Aleta's Book Report

by Michael Pollan Pollan makes several statements in this book which should hit us all pretty hard. One rule to eating "right" would be "don't buy anything in the grocery store your great-grandmother would not recognize." His point is that the processing of food is what has led to a "western diet" and the ills associated with that diet. Nutrition science has stripped natural foods of the good stuff and replaced with synthetic, poor mimics of those nutrients. He mentions that usually the only area of a grocery store we should visit would be the area around the "edges." Think about that - I find that in the last few years, that is where I do 90% of my food shopping. This is a slow read, but it is full of "a-ha" moments. I will report more on this later.

by Malcolm Gladwell I have been negligent in regards to my MSTA book blog. Most of my recently read books have not been science related, but great books. This book actually came on my new, but used Kindle. So I read it. I learned so much about people, and thereby, teaching from this book that I wish every teacher would read it. It is about patterns, in numbers, in culture, in dates, in successes. Stories from Bill Gates, to Korean Air plane crashes. The 10,000 hour rule to being good at anything jumped out at me. The only thing I may have spent 10,000 hours in is reading, and maybe crocheting, and definitely teaching. I liked this book so much, that I have downloaded Gladwell's other books to my Kindle. I'll report on those soon!

by Ricki Lewis Ricki Lewis has been known to biology teachers for quite a while - as the author of the BEST genetics textbook around. She caught the "genetics" bug in 1978, and has been a major player in helping the public understand the nature of genetics, stem cell research, etc. through her writings for Nature, Discover, The Scientist and many other publications. Following the death of her parents, she felt the driving need to volunteer as a hospice worker, as others did for her father. Her first patient was a Huntington Disease patient - a perfect match. Ricki has been passionate about that disease since it caught her attention in the media in the late seventies, having received letters from Marjorie and Arlo Guthrie and others for helping spread the news about research for HD . Ricki is now very passionate about clearing the misunderstandings surrounding stem cells. This novel, while it is fiction, does just that. In a late scene in the novel, her central character (Kel...

I decided to read Finding Darwin's God by Kenneth Miller, as Dr. Miller is the special speaker at our Fall MSTA Conference. Now, I must tell you that it does not read fast like The DaVinci Code, but I did get through it. I like the way Dr. Miller approaches the “controversy.” If you are a very conservative Christian, this book might help you understand why creationism and intelligent design are not scientific. It won't do away your concerns about the influence of atheists in society but you might like knowing that there are Christians such as Dr. Miller who can champion evolution. If you are a moderate/liberal Christian, you might learn more about evolution and how to explain to others that creationism and intelligent design are not science, as well as helping others understand what evolution is. You might like knowing that God could have created a world in which evolution operates and can be studied scientifically, and that evolution could have been God's mechanism for ...

by Spencer Wells Having read the Seven Daughters of Eve, I was ready to see how Spencer Wells addressed the spread of the Y chromosome across the continents. It was not surprising to see that the mitochondrial DNA and the Y chromosome followed similar paths out of Africa. I really liked the way Spencer told the stories of our contemporaries through the research of the chromosome, and which path their particular ancestors took. While this was a great book, it was one which required thought and was not a "quick read." One reason I am glad to have read this book it that I have been following the work of Spencer Wells in National Georaphic magazine. I did not like the way he advertised for the Genographic project, but that was part of the reason for his writing this book. I will be sharing this book with other biology teachers soon. If the cost of being a part of the project was not so prohibitive, I would even encourage my students to participate.

by John Tayman This was another "I heard it on NPR" book. I think it was Fresh Air two years ago. The author was so animated in his description of the book that I ordered it the next day, forgot I had ordered, and ordered it again. I think Beth Dunigan has the extra copy. I found it amazing that the United States actually behaved in this manner toward a group of persons infected with leprosy- but then I think about spread of disease and few treatment options at the time. The personal stories are fantastic. Throughout the reading, one meets different famous people who came to "tour" the facilities through the years, including Robert Louis Stevenson, Jack London, Mark Twain, and movie stars Shirley Temple and Bud Abbot of Abbot and Costello. The reader learns much about leprosy, and the book really makes the reader realize that we as a people know very little of long illness. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5183996

by Oliver Sacks This is my favorite Oliver Sacks book. Sacks relates stories about patients having neurological disorders. "Cupid's Disease" was a great chapter about a little old woman who heard music from the twenties in her head. It turns out, she contracted syphilis which went dormant for decades. When it began to re-emerge, she started having aural hallucinations. Her syphilis was cured, but only after Sacks assured her that she would continue to hear the music, as the damaged area would not heal. This was great for her - she wanted to keep the music and was refusing treatment if the antibiotics killed the music as well as the syphilis. This story was used in an episode of "House, M.D." Another story from the book is about a man who had a stroke and could not sense his own leg. Lying in bed in the hospital, he reached down and felt a cold hairy leg in the bed with him. He became afraid and threw the leg out of bed - unfortunately, it was his own leg. He end...