J.M.W Slack openly reveals all the ins and outs of "Life in the Biology lab." I strongly recommend this book to anyone curious to what's truly in store for them if they choose to enter a field of science.

No comments about Investment Philosophers and Financial Economists (Secrets of the Great Investors).

1 comments about Michael Faraday: Physics and Faith (Oxford Portraits in Science).

1. APPROX 60 YEARS AGO,MY LATE MOTHER GAVE ME A MAGAZINE OR BOYS ADVENTURE BOOK ,AND I WAS ABSORBED BY THE STORY OF MICHAEL FARADAY;THIS DESCRIBED HIS WORK ON ELECTROMAGNETIC FORCES.I WAS FASCINATED THEN AND AM VERY PROUD TO SAY I AM STILL FASCINATED NOW AT 70 YEARS OF AGE :I RECOMMEND THIS BOOK AS A MUST READ FOR ALL--REGARDS,ALBERT ANDREWS

No comments about Brunel: The Man Who Built the World (Phoenix Press).

5 comments about Edison and the Electric Chair: A Story of Light and Death.

1. While I am not usually drawn to books about technological history, the combination of narrative power and illuminating research made Edison & the Electric Chair a thoroughly engaging read. It reads like a tightly-drawn novel with compelling -- and sometimes repellent -- characters and plot. I couldn't wait to see how the story would unfold.

   As someone only marginally familiar with the science and history behind the development of electricity, I found myself fascinated by Essig's cogent explanations both of how electricity works and the myriad dangers and difficulties of implementing direct current as a means of electrification. Essig deftly weaves the complex personalities of the major players (most centrally Edison and Westinghouse) into the escalating debate over direct and alternating current.

   As the story of the first electrocution unfolds, Essig broadens the discussion to include not only the ethics of capital punishment and the relative humanity of the electric chair, but also larger implications of industrial competition, the rise of electric companies, and the illuminating of America.

   Bolstered by meticulous yet accessible research, Essig clearly lays out the changing attitudes and approaches to capital punishment. As he explores such volatile issues as the shift from public to private execution by the state, the role of capital punishment in the moral education of the citizenry, and the irony of the state's attempts to make execution humane, Essig always gives the reader room to reach her own conclusions.

   The greatest strength of this book might lie in its sensitively and lucidly wrought conclusion. Essig bridges the years from the first electrocutions to the present and shows how we are still involved in the same basic debate. While the efficiency and means of execution have changed through the last century, the crux of the debate remains the same: what is the role of the state in creating a machinery for death and should we truly make state executions palatable -- or should we finally recognize the inherent horror of it all? Essig leaves the reader with much to ponder -- and a strong foundation of cultural and scientific history from which to do so.




2. Today we all take electricity for granted. We pay monthly fees to large utility companies, and whenever we buy an electrical appliance we plug it in and it works. But we never think about the fact that as recently as the late 19th century, electricity in homes and businesses was a rarity. And it wasn't the government or large public companies who were rolling it out to communities across the US, but instead entrepreneurs like Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse competing to develop different types of electrical services and rushing to sign up as many customers as possible to their own companies' proprietary standards.

   Perhaps the biggest rivalry in the electrical field was between Edison, who promoted his direct current system, a relatively low voltage system whose electricity could not be transmitted across a broad area without installing additional generators, and Westinghouse, whose alternating current systems allowed very high voltages to be transmitted across very large distances. No safety standards existed for the budding electric industry, so in an attempt to maintain his early business lead, Edison and his colleagues did what they could to publicize the dangers of allowing high voltage alternating current into people's homes and neighborhoods, and the relative safety of direct current.

   The story of electricity in itself is a fascinating business story that parallels a lot of what we've seen in the late 20th century with the internet rush and the mad dash to roll out hundreds of ISPs, most of which have fallen by the wayside as saner business models prevail and the industry consolidates. The business ethics at the time leave a lot to be desired, not unlike the business ethics of the late 20th century.

   But this engaging first-time author, Mark Essig, doesn't stop with the history of the electrical industry. He overlays the story of capital punishment into the picture. Humanists in the 19th century were debating whether the various methods used for capital punishment were humane. The use of electricity was raised as a possible painless alternative to hangings and other "barbaric" methods of killing criminals. Ironically, Edison promoted his rival Westinghouse's alternating current system as the perfect solution to the capital punishment dilemma, by stating that its dangerous system would instantly kill any criminals, not to mention thousands of regular consumers who might accidentally get in its way.

   This book was a truly terrific mix of history and anecdotes about a very interesting period in history that still impacts us today and that has many parallels in modern day business. And while the book doesn't take sides on the capital punishment debate, it certainly raises a lot of interesting issues and is certain to cause a lot of discussion in that area as well.

   I strongly recommend it.




3. I should raise a warning flag to start this review: if you are squeamish, or an animal lover, this book might be a bit too much for you. There are several horrific episodes involving detailed descriptions of botched executions, as well as descriptions of electrocution experiments performed on dogs, calves, and horses. Mr. Essig's intent is not to be sensationalistic. He wants to show us that when Thomas Edison said that death by electrocution would be quick and painless, he was engaging in wishful thinking. (At least to start with. After experiments on animals showed that this form of execution was not an exact science- nobody knew, really, what voltage to use or for how long; nor were they sure of how electricity killed - he may have stooped to being disingenuous. Edison thought alternating current was dangerous, plus he didn't like George Westinghouse. Westinghouse kept infringing on Edison's patents. Edison was pushing alternating current for use with the electric chair, to drive home to the public his belief that alternating current was too dangerous for commercial use.) This book works well on many levels. We see Edison trying to get alternating current used with the electric chair, while Westinghouse tries to fight back, via his lawyers, by showing execution via electrocution was messy and unreliable, and hence was "cruel and unusual punishment." The book is also good at describing the more general competition between Edison's direct current and Westinghouse's alternating current. It takes some careful reading, but you get to learn the advantages and disadvantages of both systems at that time, and how elbow grease and creativity were used to overcome some of the problems. Also, considering that this is not really a biography, Mr. Essig gives a pretty well-rounded portrait of Edison. He was pretty eccentric - for example, sleeping under a bench or on the floor of a closet at the Menlo Park laboratory - but he wasn't lacking in social skills. He was charming and witty and he was very good at promoting himself and his inventions. Like all interesting people, he was complex: when Edison's daughter told him she was writing a novel, Edison told her "that in the case of a marriage to put in bucketfulls [sic] of misery. This would make it realistic." However, after Edison's first wife (Mary) died at the age of 29, Edison - the supposed cynic, misogynist, and misogamist - quickly fell under the spell of the 19 year old Mina Miller, and didn't hesitate to marry her. The man who supposedly thought about his work 24 hours a day remarked that while walking through Boston he "got thinking about Mina and came near being run over by a street car." Regarding Edison's wit and sense of humor, the following is just one of many examples contained in the book: Edison bought his daughter Marion a pet parrot, but the bird never learned to speak. Edison complained that the bird had "the taciturnity of a statue, and the dirt producing capacity of a drove of Buffalo." One of the many things I learned from this book was that, contrary to popular belief, Edison never called execution by electricity being "Westinghoused." One of his lawyers came up with the expression for possible use in the public relations war between the two men. To Edison's credit, he rejected using the word as a synonym for electrocution. Other examples of areas this book explores are the work environment at Menlo Park (where the men would go out into the midnight darkness, accompanied by a dog holding a lantern between his teeth, to buy some food and beer to bring back to the workshop); the politics of the time (bribes being paid to either pass a bill to institute execution by electricity rather than hanging, or to kill such a bill); the fallibility of "experts" (who made uneducated guesses on how electrocution caused death, how much current to use, etc.); and the irresponsibility of the newspapers of the time (going from one extreme to the other in admiring or denigrating both Einstein and Westinghouse; calling the electric chair a wonderful and humane invention one moment and an awful example of barbarity the next). If the book has one fault, it is that Mr. Essig uses the battle between Edison and Westinghouse to slip in his personal opposition to capital punishment. I don't feel this falls within the scope of the story, and he should have resisted the urge to use the book as a soapbox. That being said, this is still a very well-written, well-researched, and fascinating book.



4. An interesting book if you are curious about executions. The book has some interesting details about Edison's personal life, but not to much about Westinghouse. Also, the book says very little about Tesla, who's inventions really enabled Westinghouse to overcome Edison's DC power and make AC power todays standard. Still the book is worth while for Edison fans and those who are interested in the history of execution technology.



5. One of the most well written, highly informative and just plain interesting books I have ever read. Highly recommend.

1 comments about Einstein in His Own Words.

1. Einstein wrote well on a surprisingly varied number of subjects. The heart of his writing will of course always be in his scientific work. And the true expression of that in mathematical language which most of us laymen cannot possibly comprehend. But he wrote well about scientific subjects in ordinary, understandable language. He also wrote with wit and wisdom about political subjects, about matters of morality. He once said' Common sense is that layer of prejudice deposited in the mind before eighteen years'. Yet Einstein himself had no small amount of common sense as well as the extraordinary uncommon sense( Which led him to ask questions no one before had thought to frame in the way he did.) This selection of his writing is small and yet tastefully done. What also adds to the impressiveness of the volume is the outstandingly clear and striking illustrations and pictures which fill up a good share of the pages.
   If one wants a simple good short summary book on Einstein, this could be it.