| THE SCIENCE OF MICHAEL CRICHTON An Unauthorized Exploration into the Real Science Behind the Fictional Worlds of Michael Crichton Kevin R. Grazier, Ph.D. (Editor) Dallas: Benbella Books, March 2008 |
Rating: 4.5 High |
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| ISBN-13 978-1-933771-36-6 | ||||
| ISBN-10 1-933771-32-1 | 173p. | SC | $17.95 | |
| Introduction | Kevin R. Grazier, Ph.D. | vii |
| A physicist, Dr. Grazier works on the Cassini/Huygens team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He also teaches at UCLA and was the science advisor for the new Battlestar Galactica. |
| The Andromeda Strain | Sergio Pistoi | 1 |
| A native of Italy, Sergio Pistoi earned his doctorate in molecular biology. Soon after, "a radiation incident in his lab turned him into an evil science-writing superhero." Apparently, however, he neither turns green and bulks up when angered, nor does he possess a "spidey sense." |
| Virtual Reality and Man-Machine Interface in Disclosure and The Terminal Man | Ray Kurzweil | 19 |
| Ray Kurzweil scarcely needs an introduction. He is one of the foremost developers of technology, with a focus on computers and artificial intelligence: work that earned him a place in the National Inventors' Hall of Fame. He has written five books, four of which became best-sellers. His other awards include the MIT-Lemelson Prize, the National Medal of Technology, fifteen honorary doctorates and honors from three U.S. presidents. |
| Shock to the System | Steven Gulie | 35 |
| Writer Steven Gulie lives in Oakland, California, where he explains complex things in simple terms for Apple. He has two and one-half cats. |
| Neanderthals and Wendols | Ian Tattersall | 47 |
| Perhaps not quite so well known as Ray Kurzweil, Ian Tattersall outdoes him in books, having twenty titles to his credit. He is a curator in the Division of Anthropology at New York City's American Museum of Natural History. |
| Primate Behavior and Misbehavior in Michael Crichton's Congo | Dario Maestripieri, Ph.D. | 59 |
| The physiological, ecological, and evolutionary aspects of primate social behavior are the research interests of Dr. Dario Maestripieri. He is an associate professor at the University of Chicago and the author of numerous papers and several books. |
| We Still Can't Clone Dinosaurs | Sandy Becker | 69 |
| Sandy Becker has worked for twenty-five years at Wesleyan University as a developmental biologist. To supplement her income, she moonlighted as a science journalist. There was some folk singing in there somewhere, too — and teaching and motherhood. She is now employed by the Massachusetts biotech company Advanced Cell Technology. |
| Crichton Travels in Time | Joel N. Shurkin | 85 |
| As a science writer with the Philadelphia Inquirer, Joel Shurkin was part of the team whose coverage of Three Mile Island earned a Pulitzer Prize. He started the science journalism internship program at Stanford University and has nine published books to his credit. He now holds the Sneddon Chair of Journalism at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. |
| Artificial Life in Michael Crichton's Prey | Larry Yaeger | 107 |
| Computer simulation of the complex aerodynamic flow fields encountered by the space shuttle are among the interests of Larry Yaeger. He teaches programming at Indiana University and developed the first usable handwriting recognition system for Apple. |
| Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid: Michael Crichton's State of Fear | David M. Lawrence | 131 |
| Journalist, college-level oceanography teacher, and scuba diver, David Lawrence lives northeast of Richmond in the city of Mechanicsville, Virginia with a wife, two children, and a menagerie of other creatures. |
| Science Comes in Second in Next | Phill Jones | 155 |
| Freelance writer Phill Jones has worked as an associate professor of biochemistry and as a patent attorney specializing in biotechnology. He now teaches an online forensic science course for writers. |
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