Bold Science: Seven Scientists Who Are Changing Our World

Science is at a crossroads. Cold War-era easy money for grand-scale projects has become a thing of the past. And yet, in this new environment, science seems to be reinvigorating itself, moving away from an overly specialized, bureaucratic mindset to a more streamlined, multidisciplinary approach.

In a number of fields, innovative teams led by gifted researchers are combining imaginative methods with inexpensive tools to chip away at the previously impenetrable secrets of the body, the mind, the planet, and the universe. In the process, they are demonstrating the same kind of inspired drive toward discovery that led Galileo to invent the telescope.

Bold Science examines this "scientific new wave" by profiling the work of some remarkable researchers: gene hunter Craig Venter, neuroscientist Susan Greenfield, astronomer Geoffrey Marcy, immunologist Polly Matzinger, cosmologist Saul Perlmutter, ecologist Gretchen Daily, and evolutionist Carl Woese. Headstrong, iconoclastic, visionary, these scientists have risen to the pinnacles of their fields at a pivotal moment-and are producing amazing breakthroughs with bold, sometimes controversial methods.

In exploring their scientific lives and times, Bold Science shows readers why we are at the dawning of a new era of understanding ourselves and our universe.

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