Science Up Your Holidays #243

This week, we're helping add some science to your holiday season. We'll hear from some of our favorite past guests, and members of the Science for the People team, as they share their most-treasured science books from 2013, as well as classics to help fill out anyone’s science library. Physicist and author Aaron Santos joins us to run some fascinating Christmas-themed Fermi Equations. We'll speak to Rose Eveleth and Ben Lillie, creators of Science Studio, who'll help us stay entertained over the holidays with some of the best multimedia science on the web. And we'll share a list of science-based charities to help you spread evidence-based holiday cheer.

To see a list of books we've covered on this show and previous ones, you can visit our account on Goodreads.

Science Books Recommended in this Episode

• "Rabid: A Cultural History of the World's Most Diabolical Virus" by Bill Wask and Monica Murphy. Recommended by Rebecca Kreston.
• "Primates: The Fearless Science of Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Biruté Galdikas" by Jim Ottaviani, illustrated by Maris Wicks. Recommended by John Dupuis.
• "Mountainfit" by Meera Lee Sethi. Recommended by Leslie Brunetta.
• "Speaking to My Madness: How I Searched for Myself in Schizophrenia" by Roberta Payne. Recommended by David Dobbs.
• "The Unfeathered Bird" by Katrina van Grouw. Recommended by Josh Witten.
• "This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession" by Daniel J. Levitin. Recommended by Chelsea Butler.
• "How to Teach Relativity to Your Dog" by Chad Orzel. Recommended by Rachelle Saunders.
• "A Strange Wilderness: The Lives of the Great Mathematicians" by Amir D. Aczel. Recommended by Rachelle Saunders.
• "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan. Recommended by Rob Tarzwell.
• "Red Rover: Inside the Story of Robotic Space Exploration, from Genesis to the Mars Rover Curiosity" by Roger Wiens. Recommended by Ethan Siegel.
• "National Geographic Angry Birds Furious Forces: The Physics at Play in the World's Most Popular Game" by Rhett Allain. Recommended by Ethan Siegel.
• "Coming of Age on Zoloft: How Antidepressants Cheered Us Up, Let Us Down, and Changed Who We Are" by Katherine Sharpe. Recommended by Nicole Gugliucci.

Charities & Organizations Mentioned In This Episode

• American Association for the Advancement of Science
• Sense About Science
• Royal Institution of Australia
• Union of Concerned Scientists
• Evidence For Democracy
• Association for Women in Science
• Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology
• Society for Canadian Women in Science and Technology
• Let's Talk Science
• Dark Skies, Bright Kids
• CosmoQuest
• Engineers Without Borders
• Doctors Without Borders