* The Best American Science and Nature Writing of 2023 (ed. Carl Zimmer)

February – March 2024

CT and I selected this book to continue our essay project. However, after reading the first three pieces, we have reconsidered. Although the articles are interesting, they are not what either of would call essays. It’s really journalism, with the focus on ideas. The prose is generally clear and workman like, but as yet we have not encountered any writing that makes us pause to savor the phrase. We intend to look through the book, and — by paying attention to where the piece was originally published – see if we can come up with more essay-like pieces. However, we both suspect, that the book will not past muster vis a vis our project, and that we will move on to something else following our next meeting.

Contents

What we have read

An Invisible Epidemic, Elizabeth Svoboda (Scientific American)

Discusses the concept of “Moral Injury” – the trauma that occurs when circumstances prevent a person from acting in accordance with their purposes/beliefs – and the epidemic proportions it reached during the Covid pandemic. Examples are physicians who have to turn away patients who will die as a consequence, because there are no beds; veterinarians who have to euthanize pets because there is no one to adopt them; etc. I am not keen on the medicalizing of everything, but it is interesting to note that “moral injury” is claimed to have distinct brain activity patterns that are diagnostic of it.

The Myopia Generation, Sarah Zhang (The Atlantic)

There is a striking increase in the number of children who are near sighted. Reading, of both paper and screens, seems a likely culprit.

A Deepening Crisis Forces Physicists to Rethink Structure of Nature’s Laws, Natalie Wolchover (Quantum Magazine)

Difficult to follow. Main takeaway for me is how little of subatomic physics I understand. A second takeaway is that I don’t really care.

… reading break …

The Bird and the Flame, Sara Gilman (Audubon Magazine)

This piece was more essay-like. It looks at a population of endangered seabird — Murrelets – that spend most of their lives at sea, but lay eggs on the high branches of Redwoods and Douglas Firs on the west coast of North America. In particular, it looks at Big Basin park, and how the birds fared in the wake of the fire that burned 98% of the park.

It is too soon to tell, but the Murrelets have returned to nest in the small proportion of trees, primarily Redwoods, that survived the fire. In some ways they are better off, in that Stellar Jays and Ravens, that prey on Murrelet nestlings, have largely abandoned the park, since the campsites at which they got easy food are destroyed.

Those who are in charge of the park are currently reimagining how it can be reconfigured to function more effectively in the future so as to protect the environment and its fauna. For example, campsights may be moved out of the area where ancient Redwoods survive (and Murrelets nest). Similar, parking and park buildings will be reconfigured. The fire has a created an opportunity for the park to change.

Bright Flight, Vanessa Gregory (Harper’s Magazine)

An account of scientists studying synchronize behavior in fireflys, with a brief mention of bees at the end. Although it is primarily an account of scientific work on a particular topic, there are some nicely written descriptive passages.

Fireflies flash to communicate with one another — primarily, it appears, for mating, but also to signal distress and evade predators by imitating other species. A few species of fireflies flash in synchrony. The author gives accounts of people studying this behavior, and also goes out with scientists to field sites. While she makes it interesting, I have to say I didn’t come away having learned much.

Other examples of synchrony among group are schools of fish evading predators, spiney lobsters that form single file lines so that they can draft one another and move more quickly across the sea floor, and flocks of swallows.

Don’t Look Down, Lois Parsley, (Grist)

Set in and around Fairbanks, Alaska, this article describes the impact of melting permafrost.

American Motherhood, Annie Lowery (The Atlantic)

An account of two difficult pregnancies marked by a host of auto-immune disorders that were life-threatening for both mother and babies. The account is entwined with a polemic against the over turn of Roe vs. Wade and Planned Parenthood vs. Dobbs, and argues that the mother’s life merits at least much consideration as the embryo’s. I did not find this a very engaging read.

At this point, given that the articles are not very essay-like, we decided to abandon this book and move on to another one.

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