New Books In Science

Machine learning systems are making life-altering decisions for us: approving mortgage loans, determining whether a tumor is cancerous, or deciding if someone gets bail. They now influence developments and discoveries in chemistry, biology, and physics—the study of genomes, extrasolar planets, even the intricacies of quantum systems. And all this before large language models such as ChatGPT came on the scene.We are living through a revolution in machine learning-powered AI that shows no signs of slowing down. This technology is based on relatively simple mathematical ideas, some of which go back centuries, including linear algebra and calculus, the stuff of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century mathematics. It took the birth and advancement of computer science and the kindling of 1990s computer chips designed for video games to ignite the explosion of AI that we see today. In this enlightening book, Anil Ananthaswamy explains the fundamental math behind machine learning, while suggesting intriguing links betwee

What is reliable knowledge? Listen to philosopher Michael Strevens, author of The Knowledge Machine: How Irrationality Created Modern Science, to understand how science discovers the truth. At the current moment, when expertise is under attack and the idea of truth is contested from all sides, Strevens explains the remarkable success of science’s “irrational” method to settle debates, regardless of philosophical, religious, or aesthetic preferences. Drawing on Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions—our host Uli Baer’s all-time favorite non-fiction book—, Karl Popper, and others, Strevens shows how science became the most effective tool for uncovering the secrets of nature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science

In A Reverence for Rivers: Imagining an Ethic for Running Waters (OSU Press, 2025), Kurt Fausch draws on his experience as a stream ecologist, his interest in Indigenous cultures, and a thoughtful consideration of environmental ethics to explore human values surrounding freshwater ecosystems. Focusing on seven rivers across the globe—from the Salmon River in Oregon to the Sarufutsu River in Japan—he examines the growing ethical dilemmas threatening our rivers, including increasing demands for water, habitat fragmentation, overfishing, and deepening climate change. How do we decide which rivers deserve legal protection? What is our right to water as humans? And how do we foster resilient rivers? Through a combination of scientific expertise and thoughtful observations of the natural world, Fausch translates the science of rivers into accessible language for readers and begins to address these questions. He weaves deep Indigenous histories throughout the book and includes personal visits to tribal lands to ex

In Seminal: On Sperm, Health, and Politics, Rene Almeling, Lisa Campo-Engelstein, and Brian T. Nguyen come together across disciplines to offer a kaleidoscopic view of the relationship between sperm, health, and the intersecting politics of gender, race, and reproduction. Always insightful and often provocative, the essays in this unprecedented collection cover a broad range of issues related to male reproductive and sexual health—including the latest technological developments for creating sperm; the specter of eugenics in contemporary medical markets; emerging approaches to male contraceptive methods, male infertility, and trans healthcare; controversies surrounding sperm donors and sperm banking; disparities in sexual health education for teens—all the while attending to the enormous variation in how individuals and societies understand, embody, and experience sperm. At a time when the most basic rights of reproductive autonomy are under severe threat, contributors to this volume argue this is precisely t

The 15,000-year story of how grass seduced humanity into being its unwitting labor force--and the science behind it. Domesticated crops were not human creations, and agriculture was not simply invented. As Robert N. Spengler shows, domestication was the result of an evolutionary process in which people played a role only unwittingly and as actors in a numberless cast that spanned the plant and animal kingdoms. Nature's Greatest Success: How Plants Evolved to Exploit Humanity (Univ of California Press, 2025) is the first book to bring together recent scientific discoveries and fascinating ongoing research to provide a systematic account of not only how agriculture really developed but why. Through fifteen chapters, this book dives deep into the complex processes that drove domestication and the various roles that plants and animals, including humans, played in bringing about those changes. At the intersection of popular history, archaeology, and evolutionary biology, Nature's Greatest Success offers a revo

Einstein's Fridge: How the Difference Between Hot and Cold Explains the Universe (Scribner, 2021) tells the incredible epic story of the scientists who, over two centuries, harnessed the power of heat and ice and formulated a theory essential to comprehending our universe. “Although thermodynamics has been studied for hundreds of years…few nonscientists appreciate how its principles have shaped the modern world” (Scientific American). Thermodynamics—the branch of physics that deals with energy and entropy—governs everything from the behavior of living cells to the black hole at the center of our galaxy. Not only that, but thermodynamics explains why we must eat and breathe, how lights turn on, the limits of computing, and how the universe will end.The brilliant people who decoded its laws came from every branch of the sciences; they were engineers, physicists, chemists, biologists, cosmologists, and mathematicians. From French military engineer and physicist Sadi Carnot to Lord Kelvin, James Joule, Albert Ein

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with space anthropologist, writer, and Virginia Tech doctoral candidate, Savannah Mandel, about her book, Ground Control: An Argument for the End of Human Space Exploration (Chicago Review Press, 2025). The book uses history, ethnography, participant observation in policy-making, and other forms of evidence to argue for the discontinuation of human space exploration until pressing forms of human suffering are brought to an end on Earth. The pair also talk about a number of other projects Mandel is working on, including a history of apocalyptic visions and her dissertation on the history of the space mining industry. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science

The vagus nerve is fundamental to our health and vitality, coordinating critical functions from the precise heartbeat we need to exercise or rest to the balance of appetite and digestion. Made up of 200,000 fibers, the vagus nerve sends thousands of electrical signals every second between your brain and your most important organs. Yet despite its essential role in life, important vagus nerve functions have eluded centuries of scientific investigation. Now neurosurgeon and researcher Dr. Kevin Tracey has discovered the previously unknown power of the vagus nerve to reverse inflammation, balance the immune system, treat chronic illness, and keep our organs humming together in harmony.In The Great Nerve: The New Science of the Vagus Nerve and How to Harness Its Healing Reflexes (Penguin, 2025), Dr. Tracey shows us how stimulating the vagus nerve with a tiny electrical implant has the potential to reverse life-altering diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, lupus, MS, diabetes, obesity, s

How did the addition of lifeboats after the Titanic shipwreck contribute to another tragedy in Chicago harbor three years later? How efficient are wild animals as investors, and how do dog breeds become national symbols? Why have scientific breakthroughs so often originated in the study of shadows? How did the file card prepare scholarship and commerce for the rise of electronic data processing, and why did the visual metaphor of the tab survive into today's graphic interfaces? Why have Amish artisans played an important role in manufacturing advanced technology? Why was United Shoe Machinery the Microsoft of the 1890s? Surprises like these, Edward Tenner believes, can help us deal with the technological issues that confront us now. Since the 1980s, Edward Tenner has contributed essays on technology, design, and culture to leading magazines, newspapers, and professional journals, and has been interviewed on subjects ranging from medical ethics to typography. Why the Hindenburg Had a Smoking Lounge: Essays in

An engaging history of motherhood, demography, and infertility in twentieth-century France, Fertile expectations: The politics of involuntary childlessness in twentieth-century France (Manchester University Press, 2025) by Dr. Margaret Andersen explores fraught political and cultural meanings attached to the notion of an "ideal" family size. When statistics revealed a sustained drop in France's birthrate, pronatalist activists pushed for financial benefits, propaganda, and punitive measures to counter declining fertility. Situating infertility within this history, the author details innovations in fertility medicine, cultural awareness of artificial insemination, and changing laws on child adoption. These practices offered new ways of responding to infertility and formed part of a growing expectation of being able to control one's fertility and family size. This book presents the political and cultural context for understanding why private questions about when to start a family, how many children to have, and

How can I help my students not only learn my course material but also retain and transfer that information? This is a question that has plagued and intrigued teachers for centuries. In Smart Teaching Stronger Learning: Practical Tips for 10 Cognitive Scientists, the authors provide their readers with evidence-based practices for immediate classroom implementation. Their premise is that small changes can lead to powerful results. In this approachable book, each chapter is written by a cognitive scientist who is currently teaching. The chapters introduce a concept, describe how to implement the concept in your classroom, and provide multiple resources for further study. The book is consciously formatted to be a quick read (approximately 100 pages) and provides valuable information for anyone who is interested in helping someone else or themselves learn. Teachers, parents, coaches, and lifelong learners will benefit from these strategies. In this episode, Dr. Pooja Agarwal, Dr. Cynthia Nebel, and Dr. Veronica

A thrilling exploration of competing cosmological origin stories, comparing new scientific ideas that upend our very notions of space, time, and reality.By most popular accounts, the universe started with a bang some 13.8 billion years ago. But what happened before the Big Bang? And how do we know it happened at all? Here prominent cosmologist Niayesh Afshordi and science communicator Phil Halper offer a tour of the peculiar possibilities: bouncing and cyclic universes, time loops, creations from nothing, multiverses, black hole births, string theories, and holograms. Along the way, they offer both a call for new physics and a riveting story of scientific debate.Incorporating insights from Afshordi’s cutting-edge research and Halper’s original interviews with scientists like Stephen Hawking, Roger Penrose, and Alan Guth, Battle of the Big Bang: The New Tales of Our Cosmic Origins (University of Chicago Press, 2025) compares these models for the origin of our origins, showing each theory’s strengths and weakn

Why is the universe the way it is? Wherever we look, we find ordered structures: from stars to planets to living cells. Molecular Storms: The Physics of Stars, Cells and the Origin of Life (Springer Nature, 2023) shows that the same driving force is behind structure everywhere: the incessant random motion of the components of matter. Physicists call it thermal noise. Let's call it the molecular storm. This storm drives the fusion reactions that make stars shine. It drives whirlpools and currents in atmospheres and oceans. It spins and distorts molecules until they are in the right orientation to react and form new substances. In living cells, it drives proteins to fold and molecules to self-assemble. It is behind every detail of the astonishing molecular machines that control cellular processes. Using cutting-edge research, "Molecular Storms" takes us on a dazzling journey from the early universe to the interior of the smallest living things. There, in a nanoscale world of biological devices, it explains th

In The Computer Always Wins: A Playful Introduction to Algorithms through Puzzles and Strategy Games (MIT Press, 2025), Elliot Lichtman will teach you some of computer science’s most powerful concepts in a refreshingly accessible way: exploring them through word games, board games, and strategy games you already know. Learn recursion by playing tic-tac-toe, efficient search through puzzle games like sudoku and Wordle, and machine learning by way of the playground classic rock-paper-scissors. Finish the book, and you’ll come away with not only a deeper understanding of these foundational programming techniques but also a new appreciation for the amazing feats that can be accomplished using simple, readable code. Elliot Lichtman started teaching online classes in computer science when he was a freshman in high school. Small classes quickly grew into a series of larger and longer offerings, and from those, this book was born. Elliot is currently a junior at Yale University. Caleb Zakarin is editor of the New B

An awe-inspiring journey into the world of proteins--how they shape life, and their remarkable potential to heal our bodies and our planet. Each fall, a robin begins the long trek north from Gibraltar to her summer home in Central Europe. Nestled deep in her optic nerve, a tiny protein turns a lone electron into a compass, allowing her to see north in colors we can only dream of perceiving. Taking us beyond the confines of our own experiences, The Color of North: The Molecular Language of Proteins and the Future of Life (Belknap Press, 2025) traverses the kingdom of life to uncover the myriad ways that proteins shape us and all organisms on the planet. Inside every cell, a tight-knit community of millions of proteins skillfully contorts into unique shapes to give fireflies their ghostly glow, enable the octopus to see predators with its skin, and make humans fall in love. Collectively, proteins orchestrate the intricate relationships within ecosystems and forge the trajectory of life. And yet, nature has

An exploration of workplace participation and earnings patterns for diverse women in US STEM professions that upends the myth that STEM work benefits women economically. Seen as part economic driver, part social remedy, STEM work is commonly understood to benefit both the US economy and people—particularly women—from underrepresented groups. But what do diverse women find when they work in US STEM occupations? What do STEM jobs really deliver—and for whom? In Disparate Measures: The Intersectional Economics of Women in STEM Work (MIT Press, 2024), Mary Armstrong and Susan Averett challenge the conventional wisdom that a diverse US STEM workforce will bring about economic abundance for the women who participate in it. Combining intersectionality theory and critical data theory with a feminist economic analysis, the authors explore how different groups of diverse women truly fare in US STEM professions.Disparate Measures is centered on eight unique, in-depth case studies, each of which provides an intersection

What defines who we are? For decades, the answer has seemed obvious: our genes, the “blueprint of life.” In The Master Builder: How the New Science of the Cell Is Rewriting the Story of Life, biologist Alfonso Martinez Arias argues we’ve been missing the bigger picture. It’s not our genes that define who we are, but our cells. While genes are important, nothing in our DNA explains why the heart is on the left side of the body, how many fingers we have, or even how our cells manage to reproduce. Drawing on new research from his own lab and others, Martinez Arias reveals that we are composed of a thrillingly intricate, constantly moving symphony of cells. Both their long lineage—stretching back to the very first cell—and their intricate interactions within our bodies today make us who we are. Engaging and ambitious, The Master Builder will transform your understanding of our past, present, and future—as individuals and as a species. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our s

In Nature's Memory: Behind the Scenes at the World’s Natural History Museums (Penguin, 2025), zoologist Jack Ashby shares hidden stories behind the world’s iconic natural history museums, from enormous mounted whale skeletons to cabinets of impossibly tiny insects. Look closely and all is not as it seems: these museums are not as natural, Ashby shows us, as we might think. Mammals dominate the displays, for example, even though they make up less than 1 percent of species; there are many more male specimens than females; and often a museum’s most popular draw – the dinosaur skeletons – are not actually real. Over 99 percent of museum collections are held in immense, unseen storehouses. And it’s becoming clear that these institutions have not been as honest about their complex histories as they should be. Yet natural history museums are also the only museums that can save the world – it is just starting to be understood that their vast collections are indispensable resources in the fight against biodiversity l

Ages before the dawn of modern medicine, wild animals were harnessing the power of nature's pharmacy to heal themselves. Doctors by Nature: How Ants, Apes, and Other Animals Heal Themselves (Princeton University Press, 2025) reveals what researchers are now learning about the medical wonders of the animal world. In this visionary book, Jaap de Roode argues that we have underestimated the healing potential of nature for too long and shows how the study of self-medicating animals could impact the practice of human medicine. Drawing on illuminating interviews with leading scientists from around the globe as well as his own pioneering research on monarch butterflies, de Roode demonstrates how animals of all kinds--from ants to apes, from bees to bears, and from cats to caterpillars--use various forms of medicine to treat their own ailments and those of their relatives. We meet apes that swallow leaves to dislodge worms, sparrows that use cigarette butts to repel parasites, and bees that incorporate sticky resin

Why we must rethink our residency on the planet to understand the connected challenges of tribalism, inequity, climate justice, and democracy. How can we respond to the current planetary ecological emergency? In To Know the World: A New Vision for Environmental Learning (MIT Press, 2020), Mitchell Thomashow proposes that we revitalize, revisit, and reinvigorate how we think about our residency on Earth. First, we must understand that the major challenges of our time--migration, race, inequity, climate justice, and democracy--connect to the biosphere. Traditional environmental education has accomplished much, but it has not been able to stem the inexorable decline of global ecosystems. Thomashow, the former president of a college dedicated to sustainability, describes instead environmental learning, a term signifying that our relationship to the biosphere must be front and center in all aspects of our daily lives. In this illuminating book, he provides rationales, narratives, and approaches for doing just that