Reviews
- Microbes
Meet the fungal friends and foes that surround us
Keith Seifert’s book The Hidden Kingdom of Fungi explores how microfungi shape our world.
- Space
‘The Milky Way’ wants you to get to know your home in the universe
In a new ‘autobiography,’ the Milky Way tells its own story with the help of astrophysicist Moiya McTier.
- Anthropology
‘The Five-Million-Year Odyssey’ reveals how migration shaped humankind
A globe-trotting trek through history shows how past population migrations changed the course of human biology and culture.
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Two new books show how sexism still pervades astronomy
In A Portrait of the Scientist as a Young Woman and The Sky Is for Everyone, female astronomers recount how sexism has affected their careers.
- Science & Society
In the battle of human vs. water, ‘Water Always Wins’
In her new book, environmental journalist Erica Gies follows people who are looking for better solutions to extreme droughts and floods.
- Science & Society
‘Virology’ ponders society’s relationship with viruses
In a collection of wide-ranging essays, microbiologist Joseph Osmundson reflects on the COVID-19 pandemic and calls for “a new rhetoric of care.”
- Animals
Ed Yong’s ‘An Immense World’ reveals how animals perceive the world
The book showcases the diverse sensory abilities of other animals and how their view of the world is different from our own.
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‘Elusive’ profiles the physicist who predicted the Higgs boson
Peter Higgs, as Frank Close reveals in his new book, was just one of many physicists who helped crack the mystery of mass’s origins.
- Life
Lucy Cooke’s new book ‘Bitch’ busts myths about female animals
Female animals get their due in Lucy Cooke’s exploration of the roles of the sexes in biology and evolution.
- Paleontology
How mammals took over the world
In the book The Rise and Reign of the Mammals, paleontologist Steve Brusatte tracks the evolutionary innovations that made mammals so successful.
- Animals
Why you should care about ‘The Insect Crisis’
A new book explains why insect populations are dwindling and why that’s a problem.
- Life
‘The Last Days of the Dinosaurs’ tells a tale of destruction and recovery
A new book takes readers back in time to see how an asteroid strike and the dinosaur extinction shaped life on Earth.
