We Are All Stardust: Scientists Who Shaped Our World Talk about Their Work, Their Lives, and What They Still Want to Know
Stefan Klein
Language: English
Pages: 181
ISBN: 2:00323695
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
World-leading natural and social scientists shed light on their discoveries and lives in conversation with an award-winning science writer.
When acclaimed science writer Stefan Klein asks Nobel Prize– winning chemist Roald Hoffmann what sets scientists apart, Hoffmann says, "First and foremost, curiosity." In this collection of intimate conversations with 19 of the world's best-known scientists (including three Nobel Laureates), Klein lets us listen in as today's leading minds reveal what they still hope to discover—and how their paradigm-changing work entwines with their lives outside the lab.
From the sports car that physicist Steven Weinberg says helped him on his quest for "the theory of everything" to the jazz musicians who gave psychologist Alison Gopnik new insight into raising children, scientists explain how they find inspiration everywhere.
Including...
-Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins on selfishness
-Anthropologist Sarah Hrdy on motherhood
-Primatologist Jane Goodall on animal behavior
-Neuroscientist V. S. Ramachandran on consciousness
-Geographer Jared Diamond on chance in history
And other luminaries!
Plant Factory: An Indoor Vertical Farming System for Efficient Quality Food Production
or pneumonia and you die. On the death certificate they then write “heart failure.” That way, as a doctor, you’re always right. Usually, medical science assumes that diseases and not old age lead to death. You make the opposite claim. What does the word “disease” actually mean? It can mean different things: On the one hand, there are ailments with a clear cause. We’re infected with some bacterium or virus, and the symptoms set in. That’s where medicine has had its great successes. On the other
aggression is the opposite effect, the fueling of aggression. Observed violence can be contagious; some scientists claim that young people in particular imitate the crimes they see in movies and video games. I’m skeptical about that, because I don’t know of a single study that really proves a connection between our innate ability to imitate, media violence, and brutality in real life. But even if violent video games and movies don’t provoke aggressive acts, they can desensitize people to the
altruistic tendencies—or stifle them. A colleague of mine compared two bicycle messenger services. In one of them, the messengers were paid per hour, while in the other, they were paid per delivery. In an experiment similar to the trust game, the messengers with the hourly wages proved to be far more altruistic than their colleagues who worked at a piece rate. Apparently, the latter had simply gotten used to the idea of every man for himself. Haven’t we all gotten used to that? The idea that
engineered microorganisms. I don’t find my estimate too pessimistic at all. So you stand by your bet that in the next twenty years a million people or more will die in an attack waged with biological weapons or an accident caused by biotechnology? You put a thousand pounds on that. Yes, indeed. Of course, I hope I lose the bet. How did your colleagues react to your prophecies? Almost all of them agreed with me—to my surprise. It seems to me indisputable that the threats of the twenty-first
occasion of the Darwin anniversary festival. Hrdy spoke softly and hoarsely, now and then struggling for control of her vocal cords. Several lectures on the female side of evolution had nearly cost her her voice. Professor Hrdy, how do you remember your mother? She was a very beautiful, very smart, and very ambitious woman. You once described her as “by some standards, an appalling mother.” What did you mean by that? Well, her position in society was more important to her than her kids. For