Maren Meinhardt’s biography of early nineteenth-century scientist Alexander von Humboldt shows how he came to have more places and objects named after him than any other person. The text focuses on the scientist and explorer’s... Read More

Most human beings live with light pollution; in the US, 99 percent of people exist under blank skies, drenched in artificial light. But when you travel to dark sites, you “fill that blankness with the entire universe above you.” If... Read More

Citizen science might seem like a model for discovery that could only work in the internet age, but amateur involvement in science is in fact nothing new. In "The Crowd and the Cosmos", Oxford Professor of Astrophysics Chris Lintott... Read More

Benjamin Aldes Wurgaft’s "Meat Planet" is a thoughtful examination of the technological, ethical, and cultural issues swirling around the development of artificial flesh. It’s a quick-witted, journalistic survey of lab-cultured... Read More

Dan Hooper’s "At the Edge of Time" charts what is understood, and what remains a mystery, about the Big Bang—that moment 13.7 billion years ago of inconceivably high temperatures, fast expansion, and particles and forces like gravity... Read More

One might assume that training brains towards perfection is a worthy goal, but German neuroscientist Henning Beck’s "Scatterbrain" promotes a different perspective. The book refutes received opinions about the brain’s apparent... Read More

“The sky above us holds limitless wonder,” astrophysicist and television producer Sarah Barker declares. Technology may have made it easier to spot and understand heavenly bodies, but it will never explain away their magic. Barker... Read More

Nikola Tesla was an accomplished scientist and inventor as well as an enigmatic technological dreamer, as shown in Amy M. O’Quinn’s thorough biography "Nikola Tesla for Kids". The book moves from Tesla’s youth in modern-day Croatia... Read More