The Best American Science and Nature Writing

Brief Description: Popular columnist and science writer Mary Roach selects the year's best science and nature writing. Jacket Description/Back: The Best American Series(R) First, Best, and Best-Selling The Best American series is the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction and nonfiction. Each volume's series editor selects notable works from hundreds of magazines, journals, and websites. A special guest editor, a leading writer in the field, then chooses the best twenty or so pieces to publish. This unique system has made the Best American series the most respected--and most popular--of its kind. "The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2011" includesAtul Gawande, Jonathan Franzen, Deborah Blum, Malcolm Gladwell, Oliver Sacks, Jon Mooallem, Jon Cohen, Luke Dittrich, and othersMary Roach, editor, is the author of the "New York Times" bestsellers "Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void," "Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers," and Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex. She has written for "National Geographic," "Wired," "New Scientist," the "New York Times Book Review," the "Journal of Clinical Anatomy," and "Outside," among others. She is a member of the Mars Institute's advisory board and a winner of the American Engineering Societies' Engineering Journalism Award, in a category for which, let's be honest, she was the sole entrant. More at www.maryroach.net. Look for the other best-selling titles in the Best American series: The Best American ComicsThe Best American EssaysThe Best American Mystery StoriesThe Best American Nonrequired ReadingThe Best American Short StoriesThe Best American Sports WritingThe Best American Travel Writing Table of Contents: Foreword / Tim Folger -- Introduction / Mary Roach -- The Organ Dealer: from Discover / Yudhijit Bhattacharjee -- Nature's Spoils: from The New Yorker / Burkhard Bilger -- The Chemist's War: from Slate / Deborah Blum -- Fertility Rites: from The Atlantic / Jon Cohen -- The Brain That Changed Everything: from Esquire / Luke Dittrich -- Emptying the Skies: from The New Yorker / Jonathan Franzen -- Fish Out of Water: from The New Yorker / Ian Frazier -- Lies, Damned Lies, and Medical Science: from The Atlantic / David H. Freedman -- Letting Go: from The New Yorker / Atul Gawande -- The Treatment: from The New Yorker / Malcolm Gladwell -- Cosmic Blueprint of Life: 176 from Discover / Andrew Grant -- The (Elusive) Theory of Everything: from Scientific American / Stephen Hawking, Leonard Mlodinow -- Spectral Light: 191 from Orion / Amy Irvine -- The Spill Seekers: from Outside / Rowan Jacobsen -- New Dog in Town: from Orion / Christopher Ketcham -- TahingaFall: from Popular Mechanics / Dan Koeppel -- The First Church of Robotics: from the New York Times / Jaron Lanier -- The Love That Dare Not Squawk Its Name: from the New York Times Magazine / Jon Mooallem -- Could Time End?: from Scientific American / George Musser -- Sign Here If You Exist: from Ecotone / Jill Sisson Quinn -- Face-Blind: from The New Yorker / Oliver Sacks -- Waste MGMT: from Wired / Evan I. Schwartz -- The Whole Fracking Enchilada: from Orion / Sandra Steingraber -- The New King of the Sea: from Smithsonian / Abigail Tucker -- The Killer in the Pool: from Outside / Tim Zimmermann -- Contributors' Notes -- Other Notable Science and Nature Writing of 2010. Publisher Marketing: The Best American Series(R) First, Best, and Best-Selling The Best American series is the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction and nonfiction. Each volume's series editor selects notable works from hundreds of magazines, journals, and websites. A special guest editor, a leading writer in the field, then chooses the best twenty or so pieces to publish. This unique system has made the Best American series the most respected--and most popular--of its kind. "The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2011" includes Atul Gawande, Jonathan Franzen, Deborah Blum, Malcolm Gladwell, Oliver Sacks, Jon Mooallem, Jon Cohen, Luke Dittrich, and others

Contributor Bio:  Roach, Mary Mary Roach is the best-selling author of Stiff, Spook, Bonk, and most recently, Packing for Mars. Her writing has appeared in Salon, Wired, Outside, GQ, Discover, Vogue, and the New York Times Magazine.