Much of science and the study of nature in the years before Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859 came down to an effort to understand the mind of God. Through that lens, wildflowers and birdsong were viewed as... Read More

Deft and entertaining, Anthony J. Stuart’s "Vanished Giants" reveals the “hugest, fiercest, and strangest” Ice Age animals––mastodons, saber-toothed cats, immense ground sloths, and other odd, extinct creatures. Relaying... Read More

Jimena Canales’s captivating popular science text "Bedeviled" concerns the conceptual “demons” that drive scientific innovation. While scientists reject notions of demons in religions and superstition, Canales says, they also... Read More

Linda Schweizer’s "Cosmic Odyssey" is a thrilling account of the cosmological discoveries of the past century that “pulls back the curtain” on the brilliant, eccentric scientists who achieved those breakthroughs. This exceptional... Read More

"Radical Mycology" lays down a solid base of mycological knowledge, amped up by Peter McCoy’s passion for fungi, sharing information, and social change. Fungi are some of the most ubiquitous and environmentally important living... Read More

While it is politically inconvenient at times, science is certainly real and deserving of respect. Not to say that science doesn’t deserve scrutiny. Like experts in other fields, scientists too often lack the humility to acknowledge... Read More

In addition to teaching college-level geology and paleontology, Donald R. Prothero is committed to debunking fallacies and conspiracy theories, and his book "Weird Earth" uses logic to refute fringe beliefs about the way the world works.... Read More

In "American Dinosaur Abroad", Dutch historian of paleontology Ilja Nieuwland traces the rise of people’s obsession with dinosaurs by way of a set of plaster diplodocus casts that traveled around the world. The diplodocuses tell the... Read More