Sam KeanRezensionen

I always enjoy a good Sam Kean story and these were no exception. I was a little concerned as I had just read Gory details, adventures from the dark side of science by Engelhaupt and Elephants on acid and other bizarre experiments by Alex Boese and was afraid I might have had enough "bad science " stories. Kean, though, gave a more nuanced picture of the scientists and why they did what they did. If you find yourself in need of some excellent examples of how the road to hell is paved with good intentions... look no further.
I did feel like the female scientist in the last chapter was added just for some balance, but perhaps it was needed.

I love Sam Kean's books. Chemistry was not my forte in school, but he explains things so lucidly , while also mixing in interesting stories and humor, that he makes me want to pull up a chair to the periodical table. He goes through chapter by chapter all the gases present in our atmosphere and kind of explains why you should care, what they do and what you can learn from them. Of course there is stuff on flatulence, as well as volcanoes, the search for extra-terrestrial life and gas warfare. By the way, be sure to read the notes, there is always good stuff in kean's notes, sure to make you smile or laugh

Very enjoyable, as are all of kean's books. I was familiar with most of the stories, but liked the way the were tied together and presented. The notes are a must read, both in the book and online

Obra de divulgación extraordinaria en torno al ADN, los genes, epigenomas, etc, etcGEN
En algunas partes es bastante técnico y un poco complejo de entender si no aplicas toda la concentración, pero en general abre la mente a una comprensión de cuáles son nuestras instrucciones internas y quizá de su posible dominio con sus implicaciones éticas, sanitarias y demás.
Hay temas contados de forma impresionante intercalando la historia, fundamental en todas las ciencias para saber dónde vamos sabiendo de dónde venimos. Combina el lenguaje común y el científico con maestría.
Es necesario saber sobre este tema. Hay que leerlo.½

Very dense, though interesting. I would need to own a copy and very slowly dip into it every now and then

Wildly entertaining! A perfect science book, informative and witty. I've liked all Sam Kean's books but this is my favorite.

Whew! What a ride! Took me 2 years to listen to the whole shebang, but time very well spent indeed. A history of everything from the viewpoint of the Periodic Table. Science, politics, love, murder mysteries, medicine, time travel, cooking, you name it. A few moments of terminal quantum physics confusion here and there are worth the journey. And you come away with years worth of interesting trivia!

Greatly enjoyed this. Part explanation for the lay person, part historical journey through the history of genetics, this book and its notes were a joy to read. The DNA acrostic was fun, too- flashbacks of BIOCH 301.

Fascinating way to spin this info out. Kean is a master at digging up these arcane, seemingly completely unrelated stories and then bringing them around to the theme at hand. Bloody wish I could accurately recall more of them at cocktail parties.½

Sam Kean is a writer of books that discuss scientific discoveries in a relatable and entertaining style. Four of his books, The Violinist’s Thumb, The Disappearing Spoon, The Tale of The Dueling Neurosurgeons, and this one: Caesar’s Last Breath, were all named as Amazon's top science book of the year.

Caesar’s Last Breath tackles the subject of the air we breathe; of gases more generally; and how their composition on earth tells the story of the evolution of the earth and of the ways in which mankind has changed its planet.

Nitrogen and oxygen are the main ingredients of air, making up 99 per cent of what you inhale. If you ever wondered how small atoms (and in combination, molecules) actually are, Sam Kean includes a stunning set of statistics about the air we breathe. Every time you take a breath, you inhale nine sextillion molecules of nitrogen (78% of the air) and two sextillion molecules of oxygen (21% of air).

But you inhale a lot of the remaining 1% of molecules as well; for example, whenever you breathe, you take in 120 billion molecules of sulfur dioxide and 60 billion molecules of hydrogen sulfide. Other gases you breathe include methane, ethanol, helium, argon, and more.

That one per cent turns out to be pretty significant. It is responsible for all of global warming as well as all scents and perfumes. It includes gases released by volcanic eruptions, a number of pollutants from industrial development, and particles from nuclear bomb fallout.

Kean’s exploration of the history of the air we breathe is peppered with interesting and eccentric characters. He begins with Harry Randall Truman, a stubborn man who refused to leave Mount Saint Helens in 1980 even after two months worth of warnings from the mountain itself. He tells what would have happened to him, as well as to the victims of the great eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, and how those volcanic gases altered the atmosphere.

He profiles various chemists who studied gases, such as Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier - executed during the French Revolution - who once mummified a colleague to study breathing. He describes attempts to affect levels of rainfall, to predict the weather, and to take advantage of layers of air in the atmosphere for spying, this latter effort leading to “UFO” sightings around Roswell, New Mexico in the late 1940s.

Evaluation: Kean is an excellent raconteur, and this collections of facts and anecdotes will have you itching to share them with everyone around you.

This is one of those books that made me glad I abandoned the GR star rating system because.. well I have very mixed feelings and that doesn't translate well to a 5 star system!

I learned a LOT of really fascinating stuff here and glad that I read it for that reason. The writing itself-- well it was good and clear buuuut the amount of phrases like "to be sure" and "to be fair" (even just those two specific phrases alone) would have made for a dangerous drinking game. It gave the work a sort of... I dunno, unintentional apologist tone? It was weirdly "tbf" to horrible practices but did make an effort to *acknowledge* that (not super successfully in my own opinion) so yeah, glad I ditched star ratings.

I'd recommend to true crime fans interested in history and science that are willing to go in with a BIG grain of salt. The authorial tone can grate but the book does yield some really interesting looks into the facts of unethical scientific method throughout history. Audio narrator was terrific.

In Icepick surgeon Sam Kean looks for scientists who did bad things in the name of science. In doing so, he mostly tries to avoid the easy ways out: most of the chapters are about sincere scientists, who at least start out meaning well, not cartoon villains. And on the flip side, Kean makes clear that there is no justification for the sorts of harm inflicted by these scientists -- he reminds us again and again that this is not how science advances.

Reading it, I was stunned at how many of the tales were tales about scientists who did bad things in the name of MONEY, not science: taking to piracy, slave-trading, even murder with the goal of raising enough money to continue doing science. I complain bitterly about the NIH and the silly hoops for grant-funding, but at least science is funded. So much of historical science was only for people who were already gentry and could self-fund.

I love Sam Kean and this pop science accounting of various atmospheric gases does not disappoint. Roughly arranged by contribution to Earth's atmosphere, the chapters bounce from hot air balloons to chemical warfare. Kean focuses on depth rather than breadth, making for memorable and engaging reading.

Remember your favorite chemistry teacher? The one who always anthropormorphized chemical compounds and added drama and flavor to their lectures? This book is a lot like that.

Okay, fine, chemistry is a substantial part of my livelihood, so maybe I have more fond chemistry-based memories than then average person. Nonetheless, The Disappearing Spoon should be as enticing to those who never took a science class outside of distribution requirements as well as those of us whose favorite class was organic chemistry.

To be honest, I was pretty nervous about this book; as a biochemist, it makes me a little uncomfortable to admit that there's anything interesting outside of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen (and a touch of phosphorus and sulfur.) But Kean's writing is the definition of compulsively readable.

Drama is brought by the often argumentative, usually eccentric and always genius scientists who founded the principals of modern chemistry. In addition, each chapter is riddled with historical anecdotes staring a particular element or two. But the real richness of the book comes from Kean's ease with the science itself, describing valence shells, chemical bonds, radioactivity, fusion and fission in accurate, accessible and extremely lively ways.

I adored Sam Kean's [b:The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements|7247854|The Disappearing Spoon And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements|Sam Kean|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1438018063s/7247854.jpg|8246153] -- it was quirky, educational, fast-paced and filled with both big concepts and tiny little stories of chemistry. So even though genetics is my day job, I figured The Violinist's Thumb was worth a look. And I readily admit that after all, this is what I do all day, every day and the resultant luster loss may bias my opinion. But the Violinst's Thumb lacked the pizzazz of the Disappearing Spoon for me. It hit the genetic high points: The Human Genome Project, Cloning, etc. But what I wanted were the tiny stories; the things that add color and interest to the big stories. There were a couple (yes, I know about DNA and RNA, but not the tons of other *NAs that are not just possible, but exist.) But overall, I found the book a drag to get through. I wish I'd enjoyed it more, but it might be me, not the book.

Good essays about technology and basic science.

Phenomenal deep-dive on incredible stories regarding the Periodic Table of the Elements. Captivating, interesting, educational.

A non-technical historically-based introduction to chemistry based on the periodic table. Well done.
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The author occasionally uses casual modern English. It is unnecessary and distracting.

The author states that the association of iodine deficiency with mental retardation made Bertrand Russell realize that mental function depends on the material conditions of the brain. I don't believe it. After all, Heraclitus of Ephesus said, A blow to the head will confuse a man's thinking; a blow to the foot has no such effect. This cannot be the result of an immaterial soul., and Russell wrote a great history of philosophy.

The author says that "Virtually every hospital in the world uses tracers, and a whole branch of medicine, radiology, deals exclusively in that line." I think he means the field of Nuclear Medicine.

Yep, entertaining.

Interesting book about the chemistry of gases, particularly those in the air we breathe. Lots of interesting tidbits and anecdotes, as well as the scientific information, most of which I have the illusion I understood. I will certainly keep an eye out for the author's other books.

Loved it! I read a lot about the atomic work during the war and this provided a lot of angles and insights I was not familiar with. Really added some good perspective to the urgency behind the Manhattan project

A great collection of tales and facts about nearly every element on the periodic table. There were some parts that I read with little comprehension as chemistry was never my strong suit, but that didn't make the rest of this any less enjoyable.

Bellissimo

Research into the human brain comprises an exciting frontier of knowledge today, yet most scientific accounts can dryly bore the average reader. And frankly, a lot of scientists and doctors can benefit from reading narratives of human stories behind scientific discoveries. To fill this gap, Sam Kean chronicles in this book the many functions of the human brain – and of parts of the human brain. He teaches basic neuroscience with the noteworthy interpersonal backstories of how those insights were gleaned through human mishaps. In so doing, he entertains, enlightens, and engages a wide audience of health professionals, scientists, and students of the human condition.

This book opens and closes with perhaps the most famous case in the history of neuroscience: The story of Phineas Gage. While managing railroad construction in the mid-19th century, this man improbably had a spear shoot through the front of his skull. His left eye was disabled, and the spear bore a hole in the left-rear frontal lobe of his brain. It flew out immediately, and he survived to tell the tale. Despite many witnesses, medical professionals initially did not believe his tale but confirmed it through witnesses and its effects. Gage lived for over a decade after this freak accident, but his personality changed dramatically in unanticipated ways. At the time, we knew little about brain functioning, but his unique case has taught neurologists lessons for almost 200 years.

Striking human tales like this fill each chapter of Kean’s book. They go into great detail to explain specific lessons of neuroanatomy and neurophysiology that we’ve learned from the stories. Thus, this book describes a history of neurology from the perspective of affected patients who gave us further understanding. The main limitation of this book is that each chapter is somewhat self-contained. It’s hard to keep an overall narrative going throughout the entire book. The attempt is made, but it’s just not too pronounced. Like many subjects in medical science, the minutiae, even those of lively stories, can sometimes prevent the reader from seeing the big picture.

Because this history spans the humanities and the sciences, many audiences can benefit from this work. Budding neuroscientists and medical students can bring some of their dry scientific studies to life. Those involved in the care of neurological patients can benefit from understanding the human impacts of their profession. The curious public can learn about the emerging field of neuroscience. Authors can engage their imagination with scientifically verifiable stories of human quirks. Finally, we all can learn greater compassion for those whose brains may not work quite like the rest of us yet share common human dignity.

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