Paul Lauterbur and the Invention of MRI

  • M. Joan Dawson
MIT Press (2013)

As light-bulb moments go, Paul Lauterbur's was one of the quirkier. On 2 September 1971, the chemist was eating a hamburger when he realized that images could be derived from nuclear magnetic resonance signals, then used to detect tumours in tissue samples. The discovery paved the way for magnetic resonance imaging, which allows diagnosis of a multitude of conditions without the need for ionizing radiation. Molecular biologist Joan Dawson, Lauterbur's widow, deftly interweaves biography and breakthroughs with the findings of others in the field, such as Raymond Damadian.

The Compatibility Gene

  • Daniel M. Davis
Allen Lane (2013)

Eminent immunologist Daniel Davis tells the story of the “molecular mark that distinguishes each of us as individuals”. The genes of the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) are big players in the immune system, and are implicated in conditions from ankylosing spondylitis to multiple sclerosis. Starting with the work of Peter Medawar and Peter Gorer on immunology, transplantation and the MHC, Davis ranges energetically through the research. Cultural references and anecdotes abound, but the book's shifts in tone between breezy and technical may unsettle some.

Their Fate is Our Fate: How Birds Foretell Threats to Our Health and Our World

  • Peter Doherty
The Experiment (2013)

Like billions of coal-mine canaries, avian species tell us much about environmental crises, Nobel-prizewinning immunologist Peter Doherty reminds us. He explores how birds reflect the progress of epidemics and environmental change, framed by his own adventures in disease ecology. From 'sentinel chickens' — used to monitor the spread of arbovirus — to the migratory red knot Calidris canutus rufa, whose decline points to trouble down the food chain, Doherty flies with us through key vistas of science.

A Guide for the Perplexed: A Novel

  • Dara Horn
W. W. Norton (2013)

Computer science and medieval philosophy mesh in Dara Horn's accomplished novel about digital dangers and the nature of memory. Software supremo Josie Ashkenazi's program Genizah (Hebrew for 'repository of sacred texts') creates palaces of memory housing images and documents. In post-Arab Spring Cairo, she is brutally kidnapped. That headlong narrative is woven through with the real-life stories of scholar Solomon Schechter, who discovered a famous genizah in Cairo, and twelfth-century Jewish philosopher Moses Maimonedes, whose treatise gives the novel its name.

Animal Earth: The Amazing Diversity of Living Creatures

  • Ross Piper
Thames and Hudson (2013)

In a seabed near you may lurk Tubiluchus priapulids — penis worms resembling shower heads with tails. Zoologist Ross Piper presents a parade of charismatic yet overlooked fauna in this sumptuous volume. The bioluminescent comb jelly Beroe abyssicola — not unlike a glowing papaya — and the candy-coloured twists of annelid worm Alitta virens are astounding enough. But the Persian carpet flatworm Pseudobiceros bedfordi is an aesthete's delight, sporting a black-and-scarlet pattern straight out of haute couture.