The Why Files: The Science Behind the News - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

DAVID TENENBAUM has written about science, health, and the environment for publications including the Los Angeles Times, Technology Review and the Milwaukee Journal.

TERRY DEVITT is director of research communications for the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

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Table of Contents

PENGUIN BOOKS

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Introduction

HEADLINE NEWS

METRO

BUSINESS LIFE

SPORTS

ARTS & LEISURE

FOOD

STYLE

HEALTH

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

TRAVEL

WEATHER

HOME & GARDEN

AUTO NEWS

LIFE & LOVE

OPINION PAGES

Acknowledgements

Art Credits

PENGUIN BOOKS

THE WHY FILES

Decades ago, after “careers” in farming, barn recycling, leather-bag design, and sauerkraut pitching, David J. Tenenbaum reinvented himself as a science writer. Obsessed with understanding how things work, why they don’t, and how come we should care anyway, he’s written about science, health, and the environment for local, regional, and national publications, including the Los Angeles Times, Technology Review, abcnews.com, and the Milwaukee Journal. When asked to apply for a position at The Why Files, he responded, “Doesn’t that sound like a JOB?” but then applied anyway, and helped concoct the Files’ humorous but slightly offbeat approach to science news. His work at The Why Files has received awards from the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the National Association for Science Writers. Tenenbaum is also coauthor of a recent college textbook on human biology and is author of several “how-to” books, written for either professional builders or rank amateurs.

Terry Devitt is a cofounder and editor of The Why Files. By day, he is director of research communications for the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Why Files headquarters. He writes about all areas of science, and his work has garnered recognition from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which elected him to the status of fellow in late 2007; the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education; and the Society of Professional Journalists. His freelance credits include Astronomy magazine, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Bulletin, Orion, the Los Angeles Times syndicate, and the children’s science magazine Muse.

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First published in Penguin Books 2009

All rights reserved

A Stonesong Press Book

Portions of this book first appeared on-line on whyfiles.org.

Illustration credits appear on page 190.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA

Tenenbaum, David.
The why files : the science behind the news / David Tenenbaum ; with Terry Devitt.
p. cm.

eISBN : 978-1-101-02924-4

1. Science—Miscellanea. I. Title.
Q173.T284 2009
500—dc22 2008029566

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To the taxpayers of the United States
and the rest of the planet,
who fund the best science around.

And to the late Denice Denton, without whom
there would be no Why Files.

Introduction

For most of us, science is a distant and mysterious process. Practiced by detached geniuses, conducted in forbidding settings, and deliberately shrouded in language and symbology that few laypeople can comprehend, modern scientific research seems inaccessible, even a bit frightening. And scientists themselves, and the organizations that employ them, have helped spread this sterile view of the remoteness of the scientific enterprise, despite many sincere efforts to the contrary.

This is troubling because we live in a scientific world. In the United States and the rest of the developed world, there isn’t much in our daily lives that is untouched by science and its technological offspring. Take music, for instance. A hundred and some years ago, if you wanted to hear music you needed to find a musician or orchestra or, if you were capable, you made your own. Today, through a progression of scientific and technological achievements in physics, chemistry, and engineering, the world’s best musicians can perform on demand in our living rooms and we can carry and play more music than can be heard in a week, right from our pocket. This reality was impossible even for the Thomas Edisons of the world to forecast.

We live longer, healthier lives because of science. We are more mobile and have more information at our fingertips, literally, than is squeezed into the 530 miles of bookshelves in the Library of Congress. We can look at our planet through the eye of a satellite 23,000 miles above Earth to assess tomorrow’s weather. We can peer to the edge of the cosmos using any of a battery of monstrous telescopes situated on remote mountaintops or floating in Earth’s orbit. And we can communicate in a heartbeat with any of the estimated 665 million people—fully one-tenth of the world’s population—who are linked by the Internet.

Science is also intimately connected to many of the problems of the world, as knowledge can have a high price. Turning science to practical ends, what we call technology, has spawned grave issues such as climate change, environmental degradation of all kinds, the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and the depletion of the world’s resources. Many of our diciest biomedical controversies (think stem cells, cloning, and the wrenching dilemma of Terri Schiavo and other “pull the plug” cases) can be attributed to scientific knowledge and our newfound abilities to manipulate the levers of life.

Science, of course, may also help us extricate ourselves from these dilemmas. Our best bet for confronting diseases such as diabetes, asthma, AIDS, malaria, bird flu, and other horrible afflictions, in all likelihood, will be found in the laboratory, since the drugs that help us lead longer, healthier lives can only be developed by scientists through complicated and expensive programs of drug discovery.

It is possible that science and technology will help resolve some of our serious environmental problems as well. If we are to avoid future energy crises as the world’s supplies of oil and natural gas diminish, it is likely that scientists will be riding to...