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Tag: bizarre

Cover image of The 50 most extreme places in our solar system
Sep 18 2020

Books for 2020: unusual books for an unusual year

Posted on September 18, 2020September 18, 2020 by Laurie Neuerburg

2020 has been an unusual year, to say the least. A pandemic, murder hornets, an Iowa derecho, hurricanes, racial injustice, wildfires, and most recently a discovery on Venus that points to potential alien life. It is a lot to take in and it can be a relief to bury oneself in reading. What else could 2020 bring? Check out these unusual books chosen to match an unusual year.

Aliens

Alien universe: extraterrestrial life in our mind and in the cosmos

Confessions of an alien hunter: a scientist’s search for extraterrestrial intelligence

Exoplanets: diamond worlds, super Earths, pulsar planets, and the new search for life beyond our solar system

Out there: a scientific guide to alien life

We are not alone: why we have already found extraterrestrial life

Apocalypse

Apocalypse when?: calculating how long the human race will survive

Earth-shattering: violent supernovas, galactic explosions, biological mayhem, nuclear meltdowns, and other hazards to life in our universe

Surviving the apocalypse in the suburbs: the thrivalist’s guide to life without oil

Climate Change

The conundrum: how scientific innovation, increased efficiency, and good intentions can make our energy and climate problems worse 

Hack the planet: science’s best hope– or worst nightmare– for averting climate catastrophe

Our dying planet: an ecologist’s view of the crisis we face

Tropic of chaos: climate change and the new geography of violence

When the planet rages: natural disasters, global warming, and the future of the earth

Extreme weather

The 50 most extreme places in our solar system

Catastrophes!: earthquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes, and other earth-shattering disasters

Extreme weather: understanding the science of hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, heat waves, snow storms, global warming and other atmospheric disturbances

Firestorm: how wildfire will shape our future

The weather of the future: heat waves, extreme storms, and other scenes from a climate-changed planet

Insects

American pests: the losing war on insects from colonial times to DDT

The American plague: the untold story of yellow fever, the epidemic that shaped our history

Big fleas have little fleas: how discoveries of invertebrate diseases are advancing modern science

The secret life of flies

Wicked bugs: the louse that conquered Napoleon’s army & other diabolical insects

Plague and disease

Ebola : the natural and human history of a deadly virus

The ghost map: the story of London’s most terrifying epidemic–and how it changed science, cities, and the modern world

Minnesota, 1918: when flu, fire, and war ravaged the state

Pandemonium : bird flu, mad cow disease, and other biological plagues of the 21st century

Flu: the story of the great influenza pandemic of 1918 and the search for the virus that caused it

Spillover: animal infections and the next human pandemic

Pale rider: the Spanish Flu of 1918 and how it changed the world

A planet of viruses

Racism

Bad blood: the Tuskegee syphilis experiment

Is science racist?

From Darwin to Hitler: evolutionary ethics, eugenics, and racism in Germany

The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks

Medical apartheid: the dark history of medical experimentation on Black Americans from colonial times to the present

Troublesome science: the misuse of genetics and genomics in understanding race

Bizarre

The 7 laws of magical thinking: how irrational beliefs keep us happy, healthy, and sane

13 things that don’t make sense: the most baffling scientific mysteries of our time

AsapSCIENCE: answers to the world’s weirdest questions, most persistent rumors, and unexplained phenomena

It looked good on paper: bizarre inventions, design disasters, and engineering follies

Too big to know: rethinking knowledge now that the facts aren’t the facts, experts are everywhere, and the smartest person in the room is the room

Willful ignorance: the mismeasure of uncertainty 

Cover image of book Cover image of book Cover image of book Cover image of book Cover image of book Cover image of book Cover image of The 50 most extreme places in our solar system

Posted in Astronomy, Biology, Chemistry, Environmental Sciences, Math, PhysicsTagged 2020, aliens, apocalypse, bizarre, climate change, disease, extreme weather, insects, plagues, racism

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