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  1. Genentech: The Beginnings of Biotech (Synthesis) by Sally Smith Hughes

    A genetic engineering company’s meteoric rise illustrates the development of the biotech industry. Univ. of Chicago Press, 2011, 213 p., $25

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  2. Better than Human: The Promise and Perils of Enhancing Ourselves (Philosophy in Action) by Allen Buchanan

    A philosopher examines biomedical enhancement — from improving memory to increasing stamina — and approaches to its future applications. Oxford Univ. Press, 2011, 199 p., $21.95

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  3. Fascinating Mathematical People: Interviews and Memoirs, Donald J. Albers and Gerald L. Alexanderson, eds.

    Interviews reveal people who have shaped mathematics, like “mathemagician” Arthur Benjamin and Harold Bacon, who taught calculus to an Alcatraz prisoner. Princeton Univ. Press, 2011, 328 p., $35

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  4. The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2011, Mary Roach, ed.

    Relive or discover nonfiction science writing from the last year on topics from captive orcas to organ selling. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011, 384 p., $14.95

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  5. Making Sense of People: Decoding the Mysteries of Personality (FT Press Science) by Samuel Barondes

    A psychiatrist describes how findings in personality research can be used in everyday life to understand others and improve relationships. FT Press, 2011, 230 p., $25.99

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  6. BOOK REVIEW: The Most Human Human: What Talking with Computers Teaches Us About What It Means to Be Alive by Brian Christian

    Review by Laura Sanders.

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  7. BOOK REVIEW: World in the Balance: The Historic Quest for an Absolute System of Measurement by Robert Crease

    Review by Devin Powell.

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  8. A Spitting Image of Health

    How saliva can help doctors diagnose disease.

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  9. Darwin’s Tongues

    Languages, like genes, can tell evolutionary tales.

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  10. Space Eats

    Astronaut journey to Mars requires new age nibbles.

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  11. Chemistry

    Headache tree is a pain in the brain

    Following a gardener’s lead, researchers discover an ingredient in bay laurel that causes uncomfortable swelling of cranial blood vessels.

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  12. Paleontology

    Tooth stranger than fiction

    A mammal fossil unearthed in South America resembles ‘Ice Age’ saber-toothed squirrel.

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