Coles Science Center Blog

Sorry Guys, Punxsutawney Phil says six more weeks of winter. More coats, more ice, and more time indoors- sigh. Luckily we have new books! Check out these new books, it will take up at least 4 out of 6 of those weeks.

The Invention of Air
by Steven Johnson
Riverhead Hardcover
# ISBN-10: 1594488525
"From The New Yorker
The author of Everything Bad Is Good for You provides an entertaining account of the eighteenth-century scientist and radical Joseph Priestley's monumental discovery that
plants restore something fundamental, what we now know as oxygen,to the air. Johnson
also offers a clear-sighted and intelligent exploration of the conditions that are
propitious to scientific innovation, such as the availability of coffee and the
unfettered circulation of information through social networks."- Amazon.com

Lightness of Being: Mass, Ether, and the Unification of Forces
by Frank Wilczek
Basic Books
# ISBN-10: 0465003214

"From Publishers Weekly
Grand unification theories have long been a holy grail in science. Nobel Prize–winning
physicist Wilczek, who has himself made notable contributions in this field, offers a
survey of everything in the universe from quarks to black holes, elucidating the
current scientific thinking on how matter and energy interact. The two main concepts
are the Grid and the Core. ... This book is not for most general readers, but will be a hit with hard-core science buffs."-Amazon.com

A Life in Twilight: The Final Years of J. Robert Oppenheimer
by Mark Wolverton
St. Martin's Press
# ISBN-10: 0312374402

“ 'A Life in Twilight cuts through the myth of the tragic, guilt-ridden scientist to
offer a convincing account of J. Robert Oppenheimer’s life and activities after the
Atomic Energy Commission labeled him a ‘security risk’ in 1954. ... Mark Wolverton also conveys a vivid picture of America’s political crosscurrents,
scientific and academic communities, and media-driven popular culture in the 1950s and
early ’60s.'
---Paul Boyer, author of By the Bomb’s Early Light: American Thought and Culture at
the Dawn of the Atomic Age"-Amazon.com

Hank Willis Thomas: Pitch Blackness
by Rene de Guzman (Author), Robin Kelley (Author), Hank Willis Thomas (Photographer)
Aperture
# ISBN-10: 1597110728
"Hank Willis Thomas gained wide recognition with his highly provocative series B(r)
ANDED, which addresses the commodification of African-American male identity by
raising questions about visual culture and the power of logos. Pitch Blackness, his
first monograph, includes selections from this series and several others. The book
begins with a deeply personal and interpretive re-telling of the senseless murder of
young Songha Willis, the artist's cousin, who was robbed at gunpoint and murdered
outside a nightclub in Philadelphia in 2000. It then charts Hank Willis Thomas' career
as he grapples with the issues of grief, black-on-black violence in America and the
ways in which corporate culture is complicit in the crises of black male identity. The
concluding section presents his newest body of work, Unbranded--in which he examines
advertising and media representation of African-Americans. With his characteristic
pointedness and dark humor, Willis Thomas shows in Pitch Blackness why he is
considered one of today's most compelling emerging artists."-Amazon.com

The Public Health reference guide has been updated. Follow this url ( http://nyu.libguides.com/publichealth ) to see what's new. This guide provides information on finding all types of information regarding public health including tutorials, guides to finding data and more!

The Coles Science Center at Bobst Library Presents the
Coles Science Salon

"The General Circulation of the Atmosphere, from Colombus to Meteosat"

by Olivier Pauluis , PhD
Center for Atmosphere Ocean Science,
Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, NYU

Our day-to-day experience with the weather could lead us to believe that wind is unpredictable and chaotic. However, when looked upon on a larger scale, the atmosphere exhibits a well-defined global circulation. This circulation plays a key role in the climate system by transporting energy and water around the Earth, preventing the Poles from becoming too cold and the equatorial regions too warm. In this talk, Professor Pauluis will discuss the key features of the atmospheric circulation, how they have been discovered and explained, and how they are related to different weather patterns around the globe.

For more on Professor Pauluis's research, read his latest article in Science on how temperature and humidity affect global atmospheric circulation, here. [Citation: Pauluis O, Czaja A, Korty R. The global atmospheric circulation on moist isentropes. Science. 2008;321(5892):1075-1078.]

DATE: Monday, March 9, 2009
TIME: 5:30-6:30pm
PLACE: East Room, 2nd Floor, Bobst Library

Refreshments will be served.

***RSVP Required***
Go here: http://tinyurl.com/salon-rsvp

February 12th is Charles Darwin's birthday (aka, Darwin Day), and this year marks his 200th.

In honor of the man, his theory of evolution, and his famous book, On the Origin of Species (call # QH365.O2 1859a), we had an impromptu celebration today on the 9th floor, complete with cupcakes and pink frosting.

So come hang out at Coles Science Center, because you never know when we're going to feed you!

For library resources on evolution, see our Research Guide for Evolution, Complexity, Information Theory, and Entropy.

"Artist Justine Cooper's large-format photographs of the scientific collections at the American Museum of Natural History document the intersection of science, curation, and human curiosity," via Seedmagazine.com [audio slideshow].

More on Seed's "Darwin 200" series here.

Good stuff!