Books & Arts in 2012

Carl Bergstrom assesses the power of scientometrics in predicting the shifts and shelf-life of knowledge.

Richard Holmes celebrates today's revival of science biography, a tradition spanning 300 years.

Barbara Ketcham Wheaton samples a brace of food-related science and technology histories.

Paul Ormerod assesses a Bayesian take on predicting everything from poker games to climate change.

Tim Trevan weighs up an authoritative take on the Soviet Union's vast, covert and costly bioweapons programme.

Julius von Bismarck is the first artist in residence at the particle-physics laboratory CERN, near Geneva in Switzerland. As he prepares to give the final lecture of his residency, he talks about whipping mountains, hacking photographs and digging into the history of invention.

Daniel Cressey marvels at a gleaming depiction of the subatomic by the world's leading information designer.

Joshua Glenn explores the dark, fascinating, largely forgotten science fiction of the early twentieth century.

For six years, photographer James Balog has trained his lens on ice, capturing time-lapse images that have helped scientists to study how glaciers and ice sheets respond to climate conditions. With the documentary Chasing Ice soon to debut in US cinemas, Balog talks about the loss of landscapes.

Tim Boon assesses a take on the evolving technology behind recordings of J. S. Bach.

Mathematician Glen Whitney left a job in finance to set up the Museum of Mathematics (MoMath), which is due to open in Manhattan, New York, on 15 December. He wants to spread the word that mathematics is a beautiful discipline and all around us, from the geometry of soap bubbles to the algorithms that control traffic lights.

Georgina Ferry enjoys a biography of a little-known Victorian woman who built monuments to nature.

Andrew King enjoys a personal account of the impact of sound on life, evolution and the brain.

Media artist Jon McCormack uses computer algorithms to imagine the future of native Australian species. As he prepares two new works — Codeform and Fifty Sisters — for the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, Austria, he talks about digital evolution and virtual ecosystems.

William Bynum applauds a life of physician and scientific poet Erasmus Darwin, Charles's intriguing grandfather.

Jennifer Rohn enjoys an epic novel about scientists, the media, ethics and society.