Born in Africa: The Quest for the Origins of Human Life

  • Martin Meredith
Simon & Schuster 432 pp. £16.99 (2011)

More than a century after Charles Darwin suggested that the ancestors of modern humans might lie buried in the African plains, we are still piecing together the jigsaw of our evolutionary past. Journalist and historian Martin Meredith tells the story of the palaeontologists who sought the bones of early hominids there, from the discovery of skeletons in Tanzania's Olduvai gorge in the early twentieth century to the latest genetic research on the branches of the human family tree.

Rising Force: The Magic of Magnetic Levitation

  • James D. Livingston
Harvard Univ. Press 288 pp. £20.95 (2011)

Giving a new meaning to literary suspense, physicist Lames Livingston devotes his book to the science of magnetic levitation. From laboratory demonstrations of floating magnets, flying frogs and suspended sumo wrestlers to the realities of urban maglev trains, he uncovers humanity's fascination with the magic of defying gravity, as well as the physics of magnetic fields and superconductivity.

Divine Machines: Leibniz and the Sciences of Life

  • Justin E. H. Smith
Princeton Univ. Press 392 pp. $45/£30.95 (2011)

Seventeenth-century philosopher G. W. Leibniz is best known for his mathematical discoveries, including calculus. But he also investigated the science of life. Philosopher Justin Smith describes how Leibniz's experimentation in medicine, physiology, taxonomy and palaeontology influenced his philosophical ideas, causing him to shy away from mechanical views of nature towards more organic ones.

Sex, Drugs, and Sea Slime: The Oceans' Oddest Creatures and Why They Matter

  • Ellen J. Prager
Univ. of Chicago Press 216 pp. $26/£17 (2011)

Beneath the waves, anything goes, explains marine scientist Ellen Prager in her tour of some of the saltier habits of sea life. From the inside-out posture and bioluminescent fireworks of the vampire squid to the mucus deluge that protects the slimy hagfish, she explains how marine critters adopt unusual approaches to sex, predation and defence. And she explores how these diverse creatures, from krill to the grey whale, are crucial for our food supply, economies and even drug discovery.

Cascadia's Fault: The Earthquake and Tsunami That Could Devastate North America

Jerry Thompson and Simon Winchester. Counterpoint Press 352 pp. £16.06/£26 (2011)

Following the recent devastation in Japan, journalist Jerry Thompson points out with unfortunate timeliness that North America is also at risk from a cataclysmic earthquake and tsunami. The Cascadia subduction zone stretches 800 kilometres from Vancouver Island to northern California, where the ocean floor slips below the continent. He follows the researchers who monitor the area, and asks what would happen if a magnitude-9 quake and 30-metre waves hit Vancouver and Seattle, Washington.