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Supplemental Reading |
DUE:
Once a semester before the time of the
final exams. You can turn in completed
supplemental reading assignments at any time, just be
sure you have one turned in by the last day of the
semester!
Worth:
100 class work points (usually turns out to being about
2-4 percent of your overall grade, but this can vary).
Assignment:
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Choose a book from the options below.
Some are easy, some are hard. All are great!
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Acquire the book (libraries have
multiple copies of these books or you can get copies
of some of them from the classroom collection).
You can also link through to Amazon from this
site and order the books direct.
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For books in
list A:
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Get the question sets linked
from the book titles in the
list below.
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Read the book, love it, and answer
the questions in your own writing. ANSWERS MAY NOT
BE TYPED. |
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Complete the
supplemental reading verification
form
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Turn in your question packets and be
rewarded with oogles and oodles of points (100
max)! |
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For
books in
list B:
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These books are great, but I don’t
have questions written for them yet… so, you can
write the questions! |
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For each chapter of the book, write a
3-5 sentence summary of what happened in that
chapter. Then… |
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For each chapter, write 1-3 questions
that can be used for future students reading the
book. The questions can not be answered with a
single word and must be related to the BIOLOGY
behind the book. Then…
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For each question you wrote, provide
the correct answer.
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Your summaries, questions and answers
must be TYPED and emailed to Ms. vB.
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Complete the supplemental
reading verification form
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I recognize that this is more work
than option A, so you will be rewarded with oogles and
oodles of points (120
max)! Yes… that’s right. You can earn 120 points
for selecting option B, that’s 20 extra credit
points!
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If you bought a book want nothing
more to do with it, then PLEASE donate your book to
the classroom collection! What good karma you will
have.
But, wait… there’s more!
You can read more than one book a
semester for extra credit (50 points each, no limit)!!
Book choices:
LIST A
(jump to difficulty:
easy,
medium or hard)
Easy
The Andromeda Strain
(Michael Crichton). A returning space
capsule releases an alien virus on the
earth.
 The Demon
in the Freezer
(Richard Preston). A thriller that focuses on
smallpox and the threat it plays as a bioterrorism
agent.
 Jurassic Park
(Michael Crichton). Crichton
interweaves details of genetic engineering, computer
wizardry and current scientific controversy over
dinosaurs to fashion a scary, creepy, mesmerizing
thriller.
 My
Sisters Keeper
(Jodi Picoult). Anna was genetically
engineered to be a perfect match for her
cancer-ridden older sister.
 The Hot
Zone
(Richard Preston). The tale of an
actual Ebola virus outbreak in a suburban
Washington, D.C. laboratory.
 Complications: A Surgeon's Note on an Imperfect
Science
(Atul Gawande). Edgy accounts of
medical traumas and sobering analyses of doctors'
anxieties and burnout.
 A Year of
Wonders
(Geraldine Brooks). This well-written fictitious
tale tells of life in the time of plague (1600s),
inclusive of quarantines, abandonment, class issues
and infectious disease.
 The Woman with a Worm in
her Head
(Pamela Nagami). A collection of
infectious disease essays, including AIDS,
chickenpox and flesh-eating bacteria.
 The Samurai's Garden
(Gail Tsukiyama). Set in Japan just before WWII,
Tsukiyama's novel tells of a young Chinese man's
encounters with four locals while he recuperates
from tuberculosis.
 The Year of My Indian
Prince (Ella Thorpse Ellis). April
Thorp, 16, has contracted tuberculosis and is being
treated in a San Francisco hospital just after World
War II.
Medium
 Panic in Level 4
(Richard Preston).
Essays that cover genome mapper Craig
Venter; a gene that leads people to
cannibalize themselves; and two
Russian-Jewish émigré scientists who built a
monster computer in their cramped apartment
to puzzle out patterns in the value of pi.
 The Immortal
Cell
(Michael D. West). A chronology of the
emerging science of immortality and a
personal journal of the path from
creationist to scientist. It was West who
announced that through somatic cell nuclear
transfer they could create embryonic stem
cells.
 What Patients Taught Me
(Audrey Young). A firsthand depiction
of the hardships and rewards of medical
school, this sensitive memoir may serve as a
guide to help readers who are considering
traversing that same path.
 The Man Who
Mistook his Wife for a Hat
(Oliver Sacks) Clinical tales drawn
from fascinating and unusual cases
introduces real people who suffer from a
variety of neurological syndromes which
include symptoms such as amnesia,
uncontrolled movements, and musical
hallucinations.
 The
Dinosaur Heresies
(Robert T. Bakker). Ideas of active,
behaviorly complex, warm-blooded dinosaurs
have shaken orthodox views and stimulated
both public interest and renewed scientific
research.
 A Day in
the Life of Your Body
(Jennifer Ackerman)
Starting
with a 5:30 a.m. wakeup call and working
through to the wee hours, this book explains
the complex details behind some of the
body's most basic functions.
 Musicophilia
(Oliver Sacks) Explores the effects of
music on the human brain. Clinical studies
from individuals afflicted by an inability
to connect with any melody to Alzheimer's
patients who find order and comfort through
music.
 The World
Without Us
(Alan Weisman). If humans when
extinct overnight, how long before all trace of
humankind vanished?
 The
Journey
of Man
(Spencer Wells).
Tracking human relatedness and migration by
examining Y-chromosome similarities and
differences among current humans.
 A Feeling for the Organism; The Life
and Work of Barbara McClintock
(Evelyn Fox Keller). An insightful
and thought-provoking book about women in science
and the role of dissent in the scientific community.
 Microbe Hunters
(Paul de Kruif).
In this classic bestseller, Paul de
Kruif dramatizes the pioneering bacteriological work
of such scientists as Leeuwenhoek, Spallanzani,
Koch, Pasteur, Reed, and Ehrlich.
 Silent
Spring
(Rachel Carson). The
book focuses on the poisons from insecticides, weed
killers, and other common products as well as the
use of sprays in agriculture, a practice that led to
dangerous chemicals to the food source.
 Journey
to the Ants
(Bert Holldobler and E.O. Wilson). Offer a
fascinating glimpse into the world of ants as well
as their own personal adventures in the study of
these insects.
 Through a
Window: My Thirty Year with the Chimpanzees of Gombe
(Jane Goodall). A saga of chimpanzee families with
an engrossing account of animal behavior.
 The
Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery
of the Structure of DNA
(James Watson). Describes the many minds involved in the ultimate
understanding of what DNA looks like and how it
multiplies.
 The Lives
of a Cell; Notes of a Biology Watcher
(Lewis Thomas). A beautifully
written collection of essays that bring one very
close to a belief that in some way, all life is
connected.
 The
Secret Life of Germs
(Phillip Tierno). The story of
bacteria, viruses, and prions and their myriad
effects on human beings. From toxic shock syndrome
to Lyme disease to diarrheal infections of the Third
World.
 Abraham
Lincoln’s DNA
(Philip R. Reilly). An enjoyable
series of vignettes that explain the fundamental
tools of the modern genetic detective in the course
of fascinating historical tales.
 When a
Gene Makes You Smell Like a Fish
(Lisa Seachrist Chiu). A
remarkable collection of stories about the discovery
and elucidation of some rare or not so rare genetic
disorders.
 Riddled
with Life
(Marlene Zuk). Stories of human
parasites and how humans and our parasites have
co-evolved.
 The Wild Trees
(Richard Preston).
Includes the history of old-growth forests,
canopy ecology, tells how gadgets and
techniques to climb were invented and
introduces recreational tree-climbing as a
sport. Throughout, he weaves in the personal
stories of a crew that includes the
studious, the brave and the eccentric.
Hard
 Origin of
Species
(Charles Darwin). One of the most important and
influential books ever written, and it is one of the
very few groundbreaking works of science that is
truly readable.
 Plague
Time
(Paul Ewald). Argues
that cancer, heart disease, and arthritis are not
necessarily caused by a
breakdown of the human body, but by the action of
infectious agents and by the immune response to
those agents.
 Primal
Teen
(Barbara Strauch). The latest
research, including brain scans that show changes in
the brain's structure and function that could
explain the crazy behavior exhibited by teens.
 Survival of the Sickest
(Sharon Moalem).
Addresses a number of provocative questions, such as
why debilitating hereditary diseases persist in
humans and why we suffer from the consequences of
aging.
 The
Family that Couldn't Sleep
(T.D.
Max). The case of an Italian family whose
members succumb to a sleeping disorder that
causes not only insomnia but certain death.
The cause of this disease is determined to
be prions—infectious agents derived from
proteins.
 The
Ghost Map
(Steven
Johnson). On August 28, 1854,
working-class Londoner Sarah Lewis tossed a
bucket of soiled water into the cesspool of
her squalid apartment building and triggered
the deadliest outbreak of cholera in the
city's history.
 Guns, Germs
and Steal
(Jared Diamond) Through the lens of an
evolutionary biologist, Diamond reviews
human history on every continent since the
Ice Age at a rate that emphasizes the
movements of peoples and ideas.
 Head Cases
(Michael Paul Mason). takes us into
the dark side of the brain in an astonishing
sequence of stories, at once true and
strange, from the world of brain injury.
Book choices:
LIST B
NEW:
 "All
that microscopic reality--the benign
bacteria feasting on our faces, the
widening of the pupils as Baby's gaze
meets Mom's or Dad's ("the tiny muscles
controlling the pupils in the dad's eyes
suddenly tug wider. Males who don't have
children rarely show this universal sign
of interest.")--triggers a host of
facts, both fascinating and appalling;
that aforementioned parental gaze segues
into an explanation of the ingredients
of baby food ("boiled and skimmed pigs'
feet extract is often used, though in a
pinch the scooped inner pith of
discarded fruit can be added, too. Chalk
is often added next"). And that's the
least of it... "
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Harrison, Harry.
West of Eden .
1984. Imagine a world where dinosaurs did not die
but survived to develop their own civilization;
their culture comes into conflict with an emergent
human race. |
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Honigsbaum, Mark. The Fever Trail An engaging history of the hunt for a cure for
malaria. |
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Huxley, Aldous.
Brave New World (P.S.) ,
1946. This famous satire about a technologically
stratified world six centuries in the future helped
define 20th-century humanity's view of itself.
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Leavitt, Judith W.
Typhoid Mary . A new look on a
well-known character in infectious disease and
public health history.
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Levin, Ira.
The Boys from Brazil - a Novel ,
1976. Dr. Mengele attempts to produce cloned
copies of Adolf Hitler, but in order to do so he
must reproduce the environmental factors which made
Hitler the evil genius that he was; deals
intelligently with the fashionable subject of
cloning. |
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Talarigo, Jeff.
The Pearl Diver .
A sad glimpse into a Japanese leprosy colony (Nagashima),
and the fictional prejudicial experiences of a
19-year old pearl diver interned in the late 1940s.
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(AIDS) 
, 1980. Human evolution at the level
of the Cro-Magnon/Neanderthal junction.
(leprosy)
(Ebola) 
(malaria)
(global warming)
(tuberculosis)
(tuberculosis)
. Discusses the afflictions of
tropical diseases and the politics behind combating
them. 
(plague)
. A time-traveling science fiction
thriller, that revolves around the key players that
determined the link between malaria and mosquitoes.
. The biography of a man who fought to
over come insurmountable situations to increase
awareness of the state of poverty and infectious
disease in Haiti and elsewhere. 
The history and
epidemiology of the influenza epidemic and the
recent work by scientists to better understand the
virus. 
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Reviews the American reaction to six major illnesses
that struck the US in the last century
(tuberculosis, typhus, trachoma, bubonic plague,
AIDS, and cholera). 
. Using mitochondrial DNA to trace the
path of human evolution. 
A
collection of well-researched (and amusing) essays
on numerous parasites, including the agents that
cause malaria and African sleeping sickness.
