Book Reviews by Margaret Balch-Gonzalez
and Gina Hagler on their blog The Witches of
Agnesi.
Is the
Mystery of the Disappearing Honey Bees Really a Mystery?
Michael
Schacker, A
Spring Without Bees: How Colony Collapse Disorder Has Endangered Our
Food Supply
, presents a compelling case for immediate action on behalf of the
honey bee. This thoroughly-documented narrative details the stresses on
hives today and includes an in-depth discussion of the practical ways
bees can be saved without hindering crop production. [Read
more]
Review: When
Science Goes Wrong:
Twelve Tales from the Dark Side of Discovery When
Science Goes Wrong: Twelve
Tales from the Dark Side of Discovery by neuroscientist
Simon LeVay is fascinating reading for those of us who take an interest
in the impact of science on society. LeVay presents 12 stories of
disaster in a range of scientific and technological fields such as
medicine, engineering, psychology, meteorology, forensic science, and
volcanology, and over a period of time from 1928 to the present. [Read
more]
Recommended
reading Books referenced by Margaret
Balch-Gonzalez and Gina Hagler on their blog The Witches of
Agnesi.
Boo! It's the time of year for
reflections on the fleeting nature of things and all sorts of other
deep thoughts. Here in New England, the maple trees briefly –
so briefly – flash their stunning incandescent red and orange
leaves. Then, of course, the trees shed the leaves on my lawn, where
they need to be raked up – a chore that is not at all
fleeting.
It's also Halloween, which has a
special place in
the hearts of the Witches of Agnesi. So, here are a couple of
Halloween-relevant legends. [Read
more]
Aerodynamics
of a Baseball in Flight
It's the MLB Postseason! As the days grow shorter and the leaves turn,
how can anyone think of anything but baseball.
Nine inches in circumference. Weighing
in at about five ounces. Made of cork wound with woolen yarn covered
with two layers of cowhide stitched by hand precisely two hundred
sixteen times… Every baseball used in Major League play
today is made to these specs. [Read
more]
Good
News: Fewer Choices
I read some great news in the
New York Times the other day: supermarkets are getting smaller and
offering fewer choices. “After years of building bigger
stores — many larger than a football field and carrying
60,000 items — retailers are experimenting with radically
smaller grocery stores…. ‘The average person goes
shopping for 22 minutes,’ said Phil Lempert, who edits
Supermarketguru.com, a Web site that tracks retail trends.
‘You can’t see 30,000 or 40,000 products. We are
moving into an era when people want less
assortment.’” [Read
more]
What’s
the difference between a chimpanzee, a sewage sludge hauler, and my
mother?
As I discovered while following the plight of an Austrian chimpanzee
called Hiasl, that’s a very good question. A
Chimpanzee
Hiasl was captured in Sierra Leone in
1982. A
pharmaceutical company attempted to smuggle him into Austria for its
vivisection laboratory, but he was seized in customs. In 2007, the
sanctuary where he had ended up went bankrupt, and a philanthropist
wanted to donate money for his support. But according to Austrian law,
only a person can receive money. The sanctuary’s creditors
would
get the donation – and the vivisection lab would get Hiasl. [Read
more]
About the Blog
In this blog, Gina Hagler and Margaret
Balch-Gonzalez share our thoughts as women, science writers, and
citizens about the pursuit of scientific knowledge and how it affects
our lives. The blog’s name honors Maria Gaetana Agnesi, an
extraordinary 18th-century Italian mathematician and social activist.
In her day, Agnesi was something of a rock star. But today, she and her
works have mostly been forgotten – except for one odd
historical accident. [Read
more]
