We finally understand (mostly at least) how the biggest animals on the planet eat. This article describes the fascinating process that rorqual whales (e.g. blue whales, humpback whales, fin whales) go through to get a little food into their bellies.
It is especially interesting to me that we are barely (in the past decade) getting enough information to piece this process together.
http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/issue.aspx?id=8779&y=0&no=&content=true&page=2&css=print
Gilbert strings together a variety of studies to help explain one of the greatest mysteries of our time: how ‘happiness’ works. The book is chocked so full of useful information that it has become one of my best reads in a long time.
Interesting tidbit: humans are really bad predictors at what will make them happy.
Interesting tidbit 2: Most people would drive across town to save $100 on a $200 stereo but would not drive across town to save $100 on a $20,000 car. Even though they save the same amount of money.
The brothers Heath do a wonderful job of detailing how to improve our decision making process. From personal lives to corporate offices, they lay out a solid pattern to make the best decision possible.
Interesting tidbit: PayPal first started as an app for PalmPilot and had to be convinced to become an online payment service.
In reading this book I had a grand realization: most of our misconceptions about which dinosaurs lived and ate which other dinosaurs is because we know dinosaurs better by the order they were discovered than the order in which they lived. For example, ankylosaurus and stegosaurus died off long before tyrannosaurus-rex started chomping stuff.
Interesting tidbit: A man was sent out to find a triceratop but came back with a t-rex. His sponsors were shocked and elated.
Part biography (on both Feynman and Mlodinow) and part philosophical exploration, Mlodinow details his quest to find self-understanding in his physics related career endeavors.
Interesting tidbit: String theory, something that we are just starting to grapple with, was mocked and missed for years before finally getting the last formula it needed to make mathematical sense.