Science + Psychology
INSECT CRISIS: THE FALL OF THE TINY EMPIRES THAT RUN THE WORLD
Written by Milman, Oliver
From ants scurrying under leaf litter to bees able to fly higher than Mount Kilimanjaro, insects are everywhere. Three out of every four of our planet's known animal species are insects.
VAGINA OBSCURA: AN ANATOMICAL VOYAGE
Written by Gross, Rachel E
A camera obscura reflects the world back but dimmer and inverted. Similarly, science has long viewed woman through a warped lens, one focused narrowly on her capacity for reproduction. As a result, there exists a vast knowledge gap when it comes to what we know about half of the bodies on the planet.
JOURNEY OF THE MIND: HOW THINKING EMERGED FROM CHAOS
Written by Gaddam, Sai
Why do you exist? How did atoms and molecules transform into sentient creatures that experience longing, regret, compassion, and even marvel at their own existence? What does it truly mean to have a mind--to think? Science has offered few answers to these existential questions until now.
UNDER ALIEN SKIES: A SIGHTSEER'S GUIDE TO THE UNIVERSE
Written by Plait, Philip
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to travel the universe? How would Saturn's rings look from a spaceship sailing just above them? If you were falling into a black hole, what's the last thing you'd see before getting spaghettified?
PLANTA SAPIENS: THE NEW SCIENCE OF PLANT INTELLIGENCE
Written by Calvo, Paco
Decades of research document plants' impressive abilities: they communicate with one another, manipulate other species, and move in sophisticated ways. Lesser known, however, is the new evidence that plants may actually be sentient. Although plants may not have brains, their microscopic commerce exposes a system not unlike the neuronal networks running through our own bodies.
HOW DATA HAPPENED: A HISTORY FROM THE AGE OF REASON TO THE AGE OF ALGORITHMS
Written by Jones, Matthew L
From facial recognition--capable of checking people into flights or identifying undocumented residents--to automated decision systems that inform who gets loans and who receives bail, each of us moves through a world determined by data-empowered algorithms.
DEVIL'S ELEMENT: PHOSPHORUS AND A WORLD OUT OF BALANCE
Written by Egan, Dan
Phosphorus has played a critical role in some of the most lethal substances on earth: firebombs, rat poison, nerve gas. But it's also the key component of one of the most vital: fertilizer, which has sustained life for billions of people.
HACKER?S MIND: HOW THE POWERFUL BEND SOCIETY'S RULES, AND HOW TO BEND THEM BACK
Written by Schneier, Bruce
A hack is any means of subverting a system's rules in unintended ways. The tax code isn't computer code, but a series of complex formulas. It has vulnerabilities; we call them "loopholes." We call exploits "tax avoidance strategies." And there is an entire industry of "black hat" hackers intent on finding exploitable loopholes in the tax code. We call them accountants and tax attorneys.
PARROT AND THE IGLOO: CLIMATE AND THE SCIENCE OF DENIAL
Written by Lipsky, David
In 1956, the New York Times prophesied that once global warming really kicked in, we could see parrots in the Antarctic. In 2010, when science deniers had control of the climate story, Senator James Inhofe and his family built an igloo on the Washington Mall and plunked a sign on top: AL GORE'S NEW HOME: HONK IF YOU LOVE CLIMATE CHANGE.
GÖDEL'S THEOREM: A VERY SHORT INTRODUCTION
Written by Moore, A W
Very Short Introductions: Brilliant, Sharp, Inspiring Kurt Gödel first published his celebrated theorem, showing that no axiomatization can determine the whole truth and nothing but the truth concerning arithmetic, nearly a century ago.
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