Math class is the stuff of nightmares. The unfortunate fact is that all too many youngsters fear their math teachers as much as the monster under the bed—or maybe those students imagine their math teachers under the bed all along.... Read More

In her memoir "Handprints on Hubble", astronaut Kathryn D. Sullivan conveys the excitement of going to space. Kathryn Sullivan had a career in oceanography when she was chosen to be among the first women astronauts recruited by NASA. She... Read More

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