Coles Science Center Blog

New summer books are continuing to arrive! Here are a few more interesting selections that can now be found in our New Books display cases and cart!

Sick by Jonathan Cohn. HarperCollins Publishers, 2007.
RA395 .A3 C635
“Cohn points out that managed care initially had an altruistic goal of making health-care affordable for all. But by 1997, two-thirds of HMOs were controlled by for-profit companies concerned with making money rather than preventing and easing sickness. The author convincingly argues that Medicare and universal health care in such countries as France, though not perfect, are far superior to the system most Americans face. Much of this is well-trod territory, but Cohn is eloquent, and he’s good at using case studies to dramatize and explain complex issues.” – Publisher’s Weekly

The Elephant’s Secret Sense: The Hidden Life of the Wild Herds of Africa by Caitlin O’Connell. Simon & Schuster, 2007.
QL737 .P98 O26
“Naturalist O’Connell’s memoir of her 14 years researching the complexities of elephant behavior is a successful combination of science and soulfulness, explaining her groundbreaking theory of how elephants use seismic communication; she also sympathetically illuminates current social and ecological conditions in Africa. O’Connell’s original goal in 1992 was to spend a year driving from South Africa to Kenya, but then she was hired for a three-year study of elephants in an area of northeastern Namibia, “where violent death is as much a part of the landscape as the capricious nature of rain.” Fascinated by the “particular way that elephants seemed to be listening with their feet,” she soon realized that the elephants were communicating with sound waves “that travel within the surface of the ground as opposed to the air.” Her efforts over the next decade to prove this “unexpected and controversial” hypothesis took her “to the bayous of Texas, the Nevada desert, southern India, northern Zimbabwe, the Oakland Zoo, and then back to the scrub desert” of Namibia.” – Publisher’s Weekly

Other new selections include:

Medieval Islamic Medicine by Peter E. Pormann and Emilie Savage-Smith. Georgetown University Press, 2007.
R128 .3 .P67

Camouflage by Tim Newark and Jonathan Miller. Thames & Hudson, 2007. UG449 .N46

For more recent arrivals, refer to our New Books List, organized by subject. Make sure to check Bobcat for their availability before you check the shelf. Happy Summer Reading!

The first new books of the summer have arrived, and can be found in our New Books display cases and cart! We welcome you to delve into our new and interesting selections!

Here are a few examples:

The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog by Bruce D. Perry and Maia Szalavitz. Basic Books, 2006.
RJ499.34 .P47
“…beautifully written, fascinating accounts of experiences working with emotionally stunted and traumatized children, child psychiatrist Perry educates readers about how early-life stress and violence affects the developing brain. He emphasizes that the brain of a traumatized child can be remolded with patterned, repetitive experiences in a safe environment. Most importantly, as such trauma involves the shattering of human connections, ‘lasting, caring connections to others’ are irreplaceable in healing; medications and therapy alone cannot do the job. ‘Relationships are the agents of change and the most powerful therapy is human love,’ Perry concludes.”- Publisher’s Weekly

The Sixth Extinction by Terry Glavin. St. Martin’s Press,2007.
QH75 .G58
“Prolific natural history author Glavin offers a startling new definition of extinction that includes not only loss of animal species but also disappearing aspects of the human condition. While traveling the world in search of scarlet macaws, Amur sturgeon, and the Malayan tiger, Glavin considers the diminishing whale culture of a Norwegian village and the loss of King apples. “We lose a distinct species, of one sort or another, every ten minutes,” he asserts, then reveals that languages, architecture, and entire vistas of human history are vanishing just as precipitously. Through carefully selected examples and thoughtful contemplation, Glavin suggests that we risk forgetting who we were, our stories, and our very notion of singularity and individuality as extinctions rise. In prose that tempts the reader to linger over each word, he turns a book of science and natural history into an elegy to the world in which we live and so casually disregard, creating nonfiction with a poet’s heart and a message of the utmost importance.”- Booklist

Other new selections include:

The Hudson: An Illustrated Guide to the Living River by Stanne, Panetta, and Forist
QH104.5.H83 S74
Bleeding to Ease the Pain: Cutting, Self-Injury, and the Adolescent Search for Self by Lori G. Plante
RJ506.S44 P43
Females are MOSAICS: X Inactivation and Sex Differences in Disease by Barbara R. Migeon
QH600.5 .M54

For more recent arrivals, refer to our New Books List which is organized by subject. Make sure to check Bobcat for their availability before you check the shelf!