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Biotech / Medical : Biotech Valuation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: Biomaven who wrote (14563)12/8/2004 2:25:02 PM
From: scaram(o)uche  Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 52153
 
>> Provides a wonderful backdrop of 19th Century physics and physicists <<

Oh, yeah, that's gonna send us scrambling to Border's.

;-)



To: Biomaven who wrote (14563)12/8/2004 3:31:35 PM
From: Rudy Saucillo  Respond to of 52153
 
(Continued OT)

"The Making of the Atomic Bomb" - an extraordinary book that I've read several times. In addition to the excellent discussion of the physics and physicists of the day, the political and WWII historical perspective is outstanding.

The follow-on book, "Dark Sun" by Richard Rhodes on the history of the hydrogen bomb is also a must read.

Now for my recs...

"The Agony and the Ecstasy" by Irving Stone. This is a biographical novel on the life and times of Michelangelo. Once you start reading it, you can't put it down. And after you finish it, you have this incredible urge to travel to Italy!

"A Man on the Moon" by Andrew Chaikin. This is the definitive history of the Apollo lunar mission program (written by a renowned science author and personal friend). This book really brings the astronauts and engineers behind the Apollo program to life.

Rudy



To: Biomaven who wrote (14563)12/8/2004 8:38:53 PM
From: Raymond Duray  Respond to of 52153
 
OT -- The Crossroads of Physics, Politics and Finance --

Peter,

Re: "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" by Richard Rhodes

"It was a dark and gloomy night"..... er, yeah, I agree with you. I have Rhodes book in my personal top 10.

Have you read his sequel, "Dark Sun"?

amazon.com*

I rate that also in the top tier of non-fiction.

***
For those with a penchant for books on financial shenangigans and fraudsters, here's some that I really have found useful:

Charles Mackay's classic "Extraordinary Popular Delustions and the Madness of Crowds".

A recently updated book on the same themes is Chancellor's "Devil Take the Hindmost". Imminently readable, unlike Mackay's archaic text.

One of my absolute favorite authors on modern pirate finance is Frank Partnoy, whose "F.I.A.S.C.O." was a total eye opener to me on the degree of depravity and corruption that has overwhelmed the "Den of Thieves" called Wall Street in their quest for ever more arcane machinations. The worldful world of derivatives is a tough sell to a general audience, but it is a worthy topic.

I'll probably think of a few more as we go along....

William Greider and Martin Mayer are also wonderful, astute reporters and commentators on the financial scene....



To: Biomaven who wrote (14563)12/8/2004 8:53:12 PM
From: Doc Bones  Read Replies (3) | Respond to of 52153
 
... OT
7. THE DOUBLE HELIX by James D. Watson

27. THE ANTS by Bert Hoelldobler and Edward O. Wilson

I've always admired Wilson for his sociobiology and his efforts to make people aware that they are destroying their planet. The abrasive Watson made life miserable for Wilson at Harvard. As far as Watson was concerned, any biology that wasn't hard-core molecular was just "Our friend, the ant."

[And BTW, the ant is our friend as the leading turner of soil and leading predator on insects.]

;-)

Doc

observer.guardian.co.uk

...
In a memoir of this period, Edward O Wilson, Harvard's great classical biologist, and author of The Diversity of Life , described Watson as 'the most unpleasant human being he had ever met'. At department meetings, Wilson suggested, 'Watson radiated contempt in all directions. Having risen to fame at an early age, [he] became the Caligula of biology. He was given licence to say anything that came into his mind and expected to be taken seriously. And unfortunately he did so, with casual and brutal offhandedness.'

It was perhaps at this time that Watson realised he was not made for traditional academia. The turning point came, it seems, in 1968. The publication of The Double Helix , some of which had grown out his anecdotal lectures at Harvard, gave him more of the fame he desired. His colleagues were less amused. Maurice Wilkins, who pioneered the work in DNA at King's College alongside Franklin, and who was given the Nobel Prize with Crick and Watson, was not a man given to pejoratives but declared the book to be 'extremely badly written, juvenile and in bad taste'. Crick, who always 'behaved', Watson says, 'like my elder brother and still does' - believed it a 'violation of friendship'. But Watson wasn't too bothered. He held to his notion that it was impossible to separate the science from the scientists. 'People said why didn't I give Rosy Franklin credit in the book, but it would have been impossible to do that without writing her book. The story could not be told from every point of view. This was my story. And I was aware that I would be the person most damaged by it, because people would say I shouldn't have seen that photograph [an X-ray of the crys talline structure of DNA] that Rosy Franklin made.'
...