Annal:2004 Aventis Prize for General Science Book
From AwardAnnals
Results of the Aventis Prize in the year 2004. For a ranked list of books, try an honor roll:
- Aventis Prize for General Science Book
- Nonfiction books
- Nonfiction authors
- Science/Technology books
- Science/Technology authors.
A Short History of Nearly Everything
- 2004 Aventis-General winner
- Score: 10.54
Bill Bryson is one of the world’s most beloved and bestselling writers. In A Short History of Nearly Everything, he takes his ultimate journey—into the most intriguing and consequential questions that science seeks to answer. It’s a dazzling quest, the intellectual odyssey of a lifetime, as this insatiably curious writer attempts to understand everything that has transpired from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization. Or, as the author puts it, “…how we went from there being nothing at all to there being something, and then how a little of that something…
In the Beginning Was the Worm: Finding the Secrets of Life in a Tiny Hermaphrodite
- 2004 Aventis-General shortlist
- Score: 6.54
This is the story of how three men won the Nobel Prize for their research on the humble nematode worm C. elegans; how their extraordinary discovery led to the sequencing of the human genome; how a global multibillion-dollar industry was born; and how the mysteries of life were revealed in a tiny, brainless worm.
In 1998 the nematode worm—perhaps the most intensively studied animal on earth—was the first multicellular organism ever to have its genome sequenced and its DNA mapped and read. “When we understand the worm, we will understand life,” predicted John…
Magic Universe: The Oxford Guide to Modern Science
- 2004 Aventis-General shortlist
- Score: 6.54
As a prolific author, BBC commentator, and magazine editor, Nigel Calder has spent a lifetime spotting and explaining the big discoveries in all branches of science. In Magic Universe, he draws on his vast experience to offer readers a lively, far-reaching look at modern science in all its glory, shedding light on the latest ideas in physics, biology, chemistry, medicine, astronomy, and many other fields.
What is truly magical about Magic Universe is Calder’s incredible breadth. Migrating birds, light sensors in the human eye, black holes,…
Mutants: On Genetic Variety and the Human Body
- 2004 Aventis-General shortlist
- Score: 6.54
“Who are the mutants? We are all mutants. But some of us are more mutant than others.”
Variety, even deformity, may seem like an unlikely route by which to approach normality, even perfection. Yet much of what we know about the mechanisms of human development, growth, and aging comes from the study of people who are afflicted with congenital diseases, most of which have genetic causes. Congenital abnormalities reveal not only errors within the womb, but also our evolutionary history.
In Mutants, Armand Marie Leroi gives a brilliant narrative…
Nature Via Nurture: Genes, Experience, and What Makes Us Human
- 2004 Aventis-General shortlist
- Score: 6.54
In February 2001 it was announced that the human genome contains not 100,000 genes, as originally postulated, but only 30,000. This startling revision led some scientists to conclude that there are simply not enough human genes to account for all the different ways people behave: we must be made by nurture, not nature. Yet again biology was to be stretched on the Procrustean bed of the nature-nurture debate. Matt Ridley argues that the emerging truth is far more interesting than this myth. Nurture depends on genes, too, and genes need nurture. Genes not only…
The Backroom Boys: The Secret Return of the British Boffin
- 2004 Aventis-General shortlist
- Score: 6.54
A rapturous history of British engineering, a vivid love-letter to quiet men in pullovers, Backroom Boys tells the story of how this country lost its industrial tradition and got back something else.
