"In The Disappearing Spoon, bestselling author Sam Kean unlocked the mysteries of the periodic table. In THE VIOLINIST'S THUMB, he explores the wonders of the magical building block of life: DNA. There are genes to explain crazy cat ladies, why other people have no fingerprints, and why some people survive nuclear bombs. Genes illuminate everything from JFK's bronze skin (it wasn't a tan) to Einstein's genius. They prove that Neanderthals and humans...

In her virtuosic debut, Ghostwalk, Rebecca Stott unfolded an extraordinary and true mystery involving Isaac Newton and set in seventeenth-century Cambridge. The Coral Thief is another intriguing mystery and love story, centering on pre-Darwinian theories of evolution and set in Paris right after Napoleon's surrender at Waterloo. Upon his arrival in Paris, where he has come to study anatomy, Daniel Connor, a young medical student from Edinburgh, finds...

"The newest addition to John Brockman's Edge.org series explores life itself, bringing together the world's leading biologists, geneticists, and evolutionary theorists -- including Richard Dawkins, Edward O. Wilson, J. Craig Venter, and Freeman Dyson. Scientists' understanding of life is progressing more rapidly than at any point in human history, from the extraordinary decoding of DNA to the controversial emergence of biotechnology. Featuring pioneering...

"Evolution has, ever since its inception, been one of the most ideologically fraught fields in all of science. It has given birth to the myth about biological racial "types," with distinct rankings of "genetic superiority". Evolution has always been mistrusted by religious fundamentalists, contributing to a rise in creationist education that dovetails with the mass scientific illiteracy we see today. And today the coronavirus is mutating into ever...

"The Physics of Life illuminates the meaning of evolution in its broadest scientific sense and empowers the reader with a new view of the intertwined movement of all life -- evolution is more than biological. The same physical effect is present in all patterns and flows -- from population growth, to air traffic, to government expansion, to the urge for better ideas. Evolution is everywhere, and the same elegant principles of physics apply to all things....

All organisms and species are transitory, yet life endures. The origin, extinction, and evolution of species - interconnected in the web of life as "eternal ephemera" - are the concern of evolutionary biology. In this riveting work, renowned paleontologist Niles Eldredge follows leading thinkers as they have sought, for more than two hundred years, to understand this paradox, revitalizing evolutionary science with their own, more resilient findings....

"Sparked by a controversial debate in February 2014, Bill Nye has set off on an energetic campaign to spread awareness of evolution and the powerful way it shapes our lives. In Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation, he explains why race does not really exist; evaluates the true promise and peril of genetically modified food; reveals how new species are born, in a dog kennel and in a London subway; takes a stroll through 4.5 billion years...

"A brief, accessible history of the idea of purpose in Western thought, from ancient Greece to the present. Can we live without the idea of purpose? Should we even try to? Kant thought we were stuck with purpose, and even Darwin's theory of natural selection, which profoundly shook the idea, was unable to kill it. Indeed, teleological explanation--what Aristotle called understanding in terms of "final causes"--seems to be making a comeback today,...