Category: Book Review (Page 54 of 63)

The Dolphins of Shark Bay

Today for STEM Friday we have new addition to the incredible Scientists in the Field series: The Dolphins of Shark Bay by Pamela S. Turner, with photographs by Scott Tuason. dolphins-of-shark-bayThis outstanding book encapsulates over twenty-five years of research into dolphin intelligence by scientist Janet Mann and her colleagues working at Shark Bay in Australia.

It is difficult to decide where to start, because there is so very much packed into the book. It reveals how science is done in the field, plus gives loads of information about wild bottlenose dolphins. It also asks some hard questions about whether these intelligent animals should be kept in captivity solely for our enjoyment, and those are just a few highlights.

One of the first findings from Mann’s early studies has to do more with humans than dolphins. She found tourists who fed the dolphins at Shark Bay were inadvertently causing increased dolphin mortality because begging to humans took the mother dolphins away from tending their babies and the babies weren’t learning how to hunt, a skill they needed to survive. “Tame” dolphins were also more likely to be caught in fishing nets and injured. With her information in hand, the Australian government ended unregulated feeding of dolphins in 1995, although illegal feeding still sometimes occurs.

The main thrust of Mann’s research has been looking at dolphin intelligence from an evolutionary perspective. Why do dolphins have big relatively brains and what do they use them for? By using techniques developed in primate research, she has been able to follow individuals throughout their lifetimes. Some evidence suggests that how the males form alliances to control females for mating may be at least part of the answer.

Some of the research group’s more exciting findings include the use of “tools” by dolphins. Certain dolphins have learned to pluck sponges and carry them on their noses (rostrum) to poke around amongst rocks and on shells the bottom of the ocean to chase out fish that hide there. These fish are at least partially hidden from the echolocation the dolphins normally use to find fish and were shielded by the sharp bottom debris, at least until dolphins figured out how to protect themselves!

These special dolphins have been the subject of several BBC documentaries, some of which are available online like this one:

Lovely! Doesn’t make you want to pack your bags for Australia right now? Well, maybe not the sharks…

The Dolphins of Shark Bay will surely inspire future generations of scientists and dolphin enthusiasts. Look for it today!

For more information:

Shark Bay Dolphin Project website

Learn about different types of dolphins and other marine mammals at Kids Do Ecology

Other reviews at:

Proseandkahn

A Life in Books

Smart Books for Smart Kids (author interview)

Age Range: 10 – 14 years
Grade Level: 5 – 9
Series: Scientists in the Field Series
Hardcover: 80 pages
Publisher: HMH Books for Young Readers (November 5, 2013)
ISBN-10: 0547716389
ISBN-13: 978-0547716381

Disclosures: This book was provided by the author for review purposes. Also, I am an affiliate for Amazon, and if you click through the linked titles or ads and make a purchase, I will receive a small commission at no extra charge to you. Proceeds will be used to maintain this self-hosted blog.

 

Come visit the STEM Friday blog each week to find more great Science, Technology, Engineering and Math books.

For the Good of Mankind? Blog Tour

Today’s STEM Friday book is not our usual fare. In For the Good of Mankind?: The Shameful History of Human Medical Experimentation, author Vicki Oransky Wittenstein for-the-good-of-mankindhas gathered horrific examples of medical experimentation performed on people without their knowledge or consent. Although you might expect the cases to be largely from previous centuries, the sad truth is that Wittenstein has uncovered examples right up to the present day.

Note: If you are squeamish, you should probably stop reading right here.

Wittenstein starts the book with the outrageous story of Simeon Shaw, a four-year-old Australian boy who developed bone cancer in 1946. With a great deal of fanfare and publicity, the boy and his mother were brought to the University of California Hospital in San Francisco for treatment. Unbeknownst to most people involved, including Simeon’s mother, he was injected with radioactive materials instead and his tissues were harvested to study the movement of radioactive materials in the human body. Simeon was sent back home without receiving any actual cancer treatment and died months later.

The author sticks to her thesis about the conflict of medical experimentation and patient’s rights for the rest of the book, digging out case after case of painful, often fatal, medical experiments carried out against the patient’s best interest and mostly without informed consent. Accounts range from the words of a survivor of Dr. Mengele’s concentration camp experiments to the more recent Trovan experiment in Nigeria, where certain participants were given the unproven drug Trovon to cure their meningitis instead of an antibiotic that was known to work.

Some of the case histories felt like they needed a bit more perspective. Why did  the doctors in California want to perform experiments with radiation on a small, sick boy? Why couldn’t they have used an animal model? Unless the reader is an ardent student of history who understands the time period, it feels like the historical context, experimenter’s motivations and even the outcomes have not been described fully enough.

For example, Edward Jenner tested the idea behind smallpox vaccine by giving his gardener’s young son cowpox and then purposely exposing him to smallpox without the boy’s knowledge. It seems atrocious to purposely infect a small boy with a potentially fatal disease. What is not mentioned in the book, however, is that others had already conducted successful experiments using cowpox to create immunity against smallpox and Jenner had every reason to believe he would also be successful. It would not be difficult to include numbers as to how many people were dying from smallpox at the time (20% of the population according to one source) and how many lives were saved by the vaccine, but that is not revealed.

Does establishing that there might have been some benefits – or at least compelling reasons for the inhumane experiments – somehow negate or justify the wrongfulness of the procedure? To my mind, it does not. I think, however, that being able to more fully examine the experimenter’s actions based on the information available at the time does help add important historical context that might allow researchers and policy makers to avoid similar patterns of thinking in the future, such as what boundaries regarding personal freedoms and human decency should be safeguarded when a country is at war.

Regarding safeguards, the author shows that we have made significant advancements in the area of medical ethics over time. As modern techniques take our abilities into the realm of science fiction, we need to make sure policies remain in place to protect individuals, and particularly the most vulnerable ones, from the types of cruel treatments in the name of medical advancements the author has uncovered.

Obviously, this is a thought-provoking book. For the Good of Mankind?: The Shameful History of Human Medical Experimentation is likely to leave the reader with many tough questions to ponder. It is probably best for mature young adult readers interested in medical history and ethics.

Discussion guide available at Vicki Oransky Wittenstein’s website

Publisher: Lerner Publishing Group (August 1, 2013)
ISBN-10: 1467706590
ISBN-13: 978-1467706599

To find out more about the book and Vicki Oransky Wittenstein, check the blog tour stops:

Mon, Nov 4
proseandkahn

Tues, Nov 5
The Prosen People

Thurs, Nov 7
The Nonfiction Detectives

Fri, Nov 8
Growing with Science

Mon, Nov 11
Ms. Yingling Reads

Tues, Nov 12
Through the Wardrobe

Wed, Nov 13
Kid Lit Frenzy

Thurs, Nov 14
GreenBeanTeenQueen

Fri, Nov 15
The Fourth Musketeer

Disclosures: This book was provided by the publisher for review purposes. Also, I am an affiliate for Amazon, and if you click through the linked titles or ads and make a purchase, I will receive a small commission at no extra charge to you. Proceeds will be used to maintain this self-hosted blog.

 

Come visit the STEM Friday blog each week to find more great Science, Technology, Engineering and Math books.

Desert Food Webs in Action

Today for STEM Friday we are featuring Desert Food Webs in Action (Searchlight Books) by Paul Fleisher. desert-food-webs

We often think of the big, flashy animals like the mountain lions and the coyotes when we think of the desert. All the living things in the desert matter though, even the tiny ones. The bigger animals depend on many plants and smaller animals to provide them with food. Decomposers like ants, fungi and bacteria are also important because they help recycle nutrients. This book describes the various desert creatures and how their lives are interrelated via food chains and food webs.

desert-food-web

The producers are plants that gather and store energy from sunlight, like cacti, succulents, wildflowers, shrubs, trees and grasses. They produce food for the other stages.

Primary consumers are animals who depend on plants for food. Examples are insects, birds like hummingbirds, and desert tortoises.

Secondary consumers rely mostly on other animals for food. Spiders and birds that eat a lot of insects are secondary consumers.

Tertiary consumers are carnivores that eat both secondary and primary consumers. Examples are hawks and kingsnakes, a type of snake that eats other snakes.

Not shown in the illustration are scavengers and decomposers. Scavengers feed on dead animals. They are part of nature’s clean up crew. Decomposers break down both animal and plant materials so that plants can use the nutrients again.

javelina

Food webs aren’t always neat and tidy. For example, javelinas are mostly thought of as primary consumers because they eat plant materials like prickly pear fruit and mesquite beans. They are also known to eat lizards, mice and dead birds, which would make them scavengers and secondary consumers, too.

Want to learn more about desert creatures? Desert Food Webs in Action by Paul Fleisher is a good place to start.

When you are ready, why not construct a desert food web of your own?

Where to find out more:

Ages: 8-11
Series: Searchlight Books
Paperback: 40 pages
Publisher: Lerner Publishing Group (August 1, 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1467715522
ISBN-13: 978-1467715522

Disclosures: I am an affiliate for Amazon, and if you click through the linked titles or ads and make a purchase, I will receive a small commission at no extra charge to you. Proceeds will be used to maintain this self-hosted blog.

 

Come visit the STEM Friday blog each week to find more great Science, Technology, Engineering and Math books.

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