Smooth Pebbles

David Dobbs: Reef Madness : Charles Darwin, Alexander Agassiz, and the Meaning of Coral
Oliver Sacks calls it "brilliantly written, almost unbearably poignant... The coral reef story becomes a microcosm of the conflicts -- between idealism and empiricism, God and evolution -- which were to split science and culture in the nineteenth century, and which still split them today.”

David Dobbs and Richard Ober: The Northern Forest
What's wrong with the land-use debate in the Great North Woods (and elsewhere).

Brian Greene, editor: The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2006 (The Best American Series)
Contains my NY Times Magazine story on the decline of the autopsy

Gina Kolata, Editor: The Best American Science Writing 2007 (Best American Science Writing)
Contains my NY Times Magazine story on an experimental brain surgery for depression.

David Dobbs: The Great Gulf: Fishermen, Scientists, and the Struggle to Revive the World's Greatest Fishery
An epistemological argument disguised as a fish fight.