Title: The Autobiography of a Transgender Scientist.
Author: Ben Barres (Author), Nancy Hopkins (Foreword).
Publication info: The MIT Press, 2020. Autobiography, 160 pages.
Location: Rancho Cordova campus. Call number: QP353.4.B37 A3 2018.
Description: "A leading neuroscientist describes his life, gender transition, groundbreaking scientific work on glial cells, and his advocacy for gender equality in STEM. Ben Barres was known for his groundbreaking scientific work and advocacy for gender equality in science. In this autobiography, completed shortly before his death from pancreatic cancer in December 2017, Barres (born in 1954) describes a life full of remarkable accomplishments—from his childhood as a precocious math and science whiz to his experiences as a female student at MIT in the 1970s to his gender confusion and later transition in his 40s, to his scientific work and role as teacher and mentor at Stanford. As an undergraduate at MIT, Barres experienced discrimination, but it was after transitioning that he realized how differently male and female scientists are treated. He became an advocate for gender equality in science, and later in life responded pointedly to Larry Summers's speculation that women were innately unsuited to be scientists. At Stanford, Barres made important discoveries about glia, the most numerous cells in the brain, and he describes some of his work. 'The most rewarding part of his job,' however, was mentoring young scientists. That, and his advocacy for women and transgender scientists, ensures his legacy."
Title: Tangles: A Story About Alzheimer's, My Mother, and Me
Author: Sarah Leavitt
Publication info: Skyhorse, 2012; Graphic novel, 128 pages.
Location: Rancho Cordova campus library. Call number: RC523 .L43 2012.
Description: "In this powerful memoir the the LA Times calls “moving, rigorous, and heartbreaking," Sarah Leavitt reveals how Alzheimer’s disease transformed her mother, Midge, and her family forever. In spare blackand- white drawings and clear, candid prose, Sarah shares her family’s journey through a harrowing range of emotions—shock, denial, hope, anger, frustration—all the while learning to cope, and managing to find moments of happiness. Midge, a Harvard educated intellectual, struggles to comprehend the simplest words; Sarah’s father, Rob, slowly adapts to his new role as full-time caretaker, but still finds time for wordplay and poetry with his wife; Sarah and her sister Hannah argue, laugh, and grieve together as they join forces to help Midge. Tangles confronts the complexity of Alzheimer’s disease, and ultimately releases a knot of memories and dreams to reveal a bond between a mother and a daughter that will never come apart."
Title: Fighting Invisible Enemies: Health and Medical Transitions among Southern California Indians.
Author: Clifford E. Trafzer.
Publication info: University of Oklahoma Press, 2019. 392 pages. Paperback.
Location: Physical book located in Rancho Cordova (1 copy).
Description: Native Americans long resisted Western medicine—but had less power to resist the threat posed by Western diseases. And so, as the Office of Indian Affairs reluctantly entered the business of health and medicine, Native peoples reluctantly began to allow Western medicine into their communities. Fighting Invisible Enemies traces this transition among inhabitants of the Mission Indian Agency of Southern California from the late nineteenth through the mid-twentieth century. What historian Clifford E. Trafzer describes is not so much a transition from one practice to another as a gradual incorporation of Western medicine into Indian medical practices. Melding indigenous and medical history specific to Southern California, his book combines statistical information and documents from the federal government with the oral narratives of several tribes. Many of these oral histories—detailing traditional beliefs about disease causation, medical practices, and treatment—are unique to this work, the product of the author’s close and trusted relationships with tribal elders. Trafzer examines the years of interaction that transpired before Native people allowed elements of Western medicine and health care into their lives, homes, and communities. Among the factors he cites as impelling the change were settler-borne diseases, the negative effects of federal Indian policies, and the sincere desire of both Indians and agency doctors and nurses to combat the spread of disease. Here we see how, unlike many encounters between Indians and non-Indians in Southern California, this cooperative effort proved positive and constructive, resulting in fewer deaths from infectious diseases, especially tuberculosis. The first study of its kind, Trafzer’s work fills gaps in Native American, medical, and Southern California history. It informs our understanding of the working relationship between indigenous and Western medical traditions and practices as it continues to develop today.
Title: Stitching a Revolution.
Author: Cleve Jones and Jeff Dawson.
Publication info: HarperOne, 2000. Memoir, 304 pages.
Available: For checkout at our Rancho Cordova campus library.
Topics: AIDS Epidemic, LGBTQIA+ history, activism, San Francisco, CA.
Description: "Against the turbulent backdrop of politics and sexual liberation in San Francisco during the seventies, Jones recounts his coming-of-age alongside friend and mentor Harvey Milk--and, later, Milk's assassination and the ensuing riots that threatened to tear down all they had accomplished. But Jones's political aspirations were put on hold after the emergence of an insidious, unexplainable "gay cancer" that would soon become known throughout the world as AIDS. Demoralized by the tide of death and despair sweeping his community, brutally assaulted by gay-bashing thugs, and faced with the specter of his own positive diagnosis, Jones sought a way to restore hope to a world falling apart beneath his feet.
What started out as a simple panel of fabric stitched for his best friend now covers a space larger than twenty-five football fields and contains over eighty thousand names. The Quilt has affected the lives of many people, bridging racial, sexual, and religious barriers to unite millions in the fight against AIDS.
Stitching a Revolution is a compelling, dramatic tale with a cast of memorable characters from all walks of life. At times uplifting, at times heartwrenching, this inspiring story reveals what it means to be human and how the power of love conquers all--even death."
Title: Realizing the Promise of Equity in the Organ Transplantation System
Authors: Committee on A Fairer and More Equitable, Cost-Effective, and Transparent System of Donor Organ Procurement, Allocation, and Meredith Hackmann, Rebecca A. English, Kenneth W. Kizer.
Publication info: Washington, DC: National Academies Press. 2022.
Available: Academic eBook Collection.
Description: Each year, the individuals and organizations in the U.S. organ donation, procurement, allocation, and distribution system work together to provide transplants to many thousands of people, but thousands more die before getting a transplant due to the ongoing shortage of deceased donor organs and inequitable access to transplant waiting lists. Realizing the Promise of Equity in the Organ Transplantation System, a new consensus study report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine?s Committee on A Fairer and More Equitable, Cost-Effective, and Transparent System of Donor Organ Procurement, Allocation, and Distribution, provides expert recommendations to improve fairness, equity, transparency, and cost-effectiveness in the donor organ system.
Title: Traumatic Brain Injury: A Roadmap for Accelerating Progress.
Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; Health and Medicine Division; Board on Health Care Services; Board on Health Sciences Policy; Committee on Accelerating Progress in Traumatic Brain Injury Research and Care; Chanel Matney; Katherine Bowman; Donald Berwick
Publication info: Washington, DC : National Academies Press. 2022.
Available: Academic eBook Collection.
Description: Every community is affected by traumatic brain injury (TBI). Causes as diverse as falls, sports injuries, vehicle collisions, domestic violence, and military incidents can result in injuries across a spectrum of severity and age groups. Just as the many causes of TBI and the people who experience it are diverse, so too are the physiological, cognitive, and behavioral changes that can occur following injury. The overall TBI ecosystem is not limited to healthcare and research, but includes the related systems that administer and finance healthcare, accredit care facilities, and provide regulatory approval and oversight of products and therapies. TBI also intersects with the wide range of community organizations and institutions in which people return to learning, work, and play, including the education system, work environments, professional and amateur sports associations, the criminal justice system, and others. Traumatic Brain Injury: A Roadmap for Accelerating Progress examines the current landscape of basic, translational, and clinical TBI research and identifies gaps and opportunities to accelerate research progress and improve care with a focus on the biological, psychological, sociological, and ecological impacts. This report calls not merely for improvement, but for a transformation of attitudes, understanding, investments, and care systems for TBI.
Title: Loneliness: Science and Practice.
Authors: Dilip V. Jeste, Tanya T. Nguyen, Nancy J. Donovan.
Publication info: American Psychiatric Association Publishing. 2022.
Available: Academic eBook Collection.
Description: The internet, social media platforms, and digital technology all seem to point to a world of greater interconnectivity and social connection. Yet even against this background of global social networks, loneliness remains a major issue for millions of individuals, and one with tangible consequences: studies have demonstrated that loneliness correlates with to an increased risk of mental illnesses, as well as a 45% increased risk of death.In Loneliness: Science and Practice, experts from the United States and Europe seek to construct a translational framework for recognizing and addressing loneliness in the clinical context. Based on the latest literature on the topic, the book tackles • The theoretical foundations of loneliness and other dimensions of social connection. Readers will benefit from validated rating scales to measure loneliness that account for the varied experiences of, and factors that contribute to, loneliness.• The incidence and presentation of loneliness throughout the life cycle• Loneliness among marginalized communities, including racial and ethnic minorities, LGBTQ+ individuals, immigrants, and individuals with mental illnesses• The neurobiological and systemic neuroendocrine and inflammatory mechanisms of loneliness• Interventions for loneliness, from research-based interventions for both younger and older age groups to community-based interventions Throughout this guide, clinical vignettes help ground the theoretical information in real-world applicability. Key points help readers reference each chapter's most salient points quickly, and lists of suggested readings open the door to further exploration.By examining the psychosocial and biological mechanisms of loneliness, as well as the unique social and cultural contexts in which it can occur, Loneliness: Science and Practice offers readers a holistic understanding of loneliness and a framework for addressing it in the distinct communities they serve.
Title: Fireflies: Memory, Identity, and Poetry.
Available: Academic eBook Collection.
Author: David P. Owen Jr.
Publication info: 1st ed. Rotterdam : Brill. 2017.
Description: Fireflies is a book about how writing poetry can help us explore memory and identity, and it is also a book of poetry that explores memory and identity. This work is an example of the “liminal” scholarship advocated in The Need for Revision (2011, by the same author), occupying a space in the academic world's “windows and doorways,” not exactly in any one field but rather in the “spaces-between where the inside and outside commingle”; it seeks to trouble the boundaries between teacher and writer, critic and artist, writer and reader, and teacher and student in a way from which all parties might benefit. Fireflies aims for a different kind of scholarship, and hopes to offer new ways for teachers to be professional and academic. The second section of the book is a full-length poetry text—the author's own exploration of the notions that people who teach writing should also be writers, and that poetry is more something you do than something you are. The book says we should write poems not because of some inborn gift for it, but because the act of writing poetry is good for us, and helps us understand ourselves better; it is a book written in the hopes that other books will be written.
Title: The Complete Language of Food: A Definitive and Illustrated History
Author: S. Theresa Dietz
Publication info: New York, NY: Wellfleet Press. 2022
Location: Academic eBook Collection
Left: John William Polidori. Right: A copy of The Vampyre, for which Lord Byron was falsely given credit. Polidori is now recognized as the author of The Vampyre.
Happy birthday, Dr. John William Polidori! In 1816, Polidori became Lord Byron's personal physician. The two became friends with Mary Shelley and her husband Percy, and the group began writing macabre, horror stories. Mary Shelley's "The Monster" remains famous and iconic today. One of Byron's short stories became the basis of Polidori's longer book, The Vampyre. For years, authorship of this book was incorrectly attributed to Byron, who tried to correct the mistake and publish his own stories.
You can read The Vampyre online for free through Project Gutenberg! Yay, internet!
Article-linking websites online can help you find relevant articles from one article's DOI. Scroll through these slides to learn more about LitMaps, Citation Gecko, and Connected Papers.
Academic research is an ongoing conversation between authors. by Sadie Davenport
Published in: 2022. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Available: As an eBook in our Academic eBook Collection.
Description: "The focus of bioethical debates on exceptional cases neglects the underlying values—like justice and community—that would lend to a broader, more well-rounded understanding of today's world.Discussions of ethical problems in health care too often concentrate on exceptional cases. Bioethical controversies triggered by experimental drugs, gene-edited babies, or life extension are understandably fascinating: they showcase the power of medical science and technology while addressing anxieties concerning health, disease, suffering, and death. However, the focus on rare individual cases in the media spotlight turns attention away from more pressing ethical issues that impact global populations, such as access to health care, safe food and water, and the prevention of emerging infectious diseases. In Bizarre Bioethics, Henk A.M.J. ten Have argues that this focus on bizarre cases leads to bizarre bioethics with a narrow agenda for ethical debate. In other words, although these extreme cases are undeniably real, they present a limited and skewed view of everyday moral reality. This focus also assumes that individuals are rational decision-makers, so that the role of feelings and emotions can be downgraded. Larger questions related to justice, solidarity, community, meaning, and ambiguity are not appreciated. Such questions used to be posed by philosophical and theological traditions, but they have been exorcised and marginalized in the development of bioethics. Science, ten Have writes, is not a value-free endeavor that provides facts and evidence: it is driven by underlying value perspectives that are often based on metaphors and world views from philosophical and theological traditions. Drawing on a rich analysis of the literature, ten Have explains how bioethical discussion can be enriched by these metaphors and develops a broader approach that critically delves into the imaginative world views that determine understanding of the world and human existence. Examining the roles of the metaphors of ghosts, monsters, pilgrims, prophets, and relics, ten Have illustrates how science and medicine are animated by imaginations that fuel the search for hope, salvation, healing, and a predictable future. Bizarre Bioethics invites students, researchers, policymakers and teachers interested in ethics and health care to think about the value perspectives on health and disease today."
Title: What Patients Teach: The Everyday Ethics of Health Care.
By: Larry R. Churchill; Joseph B. Fanning; David Schenck. Oxford University Press. 2013.
Available in our Academic eBook Collection.
Description: "Being a patient is a unique interpersonal experience but it is also a universal human experience. The relationships formed when we are patients can also teach some of life's most important lessons, and these relationships provide a special window into ethics, especially the ethics of healthcare professionals. This book answers two basic questions: As patients see it, what things allow relationships with healthcare providers to become therapeutic? What can this teach us about healthcare ethics? This volume presents detailed descriptions and analyses of 50 interviews with 58 patients, representing a wide spectrum of illnesses and clinician specialties. The authors argue that the structure, rhythm, and horizon of routine patient care are ultimately grounded in patient vulnerability and clinician responsiveness. From the short interview segments, the longer vignettes and the full patient stories presented here emerge the neglected dimensions of healthcare and healthcare ethics. What becomes visible is an ethics of everyday interdependence, with mutual responsibilities that follow from this moral symbiosis. Both professional expressions of healthcare ethics and the field of bioethics need to be informed and reformed by this distinctive, more patient-centered, turn in how we understand both patient care as a whole and the ethics of care more specifically. The final chapters present revised codes of ethics for health professionals, as well as the implications for medical and health professions education."
Left: A portrait of Louis Braille.
Right: The Braille alphabet.
Louis Braille was accidentally blinded in both eyes after an accident in his father's shop when he was three years old. He attended the Royal Institute for Blind Youth in France, where he excelled in his school work and started creating a new communication system for the blind and visually impaired. At the time, there were some resources for the visually impaired that made reading possible, including those made by Valentin Haüy, the founder of Louis Braille's school. However, these resources did not make writing and unspoken communication possible. These resources were also fragile, incredibly large and heavy (especially for youth), and expensive.
By the age of fifteen, Louis Braille created the communication system that we know as Braille. He spent most of his life improving this system. Initially, he used both dots and dashes, but eliminated the dashes for simplicity. A passionate musician himself, Braille later added music symbols and syntax.
Instructors and staff at the Royal Institute for Blind Youth effectively banned the use of Braille until 1854, two years after Louis Braille's death. Slowly, Braille was used throughout France, then Europe, and by 1916, the United States. It has since been improved and adapted to new technology, allowing the visually impaired to browse the Internet, complete homework and professional tasks, use computer software applications, and more.
January 4th is celebrated as World Braille Day (for Louis Braille's birthday).
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