Scientific books for the holidays

Science Books for the Holidays

Alvarez, Walter, The Most Unlikely Travel. A great history of our planet and of ourselves, Art and Science, 2018. It is one of the first volumes of a new publisher related to the Museum of Natural History of the 39, University of Porto. With a preface by the director of this museum, Nuno Ferrand, and a renowned science historian, Henrique Leitão, this work presents the "great story", the story of the evolutionary process that begins in the cosmos, focuses on the Earth and life. in humanity. The author, an American geologist, co-wrote with his father the theory that it was the fall of a large meteorite that extinguished dinosaurs about 60 million years ago. .
André, João-Paulo, Potions and passions. Chemistry and Opera, Gradiva, 2018. This book of a professor of chemistry at the University of Minho and opera enthusiast is a masterpiece that brings together the "two cultures", to be able to connect in a captivating way these two seemingly distant domains, which are chemistry like opera. With wisdom and elegance, the author shows us how much chemistry there is in the opera. In the presentation that the book had in Braga, the famous soprano Elisabeth Matos sang two areas. And the book was presented later in Porto in Coimbra, with student performances of local music conservatories.

Gonçalves-Maia, Raquel, Francis Crick. The DNA, 3D puzzle, Colibri Editions, 2018. The author, chemistry teacher, essayist and Romanist, tells in this small volume the life story of one of the discoverers of the structure of DNA, the molecule that contains the code of life. This is flight. 5 from a collection centered on the life and work of great chemists (Two atoms of molecules). Other volumes in the collection include biographies of Nobel laureate Linus Pauling (volume 2) and John Desmond Bernal, chemist and political activist (vol 3).

Magdalena, Carlos, The Messiah of Plants. Adventures in Search of the World's Rarest Species ", Byzantium, 2018. The author works at the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, on the outskirts of London, one of the world's largest and best botanical gardens . You have dedicated your life to finding and saving endangered plants. A volume, with illustrations, fascinating for those who are interested in the diversified and prodigious plant world.

Reeves, Hubert, The Time Bank That Passes By. Cosmic meditations. Gradiva, 2018. The author of the famous astrophysicist and broadcaster of Canadian science, author of A Little Blue and Several Other Good Books, leaves in this book a summary of his scientific and philosophical thought, where at both admiration for the cosmos and awareness of the need to defend life on Earth. Gradiva has also recently published two comics Reeves, Hubert Reeves Explains Biodiversity and The Universe, both designed by Daniel Casanave.

Verney, Luís António. The True Study Method, Círculo de Leitores, 2018. This volume is one of the greatest works of Portuguese culture, since it is the first educational treatise written in Portuguese. It deals with both the study of physics and chemistry as well as poetics and rhetoric … When it came out in the mid-eighteenth century, it sparked a great controversy between the 'old' And the "moderns". This is flight. 27 from the Obras Pioneiras da Cultura Portuguesa collection, which I coordinate with José Eduardo Franco, of which 10 volumes have already been published.

If you prefer science fiction, you have at your disposal the classic Robert Heinlein A stranger in a strange land (2 vols., Emergency exit 2918), and the author of the volume, author of the introduction and notes, Adelino Cardoso. or the thriller that has sold widely in the United States The Gene of Atlantis, by AG Riddle (Paper Moon, 2018).
Enjoy reading Carlos Fiolhais (Professor of Physics of the University of Coimbra)
Content provided by Science in the Regional Press – Ciência Viva