Readers and Writers | New York Academy of Sciences

	The Evolution of Einstein An interview with author Walter Isaacson The acclaimed biographer and onetime CNN chairman personalizes history's most famous genius.
	Neurosecurity and Scientists Why DARPA funds brain research, and what scientists should do about it In Mind Wars, bioethicist Jonathan Moreno tells why the defense industry is interested in new discoveries in neuroscience.
	Richard Dawkins: The God Delusion Why the Pursuit of Truth Precludes Faith in the Divine Oxford University professor of public understanding in science, Richard Dawkins, makes a scientific argument against the existence of a supreme being.
	A Scientist on Wall Street How a theoretical physicist made a career in banking Emanuel Derman was a pioneer in the now-established field of financial engineering.
	Climate Change Wakeup Call Are we past the point of no return? British climate change expert James Lovelock says Earth is under a more dire threat than even most environmentalists imagine.
	Biotech and Blasphemy How religion shapes societal stances on scientific advances Princeton molecular biology professor and author Lee Silver suggests that opposition to biotechnology can be traced to subliminal spiritual beliefs.
	Making Babies How Simple Rules Build Complex Bodies Nobel Laureate Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard talks about embryology at the molecular level, connecting the development of fruit flies to that of vertebrates.
	Singularities Christian de Duve on the Origin of Life In his new book, Christian de Duve examines the molecular mechanisms common to all known organisms and ponders the inevitability of life as we know it.
	A Walk across the Landscape The Anthropic View of the Universe According to Leonard Susskind, the universe we know might be just one crude but carefully balanced case among a host of different universes, each with its own physical laws.
	United We Stand A Problem-Solving Group for Successful Women Scientists Author and former scientist Ellen Daniell discussed how participating in a small problem-solving group can lead to success in academic and other careers.
	The Search for Memory Eric Kandel on His Life and Work In celebration of his new memoir, the Nobel Prize-winning neuroscientist recounted many formative episodes from his life in science.
	The Road to Discovery How Great Breakthroughs Happen For author Alan Lightman, reading landmark scientific papers provides a window onto the lives and intellectual adventures of the men and women behind the 20th century's most influential ideas.
	Resolving Evolution's Greatest Paradox Darwin's theory of natural selection has never been very good at explaining novelty or complexity in living organisms. The new theory of "facilitated variation," however, promises to fill in the gaps.
	I Pledge Allegiance How Human Minds Make Human Kinds Author David Berreby discussed how science is beginning to understand and explain tribal loyalty, the apparently innate human tendency to divide the world into "us" and "them."
	Reversing Time's Arrow How Richard Feynman Tamed Infinity Missives from Feynman in Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track, a book of his letters edited by daughter Michelle Feynman, reveal his genius and wit. What was his contribution to the canon of 20th-century quantum physics?
	The Story of Bioweapons From Germ Theory to Mass Warfare In her book, Jeanne Guillemin explores the history of bioweapons and the scientific discoveries that made them possible.
	How Trauma Changes Us Life after 9/11 Marian Fontana's husband was a firefighter who perished at the World Trade Centers. Sandro Galea is a medical epidemiologist whose research team interviewed 10,000 New Yorkers after the terrorist attacks of 2001. The two shared their perspectives on the psychological effects of mass trauma.
	Reef Madness Charles Darwin, Alexander Agassiz, and the Meaning of Coral While the nineteenth century's greatest scientific debate was that over Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, the century's other great scientific debate, almost forgotten now, posed problems even more vexing than the species question did.
	A Slippery Slope Facts, Ethics, and Policy Guiding Neuroscience Today The science of the brain is quickly coming of age, but presents a host of unclear choices with massive personal, legal, and social repercussions. A two-day conference considered ethical problems raised by new imaging technologies, drugs, and implants that interface with the nervous system.
	Ethics in the Age of Neuroscience A Conversation between Michael Gazzaniga and Tom Wolfe The prominent neuroscientist and the bestselling author discussed how knowledge of the brain can shed light on controversial issues and, perhaps surprisingly, bolster moral responsibility.
	A Tale of Two Loves The Physicist as Novelist Alan Lightman believes that scientists and artists share a certain type of creativity. Both venture into unknown realms, with only a sense of order to guide them.
	The Story of a 25-Year Collaboration Celebrating David Hubel and Torsten Wiesel Scientific collaborators David Hubel and Torsten Wiesel were joined by fellow Nobelist Eric Kandel in celebration of Wiesel and Hubel�s recently published book.
	Christof Koch and the Quest for Consciousness With Comments by Oliver Sacks In a long collaboration with the late Francis Crick, Christof Koch attempted to identify the specific mechanisms in the brain that create perception. Recent experiments have provided the first, tentative support of their hypotheses, suggesting that "zombie agents" might control what you see.
	Inventing Intelligence Jeff Hawkins on How to Build a Functioning Brain How many notes of a pop tune do you need to hear before you can identify the song? The brain's ability to predict the whole from familiar parts might be the key to understanding how it works, according to author Jeff Hawkins.
	Big Bang Simon Singh Takes on the Cosmos First proposed by a Belgian priest in the 1920s, the Big Bang found confirmation in the 1970s with the discovery of its "cosmic echo." Along the way, quite a few scientists changed their minds, including Albert Einstein.
	The Quest for a Radical Cure Susan Quinn's Tale of Human Trials and Oral Tolerance Could oral tolerance, a means of quieting the immune system, be used to treat autoimmune diseases? This book excerpt tells a gritty tale from the land of human trials.
	Teaching the Elegance of the Universe An Evening with Brian Greene and John Mighton Is every child a prodigy?
	Homeostasis and the East Wind Walter B. Cannon, William James, and Sigmund Freud Gerald Weissmann on the biology of emotions
	The Autonomy of Biology How the Complexity of Living Systems Makes Biology Unique
	Darwin's Audubon Gerald Weissmann on the Art of Science
	Mirror, Mirror Robin Kerrod and the Romance of Astronomy
	Quirks and Quacks Bernard Shaw and Medical Ethics
	Rivers for Life: Managing Water for People and Nature An Evening with Sandra Postel & Brian Richter
	Whose View of Life? Embryos, Cloning, and Stem Cells An Evening with Jane Maienschein
	The Prism and the Pendulum An Evening with Robert P. Crease The ten most beautiful experiments in science
	Crossing Boundaries Historian Jane Maienschein Combines Science, Philosophy & Politics in Her Book on Stem Cell Research—and in Her Life
	The True, the Beautiful & the Good Philosopher Robert P. Crease Looks at the Beauty in Science
	Better than Prozac An Evening with Samuel Barondes