Ancient philosopher Anaximander’s discoveries about rain, wind and the cosmos may make him the true force behind modern science, argues physicist Carlo Rovelli in his newly republished first book
The Good Life
Robert Waldinger & Marc Schulz Simon & Schuster (2023)
Isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the link between happiness and good relationships. Scientific evidence for the importance of relationships motivates this always engrossing, sometimes moving, study of happiness, grounded in the Harvard Study of Adult Development. Beginning in 1938, the project has followed two generations of the same families. Current director Robert Waldinger and associate director Marc Schulz show in detail how “the good life is a complicated life. For everybody.”
Life
Paul R. Ehrlich Yale Univ. Press (2023)
Biologist Paul Ehrlich is best known for writing — with his wife, conservation biologist Anne Ehrlich — the 1968 book The Population Bomb, which sold two million copies and was widely translated. Its controversial warning of a crisis of overpopulation gave him global exposure. He became a public scholar working with people from many disciplines: economics, political science, history, law, aviation, military intelligence and dentistry “to name a few”, he remarks in his frank, polyphonic autobiography, dedicated “For Anne: Sine Qua Non”.
Masters of the Lost Land
Heriberto Araujo Atlantic (2023)
Since 2000, more than 2,000 people worldwide have been murdered for defending their lands or the environment. About one-third were Brazilian, mostly from the Amazon rainforest, notes investigative journalist Heriberto Araujo. He tells the story of the courageous Maria Joel, widow of Dezinho, the leader of a small Amazonian farmworkers’ union. Joel has fought to bring to justice the land baron who ordered her husband’s death. Based on four years of research in Brazil, the book is original, detailed and persuasive.
The Leak
Robert P. Crease & Peter D. Bond MIT Press (2022)
Seven Nobel prizes have been awarded for work at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York. Yet a leak of radioactive water from the facility turned its 50th anniversary in 1997 into a year of “chaos rather than celebration”, write philosopher of science Robert Crease — author of a history of the lab — and former Brookhaven physicist Peter Bond. Although the incident posed no health hazard, according to federal, state and local officials, it sparked a “firestorm” of activism and politics, captured in this vivid first-hand account.
Graph Theory in America
Robin Wilson et al. Princeton Univ. Press (2023)
The modern development of graph theory — which models relationships between pairs of objects in groups — began in 1876 with James Joseph Sylvester, a British mathematician then in the United States. His work was first published in Nature. In 1976, US mathematicians Kenneth Appel and Wolfgang Haken solved a long-standing conundrum in the field, the four-colour problem. The intervening century is described in this graphically illustrated historical treatise by three British and US mathematicians.
Genes reveal striking diversity within similar ice age cultures
Our capability to reconstruct past landscapes and the processes that shape them underpins our understanding of paleo-Earth. We take advantage of a global-scale landscape evolution model assimilating paleoelevation and paleoclimate reconstructions over the past 100 million years.
An upgraded antibiotic holds promise for treating tuberculosis strains that are resistant to existing treatments.
A water-filled gel has the strength and elasticity of natural tendon.
‘Impressive’ fossil analysis reveals why some dinosaurs were massive but their cousins were tiny.
The Hayabusa2 spacecraft made two landings on the asteroid (162173) Ryugu in 2019, during which it collected samples of the surface material. Those samples were delivered to Earth in December 2020. The colors, shapes, and morphologies of the returned samples are consistent with those observed on Ryugu by Hayabusa2, indicating that they are representative of the asteroid.
Many ask authors to disclose use of ChatGPT and other generative artificial intelligence
Lack of the nutrient limits the plants’ productivity, key to climate and ecosystems
Adipose tissue in mice dumps fat during early workouts rather than late ones.
China, the United Arab Emirates and other countries are adding area by converting wetlands and shallow waters into solid land.
Scientists repair a mutation that causes heart-muscle abnormalities and can kill without warning.
Your cells crackle with electric signals that guide embryonic development and heal wounds. If we can learn to tweak this “bioelectric code”, we might be able to prevent cancer and even grow new limbs
Moves by Google, Microsoft and Baidu to bring AI chatbots into their search engines may bring big advantages, but they could also damage many industries and change the very way we interact with the web
nature – February 16, 2023 issue:
Research on blocking sunlight needs a dose of realpolitik.
Scientists identify a molecule key to the development of progeria, a lethal disease that causes hyper-accelerated ageing.
Neurons that help to rouse you from sound slumber are connected to those that receive signals from the spinal cord.
The causes of long COVID, which disables millions, may come together in the brain and nervous system
New experiments can re-create the young cosmos, when it was a mash of fundamental particles, more precisely than ever before
Plato was right: newborns do math
In theory, it’s possible to live well while using energy at a rate of just 2000 watts – a quarter of the average for people in the US. Our environment reporter took on the challenge. Here’s what he discovered
Living on Mars will take enormous work, but urban planner Justin Hollander is already on the case in this guide to settling the Red Planet
Psychologists are forging a new understanding of paranoia, which is helping to explain why more of us are prone to the condition in today’s uncertain world
Intellicurious 