When seeking to understand how the universe works, “we have to let go of instincts, intuitions and simple explanations,” science teacher Tim James writes. In "Astronomical", he revels in the oddness of planetary behavior and quantum... Read More

Bill Schutt’s "Pump" is an entertaining survey of the evolution of the circulatory system. From grasshoppers to whales, it explains how hearts and other analogous structures work. Zeroing in on the human heart, the book contrasts the... Read More

Paleobotanists and geologists faced injury, stiff winds, polar bears, and arduous daily climbs in the summer of 2002 as they collected thousands of fossilized plants from the ancient supercontinent of Pangea’s tropics, now part of... Read More

“Planets are born from the chaos of countless collisions,” Simone Marchi writes in "Colliding Worlds", which cites everything from lunar craters to gold seams as evidence of interplanetary impacts. Space rocks have not existed from... Read More

In "How to Talk to a Science Denier", Lee McIntyre comments that “our fellow citizens don’t seem to listen to facts anymore.” Still, be the topic climate change or vaccines, he endorses respectful conversation as the best way to... Read More

The medical memoir "The Concealed Revealed" covers a doctor’s pursuit to identify the lymph nodes responsible for cancer metastasis. S. David Nathanson’s medical memoir "The Concealed Revealed" concerns the discovery of a lymph node... Read More

"Combinators" is a personalized examination of a programming language concept, seen within its historical context. In Stephen Wolfram’s "Combinators", the significance of abstract programming language concepts are viewed through a... Read More

"Science and Beyond" combines science and philosophy to argue that a new understanding of the limitations of science is needed to avoid global catastrophe. Focusing on rampant misconceptions about science, researcher and teacher Rolf... Read More