Lab Girl by Hope Jahren – what a life in science is really like

Jahren, a geobiologist, lives on reheated fast food, encounters sexism and worries so much about funding it makes her ill. This is an inspiring behind-the-scenes look at scientific research

Science is about a passion for ideas and the people who pursue those passions. Hope Jahren captures both in her book, the engrossing story of her love of science and of the adventures she has while pursuing her hunches and hypotheses. In Jahren’s case, the passion is plants – and Lab Girl instils the reader with an appreciation for botany as well as for scientific discovery.

Jahren is a geobiologist at the University of Hawaii, Mānoa, but she grew up in rural Minnesota, where the frigid temperatures outside were, she writes, mirrored by an emotional coldness inside: her family’s Scandinavian origins meant that discussions of feelings were out of bounds. But Jahren was busy playing under the lab bench belonging to her father, who taught physics and earth science at the local community college, and she fell in love with his profession. “The only thing I ever knew for certain was that someday I would have my own laboratory, because my father had one,” she writes.

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