Life Ascending - 10 greatest inventions of evolution

Outstanding tour of the most important and interesting developments of evolution. Clear explanations of important transitions in story of life on earth.

http://www.amazon.com/Life-Ascending-Great-Inventions-Evolution/dp/0393338665/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1442083054&sr=1-2&keywords=Ten+greatest+inventions

Lifelines -

 Some insights but very defensive and prone to setting up straw men to pompously put down. Seemed jealous of the funds spent on genomics and molecular biology. Very PC about feminism!

http://www.amazon.com/Lifelines-Life-beyond-Steven-Rose/dp/0195150392/ref=sr_1_39?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1442082699&sr=1-39&keywords=lifelines

Atkinson Trilogy of US in WWII

-All volumes excellent. Detailed history of US Army in WW@2 in No Africa, Italy and EU. Interesting portraits of leading figures.

http://www.amazon.com/Army-Dawn-1942-1943-Liberation-Trilogy/dp/0805087249/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1442082565&sr=1-2&keywords=atkinson+rick

How Chemistry Becomes Biology

Interesting book I read before The Vital Question. Less broad in scope, more about dynamic stability in chemical systems.

"Living things are hugely complex and have unique properties, such as self-maintenance and apparently purposeful behaviour which we do not see in inert matter. So how does chemistry give rise to biology? What could have led the first replicating molecules up such a path? Now, developments in the emerging field of 'systems chemistry' are unlocking the problem. Addy Pross shows how the different kind of stability that operates among replicating molecules results in a tendency for chemical systems to become more complex and acquire the properties of life. Strikingly, he demonstrates that Darwinian evolution is the biological expression of a deeper, well-defined chemical concept: the whole story from replicating molecules to complex life is one continuous process governed by an underlying physical principle. The gulf between biology and the physical sciences is finally becoming bridged."


http://www.amazon.com/What-Life-Chemistry-Becomes-Biology/dp/0199687773/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1459202190&sr=1-1&keywords=how+chemistry+becomes+biology

Flash Boys by M Lewis

Another excellent reporting job by Lewis. The high frequency traders of Wall Street have been getting away with slices of investors orders since 2005. They spent millions on technology to get an unfair edge and have been making gobs of money by conning investors. Lewis also shows up the "dark pools" run by big banks. Congress is finally investigating, and Barclay's has been indicted.

When the Music Stopped

The author, Blinder, is an insider who has the background to describe the events accurately and assess the causes properly. I have read several books on the crisis and found this one to be the most complete and believable. It is 440 pages, but not a difficult read. Blinder makes the events understandable and places blame for the debacle, in my opinion, fairly. There is plenty of blame to be assigned, to the many regulating agencies, the many investment banks all around the world, AIG, the mortgage lenders of all stripes, the politicians, and the Federal Reserve, the Treasury, FNMA and Freddie Mac, and the rating agencies. The public grabbing loans they knew they could not afford were also a big contributor. Greed, fraud, and short term, wishful thinking led to gambling with other peoples money to make short term killings. The system was a mess. Top management had little appreciation for their risk management systems. They were making too much money to care.
The Dodd-Frank law, an attempt to prevent this happening again, was passed shortly after the crisis cooled down, but regulations actually implementing the law have not been completed, largely through fierce lobbying by the villains of this piece.
I am still amazed that more arrests were not made.

Bad Pharma, Very Important book

Dr Ben Oldacre is a young Brit doctor that is incensed by the state of the medical industry, particularly the big Pharma. He shows how they hide clinical trials that do not come out the way they want, and distort the results they do let get published. They pay medical journals to publish their papers, and support monetarily professional societies to favor them. Doctors are paid to give talks favoring drugs manufactured by the company, without admitting the connection. The detailers lie to doctors about the efficacy and side effects of drugs they are marketing. Drug companies spend twice as much on marketing as on research. Much of what they call marketing, in my opinion, could be called bribery.

Regulators cravenly ignore the problems, and hide data that should be public.

Read some of the reviews and comments from the link below, then read the book if you have the stomach for it.

http://www.amazon.com/Bad-Pharma-How-Medicine-Broken-ebook/dp/B008RLTUUA/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1388447537&sr=1-1&keywords=bad+pharma

Dr Oldacre makes many good suggestions to help fix these problems.

Also see his blog for an update on happenings since the publication of his book.
http://www.badscience.net/2013/12/free-here-is-the-new-what-happened-next-update-chapter-from-bad-pharma-2013/#more-3056

Fiction book list

Here are some of the fun fiction books I have read lately.  

The latest in the C J Box series. All are good reads.
http://www.amazon.com/Breaking-Point-13-Joe-Pickett-ebook/dp/B008U45T7C/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1387301157&sr=1-4&keywords=cj+box+novels

Minette Walters writes good intricate mysteries
http://www.amazon.com/Devils-Feather-Minette-Walters-ebook/dp/B000JMKNRY/ref=sr_1_10?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1387301302&sr=1-10&keywords=minette+walters+books

I like the Scandinavian authors. Nesbo is a good one. Here is one of a series with the detective Harry Hole. You may want to read an earlier one, but this is where I started.
http://www.amazon.com/Snowman-Harry-Hole-thriller-Sequence-ebook/dp/B004G5ZY7E/ref=sr_1_8?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1387301455&sr=1-8&keywords=jo+nesbo+harry+hole+in+order

Neal Stephenson is an acquired taste, but I love reading his novels. Here is a recent that might be a good starting point, but all are excellent reads. I agree with the review in this link.
http://www.amazon.com/Reamde-Neal-Stephenson-ebook/dp/B004XVN0WW/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1387301823&sr=1-2&keywords=neal+stephenson+books

Richard North Patterson writes well-constructed thrillers. This is an early one, but he has written several good ones since.
http://www.amazon.com/Balance-Power-Kilcannon-Richard-Patterson-ebook/dp/B000FBJCOE/ref=sr_1_15?ie=UTF8&qid=1387302040&sr=8-15&keywords=richard+patterson+north

Of course, there are also good reading finds in the Edgar awards winners lists.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_0_12?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=edgar+awards&sprefix=edgar+awards%2Caps%2C147&rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Aedgar+awards

Touching a Nerve, by Patricia Churchland

Churchland has illuminated the boundary between brain science and philosophy. This is a marvelous book. Makes an important, complex subject easy to read.  Evolution, epigenetics and culture make us what we are, the mind is what the brain does, we are what our neurons do.
Will infuriate many, made me chortle.
Read the amazon description.
http://www.amazon.com/Touching-Nerve-Self-as-Brain-ebook/dp/B00AV7JV8E/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1384474979&sr=1-1&keywords=churchland+touching+a+nerve
Would love to discuss this one with you.

Bad Science

Just finished a book called “Bad Science; quacks, hacks, and big pharma flacks”, by Ben Goldacre M.D. I have always enjoyed the Brit way of expressing disdain. Here is an educated Brit in high dudgeon. He is justified in his rage. He is very good at explaining the tricks used to rip off the public by nutritionists, homeopaths, and other “alternative medicine” treatments. He also blasts the journalists who distort study results by seeking a grabber headline. They also fail to look at the basis for the studies involved to assess whether the methods involved make sense. Big pharma is slightly cleverer in how they use statistics to fool docs and rip off patients. Goldacre points out some of the lies of omission told by Big P. and how they cherry pick results. He makes several sane suggestions about how to prevent some of the worst practices, and how the individual can develop a nonsense detector. Bad Science is easy to read, and available in our public library. I recommend it.