to sim it up in ver yfew words: enlightening, frightening, hopeful.

A collection mainly written in 2021 and combiles in this book in 2022 and I'm reading it in 2023, so it's interesting to see what still resonates today, even to someone like me, who doesn't really read a lot of science or nature writing if it's not sci-fi or fantasy.

1. The Body's most Embarrassing Organ is an Evolutionary Marvel by Katherine J. Wu: not all creatures poop, but it's interesting studying the creatures that do and that mysterious organ. I mean what other organ could do all of these functions at once, also it allows female birds to eject any subpar sperm after mating with unsatisfactory males to start anew. excuse me? wow.

2. What Slime Knows by Lacy M. Johnson: interesting article about a creature I didn't know anything about. slime mold... "has no brain, no sense of sight or smell, but can solve mazes, learn patterns, keep time and pass down the wisdom of generations. how do you classify a creature like that?" how indeed? I like her connecting the history of studying this slime mold and the hierarchy of evolution "science".

3. Too Big for the Universe by Arianna S. Long: very straigtforward and a little bit terrifying, about galaxies and their life cycle, telescopes and detecting different types of galaxies,

4. Heads Up! The Cardiovascular Secrets of Giraffes byb Bob Holmes: about giraffes and how thie bodies solved their problem with high blood pressure. It's always a wonder when you delve deeper into the bodies of any animals and see how it operates. felt like a fun little lesson.

5. How Far does Wildlife Roam? Ask the "Internet of Animals" by Sonia Shah: about a new project called ICARUS, that will help scientists study animals' mobility and movement in ways that haven't been done before, changing the way scientists used to think about wildlife mobility. I also love it when humans realize how superior other creatures are.

6. Our Summer from Hell by Jeff Goodell: a US centric story about what it would take for Americans to wake up to the effects of climate change. and really it's sad that the whole planet needs a bigger wake up call than the ones we've been hit with repeatedly. Humans (most of them) are greedy and selfish, that's it.

7: How Rising Groundwater caused by Climate Change could Devastate Coastal Communities by Kendra Pierre Louis: Thank you for the nightmares. It's not enough that people are ignoring the obvious dangers like rising seas, it's terrifying to know what the rise in groundwater is causing and that it's being ignored even more because it's not as obvious as the seas.

8. How we Drained California Dry by Mark Arax: Poetic and sad. about the different ways humans drained california.

9. The Climate Solution actually adding millions of Tons of CO2 into the Atmosphere by Lisa Song & James Temple: so humans found a way to even abuse trees and forests, and use them to make the problem of pollution worse? just wow.

10. In the Oceans, the Volume is rising as Never before by Sabrina Imbler: I love clown fish, and it's always nice to know more about them. It's unnerving to know that the ocean which I always though to be the quitest place, has become noisybecause of us and how that affects all of its creatures.

11. The Nature of Plastics by Meera Subramanian: when you think of pollution, the first thing that comes to mind is plastic, especially in water. so it's no wonder that this article hits really bad, and makes me wonder, why ddo we do this? and how can our puny efforts make any difference when most of the world, aka factories and ships and manufacturers, don't care at all.

12. Black Bears, Black Liberation by Rae Wynn Grant: about black bears between folk tales, bedtime stories, collective culture, and hunting culture, tying it to native americans and african americans. I would've loved for this one to be longer.

13. Finding Freedom in the Natural World by Cynthia R. Greenlee: about foragers/naturalists or living from the wild/nature, and it being a trend that people follow by choice, while others have to depend on it not by choice. very interesting, and the intersection with black people and their culture is very insightful. you really can'tseparate racism from any activity today, whether it's done for leisure or necessity.

14. Humanity is Flushing Away One of Life's Essential Elements by Julia Rosen: phosphurus and feces and fertilizers and everything that depends on them in our everyday life.

15. Poisoned - part 1: The Factory by Corey G. Johnson, Rebecca Woolington, and Eli Murray: The start of a horror story, and not the first of its kind. it reminds me of the story of radium women, who worked in factories making watches and died because of all the radium their bodies were exposed to. here is a morde modern investogation of a lead factory and the lead in the air that got into the bodies of all the workers. a very straight to the point piece, because you don't really need any imbellishments when writing about this. I don't know if I have it in me to read the rest of the series.

16. Future Moves by Yeesenia Funes: a short piece about climate migration and the dillemma of choosing where to settle, especially in the US but also all around the world, because every year, everywhere is getting more affected by climate change. no place is safe.

17. There's a Clear Fix to Helping Black Communities Fight Pollution by Rachel Ramirez: the link between pollution and racism or environmental injustice (which is aloaffected by social classes not just races) is often ignored, but this article did a good job of highlighting that.

18. To be a Field of Poppoies by Lisa Wells: loved this! makes you really think about what happens to you body after death and how you can help the environment.

19. To Hell with Drowning by Julian Aguon: it starts with seeing how wayfinding was affected by climate change, then moves to talking about island nations and their climate-induced-relocations. It's filled with sadness yet hope.

20. To Speak of the Sea in Irish by Claudia Geib: about the importance of preserving language, as it is important to preserve creatures and plants.

21. A Tight-Knit Island Nation hopes to Rebuild while Preserving "The Barbudan Way" by Mikki K. Harris: The greed of humans, and taking over island and homes for nations to "develop" their projects.

22. Thriving Together: Salmon, Berries, and People by Cuagilakv Jess Hausti: shows the importance of adhering to the natural order of things and the teachings of ancestors when it comes to plants and fish, when to fish and when to look for other resources. if only everyone adhered to these simple rules, we wouldn't be here.

23. Your Face is not Your Own by Kashmir Hill: most (if not all so far?) of the articles and writings in this book were about nature and extinction, that I forgot this collection should also include science writing, and here I am, reading this terrifying piece about AI, technology, and knowing more about the way we are losing any piece of privacy we had. this article is intriguing because you can't fully say that this company is in the wrong (it helps cats criminals and child abusers, after all), but if tis is allowed, where do we draw the line?

24. Quantum Enlightenment by Ruth Robertson: intriguing and interesting about mixing science with spirituality, even though some of it flew over my head.

25. Why Combining Farms and Solar Panels could transform how we Produce both food and energy by Chris Malloy: you don't need to tell me twice about the benefits of solar panels. liked the ideas here about integrating it with farms and crops

26. A recipe for Fighting Climate Change and Feeding the World by Sarah Kaplan: is it too late to change our farming practices to save the earth? I'm trying not to be pessimistic, but most of humanity are set in their own ways, and they'd rather die and let others die than change their ways.

27. Power Shift by Justine Calma: all big companies everywhere are just the same, and we'll keep paying the price for their greed until we all collapse together. bravo for them, hope they line their coffins with all the money they're earning while burning the planet and killing off other people. this just made me so angry

28. Beavers are Firefighters who work for free by Lucy Sherriff: I'm impressed with the number of articles about/by natives in this collection. it should be more, but it's a start, because if there's anyone who really cares for the environment with no agendas, it's these native tribes. also the US is a frustrating place where it's so easy to kil anything (humans or animals) than it is to pass laws that benefit everyone. I mean, it's about time people suddenly realize thath there was a reason for why the climate and earth were better before human involvement.

29. New Wind Projects Power Local Budgets in Wyoming by Jane C. Hu: clean energy to the rescue as always.

30. Work from Home, save the Planet? Ehh by Emily Atkin: this was what I thought as well, when more people work from home, the emissions are less thus helping in saving the planet. but it seems like people don't change their habits? as it says in the article "we're not going to save the planet by accident."

31. In Amsterdam, a Community of Floating Homes shows the World how to live alongside Nature by Shira Rubin: an excellant example of sustainable living projects that don't add to the pollution of the planet

32. A River Reawakened by Jessica Plumb: will this be the era we listen to indegineous tribes and let nature take its course finally, so maybe, we could recover some of what was lost?

33. There's a Global Plan to Conserve Nature. Indigenous People could lead the way by Somini Sengupta, Catrin Einhorn, and Manuela Andreoni: before even starting, I fully agree with this title, as it truly seems to sum up on of the main ideas in this collection. It's outrageous that indigenous people are left out of discussions to save the planet.

Dr Johnson put together a stunning mix of articles for this book. Here are some faves (a very biased list based on my interests, there is a wide variety in the 33 articles in the book):

What Slime Knows by Lacy M. Johnson in Orion-- excellent contemplation of simplicity and complexity in nature, how white supremacy perpetuates myths about dominion over others and the natural world.

How Far Does Wildlife Roam? Ask the "Internet of Animals" by Sonia Shah in NYT Magazine--ICARUS is the International Cooperation for Animal Research Using Space, using receivers on the International Space Station to track collective movements of animals on Earth. It turns out that animals move WAY more than we had previously thought, and that our experimental designs using wind tunnels to estimate the energy for birds to migrate were very far off.

How Rising Groundwater Caused by Climate Change Could Devastate Coastal Communities by Kendra Pierre-Louis for MIT Technology Review-- Eye-opening article about the rise of groundwater in cities, the issues that creates with contaminants and septic tanks (EW), and structures like the Ike Dike's effect on groundwater.

How We Drained California Dry by Mark Arax in MIT Technology Review- a review of the history of choices made in California and the disaster that was inevitable. Told through the lens of peach and raisin farmers.

Black Bears, Black Liberation by Rae Wynn-Grant in The Cleanest Line (Patagonia)--So it turns out that enslaved people were often assigned wild-game hunting, including large carnivores. Davy Crockett built his reputation as a heroic bear hunter, but it's likely that enslaved men did a lot of the hunting for him.

To Be a Field of Poppies by Lisa Wells from Harper's--Recompose is a company started by Katrina Spade, composting humans into soil that can be spread on the Earth.

Thriving Together: Salmon, Berries, and People by ‘Cúagilákv (Jess Housty) for Hakai Magazine-A very simple example of how Indigenous management of the landscape should not be ignored by biologists, that of salmonberries and salmon.

Beavers are Firefighters Who Work for Free by Lucy Sheriff for Sierra--an example of how state permitting affects beaver restoration, in some Western states it was illegal to relocate beavers without a permit. Also how beaver-created wetlands affect wildfires.

A River Reawakened by Jessica Plumb--the removal of dams on the Elwha River has been hugely successful, with salmon coming back in large numbers. Apparently American dippers have now been found to have marine-derived nutrients in their diets, which contributes to their being more likely to stay in salmon-rich rivers and double-brood in one season.

Anyway, there's not a bad one in the bunch! Great read.

I usually like these collections because they encompass a wide array of different subjects and type of science writing. This volume felt flat. Most of the essays are on similar topics and the whole collection felt repetitive.

The most memorable entry in this is a piece of investigative journalism from the Tampa Bay Times. It recounts how workers at a factory in Tampa were "exposed to extreme amounts of lead" for decades. The factory's doctor seemingly chose to ignore evidence of lead poisoning in the employees under his care. The workers' families were affected too; I can hardly imagine the heartache of the father who learned his two children had been poisoned by the lead dust he tracked home from work.

A fascinating article by Lisa Song and James Temple digs into a California program that "allows forest owners across the country to earn credits for taking care of their land in ways that store or absorb more carbon, such as reducing logging or thinning out smaller trees and brush to allow for increased overall growth." They allege that companies have gamed the system to receive credits for simply maintaining the status quo in an area (rather than actually increasing the carbon it stores). Such credits enable polluters to make it look, on paper, like their emissions have been offset, when in reality they haven't been.

Unsurprisingly, many of the articles are about how humans are damaging our environment. Kendra Pierre-Louis highlights an underappreciated reason to fear sea level rise: it also causes groundwater to rise, which can cause all sorts of problems for a city's infrastructure. Sea walls don't protect against this. Julian Aguon surveys how various island nations are dealing with sea level rise; some are facing the need to relocate people before the end of the decade.

Sabrina Imbler calls attention to how the noise we generate interferes with aquatic life. It's easy for land-dwellers to underestimate the impact:

In the ocean, visual cues disappear after tens of yards, and chemical cues dissipate after hundreds of yards. But sound can travel thousands of miles and link animals across oceanic basins and in darkness.

Other highlights:

- Mikki K. Harris provides perspective on her home island of Barbados, where she and six generations of her ancestors lived. I'm intrigued by the communal land ownership she mentions; from the article, it sounds like this was operating happily until hurricane damage gave outsiders an opportunity to impose a dismantling of the system.
- Sonia Shah explains that we know less about the travel habits of animals than you might think.
- Meera Subramanian discusses the notion of a plastic "Garbage Patch" in the ocean and notes, distressingly, that experts have suggested "plastic soup" or "plastic smog" as more accurate conceptions. Also, there's plastic in your tap water (cheers!). Also, "nurdle" is a real word.
- Julia Rosen tells of a time when the British Empire dug up graveyards to use bones in fertilizer, and a time when human waste had a market value in Shanghai.
- Lisa Wells recounts how human composting became an option in the state of Washington. I'd be happy to have this done with my body when I die.


One section of the book is titled "Ways of Knowing". I associate this phrase with attempts to short-circuit disagreements - to demand that a belief should be treated as true based on who holds it or how much they cherish it, without needing to consider any counterpoints. Mostly, that's not what these articles are doing. A couple do veer into that territory at times, but I have to remind myself that the context is important: when Indigenous authors ask for Indigenous knowledge and ways of thinking to be taken more seriously, they're pushing back against an entrenched and baseless tendency to dismiss their viewpoints by default. That said, I think the article "Quantum Enlightenment" spreads significant misunderstandings of quantum mechanics.

Finally, I'm awarding the Weirdest And Most Disgusting Fact prize to an Atlantic article on anuses:

Scorpions jettison their posterior when attacked from behind, evading capture but tragically losing their ability to poop (and eventually dying with their abdomen full of excrement).

(crossposted from https://brokensandals.net/reviews/2022/best-american-science-and-nature)

I look forward to the "Best American Science and Nature" books every year and they never disappoint. Lots of interesting and enjoyable articles in this years offering. Couple of my favorites are on how beavers can help prevent forest fires and the article about how sphincter developed in animals (funny and interesting).

It is nice to read a book written by and fpr adults every once in a while. This one speaks on some fascinating subjects and then transitions into discussing environmental racism and climate justice before offering some promising solutions to the climate problem. It was a great and informative read.

I continue my annual tradition of reading this book every year, this one from Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, who divided the book into five categories — nature is magnificent, nature is roiled, humans are a part of nature, ways of knowing, and futures we could have — each of which focuses on stories that finds “a place in an arc that offers a directionality from observations to action.”

Each of these collections are biased (the one two years ago was edited by a professor of physics, who favored a number of non-environmental stories: from brain functions to the science of smelling to extraterrestrial exploration), and Dr. Johnson is no different: Leaning toward the “nature” in science and nature, she focuses on surprises and solutions, diversity, and “ecology, evolution, and anthropology.”

While I appreciate the focus on climate and pollution, the book did indeed leaving me wanting more tech-driven and engineering solutions; many of the “ways of knowing” stories instead focused on indigenous perspectives — necessary stories to tell, given their often overlooked place in environmental narratives, but published at the expense of other types of articles (in Johnson’s words, those that explore “technology, medicine, and engineering”).

However, the collection, as it always does, left me with a number of fascinating stories with beautiful prose — from Katherine Wu’s “The body’s most embarrassing organ is an evolutionary marvel,” which traced the evolutionary origins of a taboo organ, to Meera Subramanian, who in “The nature of plastics” traces the prevalence of plastics in our generation, going so far as to call it the “plastiscene,” a fitting name for the “disturbing splendor in the destruction the industrial age has wrought.”

I’m also drawn to stories about water, that essential ingredient of life which is at times overpowering, and at others, disappearing from the lands that need it most. In “How rising groundwater caused by climate change could devastate coastal communities,” Kendra Pierre-Louis explores the oft-overlooked issue of flooding and contamination caused by increased groundwater linked to sea level rise.

And in “In the oceans, the volume is rising as never before,” Sabrina Imbler reports of the noise pollution that’s disrupting marine ecosystems: “the noise can even doom “baby clown fish] to wander the seas without direction, unable to find their way home.”

Perhaps most worthwhile were the stories that explored overlooked solutions — or problems — that often go unexplored in the mass media narrative surrounding climate change: Stories from fertilizer, whose history is tied up with modern agriculture, to lead exposure, which was brilliantly covered in the effortlessly readable article by the Tampa Bay Times.

Such accessible articles as Justine Calma’s “Power shift” and Jane Hu’s “New wind projects power local budgets in Wyoming,” both of which explained how renewables can help communities take ownership of their power supplies, generating power locally, boosting the economy, and minimizing vulnerabilities typically associated with fossil fuels.

I also appreciated the inclusion of a Substack article, Emily Atkin’s “Work from home, save the planet? Ehhh,” published in HEATED.

Overall the writing was beautiful, as always, and these collections continue to produce the wow factor that I love from books like these, bringing to light such fascinating stories as the role of beavers in forest fires, solar panels on farms, indigenous perspectives in climate solutions, and carbon credits in forests.