Raw Data: Infographic Designers' Sketchbooks

Steven Heller and Rick Landers. Thames and Hudson (2014)

9780500517451

An artist's sketchbook is a peek at cognition's wilder shores: the on-the-fly observations and dogged experimentation that feed the final picture. In this splendid compilation, Steven Heller and Rick Landers riffle through the pages of 73 infographic artists — the wizards who translate numbers into graphics. Juxtaposing doodles with smooth finales, the book explores the work of stars such as Nigel Holmes, whose 'meat and two veg' head reworks the food pyramid in wacky homage to the 'cornucopia' portraits of sixteenth-century artist Giuseppe Arcimboldo.

Fred Sanger — Double Nobel Laureate: A Biography

  • George G. Brownlee
Cambridge University Press (2014) 9781107083349 | ISBN: 978-1-1070-8334-9

The biochemist Frederick Sanger, whose DNA sequencing method made the Human Genome Project possible, died last year. One of only four scientists to win two Nobel prizes, Sanger is revealed in this slim biography by George Brownlee (who studied under him) as inherently modest about his landmark achievements in protein and DNA sequencing. Included are a revealing and fascinating 1992 interview with Sanger that elucidates how he hit on his discoveries, and encomia from the likes of fellow laureates Paul Berg, Elizabeth Blackburn and Paul Nurse.

Animal Weapons: The Evolution of Battle

  • Douglas J. Emlen
Henry Holt (2014) 9780805094503 | ISBN: 978-0-8050-9450-3

It began with dung beetles. Evolutionary biologist Douglas Emlen's self-confessed fixation on 'extreme' animal weapons was first channelled into research on these horned insects. In this original study, Emlen tours offensive and defensive anatomy and behaviours across aeons and taxa, from Tyrannosaurus rex's fearsome teeth to ibex horns and amphibian poisons. He sharpens the discussion by interweaving parallels with humanity's own evolving arsenal, including weapons of mass destruction — the most extreme of all arms, which if deployed cancel out the very concept of battle.

Banned: A History of Pesticides and the Science of Toxicology

  • Frederick Rowe Davis
Yale University Press (2014) 9780300205176 | ISBN: 978-0-3002-0517-6

Historian Frederick Davis takes on the ambitious task of writing the history of pesticides before and in the wake of Rachel Carson's iconic 1962 book Silent Spring. In a treatment dense with references, acronyms, chemical names and technical discussions of lethal doses, Davis offers a keen historical perspective on the compounds that big agriculture has used to keep bugs at bay. He forms a scholarly indictment of a system that heeded Carson's superficial message in banning DDT, but ignored her underlying warning that existing systems for managing pesticides are often inadequate.

Life on Display: Revolutionizing U.S. Museums of Science and Natural History in the Twentieth Century

Karen A. Rader and Victoria E. M. Cain. University of Chicago Press (2014)

9780226079660

The exquisite dioramas in New York's American Museum of Natural History have wowed crowds since the early twentieth century. But as historians Karen Rader and Victoria Cain reveal in this cogent study, they were part of a broader revolution: the “New Museum Idea”, which saw “smell machines” and dynamic models supersede dusty cases. The behind-the-scene struggles between 'edutainers' and serious museum researchers were, they show, no less dynamic.