Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law in Science and Inquiry

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Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law

Mary Roach

Start date: September 1, 2022

Finish date: September 30, 2022

Discussion: Book Club 2022

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Book Club 2022

November 2022 - Rise of the Mammals
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last updated May 05, 2024 12:39AM

December 2022 - Immense World
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last updated Jan 28, 2023 09:23PM

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What Members Thought

Sep 17, 2021 Petra lives on a little Caribbean island rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2022-reviews, 2021-read, review-at-last, medicine-science, reviewed, house-garden

I've read quite a few Mary Roach books. All 3 or 4 stars, none of them ever quite hit the heights for me and eventually I got bored with her light-touch pop science writing that had plenty of humour and not enough science. This book is different, and not at all like her other books. There is still humour, but it is minimal, and there is plenty of deep investigation and science. Essentially the book is about plants and animals that are seriously dangerous to people.

I have the two most dangerous ...more

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Mar 29, 2022 Jim rated it really liked it

Shelves: 1paper, 2non-fiction, animals

Really good, as usual. There was a lot of good information about topics I never would have thought about otherwise & I've dealt with animals all my life. Of course, I haven't lived in India with their monkey or leopards, but I hadn't even considered tracking pests forensically. I know invasive species can be a problem, but the issues New Zealand faces are really difficult. There were a lot of other fun, interesting, & exciting issues all told with her typical good humor.

The holes in our scienti Really good, as usual. There was a lot of good information about topics I never would have thought about otherwise & I've dealt with animals all my life. Of course, I haven't lived in India with their monkey or leopards, but I hadn't even considered tracking pests forensically. I know invasive species can be a problem, but the issues New Zealand faces are really difficult. There were a lot of other fun, interesting, & exciting issues all told with her typical good humor.

The holes in our scientific knowledge of animals is incredible & so is science's blindness to some of the best sources. I'm constantly amazed when a study finds out things about animals that I thought everyone knew such as their differences in intelligence & personality, but I grew up with them. They're just different people to me. (In another book I'm reading, Jane Goodall says her first teacher was her dog, Rusty.)

Toward the end, she got pretty lopsided toward animal welfare. I'm all for traps that kill quickly & I'm not a fan of poison or glue traps, but there were some numbers about the number of dogs killed by poison put out for coyotes without balancing numbers such as the number of baits, the number of coyotes estimated to be killed, or if it helped. (I'm pretty sure it didn't.)

She really painted a poor half picture when dealing with genetically changing animals & releasing them into the wild to bring down or eradicate populations of animals that are causing problems. Her mention of mosquitoes was really incomplete & misleading, but I really objected to:
鈥淚 think the concern is that the technology and the ability of people to experiment with it is moving way too fast, and the only way you鈥檙e going to slow it down is to shut it down completely,鈥� is attributed to Jane Goodall through another scientist & Roach seems to agree. Regulate, sure. Shut down completely because you lump many methods under one umbrella of ignorance - absolutely not. It can't be done, anyway.

Overall, I liked the book. It was perfect reading while waiting for doctors since the chapters were fairly short & engaging. I definitely recommend reading it as I do all of her books.
...more

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May 22, 2022 bup rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobook, science, our-dying-planet, 2022

As always, Roach's dry humor and interesting choice of subject matter make for a worthwhile, entertaining read, as she covers topics as varied as "how do you keep albatrosses from interfering with flights on Midway Island?" and "when you find a human who's been killed by a wild animal, what kinds of clues tell you it might have been a bear, a cougar, or a pack of wolves who did that mauling?"

The only thing I would advise against is getting the audiobook. Not because Roach, who is her own narrato ...more

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Dec 22, 2021 Nydia 鈥淐ookie鈥� rated it it was amazing

Shelves: bookmarks-suggestions

I enjoyed this deep dive into the problems that exist between humans and the laws and attitudes we have developed toward wild or unwanted animals in our proximity. So much great information and surprising events in this unusual book. Not for everyone, but a 5 star rating for those of us who are scientists, biologists, or just appreciate trivia in a well written story. I especially enjoyed the humor and looked forward to reading the entertaining footnotes(something I thought I would never say!)

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