I picked up this collection of essays on impulse at the Ann Arbor book festival a few years ago. It ended up being one of my road trip books over Christmas, and it was excellent for that purpose. I could read an essay or two to my husband when he wanted some distraction while driving but then not feel bad about reading on without him when he'd rather listen to music of have silence.

Like pretty much any collection of essays, I found that one fell flat for me and that a couple covered similar ground in a way that was repetitive, but overall I really enjoyed this collection. Most of the essays were strong, I learned new things about a wide variety of scientific disciplines, and several things I learned have entered into some of my everyday conversation. A solid collection. ( )

I can imagine a wide variety of situations where one might want to skim this book first for topics to talk about - long car rides, extended airport waits, constrained dinner parties where one wants to stay away from discussions of politics or religion. Since reading this collection of essays, I've summarized 4 or 5 of them to start animated discussions of what discovering water on another planet might mean, how behavior might be inherited and how we make decisions about punishment. Feeling dull? Read one of these essays. ( )

the best part was the Perdomo painting on the cover ( )

Future Science is the first installment in what editor Max Brockman hopes will be an annual collection; it consists of essays by young scientists who, for the first time, are presenting to a general reading audience the scientific hypotheses they are pursuing in their scholarly research. Nearly every essay is accessible (I skipped 2 of the 18 due to lack of interest). Brockman's editing gives you more than would be found by simply reading the abstract and conclusion from the full, published, scholarly reports; it also preserves the scientists' voices and excitement for their subject matter.

I loved this book for its variety of topics coupled with detailed overviews that gave me a clear understanding of the theses and research. I must admit that there was a strong weight toward psychology, neuroscience, and behavioral evolution; however, for me that was a perfect fit. When looking through the table of contents, The Emergence of Human Audiovisual Communication sounded like it would be a real snoozer, yet it turned out to be one of my favorite essays. Asif F. Ghazanfar explained that we communicate within a specific frequency range; this consists of the speech signal, rhythmic facial movements (singular to humans), and rhythms in the auditory regions of a listener's brain: all of them cycle at 3 - 8 Hz (cycles per second). Trust me, it's really interesting when you read the entire essay. Other favorites dealt with developmental and behavioral psychology, often related to children (Children's Helping Hands; Nurture, Nature, and the Stress that is Life). Another surprise favorite discussed the relevance of looking for life in other planets' vast oceans where, as seen in deep hydrothermal vents within our own ocean depths, life could be based on chemosynthesis (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3093485/) rather than photosynthesis. ( )

the best part was the Perdomo painting on the cover ( )