Our pick of 2011's Books & Arts coverage.
Neanderthal cognition, future dystopias and the maths of magic featured in some of the starring books and arts reviews and Q&As from 2011. A subscription is required to view this content.
As he releases a 3D documentary about the prehistoric paintings in Chauvet Cave in southern France, Werner Herzog — the German director of Fitzcarraldo and Grizzly Man — talks about cave art and the hostility of nature.
4 May 2011
Mathematician Persi Diaconis of Stanford University in California ran away from home in his teens to perform card tricks. As he publishes a book on the mathematics of magic, co-authored with juggler and fellow mathematician Ron Graham, he explains what makes a good trick.
26 October 2011
Novelist Margaret Atwood's essay collection In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination, published this month, is a companion piece to her dystopian fictional world of global warming and engineered plagues. The Canadian author discusses where she gets her science, and her concerns for the future.
5 October 2011
Sara de Freitas applauds a bold argument that online gaming can save the planet.
16 February 2011
Today's wariness of reproductive technologies stems from myths, legends and Hollywood, finds Chris Mason.
16 March 2011
Two provocative books skirt around why universities should get back to teaching, finds David Helfand.
7 September 2011
Religions and superstitions may stem from the brain's ability to spot patterns and intent, finds A. C. Grayling.
22 June 2011
Henry Pollack relishes a climate-science narrative with an intrepid and passionate businessman at its heart.
27 April 2011
Gillian Beer chronicles the passage of time in its many manifestations through Lewis Carroll's enduring classics.
16 November 2011
Clive Gamble relishes the inside story on the cognitive abilities of our fossil relatives.
2 November 2011
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Books & Arts of the year. Nature (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature.2011.9672
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature.2011.9672