The Best Australian Science Writing 2014

Ashley Hay

• Publisher: NewSouth
• Year: 2015
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9781742247137
• Subtopic: Literary Collections
• Index: Biological Sciences

Now in its fourth year, this popular and acclaimed anthology steps inside the Australia's finest scientific and literary minds to present a collection that celebrates the nation's finest science writing of the year. Featuring prominent authors—such as Tim Flannery, Jo Chandler, Frank Bowden and Iain McCalman, as well as many new voices—this annual anthology covers topics as diverse and wondrous as our "lumpy" universe, the creation of dragons, why are Sydney's golden orb weaver spiders getting fatter and fitter, and the frontiers of climate science.

Table of contents

• Cover
• About the Editor
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Copyright
• CONTENTS
• CONTRIBUTORS
• FOREWORD
• INTRODUCTION
• A short walk in the Australian bush
• Survival in the City
• Planet of the Vines
• Is There Room for Organics?
• This. Here. Now. The climate catastrophe
• Weather and mind games
• Weathering the storm
• Firefront
• Antarctic ice: Going, going …
• They’re taking over! The jellyfish move in
• From Alzheimer’s to zebrafish
• Joseph Jukes’ epiphanies
• Popular mechanics: A short story
• The CAVE artists
• High-tech treasure hunt
• The carnivorous platypus
• The eye in the sand
• The now delusion
• Reached by committee, nineteen eighty-three
• Material of the future: Sticky tape, honey and graphene
• Pitch fever
• Uniquely human
• The pet-keeping species
• Penis size may be driven by women (Oh, and it matters…)
• Eleven grams of trouble
• TB and me: A medical souvenir
• Massimo’s genes: Medicine at the genetic frontier
• Life, the universe and Boolardy
• Liner notes, Voyager Golden Record
• Beyond the ‘Morning Star’
• The oldest known star
• The quantum spinmeister: Professor Andrea Morello
• Here be dragons
• ADVISORY PANEL
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• The Bragg UNSW Press Prize for Science Writing