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76 Scientific American, April 2019

RECOMMENDED
By Andrea Gawrylewski

REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION FROM

OUR PLANET,

BY ALASTAIR FOTHERGILL AND KEITH SCHOLEY. COPYRIGHT © 2019.

PUBLISHED BY TEN SPEED PRESS, A DIVISION OF PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE, LLC. IMAGE CREDIT: SERGEY GORSHKOV

Frankie: How One Woman

Prevented a Pharmaceutical Disaster

by James Essinger and Sandra Koutzenko.

Wellspring, 2019 ($24.95)

On March 8, 1962, pharma­

cologist Frances (“Frankie”) O.

Kelsey, a medical reviewer at

the FDA, re ceived a most un ­

expected letter. The drug firm

that had pressured her to approve the distribution

of a sleep ing pill was withdrawing its request. For

nearly two years she had refused to accede—there

was not enough evidence to prove the medication

was safe. As it turned out, the drug, thalido mide,

which was also used to treat morning sick ness in

pregnancy, had been linked to birth defects in

Europe and elsewhere. In the end, it never pervad­

ed the U.S. market. Writers Essinger and Koutzenko

unearth the story of Kelsey, who helped prevent a

public health tragedy by standing her ground in the

name of scientific proof. — Emiliano Rodríguez Mega

Einstein’s Unfinished Revolution:

The Search for What Lies

beyond the Quantum

by Lee Smolin. Penguin Press, 2019 ($28)

Quantum mechanics —the

basis for our understanding

of particles and forces—is argu­

ably the most successful theory

in all of science. But its success

has come at a price: unresolved mysteries at the

theory’s heart, such as the paradoxical wave­par­

ticle duality of quantum ob jects, can make modern

physics seem decidedly metaphysical. Simply put,

if mainstream interpretations of quantum mechan­

ics are true, then the central, most cherished tenet

of physics—that an ob jective reality exists indepen­

dently of our mind but is still comprehensible—must

be false. Smolin, a member of the Perimeter Institute

for Theoretical Physics in Ontario, argues against

this vexing status quo: “It is possible to be a realist

while living in the quantum universe.” — Lee Billings

Eating the Sun: Small Musings
on a Vast Universe

by Ella Frances Sanders. Penguin Books, 2019 ($17)

From the atoms that make up
our bodies to the galactic su per­
cluster that houses the Milky
Way, writer and illustrator
Sanders elucidates many of the
wonders of our world through drawings and con ­
versational explanations. While describing lunar the­
ory, for example, she compares the moon and Earth’s
locked synchronous rotation to the movement
of dance partners: “How glad we can be, that we
have someone to figure out this universe business
alongside, to dance with, to gradually lengthen our
days and keep us slow.” A star’s death, trees help ing
one another survive and the ways our brain re writes
memories are also among the concepts San ders
de mystifies. Each inspiring snapshot feeds the cu­
riosity of anyone in terested in exploring the universe
that we exist in and that exists in us. — Sunya Bhutta

This month the new nature documentary series Our Planet will be released on Netflix, from the same team that created Planet Earth and The Blue Planet.

The companion book by co­producers Fothergill and Scholey can certainly stand on its own, with many images leaving the viewer wondering, “How’d

they get that shot?”: A lone polar bear treks along the ridge of a jagged, blue and glistening ice cap in the Russian High Arctic ( above ). An iridescent

turquoise European king fisher seems frozen in time as it dives for minnows off its mossy perch. A brown bear peeks around the tree in a Slovenian forest—

its expression so human like, you could dare call it shy. This collection goes beyond photography, though, with a thorough discussion of the conservation

challenges facing many ecosystems on Earth. It’s not enough to merely look at the planet around us—we must understand how humans impact it.

Our Planet

by Alastair Fothergill

and Keith Scholey,

with Fred Pearce.

Ten Speed Press,

2019 ($35)