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Nature and Science June 2026 |
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Beyond Inheritance: Our Ever-Mutating Cells and a New Understanding of Health
by Roxanne Khamsi
Science journalist Roxanne Khamsi’s well-researched debut offers a peek at cutting-edge genetics and the idea that our DNA is not static, as previously thought, but constantly mutating, in as many as trillions of occurrences daily. Geneticists hope that better understanding these naturally occurring mutations will give us a window into the cause of genetic diseases like cancer and, more importantly, how best to treat them. For a similar read, try From One Cell: A Journey into Life’s Origins and the Future of Medicine by Ben Stanger.
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The Emerson Circle: The Concord Radicals Who Reinvented the World
by Bruce Nichols
A lively and captivating journey through the world of the Transcendentalists, America's first group of public intellectuals, whose visionary ideas reinvented our culture and politics and remain an inspiration today. An impeccable and often dazzling behind-the-scenes look at the Concord iconoclasts clustered around Emerson who helped define what it means to be an American original. --Douglas Brinkley In the 1840s, America was a land of utopian promise, and nowhere captured this spirit of possibility better than Concord, Massachusetts. At the heart of this intellectual and cultural revolution was Ralph Waldo Emerson, a national celebrity who brought together a circle of bold and creative free thinkers. In The Emerson Circle, Bruce Nichols delivers a fascinating narrative of this transformative era, breathing life into the friendships and philosophies that comprised the titanic intellectual energy of this American Renaissance. Concord wasn't just a town; it was a crucible of innovation and reform. Luminaries such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Margaret Fuller, Louisa May Alcott, and Henry David Thoreau gathered there, united by ideas that would shape the nation. Nichols recreates this vibrant world, packed with brilliant conversations, emotional correspondences, and the essays, novels, speeches, and poetry that forever marked and changed American culture. Along the way, he shares intimate, surprising details--Thoreau's frustration with Emerson, Hawthorne's intense shyness masking deep love and hate--that make these iconic figures human. This book captures a forgotten utopian moment in our history. Anything seemed possible: abolishing property, money, and marriage, not just slavery; granting equal rights to women; eating vegan diets; banning alcohol and caffeine. These men and women turned away from the Bible in favor of the natural world and science, and they inspired our greatest early writers to create their most original and lasting works. With vivid storytelling and thought-provoking insights, Bruce Nichols invites us to reimagine the power of ideas to change the world--just as Emerson and his circle did nearly two centuries ago.
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The Art of Biodiversity: Artists & Naturalists, 1700-1900
by Eric Himmel
Strikingly original and abundantly illustrated, The Art of Biodiversity surveys the golden age of natural history art, exploring the alliance between scientists and artists that first revealed the astonishing diversity of life on Earth.With more than 330 color illustrations of surpassing beauty, this book reveals a story about art that's not in the art history books, and a story about science that's missing from histories of science. Here, such giants as Linnaeus, Buffon, Cuvier, Humboldt, and Darwin cross paths with superb artists, including Merian, Redout , Audubon, and Haeckel, among many others.An essential visual companion to popular narratives like Andrea Wulf's The Invention of Nature and Jason Roberts's Every Living Thing, this volume provides a definitive archival record of the era that defined modern biology.Between 1700 and 1900, an art movement unveiled nature's great secret: the global diversity of life-forms. Centuries before the word biodiversity existed, naturalists began to glimpse the reality that lay behind Charles Darwin's lyrical evocation of nature's endless forms most beautiful.The naturalists recruited artists to create a family album of Earth, with every picture a precise drawing of a species of plant or animal, and so science and art, for the first and last time, went exploring together.This art first appeared in vividly illustrated books that, in a world without photography or film, offered readers a vastly expanded vision of nature. The Art of Biodiversity introduces the reader to the extraordinary men and women who created these books. They focused exquisite artistic skills on nature, traded in exotic seashells and butterflies, collected bird and monkey specimens in tropical rainforests, dredged strange invertebrates from the depths of the ocean, peered through magnifying lenses at insects, and dug prehistoric bones out of the earth.After sinking out of sight in the twentieth century, biodiversity art resurfaced in the twenty-first in myriad forms that reach millions of people on the Internet, as the natural history books in the world's great libraries were digitized and made available to all.Chronicling the only art movement that successfully aligned the goals of art and science, for the transcendent purpose of documenting and understanding the natural world, The Art of Biodiversity is a must-have for historians of science, collectors of botanical and zoological art, and anyone captivated by the enduring beauty of the living world.
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The Dark Frontier: Unlocking the Secrets of the Deep Sea
by Jeffrey Marlow
An awe-inspiring investigation into the hidden world of the deep sea--the most mysterious, unforgiving environment on Earth--whose secrets can radically revise our understanding of life itself and chart our planetary future. A brilliant scientist and storyteller, Jeffrey Marlow takes us on a page-turning descent into the deepest mysteries on the planet.--Jack E. Davis, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR (SO FAR) The deep sea is our planet's last frontier. For most of human history, it was a vast, unknown realm that invoked awe and terror. And despite how much we've learned, it remains largely unexplored. In The Dark Frontier, marine microbiologist and explorer Jeffrey Marlow offers a new perspective on the power and beauty of the deep sea, beginning with the nineteenth-century discovery that the ocean's depths were teeming with life and shifting to more recent investigations of the kaleidoscopic ecology of hydrothermal vents, methane seeps, and whale falls. Marlow illuminates the ocean's scientific marvels, including microbes that breathe metal and fish that withstand crushing pressures, as well as theories about how underwater habitats may have been the cradle of life on Earth. He reveals the deep sea's microbial universes, worlds within worlds that have opened new possibilities of survival in extreme environments. The Dark Frontier is an engaging narrative journey grounded in Marlow's research and wide-ranging knowledge, together with insights from hundreds of experts, from deep-sea scientists to conservationists and UN diplomats. The book considers the twinned forces of exploration and exploitation, shining a light on deep-sea drilling and mining as well as the complexity of governing the high seas and their precious resources. In this authoritative and accessible account of ocean exploration, Marlow captures the wonder and potential of the deep sea, teaching us lessons that help navigate the future--not just for the remarkable creatures that live there but for those of us on the surface as well.
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| Heart of the Hive: Inside the Mind of the Honey Bee and the Incredible Life Force of the Colony by Hilary Kearney; photography by Eric TourneretMaster beekeeper and honey bee enthusiast Hilary Kearney has teamed up with bee photographer Eric Tourneret to deliver a revealing glimpse into honey bee behavior. Heart of the Hive shows how a beehive and its denizens function as a superorganism in arrestingly detailed images. Bee fans will be buzzing! If you like this, check out Endless Forms: The Secret World of Wasps by Seirian Sumner. |
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| Insectopolis: A Natural History by Peter KuperEisner Award-winning graphic novelist Peter Kuper’s illustrated ode to insect life incorporates multiple timelines, talking bugs, and a human de-populated world where the insects happily visit museum exhibits devoted to them! Kuper provides a wealth of science information alongside his stunning illustrations in inventively arranged panels that will draw in readers who like graphic nonfiction. For something similar, try The Hidden Life of Trees, Fred Bernard’s and Benjamin Flao's graphic adaptation of the book by Peter Wohlleben. |
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| Tales from the Ant World by Edward O. WilsonAnts are not only fascinating but an easy insect to observe -- take it from the foremost ant expert, Pulitzer Prize winner Edward O. Wilson, whose obsession with ants began as a child in his backyard and never stopped. Readers will be captivated by Wilson’s explanation of ants’ complex social behavior, and how thousands of individuals can communicate and act cooperatively in service to the colony -- a trait all species of ant have in common. For fans of: The Jewel Box: How Moths Illuminate Nature’s Hidden Rules by Tim Blackburn. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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