Mizzou Must-Reads: Science
 

Stephen Hawking's book explores profound questions as: How did the universe begin--and what made its start possible? Does time always flow forward? Is the universe unending--or are there boundaries? Are there other dimensions in space? What will happen when it all ends? Hawking brings us closer to the ultimate secrets at the very heart of creation.

Burke examines eight periods in history when our view of the world shifted dramatically through extraordinary discoveries, experiments, and inventions changed perspective, science, and culture. The Day the Universe Changed is a bestselling history that challenges the reader to decide whether there is absolute knowledge to discover - or whether the universe is "ultimately what we say it is".

This classic of contemporary science writing by a Nobel Prize-winning physicist explains to general readers what happened when the universe began, and how we know.

Jane Goodall was a young secretarial school graduate when the legendary Louis Leakey chose her to undertake a landmark study of chimpanzees in the wild. In the Shadow of Man is an account of the remarkable discoveries she made as she got to know the chimps and they got to know her. During Goodall's forty years of studying chimpanzees, she has become one of the world's most honored scientists.

Thomas explores the world around us and examines the complex interdependence of all things, extending beyond the usual limitations of biological science and into a vast and wondrous world of hidden relationships. This book explores topics such as computers, germs, language, music, death, insects, and medicine.

Sacks recounts the case histories of patients lost in the bizarre, apparently inescapable world of neurological disorders. They are studies of life struggling against incredible adversity, and they enable us to enter the world of the neurologically impaired, to imagine with our hearts what it must be to live and feel as they do. A great healer, Sacks never loses sight of medicine's ultimate responsibility: "the suffering, afflicted, fighting human subject."

Charles Darwin's groundbreaking work introduces the scientific theory of evolution, which posits that species evolve over a period of many generations through a process of natural selection. Considered controversial because of its contradicting position to creationist theory, Darwin's theories have been widely embraced by the scientific community and have laid the foundation for subsequent major advances in biology.

Discusses health concerns of women of diverse ages, ethnic and racial backgrounds, and sexual orientations. Information, resources, and personal support for the decisions that shape women's health, relationships sexuality, child-bearing, aging, and dealing with the medical system.

Professor Dawkins articulates a gene's eye view of evolution - a view giving centre stageto these persistent units of information, and in which organisms can be seen as vehicles for their replication. This imaginative, powerful, and stylistically brilliant work not only brought the insights of Neo-Darwinism to a wide audience, but galvanized the biology community, generating much debate and stimulating whole new areas of research.

Silent Spring was first published in three serialized excerpts in the New Yorker, June of 1962. The outcry that followed its publication forced the banning of DDT and spurred revolutionary changes in the laws affecting our air, land, and water. Carson's passionate concern for the future of our planet was instrumental in launching the environmental movement.

Kuhn challenged long-standing linear notions of scientific progress, arguing that transformative ideas don’t arise from the day-to-day, gradual process of experimentation and data accumulation but that the revolutions in science, those breakthrough moments that disrupt accepted thinking and offer unanticipated ideas, occur outside of “normal science.”