Richter's Scale: Measure of an Earthquake, Measure of a Man

  • Susan Hough
(Princeton Univ. Press, 2016)

Charles Richter's eponymous, logarithmic scale of earthquake classification made him globally famous. In this illuminating biography, seismologist Susan Hough describes Richter's accidental arrival at the Seismolab of the California Institute of Technology, and the colleagues there who resented his fame. A surprising selection of Richter's poetry surfaces, reflecting his sentiments on married life and mortality (see Gregory Beroza's review: Nature 445, 599; 2007).

How to Clone a Mammoth

  • Beth Shapiro
(Princeton Univ. Press, 2016)

Ecologist Beth Shapiro parses possible impacts of the “unextinct”. Reintroducing mammoths to Siberia, for example, could restore grasslands and keep carbon trapped in the permafrost (see Henry Nicholl's review: Nature 521, 30–31; 2015).

Future Arctic: Field Notes from a World on the Edge

  • Edward Struzik
(Island, 2016)

Arctic journalist Edward Struzik compresses 30 years of circumpolar observation in this portrait of a thawing world. As warmer oceans induce powerful storms that hasten the ice's retreat, ecological anomalies surface, such as the grizzly bear–polar bear hybrid.

Eternal Ephemera

  • Niles Eldredge
(Columbia Univ. Press, 2016)

Palaeontologist Niles Eldredge presents an insightful history of evolutionary biology, from transmutation's forefather, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, comparing fossil molluscs in 1801, to the theory of punctuated equilibria, whereby rapid speciation disrupts periods of stasis.

Huxley's Church & Maxwell's Demon

  • Matthew Stanley
(Univ. Chicago Press, 2016)

The context of Victorian science swung smoothly from the theistic to the naturalistic, shedding supernatural causality along the way. Matthew Stanley attributes the relative amity between Christian and atheist scientists to shared ideals such as intellectual freedom.

Spooky Action at a Distance

  • George Musser
(Scientific American/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016)

Bending time, space and minds, George Musser investigates nonlocality — two distant particles acting in harmony. With lessons in photon entanglement, particle teleportation and string theory, he ponders how space evolved after the Big Bang.

We Could Not Fail: The First African Americans in the Space Program

Richard Paul and Steven Moss. (Texas Univ. Press, 2016)

Profiling NASA's first ten black employees, Richard Paul and Steven Moss show what the space age meant for African Americans. In 1962, NASA granted US$181,000 to a study of the space programme's impact on race relations.

The Social Life of DNA: Race, Reparations, and Reconciliation After the Genome

  • Alondra Nelson
(Beacon, 2016)

Geneticist Alondra Nelson analyses the rise in DNA 'roots' testing among African Americans seeking their lost identity. Race, politics and science emerge as intertwined as the double helix itself (see Fatimah Jackson's review: Nature 529, 279–280; 2016).

Evolving Ourselves: How Unnatural Selection and Nonrandom Mutation Are Changing Life on Earth

Juan Enriquez and Steve Gullans. (Current, 2016)

In this study of the evolution of evolution, Juan Enriquez and Steve Gullans ponder the potential of genome editing and synthetic life. Could pig lungs, 'humanized' by the addition of our genes, obviate human transplants?

One Plus One Equals One

  • John Archibald
(Oxford Univ. Press, 2016)

Exuberantly describing the greening of Earth 500 million years ago, John Archibald vivifies the origins of complex life. His microbiologist predecessors star, including Carl Woese, who first sequenced rRNA to track evolution (see Nancy Moran's review: Nature 510, 338–339; 2014).

The Brain Electric

  • Malcolm Gay
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016)

People enduring amputations, once subject to messy surgery, are now at the forefront of neuroprosthetics research. Malcolm Gay explains the science behind an evolving technology that binds brain impulse to exoskeletons, enabling people with paralysis to move.

Population Wars: A New Perspective on Competition and Coexistence

  • Greg Graffin
(Thomas Dunne, 2016)

Zoologist, geologist and punk rocker Greg Graffin explores how an “us vs them” attitude has infiltrated human consciousness and driven populations to war, despite our unique power to plan our future by reflecting on the past.

Sustainability: A History

  • Jeremy L. Caradonna
(Oxford Univ. Press, 2016)

Historian Jeremy Caradonna chronicles the arc of sustainability from its roots in eighteenth-century European forestry to contemporary local food and zero-waste movements, and its emphasis on balance and the long view over economic growth.