A Natural History of Wine Ian Tattersall and Rob DeSalle. Yale University Press (2015)

9780300211023

Was science ever more intoxicating? This sparkling contribution to the science of wine by palaeoanthropologist Ian Tattersall and entomologist Rob DeSalle draws on a staggering array of disciplines, from neurobiology to physics. Starting at the putative cradle of wine-making — an Armenian cave containing a 6,000-year-old proto-winery — the two trawl the research on frugivorous higher primates' putative hankering for fermented fruit; the bodily journey of a “wine-derived ethanol molecule”; and the impact of climate change on cultivation (J. Goode Nature 492, 351–353; 2012).

White Eskimo: Knud Rasmussen's Fearless Journey into the Heart of the Arctic

  • Stephen R. Bown
Da Capo (2015) 9780306822827 | ISBN: 978-0-3068-2282-7

The part-Inuit, part-Danish explorer Knud Rasmussen is famed for his 32,000-kilometre Fifth Thule Expedition (1921–24) from Hudson Bay to Alaska. But as Stephen Bown reveals in this masterful biography, he was also an Arctic Richard Francis Burton, publishing key anthropological works on Inuit culture in Canada and Greenland. Ultimately, Bown shows, Rasmussen became a scientist-bohemian “as comfortable in bearskin pants on a featureless wind-lashed plain as he was in a formal suit and bow tie attending the opera”.

Slick Water: Fracking and One Insider's Stand against the World's Most Powerful Industry

  • Andrew Nikiforuk
Greystone (2015) 9781771640763 | ISBN: 978-1-7716-4076-3

This meticulously researched study by journalist Andrew Nikiforuk lifts the lid on the costs of that vast geological-engineering experiment, fracking. It centres on Canadian environmental impact assessor Jessica Ernst, who in 2005 found explosive levels of methane in her well water, fingered the culprit as fracking and launched a legal battle. Interwoven with her story is a deft history of fracking from the 1850s (when torpedoes and nitroglycerin were used) through the 1960s (nuclear explosions) to modern hydraulic fracturing.

The Hidden Half of Nature: The Microbial Roots of Life and Health David R. Montgomery and Anne Biklé. W. W. Norton (2015)

9780393244403

Soils and the human gut teem with microbes, and both communities need care and feeding to support, respectively, nutrient-rich crops and healthy immune systems. So emphasize geologist David Montgomery and biologist Anne Biklé in this beautifully synthesized scientific memoir. Personal experiences — revitalizing degraded garden soil and surviving a major health scare — become ways into swathes of cutting-edge research in microbiology, from agronomist Lorenz Hiltner's work on “disease suppressive” soils to the Human Microbiome Project (see go.nature.com/tsty3t).

The Snowflake: Winter's Frozen Artistry Kenneth Libbrecht and Rachel Wing. Voyageur (2015)

9780760348475

In 2003, physicist Kenneth Libbrecht (J. Hoffman Nature 480, 453–454; 2011) published the first edition of this aesthetic and scientific celebration of the snowflake. With park ranger Rachel Wing, Libbrecht returns with fresh research, more advanced microphotographs and a history of snowflake imaging from Robert Hooke's 1665 drawings to Wilson Bentley's photographs, taken between 1885 and 1931. A gallery of jewels — Antarctic 'diamond dust', rococo stellar dendrites and beyond.