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Author(s): Emily Banham (corresponding author) [1] Richter's Scale: Measure of an Earthquake, Measure of a Man Susan Hough (Princeton Univ. Press, 2016) How to Clone a Mammoth Beth Shapiro (Princeton [...]

Author(s): Emily Banham [1] Neanderthal Man: In Search of Lost Genomes Svante Pääbo (Basic, 2015) The Homing Instinct: Meaning and Mystery in Animal Migration Bernd Heinrich (Mariner, 2015) The Accidental [...]

As the wild blue yonder beckons and labs and classrooms empty, Nature's regular reviewers share their holiday reads. The Extreme Life of the Sea STEPHEN R. PALUMBI AND ANTHONY R. [...]

Humankind: How Biology and Geography Shape Human Diversity Alexander Harcourt (Pegasus, 2016) Biogeographer Alexander Harcourt ponders the myriad forces that led to the amazing diversity of Homo sapiens as we [...]

The Triumph of Seeds Thor Hanson (Basic, 2016) Biologist Thor Hanson sows the ultimate celebration of seeds and how they conquered Earth. Kernels can be crafty: unripe fruit, for instance, [...]

The Cosmic Cocktail: Three Parts Dark Matter Katherine Freese (Princeton University Press, 2016) What is the Universe made of? Physicist Katherine Freese chronicles the cracking of this beguiling enigma, from [...]

Pressed for Time: The Acceleration of Life in Digital Capitalism Judy Wajcman (University of Chicago Press, 2016) Sociologist Judy Wajcman sagely analyses the disparate experience of time as technology has [...]

Why Information Grows Cesar A. Hidalgo (Penguin, 2016) Economies are computers and information is at war with entropy, claims statistical physicist Cesar Hidalgo. He shows how the scientific imagination needs [...]

Why Did the Chicken Cross the World? Andrew Lawler (Atria, 2016) With 20 billion chickens roaming Earth at any one time, this beleaguered bird truly merits Andrew Lawler's illuminating eulogy. [...]

Most Wanted Particle Jon Butterworth (The Experiment, 2016) Experimental physics becomes accessible as well as astounding in this insider's account of the hunt for the Higgs boson, detected in 2012. [...]

Birth of a Theorem: A Mathematical Adventure Cedric Villani (Vintage, 2016) Tackling the 140-year-old Boltzmann equation (with Clement Mouhot) led mathematician Cedric Villani to win a share in the 2010 [...]

Life's Greatest Secret: The Race to Crack the Genetic Code Matthew Cobb (Profile, 2016) Anecdotes abound in zoologist Matthew Cobb's history of the quest to unravel the genetic code. Cobb [...]

Spirals in Time: The Secret Life and Curious Afterlife of Seashells Helen Scales (Bloomsbury, 2016) From beachcombing to shipwreck diving, marine biologist Helen Scales shares her love of molluscs, many [...]

Infested: How the Bed Bug Infiltrated Our Bedrooms and Took Over the World Brooke Borel (University of Chicago Press, 2016) Bed bugs (Cimexlectularius) are perfectly adapted for bloodsucking. Toothed mandibles [...]

The Upright Thinkers Leonard Mlodinow (Vintage, 2016) Carrier pigeons once toted stock prices. Today, instant messaging manages the job. Theoretical physicist Leonard Mlodinow explores how the most human of desires, [...]

Climate Shock: The Economic Consequences of a Hotter Planet Gernot Wagner and Martin L. Weitzman (Princeton University Press, 2016) Global, long-term, irreversible, uncertain: four words used by economists Gernot Wagner [...]

Extreme: Why Some People Thrive at the Limits Emma Barrett and Paul Martin Oxford Univ. Press: 2014. Everybody has a limit to how far they will go to achieve a [...]

Shores of Knowledge: New World Discoveries and the Scientific Imagination Joyce Appleby (W. W. Norton, 2014) Six centuries of overseas exploration is lucidly charted by historian Joyce Appleby. While voyagers [...]

What Makes a Hero?: The Surprising Science of Selflessness Elizabeth Svoboda (Current, 2014) Would you risk your life for a stranger's? Survival instinct would suggest not, but science writer Elizabeth [...]

The Psychopath Inside James Fallon (Current, 2014) After confusing his own brain scan with a psychopath's, neuroscientist James Fallon trawled his past and genealogy. Assembling evidence from obsessive-compulsive disorder to [...]

Dosed: The Medication Generation Grows Up Kaitlin Bell Barnett (Beacon, 2014) Journalist Kaitlin Bell Barnett, herself medicated in youth, tells the stories of five people who from childhood have been [...]

The Joy of Pain Richard H. Smith (Oxford Univ. Press, 2014) Psychologist Richard Smith explores the roots of Schadenfreude (joy in others' pain) in society, from reality television thriving on [...]

Smart Cities: Big Data, Civic Hackers, and the Quest for a New Utopia Anthony M. Townsend (W. W. Norton, 2014) As technology infiltrates urban life, Anthony Townsend observes how cities [...]

The Simpsons and their Mathematical Secrets Simon Singh (Bloomsbury, 2014) US television series The Simpsons is craftily dotted with maths jokes by numerate writers who chose comedy over academia. Physicist [...]

Brave Genius Sean B. Carroll (Broadway, 2014) Against the tumult of the Second World War, biologist Sean Carroll tells the interwoven stories of philosopher Albert Camus and geneticist Jaques Monod, [...]

The Dynamics of Disaster Susan W. Kieffer (W. W. Norton, 2014) Geologist Susan Kieffer showcases Earth's most destructive processes, highlighting geographical discrepancies in disaster preparedness. In 2010, for example, similar-energy [...]

The Compatibility Gene Daniel M. Davis (Penguin, 2014) At the heart of our immunological-response systems lie 'compatibility genes', which determine each body's capacity to fight diseases or accept medication. Immunologist [...]

Life at the Speed of Light J. Craig Venter (Abacus, 2014) Biologist J. Craig Venter shares his life's work of catalysing progress in biological engineering, sequencing the human genome and [...]

Love and Math: The Heart of Hidden Reality Edward Frenkel (Basic Books, 2014) With infinite passion, media-feted professor Edward Frenkel shares his rise to mathematical greatness against a tide of [...]

The Accidental Universe: The World You Thought You Knew Alan Lightman (Vintage, 2014) Physicist and literary wizard Alan Lightman reflects on how our cosmos, potentially one among uncountable others, has [...]

My Beloved Brontosaurus Brian Switek (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014) The film Jurassic Park aside, velociraptors were turkey-sized, reveals Brian Switek in this paean to palaeontology. He joins the scales-versus-feathers [...]