“Journey of the Universe Conversations” is a four-DVD set containing 10 hours of interviews hosted by Mary Evelyn Tucker, an historian of religions (see bio here). There are 20 interviews. Interviews on the first two DVDs are those of scientists who relate, in more detail, the “Journey” of the documentary. DVDs three and four are populated mainly by non-scientist activists who are heavily into sustainable development and utopian environmental schemes. Most of the ideas expressed by these people have long been explored over the last 60 years or so in dystopian science fiction stories and found wanting. One interesting exception I found among this latter group, was Dr. David Begay, a physicist at Northern Arizona University, who related the way Navajos thought of the universe and related their “sense of place.”

These DVDs will be released on June 4, 2013 from most vendors. You can pre-order at Amazon here and here.

“Animals have minds. They have brains, and use them, as we do: for experiencing the world, for thinking and feeling, and for solving the problems of life every creature faces. Like us, they have personalities, moods, and emotions; they laugh and they play. Some show grief and empathy, and are self-aware and very likely conscious of their actions and intents.”

I can attest to her assertion because, as a volunteer, I handle and interpret the natural history of birds of prey and snakes at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum in Tucson and have experienced some of the attributes Morell describes. (Yes, even snakes have personalities).

But how do we really know that animals have these traits? Isn’t that just anthropomorphizing? In the introduction, Morell examines those questions and the evolution of our attitude toward animal cognition. Throughout the book she converses with current researchers and examines the writings of philosophers and other scientists.

The book’s ten chapters explore some attributes of ants, fish, birds, rats, elephants, dolphins, chimpanzees, dogs, and wolves. Each chapter presents some fascinating and surprising observations.

For example, study of the archer fish demonstrates that even animals with small simple brains can make cognitive decisions. Archer fish capture prey by knocking them down with a well-placed shot of water. They become better shots by watching the already skilled fish and by practicing. Dolphins have excellent short- and long-term memory and their echolocation is so acute that they can find very small objects hundreds of feet away.

Apparently dolphins can be sneaky. A dolphin in the Marine Life Oceanarium in Mississippi was trained to pick up litter in her tank in exchange for fish. She presented lots of trash. Upon investigation, engineers found that the dolphin accumulated a private stash of debris which she hid under a rock and retrieved a piece whenever she wanted fish.

Some research suggests that parrots assign contact calls, i.e., individual names, to their chicks.

Much of the research documented in this book can be considered controversial and Morell acknowledges that, but she puts things in perspective by citing supporting, on-going research and how it relates to the history of science. She does make a good case that animals are more intelligent than previously thought. She ends the epilogue with this bit of introspection:

“What do the minds of animals tell us about ourselves? That, like us, they think and feel and experience the world. That they have moments of anger, and sorrow, and love. Their animal minds tell us that they are our kin. Now that we know this, will our relationship with them change?”

This book is a good read; it is entertaining and thought-provoking. Morell is a professional science writer who contributes to National Geographic, Science, and Smithsonian and who has written several books.

Animal Wise is published by Crown Publishing and is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Aggasiz was born in Switzerland and educated there and in Germany, receiving a PhD. in 1829 in natural science, and a Doctorate in surgery and medicine in 1830, the later to please his Calvinist father.

In 1846 he moved to America where he became a professor of Zoology at Harvard, founded the Anderson School of Natural History near Cap Cod (one of the first coed colleges) that eventually became Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Agassiz was a passionate collector and established what would become the Museum of Comparative Zoology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He advertized far and wide for specimens, living or dead.

According to Irmsher, Agassiz was a complex man, a great friend to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and an arch-rival to Charles Darwin. He was a passionate scientist and part P.T. Barnum. And he had a dark side.

Irmsher writes that Agassiz’s story is “riven with the contradictions of a man who wanted to come across as both rigorously professional and unrelentingly popular, a man who believed that science practiced with due diligence could clear up not only the little problems that confounded the specialists but also the whole cosmic puzzle itself. Agassiz was one of the first to establish science as a collective enterprise. Yet he insisted on putting his own personal stamp on anything that came out of the museum he had founded and forbade his assistants to claim credit for any part of their own research done on company time. He was an ardent advocate of abolition, yet he also believed in the racial inferiority of blacks.”

Agassiz’s study of glaciers and fossils lead him to reject Darwin’s new theory of evolution. Rather, Agassiz was somewhat of a Creationist, but not as the term is currently used. Agassiz believed not in continuous evolution, but a series of creation events, in “oscillations,” where ice ages killed off everything and God created and recreated life anew.

Agassiz published over 400 books and scientific articles and was one of the first to propose that Europe and North America were once covered by glaciers. He was, however, a great proponent of field work, “study nature, not books.” He was also the consummate lecturer and his lectures were not confined to the classroom. His “popularity in America transcended class as well as regional boundaries.”

Irmsher spins an interesting story of a complex man based largely upon abundant correspondence from Agassiz, his contemporaries, and his wife and sister.

One of Agassiz’s great strengths was his ability to explain science to the layman. Irmsher writes in the epilogue, “as Louis Agassiz drifts into the sunset of this narrative, it is worth remembering how his struggles, problems, and aspirations are still with us. Yes, we haven’t moved beyond his biases and blindnesses as much as much as we would like to think we have, but that isn’t all. In my view, Louis Agassiz was never more provocative than when he argued science ought to be part of the general fabric of society.” I agree. More emphasis on science is needed in general education.

If you are interested in the history of science, its development and its characters, you will be interested in the story of Louis Agassiz.

The book is available is published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and is available at Amazon as a hardcover book (to be released Feb. 5) and a Kindle edition. It is also available from Barnes & Noble.

The Story of Math Collection consists of 5 DVDs containing 10 episodes produced as a documentary by the BBC. The episodes are narrated by British mathematician Marcus du Sautoy. Total run time is about 8 hours.

The first part of the collection, “The Story of Math” takes us (in four episodes) on a journey to examine how the ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, and Greeks developed mathematical concepts, both as a philosophic exercise and for some practical reasons. After all, bureaucrats had to figure out the area of odd pieces of land in order to tax them. And, in order to easily count things and do calculations, one had to have an efficient system of numbers. The journey continues through China, India (where the very important concept of zero was developed), Arabia, and back to Europe. We see the development of algebra, geometry, trigonometry and calculus. The last episode explores celestial mechanics and the concept of infinity.

“The Story of Math” contains a bonus disc, “The Music of the Primes” (two episodes) which examines prime numbers (numbers divisible by only themselves and 1). Prime numbers seem to be related to many natural phenomena. Bernhard Riemann proposed a hypothesis that seems to explain the distribution of prime numbers but he could never prove it. The Clay Mathematics Institute still offers a $1 million prize to someone who can prove the Riemann hypothesis.

Most interesting to me was “The Code” (in four episodes) which explores patterns in nature and why certain numbers keep cropping up. These episodes deal with a variety of subjects such as Pi, the ratio of a circle’s diameter to it’s circumference, fractals in nature and in Jackson Pollack’s art, laws of motion, and some strange relationships.

For example, we find some musical chords pleasing because of the ratio of frequencies between notes. These same ratios are used in architectural design to make structures with proportions pleasing to the eye.

Cicadas are insects that hibernate for very long times. One species comes out every 13 years while another species comes out every 17 years (both prime numbers). Why? Possibly to avoid predators; the great swarm makes it impossible for predators to eat them all and most predators can’t wait around that long. Another reason is to avoid interbreeding. The 13-year cycle and 17- year cycle would coincide once every 221 years.

Why do the wax honeycombs of bees have hexagonal chambers? The hexagon is the most efficient shape and uses the least amount of wax. Economy of material is also why a basalt flow in Ireland, the Giant’s Causeway, cooled and contracted into hexagonal columns.

The collection takes you on a journey of the mind and on a travelogue around the world. It is entertaining and thought provoking.

The collection is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and from Acorn Media. http://acornonline.com/product.aspx?p=story-math  Parts of the collection are sold separately also.

Synopsis by Borgo Press:

“The artists’ reception at the popular Mosaic Gallery in Tucson, Arizona is a great success, but the next morning, when the body of Armando, the owner’s husband, is discovered, things start turning ugly. Every artist becomes a suspect, and each of them has their own reason to want the man out of the picture. But who disliked him enough to want him dead? And who stole the Mexican artifacts and the sculpture of the goddess Gaia? Gallery owner Barbara Atwell is devastated at her young husband’s death, and turns to her friends, Adrian and Rocco, for support. An unseasonal Arizona heat wave keeps everyone’s nerves on edge as Police Detective Maggie Reardon juggles a disastrous personal life while trying to solve the crime. She even finds herself attracted to one of the suspects as she sifts through a long list of colorful, Bohemian characters to determine who had the ultimate motive for murder. But when she’s viciously attacked in her own home, she begins wondering whether she’ll survive long enough to find the culprit. The first of a great series of detective novels set in the sizzling Southwest!”

Review by Terry Butler, artist and writer:

“This is Lonni Lees’ third book and her second novel. I’ve had the pleasure of reading them all as well as her online and print stories, but I have to say this one is my flat-out favorite.

“Lonni lives in Tucson and writes her descriptions of the area and its harsh beauty, plants and weather with a sure hand. And the best thing about that is her exercise of self control, showing us that the right amount of atmosphere is just enough, leaving her room to draw the character of Detective Maggie Reardon in detail–flaws and strengths alike, just as in all human beings. Maggie is no superhero hard-boiled dudette in sexy clothes, but a smart, interesting woman whom we end up caring a great deal about.

“In fact all the characters in this book are well described and believable, even if some of them are a bit weird. But then, who are artists and gallery hangers-on if not umm, “unique” individuals? Its a great milieu for a mystery and Lonni keeps us guessing all the way.

“It’s great to see a new writer getting this much better with each outing, and word is that Lonni has another of Detective Reardon’s adventures in the pipeline. I’ll be waiting!”

This book has just been released and is available at Amazon   as a print book and Kindle. It will soon be available from other providers. Other books by Lonni include Deranged, a novel of horror and Crawlspace, an anthology of creepy short stories.

The book contains stunning and beautiful photography. The photos, both landscapes and close-up details, are composed with the artist’s eye. The narratives are short and to-the-point, yet convey a sense of “deep time” and connection.

The journey begins in the Outback of Australia at Mt. Narryer north of Perth. There, granite and sandstones contain zircons over four billion years old. “Mt. Narryer turns blood red at sunrise, its rippled earth looking like waves frozen in time.”

At Akilia Island off the southwest coast of Greenland (see cover photo) they see the ancient banded gneiss that represents the oldest exposed rocks on the planet. Nearby rocks contain the oldest traces of life – 3.8 billion years old. They call this a land that Tolkien might have imagined.

In Blacktail Canyon, in the Grand Canyon of Arizona, a rafting trip shows them the 1.7 billion-year-old Vishnu Schist and allows them to ponder the billion year gap in time between the Vishnu and the overlying rocks.

Next is the Acasta River, north of Great Slave Lake in Canada’s Northwest Territory. There they see the 4-billion-year old Acasta gneiss, the oldest bedrock of North America. At Yellowknife on the Great Slave Lake, they see stromatolites, fossils of ancient cyanobacteria, 1.7 billion years old. These are hardy beasties as the travelers show in their visit to Shark Bay on the western coast of the Australian outback. There, the stromatolite-building cyanobacteria still live and build their mounds.

The book concludes with three chapters that show our connection to the ancient rocks. The oldest rocks contain the mineral apatite, a calcium-fluorine phosphate. This mineral occurs in our bones and teeth. Without it our bones would be rubbery. Mitochondria, the energy providers for each of our cells, are descendants of ancient cyanobacteria.

The last chapter is a summary. “The stones speak through the language of science as well as art, enhancing our sense of wonder about the knowledge they convey.”

Echoes of Earth is a large-format book (9″x11″) that is rich in imagery, both in its beautiful photographs as well as its narratives. There are many foldout pages so some photos span three pages. The book also contains some interesting “windows” in some pages that frame and blend into photos on preceding and following pages.

Baugh describes a sense of “deep time,” a connectedness to the Earth, or as the subtitle notes: “Finding ourselves in the origins of the Planet.” As a professional geologist, I can appreciate that feeling. Many times as I’ve tried to unravel ancient “cold case” mysteries, I, too, have felt that awe and connectedness.

The book is highly recommended.

Echoes of Earth is available from Amazon and from: www.wildstonearts.com.

Note: There are several books with the title “Echoes of Earth” so if you search be sure to include the author’s name.  The Amazon link provided takes you to the correct page.

See other Wryheat Book Reviews.

The book is much more than the title implies. It is a history book tracing man’s discovery and use of the natural elements. The Periodic Table is just a method of classification that allows one to predict an element’s properties. The book deals with science, scientists and discovery. “Knowledge does not arrive fully formed. We have to work at it, taking it in turns to consider the evidence and offer our take on it.”

The book begins with Stone age chemistry (“Fire, paints, and bread making are all examples of chemistry in action”) and finishes with the probable discovery of the Higgs boson in 2011. In between, the book deals with “100 breakthroughs that changed the world” and “who did what, when.”

The second to last chapter gives a concise tutorial in the basics of chemistry, which includes subjects such as atomic structure and chemical bonding. The book finishes with very brief biographies of the great chemists of history.

The Elements presents a concise history of scientific discovery which gives you an appreciation of how ideas evolved, how “magic” turned to alchemy, then to chemistry. It traces the thoughts of philosophers as they pondered the natural world. A pocket in the back of the book contains an 8-foot-long foldout which shows the history on the front and a chart of the elements on the back. The Elements would serve as a good reference book.

The author, Tom Jackson, is a science writer with over 80 books to his credit. He studied zoology at the University of Bristol, U.K. where he resides.

Adults with an interest in science and science history would enjoy this book. I think the book would be valuable to Junior High and High School students, as well as college students, especially those studying the Philosophy of Science.

The book is published by Shelter Harbor Press, New York and can be found on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

The Elements is one of the publisher’s “Ponderables” series. Other books in this series (which I have not seen) are:

An Illustrated History of Numbers. Editor: Tom Jackson

An Illustrated History of Astronomy By Tom Jackson

See more Wryheat Book Reviews

Disc 1:

Will we survive first contact?

Is there a superior race?

Is the universe alive?

What makes us who we are?

What is nothing?

Disc 2:

Can we resurrect the dead?

Can we eliminate evil?

Mysteries of the subconscious

Will eternity end?

Did we invent God?

These 10 programs represent over seven hours of video.  I have not yet watched them all.  For this review I picked two programs to watch which I though might be the most touchy or controversial to see how the subjects were handled, and they were handled well.  Here is a summary of those two programs:

Is there a superior race?

This program examines the questions: Are races fundamentally different? or Is race just skin deep?  Their answer to both is no.  The program explores DNA analysis of human races and notes that 99.5% of all human DNA is the same.  (Chimps differ from us by 3% in DNA.)

According to anthropological studies, human races began to differentiate about 50,000 years ago when our species migrated out of Africa.  Skin color differences were an adaptive response to different intensity of sun light and our need for vitamin D.  The program notes that our DNA is constantly mutating and mutations that don’t kill us are passed to the next generation.

Gene dating shows that many human genes are much younger than scientists had supposed (younger means they developed within the last 10,000 to 20,000 years).  These differences in genes were a response to environment and resulted in some races being more susceptible or more resistant to certain diseases.  The program notes that culture can also cause genetic adaptation.  For instance Chinese tend to be more lactose intolerant because, according to the program, their culture did not include much milk drinking, so they did not build up a tolerance.

The program explores a very touchy subject: is there a difference in average intelligence between the races.  Some scientists claim there is, but it is unclear whether or not the difference is due to genetics or to socioeconomic or nutritional conditions because the range of intelligence of all races is the same.

The program also speculates on the limits of human intelligence.  They note that higher brains, like high-powered cars, need more energy to function.  Have we reached a limit? They speculate on whether our increasing population and increasing technological interconnectedness will result in a hive-like mentality that could result not in a superior race, but a superior species.

Did we invent God?

This program speculates that perhaps religion is an attempt by our mind to make sense out of a chaotic universe.  The program documents a series of experiments to test and demonstrate human spirituality.  At what age do children come to believe in God?  One experiment shows that children will cheat at a game unless they believe some invisible adult is watching.

The program examines out-of-body experiences and notes that such perceptions can be generated by stimulating a portion of the brain with electric current.  It examines the psychology of fortune tellers and our ability to form patterns or relationships from random noise where there is no pattern.  Both things help us feel better when we seem to lack control.

The program examines some experiments to see if other intelligent animals experience God.  Apparently not.  They show the difference between  brain patterns when religious people pray versus meditation by atheists.  How do we know God answers prayers?  We look for “signs” and perhaps rationalize the answer; that goes back to our attempt to make sense of the universe.

In the end, the question “did we invent God” or “did God invent humans” goes unanswered, perhaps because we can’t know for sure.

These were very interesting and thought-provoking programs and I look forward to watching the rest.

This DVD set will  be available October 23 at http://store.discovery.com/

Check out my BOOK REVIEW page for information on more books and DVDs.

Here is the official book description:

A hotel explodes in Mexico City, and all available evidence points to an American citizen, Alex Valdez, as the terrorist. The FBI is desperate to find the truth before the Mexican government can. Dead Religion follows the trail of FBI agent James Allison, who leaves his family and journeys to Mexico in order to find what secrets lay behind the destroyed hotel and all the lives lost with it. To do that though, Alex Valdez’s life must be laid bare—the blood rite his parents left him and the ‘God’ they felt had been unleashed on the world. Agent Allison races to find the truth in Mexico City, to uncover Valdez’s life, before he finds himself face to face with the same terror.

That description does not do the book justice.  The premise of the book is that an extra-temporal being, known as the Aztec god Huitzilopochtli, wants to get back in business.  To do that he needs willing blood sacrifices.  Channeling through Alex Valdez, Huitzilopochtli attacks through induced hallucinations and those hallucinations begin to infect anyone who comes in contact with Valdez.  Often the characters in the book, and sometimes the reader, can’t tell reality from hallucination.  Valdez fights the hallucinations and Huitzilopochtli.  Valdez must kill Huitzilopochtli to end the madness.  Huitzilopochtli, to gain former power, must cause Valdez to willingly sacrifice himself to the god.  Who will win?

If you are a fan of Stephen King stories you will like this book.

You can find the book on Amazon in print and Kindle versions.

As the authors Robert Bruce Thompson and Barbara Fritchman Thompson say in the Preface:

“If your only knowledge of forensic science comes from watching CSI and similar programs, you may wonder whether modern forensic science is just a matter of white-smocked acolytes and hard-bodied assistants awaiting answers from expensive high-tech instruments, which answers they invariably get in time to solve the crime before the closing credits roll. The reality is far different. Sherlock Holmes with his magnifying glass and Dr. John Thorndyke with his microscope and lab bench are much more realistic representations of actual day-to-day forensic science work…[T]he vast majority of forensic work, even today, is done with low-tech procedures that would be familiar to a forensic scientist of 100 years ago.”

The first two chapters of the book deal with laboratory safety and setting up your lab. Much of the equipment you may have around the house or can obtain locally or online. The authors also offer a kit at their website: www.thehomescientist.com. Note that many experiments require a microscope. Chapter two discusses the type of microscope that will best serve you and how to get one.

The remainder of the book is divided into 11 “groups” each dealing with a different aspect of collecting and processing evidence. The groups are: Soil Analysis, Hair and Fiber Analysis, Glass and Plastic Analysis, Revealing Latent Fingerprints, Blood Detection, Impression Analysis, Forensic Drug Testing, Forensic Toxicology, Gunshot and Explosives Residues Analysis, Detecting Forgeries and Fakes, and Forensic Biology. This structure makes each group of experiments stand alone, so you can read/try just those experiments that may interest you.

Each group has an introduction explaining how that piece of evidence is used and what it can tell you. That is followed by detailed explanations of several experiments you can do. At the end of each section, the authors ask questions about what you should have learned, and provide space where you can write the answers – just like a workbook you may have had in school.

Since I am a geologist, I was particularly interested in the Soil Analysis experiments. The authors explain in detail how to do each test, why you do it that way, and sometimes suggest alternative ways to do something (just in case you don’t happen to have a $45,000 mass spectrometer lying around the house, for instance). I found that just reading the experiments was very informative. I learned a few things about soils that I hadn’t even considered before.

My wife Lonni was also interested in inspecting this book because she is a crime/mystery writer. Lonni had just recently attended a conference put on by the Public Safety Writer’s Association (PSWA) at which police, FBI agents, and forensic scientists schooled the writers in proper procedures. Lonni noted that the professionals at the conference said exactly what the authors wrote in their Preface about the reality of forensic science.

Lonni said she will keep this book on her reference shelf. I would not be surprised to see some of the procedures that are outlined in this book appear in some of Lonni’s future stories. Maybe mystery writers represent a market for the book the authors did not consider. (Blatant plug, see Lonni’s books: Deranged, winner of first place award at PSWA and Crawlspace.)

This book has a good index, something very valuable in this type of work.

You can get the Illustrated Guide at Amazon, Barnes&Noble, or from the publisher: O’Reilly.

See my other Book Reviews here.