2023-05-26 12:26:50
By Mar Gulis
Did you know that the physical Erwin Schrödingerthe creator of the famous cat paradox, was also poet? Or that on Earth there is eight million species not counting bacteria? Have you heard of the summary trials to which the people retaliated by the Franco regime were subjected? These are just some of the topics that the new books published by the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) in 2023.
In this post we present the news from Editorial CSIC written for a broad or not necessarily specialized audience: books in which you can discover little-known aspects of the history of science, such as women’s contribution to botanical illustration; explore the latest scientific advances in the fields of nutrition o to search for alien life; or get closer to a not so distant past, like that of the Spanish military expeditions in Asia at the end of the 18th century.
CSIC booth at the Madrid Book Fair / Álvaro Minguito
In all cases, these are books written by specialists and reviewed by peers that you can find in bookstores, the electronic publishing portal of the CSIC or in the booth of Editorial CSIC at the Madrid Book Fair. Several of them, those marked with an asterisk, will also be presented on Tuesday, May 30, at 7:00 p.m., in the Fair’s Europe Pavilion. Don’t miss them!
Stories of science, art and literature
They illustrate botany*. Overcoming countless difficulties, women have studied and disseminated flora throughout history. This book gives an account of this by reproducing more than 50 botanical works of great value made by women between the 17th century and the present. Drawings, engravings, paintings and photographs are interspersed with essays and biographies that reveal “how the paths of equality have been traced” in the field of botanical illustration. toya legidoa professor of Fine Arts at the Complutense University of Madrid, coordinates this careful monograph, in which history, sociology and culture help to unravel the relationships between science, art and gender.
Fragment of ‘The oldest forests?, illustration included in ‘They illustrate botany’. / © Aina Bestard
Schrödinger, poet. Known for being one of the fathers of quantum physics and the creator of the most famous paradox in his discipline, Erwin Schrödinger had an exciting life in which he also cultivated philosophy and poetry. In Erwin Schrödinger and the space-time leap of Galileo Galilei, the poet Clara Janes presents the thought and work of the humanist Schrödinger. The scientist’s relationships with intellectuals such as Ortega y Gasset or Xavier Zubiri or his fascination with Spain are other topics covered by the author. The work has been published jointly with ‘poems’ [poemas] and Fragment of an unpublished dialogue by Galileo, a selection of poems and literary texts, some unpublished, written by Schrödinger.
Santiago Ramon y Cajal. As far as you want to go. Cajal was many other things besides being a pioneer in neuroscience and a Nobel Prize in Medicine. This brief biography aimed at young audiences covers his scientific career and tells aspects of his personal life that are less known about him. historians Elisa Garrido Moreno y Miguel Angel Puig-Samper They report that the prestigious Spanish scientist was also a mischievous child who climbed trees, a rebellious adolescent who liked painting or a young man who worked his muscles tenaciously. First published in 2021, the book has been republished this year in open access to celebrate the Cajal Year.
Self-portrait of Ramón y Cajal made in his youth.
Ants and roses scholarship: about books and the women who write them. What differences are there between the novel of someone who dedicates himself exclusively to writing and that of someone who has another job and takes care of his family? In this open-published essay, writer and editor Elena Medel reflect on how gender and social class affect writing. The author addresses, without hiding her “seams and contradictions”, issues such as whether or not women’s literature exists; and she also talks about the circumstances surrounding the fact of writing with writers from different eras and origins, such as Virginia Woolf, Gertrude Stein or Carmen Martín Gaite.
The advances of science, for all audiences
Life and its search beyond Earth. Will extraterrestrial life be similar to or very different from what we know on Earth? In this popular book, Esther Lazaro He explains that there are “good reasons” to believe in extraterrestrial life, and defends that it will probably be very different from how we imagine it. The CSIC researcher wonders what characteristics an object found outside the Earth would have to have to be considered a living being, and goes through some of the most promising places in the cosmos to find life: Mars, the moons of Jupiter or the exoplanets located in the habitable zone of their respective stars.
The molecules we eat. Sugars, carbohydrates, fiber, fats, minerals, proteins and vitamins are the basic components of food, the molecules we eat. What properties do they have? Why are they important for our development and health? How do they give food its different aromas, colors, flavors and textures? What kind of chemical reactions occur when cooking? This didactic guide coordinated by CSIC researchers Immaculate Yruela e Isabella Varela answers these and other questions about food and the molecules present in our diet. The book includes simple explanations and a wide variety of experiments and workshops that can be done both in the kitchen at home and at school.
How eight million species get on one planet. Why are there monkeys in South America? Why are there more species at the equator than at the poles? Why is it said that there are eight million different species on the planet and not just a hundred or a hundred million? Why doesn’t the most competitive species beat all the others and live alone dominating the world? To answer these questions, the CSIC researcher Ignasi Bartomeus takes a journey through the history of ecology, a discipline born just 150 years ago. In this book from the collection What do we know about? It presents the main laws that regulate ecological communities and the four basic mechanisms that determine ecosystems: evolution, dispersal, biotic and abiotic regulations, and lastly, luck.
A very present past
Tragedy in three acts. The summary trials of Francoism*. During the civil war and the postwar period, more than half a million people were subjected to summary trials: procedures governed by military jurisdiction, lacking guarantees and in which most of the sentences involved death sentences. The UNED anthropologist Alfonso M. Villalta Luna reconstructs the dynamics of these processes and the experiences of its protagonists: the prisoners who try to escape death from inside the jail, the soldiers who on the bench seek a sentence in the court martial and the relatives and friends, who carry out trips and efforts full of uncertainties and adversities in order to save the lives of their loved ones.
War council against the alleged members of the so-called ‘Czech of Fine Arts’. / Weekly magazine.
The Asian Squad. Between 1795 and 1803, while the entire world is at war, a small division is sent to the Philippines to protect Spanish interests. Led by Ignacio María Álava, the Asia Squad will have to face a complex mission and deal with hurricanes, assaults, fires, persecutions, deceit, corruption and rivalries. The historian Pablo Ortega-del-Cerro recounts the exploits and vicissitudes of the expedition and delves into a particularly troubled period, characterized by the military and economic rivalry between Great Britain and Spain. This exceptional episode allows you to observe the birth of a new global reality.
CSIC poster for the 2023 Book Fair. / Irene Cuesta
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