Stiff – Mary Roach
303 pages
published in 2003
What happens to your body after you die? Mary Roach explores the options when you donate
your body to science. Nicely macaber and interesting without being too gross.
The Demon in the Freezer – Richard Preston
240 pages
published in 2002
Written shortly after the Anthrax attacks on Tom Daschle and other Democrats and several
“liberal” media figures, this is about a far more frightening prospect: smallpox. Richard Preston
traces the story of how smallpox got eradicated in nature, but still exists in storage in the US
and Russia and unfortunately, probably also elsewhere.
Dark Life – Michael Ray Taylor
287 pages
published in 1999
Sort of a weird counterpart to The Demon in the Freezer, this is a book written
by a caver/journalist who got involved in the search to socalled dark life; subterran life beyond
the boundaries of known life. It largely revolves around the discovery of fossilised nanobacteria
in a Martian meteorite and the discovery of terran equivalents