Category: Thinking Turf

Book Review: The Story of the Dinosaurs in 25 Discoveries by Donald R. Prothero

Pooja Kashyap

Since the origin of life in 3.5 billion years ago, hundreds of millions of species might have lived on planet earth. Most of those are extinct by now. In his exceptional book, The Story of the Dinosaurs in 25 Discoveries: Amazing Fossils and the People Who Found Them, Donald R. Prothero has tried to surface those species that led to the landmarks in evolution. The idea was to signify evolutionary transition from one group to another. An interesting read for those who are looking for history of dinosaur science. Very…

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Book Review: The Matter of Everything by Dr. Suzie Sheehy

Pooja Kashyap

The Matter of Everything is penned by an accelerator physicist Dr. Suzie Sheehy. The book introduces us to the time when physicists were about to unravel the mysteries of matter via exploration of subatomic particles. And it all started with a serendipitous discovery by the German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen, who in 1895, was working with a cathode ray tube in his laboratory. He noticed that the phosphor-coated screen was giving off a green coloured light when exposed to a cathode ray tube.

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Book Review: The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov

Pooja Kashyap

Energy transfer between parallel universes, the idea is enough for any science fiction fan to pick up and read this awesome piece of work. The Gods Themselves is one of the earliest and fantastic read on multiple universes, nuclear forces, and Big Bang. The fundamental idea of why Big Bang occurs and the repercussions of disturbing the laws of physics that govern universe(s), are explained in the most simplified and narrative style by Isaac Asimov.

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Book Review: Immune by Philipp Dettmer

Pooja Kashyap

As the name suggests, Immune: A Journey into the Mysterious System that Keeps You Alive written by Kurzgesagt founder, Philipp Dettmer talks about the inner workings of the human immune system. A world which totally relies on pathways and chemical signals. And where each and every tiny molecule has a very well-defined role. Dettmer has explained scientific concepts related to human immune system in the most interesting and comprehensible manner. His description of various cellular components metaphors and similes makes it straight-forward to understand and easy to visualize, for instance,…

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Book Review: The Biology of Belief by Dr. Bruce Lipton

Pooja Kashyap

The Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter & Miracles by Dr. Bruce Lipton came around the time when epigenetics was peeking over the horizon. The book talks about an individual’s belief system. As per which, thoughts, either positive or negative, have power to change our mental state, and hence our bodies and physical well-being. Understanding in physics graduated steadily. From Newtonian classical physics to Einstein’s theories of relativity followed by quantum mechanics, the physics of sub-atomic particles. According to Dr. Bruce, similar transition was missing in Biology.…

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Book Review: The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen

Pooja Kashyap

The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen is a spy historical fiction of an unnamed half-Vietnamese, half-French undercover communist agent during the South Vietnamese Government in 1975. The content of the book is primarily a confession per say, of course in first person, of an anonymous spy who is being held as a prisoner. Historically, by the end of April 1975, the North Vietnamese had enveloped Saigon for a complete takeover. The coup not only forced the South Vietnamese to surrender but the US too was forced to abandon its embassy…

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Book Review: The Double Helix by James D. Watson

Pooja Kashyap

The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA is an autobiographical version of James D. Watson in the race for DNA. The story of the discovery of the structure of DNA is quite a read but I feel really sorry for Rosalind Franklin. Without her contribution, the men (James Watson, Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins) wouldn’t have received the Nobel Prize. Defaming her and other women under the hood of casual misogyny in almost entirety of the book is deeply unsettling. And by shedding…

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Book Review: A Crack in Creation by Jennifer A Doudna and Samuel H Sternberg

Pooja Kashyap

A Crack in Creation: Gene Editing and the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution is a powerful book on advances in gene editing research and history by Jennifer A. Doudna and Samuel H. Sternberg. It puts forward the timeline of a genome-editing tool known as CRISPR, or “Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats.” The book starts with examples where natural changes in the genome lead to randomly cure patients of genetic diseases. 2013 was the year of medical mystery at the National Institutes of Health, when the scientists were dealing with…

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Book Review: Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari

Pooja Kashyap

Dataism is the new religion! – is the motif running across Harari’s Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow. As with its predecessor, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, the book deals with evolution and the abilities that humans acquire as we move along the evolutionary scale. And how we process these capabilities only to fabricate a world where there is no place for us.

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Book Review: The God Equation by Dr. Michio Kaku

Pooja Kashyap

Dr. Michio Kaku is a well-known figure in science academia. He is a master story teller. His super power is, he can make science graspable for non-science people like myself. In The God Equation: The Quest for a Theory of Everything, Dr. Kaku talks about three things: physics from creation to present, the effort put behind in unifying all known physical forces and the theory of dimensions, string theory.

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Book Review: In His Own Words by Nelson Mandela

Pooja Kashyap

In His Own Words: From Freedom To The Future: Tributes And Speeches by Nelson Mandela is one of those books, which everyone must read once in their life time. Nelson Mandela was, indeed, a prolific writer as well as a gifted speaker. He became an epitome of freedom around the world after his South African history in 1994. I have always looked up to him for his patience, diligence and integrity.

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Book Review: Brief Candle in the Dark by Richard Dawkins

Pooja Kashyap

Brief Candle in the Dark: My Life in Science is the second volume of Richard Dawkins’ memoirs, first being An Appetite for Wonder: The Making of a Scientist. As expected, the autobiographical memoir is not a chronological tale, rather it is a series of anecdotes. In fact, Dawkins writes, “If you don’t like digressive anecdotes, you might find you’re reading the wrong book.”

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Book Review: A World Beyond Physics by Stuart A. Kauffman

Pooja Kashyap

Stuart Alan Kauffman is not only a complex-systems researcher but he is also a polymath, with a degree in medicine and training in biochemistry, genetics, physics, philosophy and other fields. Very deftly he roams across disciplinary boundaries looking for answers to the riddles that obsess him. In, A World Beyond Physics, he takes up the conundrum of life’s origin.

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