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How the Great White Egret Spurred Bird Conservation
I was certain that the bird's plumage had to have been faked, but all the photographer did was darken the background. Those feathers were real
July 15, 2011 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Castaway Cuisine, Fictional and Real
How would you survive if stranded on a desert island with only your wits and the resources at hand?
July 13, 2011 |
By Lisa Bramen
Summer Reading List: Seven Tasty New Titles
The common thread among these recent releases is that the best food stories are really about people
June 24, 2011 |
By Lisa Bramen
Salisbury Steak: Civil War Health Food
After 30 years of research Dr. Salisbury finally published his ideas, setting off one of the earliest American fad diets
June 22, 2011 |
By Lisa Bramen
Books for Dads Who Love to Cook (Or Want to Learn)
Our 21st century culture is encouraging men to dispense with old gender roles and crack out the pots and pans
June 17, 2011 |
By Jesse Rhodes
How E.B. White Wove Charlotte’s Web
A new book explores how the author of the beloved children’s book was inspired by his love for nature and animals
June 03, 2011 |
By Chloë Schama
Pen and Ink Dinosaurs: Tommysaurus Rex
Tyrannosaurus rex is the antithesis of everything a good pet should be. “Literally awful and almost certainly needing a special insurance policy” to keep
May 26, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
The Manga Guide to Relativity
There's a special place in my heart for non-traditional science books. I snapped up Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species in graphic novel form. And I'm still drooling over the copy of Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout that sits in my colleague Laura's office; it...
May 12, 2011 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Wicked Bugs (and Spiders and Worms and Other Creepy Crawlies)
Let's face it, we don't like bugs. Sure, they do plenty of good---such as keeping their naughty brethren in check, contributing to the world of medicine, providing key roles in the food webs that are essential to healthy ecosystems---but we can't help but focus on the bad. And so does Amy Stewart i...
May 03, 2011 |
By Sarah Zielinski
What Secrets Do Ancient Medical Texts Hold?
The Smithsonian's Alain Touwaide studies ancient books to identify medicines used thousands of years ago
May 2011 |
By Megan Gambino
The Essentials: Six Books on the Civil War
These six histories of the Civil War that are must-reads if you want to better understand the conflict
April 20, 2011 |
By T.A. Frail
The Curious World of Zombie Science
Zombies seem to be only growing in popularity, and I'm not talking about the biological kind
April 18, 2011 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Pen and Ink Dinosaurs: Dinosaurs: A Celebration
Paleo, Age of Reptiles, Tyrant—this week I've been looking back at comics that tell the stories of dinosaurs in Mesozoic settings (no humans allowed). How dinosaurs have appeared in comics can tell us something about the way images of these creatures have changed and how science trickles into popul...
April 07, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
Pen and Ink Dinosaurs: Tyrant
Comic books about the day-to-day lives of dinosaurs pop up only every once in a while. More often than not, pen and ink dinosaurs threaten to stomp and chomp unlucky humans who cross their paths, and occasionally a dinosaur will make a cameo appearance in one of the more famous comic franchises. By...
April 06, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
Pen and Ink Dinosaurs: Age of Reptiles
Yesterday's post kicked off my look back at dinosaurs that stomped, roared and chomped their way through comics with Jim Lawson's Paleo. Rather than placing dinosaurs in the modern era or sending people back to the Cretaceous, Lawson's stories stood out because he considered dinosaurs in their own ...
April 05, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
Traditional Cookbooks vs. E-Readers, Searches and Apps
Whenever a new cookbook comes into my possession, the first thing I do is sit down, scan through the recipes and use Post-Its to flag the things I might actually take the time to make, paying attention to ingredients and the time required to pull a dish together. It makes for easy referencing, espe...
March 31, 2011 |
By Jesse Rhodes
What Do You Call a Flock of Birds?
Recently, while perusing the shelves of my bird-crazy colleague Laura, I came across "Winged Wonders: A Celebration of Birds in Human History," by Peter Watkins and Jonathan Stockland. The book is full of examples of how birds can be found in art and language, but what particularly intrigued me was...
March 29, 2011 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Fourteen Fun Facts About Squid, Octopuses and Other Cephalopods
Most people are familiar with cephalopods, even if they don't realize it. Those tasty fried calamari, for example, are squid, as are the octopuses you sometimes see on a restaurant menu. But the cephalopod world is huger and more fascinating than the limited taste of the restaurant world, as Wendy ...
March 10, 2011 |
By Sarah Zielinski
How to Make the Pies From Waitress and Other Movie-Inspired Meals
It's that time once again when people do last-minute shopping for their Oscar parties, which leads to the agonizing task of meal planning. For those of you who really want to work the themed party angle, check out Cooking with the Movies: Meals on Reels. The book draws inspiration from 14 films fro...
February 25, 2011 |
By Jesse Rhodes
Long Overdue, the Bookmobile Is Back
Even in the age of the Kindle and the Nook, the library on wheels can still attract an audience
February 23, 2011 |
By Jeff Greenwald
