Science – Page 6 – Scott J. Pearson’s Book Review

The Youngest Science: Notes of a Medicine-Watcher

By Scott J. Pearson | August 28, 2019April 1, 2020 by Scott J. Pearson

Lewis Thomas spent his life revolving around various aspects of medicine – apprenticeship, patients, research, administration, being a patient, and writing. In this memoir, he shares tales and insights from all of these experiences in an easy-to-digest and relatable format. I especially enjoyed his notes from his time as Dean of Yale’s medical school. Perhaps it’s because I work for an associate dean of medicine now. I appreciate his admonishments not to intervene too much…

Science Writing-Communication

Review: Writing Science in Plain English

By Scott J. Pearson | July 12, 2019July 12, 2019 by Scott J. Pearson

My research work is moving from writing code to explaining the software that I’ve written. In general, I enjoy learning about language, and I picked up this book to extend my knowledge as well as to refresh myself on good practices for scientific writing. Scientific writing is often dry and difficult to understand – but as Greene points out, it doesn’t have to be. By following good writing practices (in the tradition of the famed…

Science

Review: Silent Spring

By Scott J. Pearson | May 30, 2019May 29, 2019 by Scott J. Pearson

In today’s world, environmentalism is still controversial, although it’s becoming more popular (witness the growth of the Green Party in Europe’s recent elections). Environmentalism and economics are often counterposed against each other as if one loses when the other wins. In 1962, Rachel Carson wrote this book that brought environmental concerns to the fore. She contended that taking care of the plants and animals around us is a worthwhile project. For the most part, smart…

Biography-Memoir Science

Einstein: His Life and Universe

By Scott J. Pearson | November 22, 2018 by Scott J. Pearson

by Walter IsaacsonCopyright (c) 2007. This book, based upon recent public releases of Einstein’s private letters, provides a more intimate portrait of Einstein than has been possible before recent years. Einstein’s prowess as an intellectual and a scholar is well-known. His closest relationships – with his sons, both of his wives, and his daughters – has not been well-known. What do we discover from this in-depth look at the man who helped set the course…

Software-Technology Visualization

Information Dashboard Design: Displaying data for at-a-glance monitoring

By Scott J. Pearson | November 3, 2018 by Scott J. Pearson

by Stephen Few(c) Copyright 2013. Dashboards are a hot topic in our information-laden world. They are imagined by those in the design world (often very poorly) and implemented by programmers who do not take their imagination any further. This book, written by an acknowledged expert in the field of visualization, describes how to design dashboards that communicate essential data to users, mostly business-people. As such, its audience consists of designers, not programmers. Although I am…

Books Software-Technology Visualization

Resources to Explore: Visualizations

By Scott J. Pearson | October 17, 2018 by Scott J. Pearson

Information Visualization: Perception for Design by Colin Ware Visual Thinking for Design by Colin Ware

Software-Technology Visualization

Mastering Gephi Network Visualization: Produce advanced network graphs in Gephi and gain valuable insights into your network datasets

By Scott J. Pearson | October 10, 2018 by Scott J. Pearson

by Ken ChervenCopyright (c) 2015. I fooled around with Gephi at work some months ago. It’s one of the leading options that handles Social Network Analysis, a field that is taking off due to seemingly ubiquitous datasets due to academic publishing and social media. This book teaches you the basics of what Gephi has to offer vis-a-vis this field. I found most interesting the idea of a temporally-based social network – i.e., one that grows…

Biography-Memoir Science

Galileo, Courtier: The Practice of Science in the Culture of Absolutism

By Scott J. Pearson | October 10, 2018 by Scott J. Pearson

by Mario BiagioliCopyright (c) 1993. This work, now considered the definitive treatment on the Galileo saga where he was silenced for arguing for the Copernican view that the earth revolved around the sun and not the other way around, argues that the setting of Galileo’s story has never been well-considered. He was a courtier. He lived under the patronage of various rulers of his day and had to produce great wonders for them. As such,…

Books Healthcare Science Software-Technology

Resouces to Explore

By Scott J. Pearson | August 4, 2018 by Scott J. Pearson

Healthcare Science

The Language of Life: DNA and the Revolution in Personalized Medicine

By Scott J. Pearson | July 29, 2018 by Scott J. Pearson

by Francis S. Collins(c) 2010 My employer (Vanderbilt University Medical Center) is the world’s leader in implementing the ideas around personalized medicine, so I picked up this audiobook to educate me on what’s going on around me while I drove to and from work. In it, I found interesting stories from patients combined with weighty data from the human genome. Collins maintains a warm bedside manner as well as a writer as he does as…