Books & Arts in 2012

David Katz finds much to chew on in a polemic on the risk of consuming too much high-fructose corn syrup.

Jamie Goode tracks how our changing climate is sending ripples of disruption through the wine world.

Nature uncorks five tales of researchers who plunged into the heady science of viticulture.

Ewen Callaway delights in a cherry-picked selection of the London Natural History Museum's gargantuan trove.

Eugenie Scott relishes a history of science programming on US television that reveals an often intrusive emphasis on thrills and chills.

Henry Greely hails a study examining California's experience of mandatory newborn genetic screening.

Camille Seaman photographs icebergs and storm clouds. With an exhibition of her work opening in January in San Francisco, California, she talks about stalking supercell storms and watching hungry polar bears destroy a bird colony.

Philip Ball is gripped by the life of a remarkable scientist whose flawed theory dented her reputation.

George Szpiro celebrates a biography of the multifaceted mathematician, physicist and philosopher Henri Poincaré.

Death's multifarious faces in two London exhibitions exhilarate Ewen Callaway.

Allan McRobie enjoys a life of the audacious engineer who pioneered the windproofing of bridges and skyscrapers.

Istvan Hargittai explores a life and work of Manhattan Project leader, physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer.

Alison Abbott enjoys an exquisite tour of skeletal ornithology.

Michael Shermer sifts through a study of the science of randomness and our responses to it.

Clifford P. Brangwynne and Anthony A. Hyman celebrate the first book to plausibly suggest how life began.