Weeds, according to one definition, are simply plants that are growing in the wrong place. Some have invaded gardens from the surrounding countryside, and others escaped cultivation to infest the landscape. But in almost every case, weeds — whether you think of them as adaptable opportunists or as botanical thugs — thrive in human company. 07.29.11 | more >>

IBOOK REVIEW: The depths of human cruelty are often summed up in one stark term: evil. But definitions of evil are frustratingly circular, since evil is as evil does. “For a scientist this is, of course, wholly inadequate,” writes Baron-Cohen, a developmental psychologist specializing in autism. He suggests that “evil” is more properly defined as a complete lack of empathy, the ability ... 07.15.11 | more >>

Before phosphorus became a common ingredient in lightbulbs and bombs, early chemists isolated it from urine — at the time, an at-hand source of undiscovered chemicals. According to a recipe by English scientist Robert Hooke, it was best to start with 50 to 60 pails of the stuff. 07.15.11 | more >>

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Reading a book about microbes leaves no doubt about who is in charge: They are. Some of Zimmer’s previous books have placed parasites and bacteria at the top of biology’s pecking order. In his latest book, they are viruses. The tiny microorganisms that challenge our notions about what is alive are found in every nook and cranny on Earth, making this truly a planet of viruses. 07.01.11 | more >>

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People only think they know what they’re doing. In reality, great ideas, decisions and opinions are all generated well before the conscious brain is in on the task, argues Eagleman, a neuroscientist. 07.01.11 | more >>

What makes the spray of a skunk so annoying? It irritates the skin, one scientist says. Or maybe humans are evolutionarily programmed to respond to its stink, reminiscent of rotten meat or caves low on oxygen. Then again, some people like the scent — so perhaps its repulsiveness is something learned, something associated with bad situations. No one really knows. 06.17.11 | more >>

Feathers are a multipurpose marvel. Birds, the only modern-day creatures to sport plumage, use feathers for flight, insulation and courtship displays. As it turns out, so do people: Feathers help arrows fly true, trap body heat inside parkas and adorn everything from attention-grabbing hats to the glitzy costumes of Las Vegas showgirls. Hanson, a conservation biologist, presents feathers in a ... 06.03.11 | more >>

Everyone knows that rainbows appear after a storm. But in his new book, Lewin reveals nature’s more unusual rainbows hiding in spray kicked up by ocean waves, in fog swirling around headlights, even in glass particles floating above construction sites.After more than 30 years of teaching undergraduate physics at MIT, Lewin has honed a toolbox of clear, engaging explanations that present ... 06.03.11 | more >>

It’s hard to believe now, but Copernicus worked out that the Earth revolves around the sun decades before scientists figured out that blood circulates through the human body. An English physician, William Harvey, announced in 1628 that the heart pumps blood through the arteries and veins, only to be denounced for decades by conservative doctors. It was against this backdrop in 1665 — a ... 05.20.11 | more >>

The Internet has grown into a social network, political forum, marketplace and entertainment source. In a series of essays, some noted thinkers opine on the Web’s effect from the neck up. 05.20.11 | more >>

Ask most teenagers to name a path to fame and fortune, and basketball or Justin Bieber will likely come up. But for a select few, there’s one clear answer: science fair. Millions of dollars in prize money, TV interviews and trips to the White House await today’s winners, and Dutton gives a glimpse behind the poster boards of 12 kids vying for the nation’s top honors. 04.22.11 | more >>

With seconds on the clock, a nervous high school senior named Kevin lines up the shot. He presses a button, and half a dozen balls fly through the air. The D’Penguineers win; the crowd goes wild. 04.22.11 | more >>

Anyone with a passing interest in cosmology knows by now that the universe isn’t what it used to be. In fact, it isn’t even the universe anymore. 04.08.11 | more >>

In his new book, New York Times columnist Brooks describes human nature as shaped by a search for mates and other relationships, guided by unconscious feelings about oneself and others that develop early in life. Fair enough. That idea has plenty of scientific supporters and dates back more than a century, even if it ignores how conscious deliberations fit into the mix. 04.08.11 | more >>

Twelve years ago, astronomers studying distant, exploding stars made a discovery that irrevocably altered humankind’s view of the universe. Most scientists had assumed that the universe’s expansion, which began during the Big Bang, had steadily slowed due to gravity. But the astronomers found that the cosmos was instead expanding faster; gravity had somehow transformed from a cosmic pull ... 04.04.11 | more >>

Before navigation was a science, it was an art — a craft that relied on observing nature’s subtle clues and then deducing one’s location or the best route to reach a destination. Besides obvious directional clues such as the rising sun or Polaris, the North Star, there are innumerable more subtle signposts. In the Northern Hemisphere, for example, branches of many types of trees, seeking ... 03.25.11 | more >>

The great sea beast, with slimy tentacles and a penchant for dragging sailors down into the inky depths, is a common literary figure. And Williams isn’t shy about diving into those myths. She launches her survey of cephalopods, a group that includes squid, octopuses and cuttlefish, with a quote from Pirates of the Caribbean and a true story — maybe — of squid attack. Williams, though, ... 03.25.11 | more >>

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Modern science is a strange beast. Lab experiments, calculations and meticulous methods bind to abstract theories and revelations in a single pursuit. The rigorous side of this approach, Snyder argues, comes to today’s science largely thanks to four Cambridge friends who in the 19th century faced a British science gone stagnant. In a wonderfully crafted story, she follows how the quartet ... 03.11.11 | more >>

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When Neil Armstrong took his first steps on the moon in July 1969, he wore a spacesuit fashioned by Playtex, the bra and girdle company. Playtex seamstresses assembled all the Apollo suits from 21 layers of flexible fabric, latex and reinforcements — a design that won out over the armorlike suits of interlocking components that military-industrial contractors were offering. 03.11.11 | more >>

Physician and kidney specialist Julian Seifter has written, with his wife’s help, a valuable book for people with chronic illnesses and their doctors. The pair address two poorly understood issues in medicine: how people cope with a lengthy, life-threatening ailment and how to provide them with medical care that addresses their psychological needs. 02.26.11 | more >>

For a century, America was the world’s biggest producer — and user — of petroleum. Today, the country remains the biggest user while supplying less than 7 percent of world demand. Although this book is nominally about the 2010 BP oil spill, it’s really a primer on the oil industry: where it started, the companies and regulations it spawned, and how it has seduced nations everywhere to ... 02.11.11 | more >>

Some smart aleck is going to pick up Honeybee Democracy, an account of decision making among bees, and snicker that the book should be titled Honeybee Monarchy. After all, everybody knows that a beehive has a queen. 02.11.11 | more >>

Many creatures — birds, bees and butterflies, for example — use the planet's magnetic field to navigate, but humans are the only ones to do so with instruments rather than an innate sense. In her first book, Turner, a geophysicist, looks at how people came to invent the compass and what has been learned since about the magnetic field that drives it. 01.28.11 | more >>

The only thing more elusive than the Higgs boson, the so-called “God particle” that physicists built a $10 billion device to capture, is Peter Higgs himself. 01.14.11 | more >>

Dismissing those who dismiss humans as “just apes,” this book examines all that makes the human brain — and thus human beings — different from their primate cousins. Language (and the brain parts that evolved to deal with it) is one such distinction. This guided tour of the mind and its quirks describes the roots of especially human abilities, from aesthetics to introspection, in the ... 01.14.11 | more >>

Genetics isn’t just a dry, academic pursuit — it’s getting personal. In Here is a Human Being, Angrist, a geneticist, introduces people who have already started living in what he calls the DNA Age. They include Angrist himself, who is one of 10 volunteers in a Harvard project that will publicly post participants’ DNA blueprints online along with personal information such as medical ... 12.30.10 | more >>

Imagine the investigators on CSI working without the modern tools of forensics: no DNA, no ballistics lab, not even a basic knowledge of putrefaction to establish time of death. Until just over a century ago, there was no organized study of forensic science and autopsies were likely to happen on a victim’s kitchen table, if they happened at all. In his latest book, Starr, a veteran ... 12.30.10 | more >>

Notions of evolution have, for lack of a better word, evolved, and with wonderfully broad strokes science writer and long-time paleontology blogger Switek takes readers on a fascinating historical, scientific and cultural tour of the theory's various incarnations. 12.17.10 | more >>

Vaccines, once the darlings of medical science, lost their reputation for safety in the 1980s and 1990s. After a flurry of disturbing "news-you-can-use" segments, some parents refused to get their kids immunized. For vaccines, the journey back to credibility has been slow. 12.17.10 | more >>

It’s a sure sign of evolution: Sharks, dominant predators on Earth for millions of years, are now threatened by humans. In the past few decades shark populations have plummeted and the very traits that long helped prevent the beasts from overpopulating the seas — low birthrates, slow growth and a late arrival at sexual maturity — hinder their recovery from the depredations of ... 11.19.10 | more >>