Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier

  • Neil deGrasse Tyson
W. W. Norton 368 pp. $26.95 (2012)

Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson is on a space mission of his own. With NASA's research and exploration now diminished, Tyson — director of the American Museum of Natural History's Hayden Planetarium — is keenly focused on what the United States will lose by failing to reinvent its space programme. In this collection, mined from 15 years of commentary and interviews edited by Avis Lang, he spotlights issues that underline the central importance of curiosity about the great beyond — from the nature of discovery to propulsion in deep space.

The Evolved Apprentice: How Evolution Made Humans Unique

  • Kim Sterelny
MIT Press 264 pp. £24.95 (2012)

We are inescapably different from the other great apes — sexually, morphologically and socially. In a book that forms part of the Jean Nicod Lecture Series, philosopher of biology Kim Sterelny tries to answer the vexed questions of why that is by arguing that our divergence from our closest cousins over the past 3 million years is down to a gradually enriched learning environment. Cooperative foraging, he posits, paved the way for positive-feedback loops that, incrementally and over vast reaches of time, led to adapted minds that were nurtured within adapted environments.

The End of Money: Counterfeiters, Preachers, Techies, Dreamers — and the Coming Cashless Society

  • David Wolman
Da Capo Press 240 pp. £16.99 (2012)

'Filthy lucre', David Wolman shows us, is a particularly apt phrase. Minting technologies gobble huge amounts of metals, cotton and water; the transport and production of cash has a giant carbon footprint; and Staphylococcus bacteria have been detected on 94% of US one-dollar bills. In this fascinating book, Wired contributing editor Wolman argues that its end is nigh. He spent a cash-free year researching everything from counterfeiting to tax-dodging and failed currencies, and looks at digital solutions such as smart banknotes.

From Melancholia to Prozac: A History of Depression

  • Clark Lawlor
Oxford University Press 288 pp. £14.99 (2012)

Seventeenth-century scholar Robert Burton may have anatomized melancholy, but the definitions, diagnoses and treatments of and for depression are still hotly debated by the pharmaceutical industry, psychiatry, psychology and affected citizens. Writer Clark Lawlor trawls history from the classical era onwards, shining some light on this psychological dark horse. Along the way, he touches on radical differences in cultural definitions, explores tensions between the biomedical model and humanistic concepts, and weighs up 'cures' from talking therapy to drugs.

The Song of the Ape: Understanding the Languages of Chimpanzees

  • Andrew R. Halloran
St Martin's Press 288 pp. $25.99 (2012)

A chance observation drove primatologist Andrew Halloran to study how chimpanzees communicate. While keeper to a group of island-bound chimps, he saw five ousted members calmly using a rowing boat to escape, as if they had discussed a plan. Examining the histories of these five, he picked out and recorded dozens of phrases in their vocalizations. Weaving in the stories of controversial attempts to teach sign language to primates such as Nim Chimpsky, Halloran concludes that chimps have their own highly complex lexicon.