woodruff: next, the latest addition to our newshour bookshelf: "lab girl," by geo- biologist hope jahren, is both an investigation of the thrilling lives of plants and a deeply personal memoir. jeffrey brown has that. >> brown: hope jahren, welcome to you. >> thank you. >> brown: part memoir, part science. what were you after or are they both the same to you? >> yes, well, i wanted to write a book, and in my field that's what you do. you get your degree, you write a lot of papers and you get a broad view of the dispeeld you write a textbook-- >> brown: for other scientists. >> which changing the way the field is taught. when i sat down to do that i couldn't keep my own storyute of it. when i tried to explish plish what we accomplished i needed to talk about how we accomplished it and then i needed to talk about all the late nights and special people and strange experiences that went into that. i couldn't keep the two separate so now you have a book that's all entwined. >> brown: it begins for your first discovering or at least seeing science in your father's lab. you taught science at co