Rebecca Costa

Big science is the term given to those global, high-tech, multi-laboratory, billion-dollar research enterprises that tackle the very frontiers of scientific knowledge. Two of the largest Big Science initiatives ever undertaken are the Human Genome Project and the construction of the CERN nuclear research particle accelerator.

While the advanced research flows from these projects into scientific journals and technical papers, the basic concepts and practical implications are finding their way into popular science literature, as my list of bests below proves.

PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

Costa, Rebecca. The Watchman's Rattle: A Radical New Theory of Collapse. Vanguard. 346p. ISBN 9781593156053. $26.95.
There is no shortage of forces that threaten human well-being, among them economic unsustainability, environmental degradation, public health risks, and warfare. Costa uses a biopyschological perspective to illustrate how when society hits its "complexity threshold," we need to reconceptualize how we learn and use information. (LJ 9/15/10)

Original article