Speaker’s Book:

The Galapagos: a Natural History, by Henry Nicholls

The Disturbing Perturbation of Mercury & the Search for Planet Vulcan

Print:

• In Search of Planet Vulcan: The Ghost in Newton’s Clockwork Universe, by Richard P Baum, William Sheehan
• Le Verrier—Magnificent and Detestable Astronomer, by Lequeux James
• The Principia : Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, by Sir Isaac Newton 

• Relativity: The Special and the General Theory, by Albert Einstein

Online:

• A Weird West Tale and the Hunt for Planet Vulcan – Technology.org
• Precession of the Perihelion of Mercury – physics.ucr.edu
• Newtonian Precession of Mercury’s Perihelion – MathPages
• William Herschel – NNDB

Misfit Sounds: Bloops, Hums & the Loneliest Whale

Online:

• The original study on the Taos Hum – Acoustical Society
• The Kokomo Hum Investigation – James P. Cowan
• The Hum: An Anomalous Sound Heard Around the World – David Deming
• NOAA’s recording of the Bloop and comparison with similar known sounds – PMEL Acoustics Program
• 52 Blue – Leslie Jamison
• Help Find the Loneliest Whale (Kickstarter Campaign) – Adrian Grenier & Josh Zeman
• Giraffes Spend Their Evenings Humming to Each Other – New Scientist

Beasts of Paradox: Sailing Serpents, Sea Slugs & Sneaky Spiders

Online:

• FISH Labeling Reveals a Horizontally Transferred Algal (Vaucheria litorea) Nuclear Gene on a Sea Slug (Elysia chlorotica) Chromosome – Biology Bulletin
• Elysia Chlorotica (details of the bizarre mating abilities of the eastern emerald elysia sea slug)  – Animal Diversity Web
• Herbivory in a Spider Through Exploitation of an Ant–plant Mutualism – Current Biology
• Aerodynamics of the flying snake Chrysopelea paradisi: how a bluff body cross-sectional shape contributes to gliding performance – The Journal of Experimental Biology

The Mystery of Bimini Road: Science vs. the People of Atlantis

Print:

• Edgar Cayce on Atlantis, by Edgar Cayce
• Atlantis: The Truth Behind the Legend, by A.G. Galanopoulos and Edward Bacon
• Lost Atlantis: New Light on an Old Legend, by John Victor Luce

Online:

• A Geologist’s Adventures with Bimini Beachrock and Atlantis True Believers – Eugene Shinn 
• The Mystique of Beachrock – Eugene Shinn
• When Science and Archaeological Conspiracies Theories Collide – Adam Clark Estes
• Atlantis “Evidence” Found in Spain and Ireland – National Geographic
• How the Imaginary Island of Atlantis was Mapped – Phil Edwards
• Does New Theory Pinpoint Lost City of Atlantis? – National Geographic
  

Rotten Botany: The Corpse Plant & Other Botanical Oddities

Print:

• Sunset Western Garden Book
• Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln’s Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities, by Amy Stewart
• Baccari’s Obituary, by I. H. Burkill and J. C. Moulton (April 1921, Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society) on JSTOR

Online:

• Rotten Botany – Amber Guetebier 
• Titan Arum – UC  Botanical Garden at Berkeley
• Kew Gardens – Royal Botanical Gardens
• Stop and Smell the Corpse Flower – National Geographic
• Alice the Amorphophallus – Chicago Botanic Garden 

WOW! 72 Seconds of WTF from Space

Online:

• The WOW! Signal – Houston Astronomical Society 
• SETI Sensitivity: Calibrating on a Wow! Signal – Dr. H. Paul Shuch
• Humanity Responds to ‘Alien’ Wow Signal, 35 Years Later – Space.com
• The Alien Signal WOW Was Decoded! – Ностр Адамус
• Aliens Found In Ohio? The ‘Wow!’ Signal – NPR.org

For each salon, we invite our speakers to share the resources and interesting reading they came across in researching their talk, so that we can all dig more deeply. This reading list was compiled by Odd Salon with Kurt Larson, Besha Grey, Marcus Marchesseault, Aimee Pavy, Amber Guetebier, Hernan Pelassini & Rebecca Joseph. Thank you!