The best science books of 2024

Books contemplating the human experience and a great deal of humankind’s greatest challenges were a range the Science News personnel’s favorite reads this year. What were your favorites? Tell us at [email protected].

Night Magic

Leigh Ann Henion
Algonquin Books, $30

As artificial light increasingly illuminates dead night, a writer makes the case to deal with natural darkness and the ecosystems and life-forms it nurtures, from spotted salamanders to glowworms and bioluminescent fungi.

Do I Know You?

Sadie Dingfelder
Little, Brown Spark, $32

A science journalist who can’t recognize faces, p.c. out depth or visualize images in her mind takes readers along on her journey to take hold of her quirky brain. The hilarious and philosophical memoir is a reminder that our ways of perceiving the realm are now not uniform.

Then I Am Myself the World

Christof Koch
Basic Books, $30

A neuroscientist argues that information integration within the brain is what makes humans unsleeping. The foundation provocatively suggests that any system that integrates information, including computers, has the chance of some level of consciousness.

Flavorama

Arielle Johnson
Harvest, $forty

Complete with colourful illustrations and fun recipes, this delicious tome digs into the science at the back of flavor. Reading it just would perchance transform your skills within the kitchen.

After 1177 B.C.

Eric H. Cline
Princeton Univ., $32

An archaeologist describes how the Late Bronze Age collapse transformed societies across the Eastern Mediterranean and Near East, with some experiencing hardship and decline while others flourished amid the chaos.

Get the Picture

Bianca Bosker
Viking, $29

Wielding science as a tool, a journalist sets out to take hold of human­kind’s primal desire for art, as well as as art’s expanding utility within the trendy world. Along the style, she immerses herself within the exclusive and strange art world.

The Last Drop

Tim Smedley
Picador, $29.ninety nine

Human mismanagement and climate change are fueling water crises across the globe. This book offers potential solutions, from agricultural and at-home remedies to policy changes, as well as as a reminder to value every last drop of water as precious.

The High Seas

Olive Heffernan
Greystone Books, $32.ninety five

Persons are increasingly staking claims to international waters to make one of the most of resources. A science journalist sounds the alarm for sustainable practices and the preservation of the ocean’s rich ecosystems.

Turning to Stone

Marcia Bjornerud
Flatiron Books, $29.ninety nine

A seasoned structural geologist reflects on her life story and the rich wisdom of Earth’s rocks throughout this book which is an element memoir, part geology explainer, part meditation on science and society.

A technique to Kill an Asteroid

Robin George Andrews
Random House, $29.ninety nine

What is going on to it take to offer protection to Earth from a destructive asteroid? A science journalist takes stock of the tools humankind already has in its asteroid preparedness arsenal, including the defensive strategy demonstrated by NASA’s a success DART mission, and what else remains needed.

Our Moon

Rebecca Boyle
Random House, $28.ninety nine

This veneration of our celestial companion lays out how the moon has shaped life on Earth and molded the planet right into a hospitable home. The moon’s influence on human societies, both culturally and spiritually, as well as as the threats humankind’s subject material ambitions pose for the moon’s well-being, also take center stage.

Countdown

Sarah Scoles
Bold Type Books, $30

Interviews with physicists tasked to deal with and modernize the U. S.’ aging nuclear stockpile, as well as as with other researchers and activists in that orbit, reveal the phenomenal and often heavy feelings of those within the nuclear weapon industry. These conversations ponder the industry’s contradictory existence to advertise peace through destructive weapons and the way forward for nuclear research.

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