{"id":4503,"date":"2016-09-19T21:24:15","date_gmt":"2016-09-19T21:24:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/aviewfromthebridge\/?p=4503"},"modified":"2016-09-20T17:26:36","modified_gmt":"2016-09-20T17:26:36","slug":"humboldt-prize","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/aviewfromthebridge\/2016\/09\/19\/humboldt-prize\/","title":{"rendered":"Humboldt biography wins Royal Society prize"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Alexander<\/a>

Alexander von Humboldt (oil painting by Friedrich Georg Weitsch, 1806).<\/p><\/div>\n

If fame were measured in namesakes, Alexander von Humboldt might reign supreme. The moniker of the brilliant biogeographer, naturalist and explorer graces dozens of species and phenomena, from the hog-nosed skunk Conepatus humboldtii<\/em> to a sinkhole in Venezuela. Yet the Prussian polymath\u2019s reputation has lagged somewhat behind that of, say, Charles Darwin. Andrea Wulf\u2019s The Invention of Nature<\/a><\/em> went some way towards changing all that. Now this immensely acclaimed biography is burnished anew by winning the Royal Society\u2019s Science Book Prize, sponsored by Insight\u00a0Investment.<\/p>\n

Wulf writes as if electrified by the fierce intellect of her subject. The Invention of Nature<\/em> is also a model of concision, I feel<\/a>, given the range of\u00a0 Humboldt\u2019s prodigious findings over his long life (1769\u20131859). He defined climate zones, predicted climate change, experimented with geomagnetism and conducted a gruelling five-year expedition in South America, discovering the Peru Current and numerous plant species, making a record ascent of Chimborazo and amassing 30 volumes of data.<\/p>\n

\"Andrea<\/a>

Andrea Wulf.{credit}Antonina Gern{\/credit}<\/p><\/div>\n

Wulf\u2019s tour de force is in good company, as one of the six that were up for the prize (and all reviewed in Nature<\/em>).<\/p>\n

Tim Birkhead\u2019s The Most Perfect Thing: Inside (and Outside) a Bird\u2019s Egg <\/em>(Bloomsbury) (reviewed here<\/a>) is a 360-degree tour of the avian egg, unshelling the chequered history of oology and the natural history of the thing itself \u2014 from formation in the ovary to the functions of their elegant colouration. As reviewer John Marzluff noted, we have yet to crack all their mysteries: \u201cWhy, for example, does the egg of a chicken travel through the hen pointed end first until the very last minute, when it turns through 180\u00b0 on the horizontal plane to be laid blunt end first?\u201d<\/p>\n

Birkhead chose the ubiquitous. In The Hunt for Vulcan: How Albert Einstein Destroyed a Planet and Deciphered the Universe <\/em>(Head of Zeus) (reviewed here<\/a>), Thomas Levenson chronicles the nonexistent: a planet hypothesised to explain oddities in the orbit of Mercury, only to be quashed by Einstein\u2019s general theory of relativity. In the telling, Levenson achieves what many science writers aspire to \u2014 a narrative weaving discoveries, backstories and implications into a synthesised tapestry.<\/p>\n

From history to the here and now \u2014 Jo Marchant\u2019s Cure<\/a>: A Journey into the Science of Mind Over Body <\/em>(Canongate) (reviewed here<\/a>) is a revved-up, research-packed explication of the use of mind in medicine, from meditation to guided visualisation. Marchant\u2019s nimble reportage on the work of scientists in novel fields such as psychoneuroimmunology and her discussion of placebos are as fresh as her reminders of how stress and poverty affect wellbeing are timely.<\/p>\n

Equally apropos for our disordered times is The Planet Remade: How Geoengineering Could Change the World <\/em>by Oliver Morton (Granta) (reviewed here<\/a>). Morton\u2019s journey through climate fixes is an assured tour of the science, the history of climate interventions and, as reviewer Jane Long noted, the \u201cethical, political and social implications if climate intervention became available\u201d.<\/p>\n

Finally, Siddhartha Mukherjee\u2019s The Gene: An Intimate History <\/em>(Bodley Head) (reviewed here<\/a>) is a book of two halves. Mukherjee\u2019s treatment of early genetics controversially skips over some complexities, but \u00a0reviewer Matthew Cobb felt it picks up from the 1970s onward with compelling detail on clinical work, the burgeoning of biotech and discoveries such as the genetic basis of Huntington\u2019s disease.<\/p>\n

Certainly, from Mendel to CRISPR\u2013Cas9, the story of genetics has been a wonder. Yet it\u2019s just a strand in the grand scientific saga that, luckily for us, continues to inspire fine writers.<\/p>\n

The judges of this year\u2019s prize included chair Bill Bryson, whose books include A Short History of Nearly Everything<\/em>, which won the Royal Society\u2019s Aventis Prize; lecturer and Royal Society University Research Fellow Clare Burrage; American evolutionary ecologist and ornithologist Devorah Bennu (GrrlScientist); author and Science Museum Group director of external affairs Roger Highfield; and award-winning author Alastair Reynolds.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

For\u00a0Nature\u2019<\/em>s full coverage of science in culture, visit\u00a0<\/strong>www.nature.com\/news\/booksandarts<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If fame were measured in namesakes, Alexander von Humboldt might reign supreme. The moniker of the brilliant biogeographer, naturalist and explorer graces dozens of species and phenomena, from the hog-nosed skunk Conepatus humboldtii to a sinkhole in Venezuela. Yet the Prussian polymath\u2019s reputation has lagged somewhat behind that of, say, Charles Darwin. Andrea Wulf\u2019s The Invention of Nature went some way towards changing all that. Now this immensely acclaimed biography is burnished anew by winning the Royal Society\u2019s Science Book Prize, sponsored by Inside Investment.  Read more<\/a> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3353,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,132293,73,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts","category-climate-change","category-genetics","category-psychology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/aviewfromthebridge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/aviewfromthebridge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/aviewfromthebridge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/aviewfromthebridge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3353"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/aviewfromthebridge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/aviewfromthebridge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4503\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/aviewfromthebridge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/aviewfromthebridge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/aviewfromthebridge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}