Once Before Time: A Whole Story of the Universe by Martin Bojowald
(Knopf, 2010, $27.95, 320 pages)
Reviewed by Dr. Fred Bortz
Physics
Review of Massive: The Missing Particle That Sparked the Greatest Hunt in Science by Ian Sample
Massive: The Missing Particle That Sparked the Greatest Hunt in Science by Ian Sample
(Basic Books, 2010, $25.95, 320 pages)
This review by Fred Bortz was also published in the Dallas Morning News.
Anti-matter beaming out into space from Earth
Sometimes the news releases that cross my desk astonish me. This was one of them. It comes from NASA’s Fermi Gamma Ray Telescope.
Fermi was launched in 2008, replacing the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory (CGRO) that was deorbited in 2000. I write about CGRO in the chapter on The Great Observatories in my new book 
Seven Wonders of Space Technology
Review of The 4% Universe by Richard Panek
The 4% Universe: Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and the Race to Discover the Rest of Reality by Richard Panek
( Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 288 pages, $26.00, January, 2011)
Reviewed by Dr. Fred Bortz
Follow science blogger/children’s author on Facebook
If you are a regular reader of my blog postings, you know that I am a passionate, opinionated middle-of-the-roader. I bring the same passion to my writing for young readers, but I want them to learn to form their own opinions.
For people who love good children’s science books
I’ve bitten the bullet and created a Facebook page for myself as an author of children’s science books. If you know teachers or librarians who care about good science books for children, or middle graders and teens who might enjoy interacting with an author on Facebook, please send them my way! Scientifically yours, “Dr. Fred” … Read more
Review of Hawking’s GRAND DESIGN
The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow (Bantam, 2010, $28.00, 208 pages)
Reviewed by Dr. Fred Bortz
Hawking will soon have a new book, so here’s a review of his last one
I have just written and submitted a review of the upcoming The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow, which I will publish here after it appears in the major metropolitan newspaper that assigned it. Meanwhile, that seems like a good reason to republish my review of Hawking’s 2001 book, The Universe in a Nutshell here.
The inside story of Einstein’s brain
A story on NPR this morning reminded me of a delightful book that I reviewed several years ago, Driving Mr. Albert: A Trip Across America With Einstein’s Brain by Michael Paterniti. I’ll reproduce the review here, or you can read it on my Science Shelf website.
But I also highly recommend the NPR story to bring you up to date on what has happened since Mr. Paterniti drove Einstein’s Brain along with Thomas Harvey, the eccentric pathologist who conducted the autopsy on Einstein and then kept the brain for himself (and posterity), across the country from Princeton to Berkeley to deliver the brain to Einstein’s granddaughter.