Reviews
- Anthropology
Ardi and her discoverers shake up hominid evolution in ‘Fossil Men’
A new book covers the big personalities, field exploits and scientific clashes behind the discovery of the hominid skeleton nicknamed Ardi.
- Animals
‘Phallacy’ deflates myths about the penises of the animal kingdom
By touring nature’s many penises, Phallacy author Emily Willingham puts the human organ in its place.
- Math
A documentary and a Bollywood film highlight two disparate paths in mathematics
An unlikely pair of films recount tales of two very different mathematical women, Maryam Mirzakhani and Shakuntala Devi.
- Science & Society
‘Great Adaptations’ unravels mysteries of amazing animal abilities
Kenneth Catania has resorted to some unusual experiments to understand the lives of star-nosed moles, electric eels and other remarkable animals.
- Science & Society
‘Schrödinger’s Web’ offers a sneak peek at the quantum internet
For an entertaining overview of the physics and technological advances paving the way for the quantum internet, read ‘Schrödinger’s Web.’
- Science & Society
‘The Origins of You’ explores how kids develop into their adult selves
A new book describes the interplay of nature and nurture as children, at least in Western societies, grow up.
- Science & Society
The board game Endangered shows just how hard conservation can be
The new board game Endangered shows how working together is the only way for conservation to succeed.
- Science & Society
Ethan Hawke stars in ‘Tesla,’ a quirky biopic about the iconic inventor
The new movie ‘Tesla’ follows the rise and fall of Nikola Tesla, whose early inventions panned out far better than later projects.
- Science & Society
A new Galileo biography draws parallels to today’s science denialism
‘Galileo and the Science Deniers’ delivers a fresh assessment of the life of a scientific legend and offers lessons for today.
- Cosmology
‘The End of Everything’ explores the ways the universe could perish
As Katie Mack explains in The End of Everything, the universe’s demise could be disastrously violent or deadly calm.
- Space
Two new books explore Mars — and what it means to be human
‘Once Upon a Time I Lived on Mars’ and ‘The Sirens of Mars’ are surprisingly apt reads during the pandemic.
- Science & Society
All kinds of outbreaks, from COVID-19 to violence, share the same principles
Adam Kucharski talks about his new book ‘The Rules of Contagion,’ a timely read during the coronavirus pandemic.
