The Reproach of Hunger: Food, Justice and Money in the 21st Century

  • David Rieff
Verso (2015) 9781439123874 9781784783389 | ISBN: 978-1-4391-2387-4

As refugee crises fill the news, David Rieff reminds that hunger is a war not won. Rieff, a veteran thinker on development issues, spent six years researching the nexus of population, food commodification and persistent poverty for this critical analysis. Scathing about the alarmist or over-optimistic pronouncements of development officials, agribusiness multinationals and philanthropic nabobs, he notes that any issue involving billions of humans cannot be neatly engineered. Thoughtful, trenchant and bracingly sceptical.

The End of Memory: A Natural History of Aging and Alzheimer's

  • Jay Ingram
Thomas Dunne (2015) 9781250076489 | ISBN: 978-1-2500-7648-9

Alzheimer's disease affects 5.3 million US citizens, and has so far eluded cure. In this deft overview, science writer Jay Ingram unravels the complexities of the science past and present. He examines the legacy of neurology pioneers such as Aloysius Alzheimer and Frederic Lewy; the biology of ageing and shifts in episodic and autobiographical memory; and the protein plaques and neurofibrillary tangles associated with the disease. And there is more, from the ongoing Nun Study of Aging and Alzheimer's Disease (begun by neurologist David Snowdon in 1986) to the idea of Alzheimer's as “type 3 diabetes”.

Houston, We Have a Narrative: Why Science Needs Story

  • Randy Olson
University of Chicago Press (2015) 9780226270708 | ISBN: 978-0-2262-7070-8

Whether synthetic biology or exoplanet hunting, science told well can carry a thriller-like punch. Marine biologist turned filmmaker Randy Olson argues that narrative skill is central not just to science communication but also to research reportage, preventing false positives, yawn-worthy delivery and more. Olson prescribes the Hollywood formula “and, but, therefore” as the backbone of story, introducing momentum, conflict and resolution. He has packed his solid primer with analyses of how it is done, from James Watson's 1968 The Double Helix (Atheneum) to exemplary scientific abstracts.

Memory and Movies: What Films Can Teach Us about Memory

  • John Seamon
MIT Press (2015) 9780262029711 | ISBN: 978-0-2620-2971-1

Cinema has long exploited the dramatic potential of memory. Here, John Seamon exploits film's potential for elucidating neuroscience. Inspired by Christopher Nolan's 2000 Memento (which hinges on anterograde amnesia), Seamon trains a cinematic lens on aspects of memory from facial recognition to dementia. Philip Kaufman's 1978 Invasion of the Body Snatchers, for instance, mirrors Capgras' delusion, in which people believe that their acquaintances are doppelgängers; while Robert Redford's Ordinary People (1980) dissects post-traumatic stress disorder with exquisite precision.

Ornithological Photographs

  • Todd Forsgren
Daylight (2015) 9781942084068 | ISBN: 978-1-9420-8406-8

Photographer Todd Forsgren has spent years capturing images of birds, from hummingbirds to toucans, caught in mist nets — a tool widely used by ornithologists for ring-banding and data collection. Some may find the sight of immobilized birds in this collection disturbing. But Forsgren's book uniquely showcases the birds' individuality while testifying to the painstaking, ongoing work of field researchers striving to understand the ecology, population flux and more of wild birds.