Great Science Writing

Examples of great science writing (whatever that means to the nominator), particularly by scientists in the primary literature. All quality science writing welcome, please tag academic, journalism, popsci, etc. Inspired by Jonathan Eisen's The best writing in science papers: Part I - goo.gl/8pyYlT and Stephan Heard's The best writing in science papers: Part II - goo.gl/hk7tsV

[sciwriting-blog]

Several examples are collected in my paper http://library.queensu.ca/ojs/index.php/IEE/article/view/5310, but always looking for more, so I'm very glad Laura has started this. 

Here's one that didn't make it into my paper: the last sentence of the Abstract to Wilson and Calvin's important 1955 paper on what we now call the Calvin cycle (J Am Chem Soc 77:5948): 

“Perhaps the most important result of this work is the insight it gives into the complicated, finely balanced system of interrelated chemical reactions we call life.”

[lajake209-blog]

There is a wonderful body of data available on the limb frequencies of creatures, large and small, walking, trotting, and cantering in the Serengeti (Pennycuick, 1975). The amazing feature of these data from my perspective is that the frequencies of all of the observed four-legged animals fall on three straight lines when plotted against limb length or limb mass. There is one line for walking, one for trotting, and one for cantering. Despite differences in body size (from 20 kg to 6,000 kg) and body form (e.g., gazelle vs. elephant), there is a sameness.

Michael Turvey in Coordination, p. 947 (via lajake209)