Books & Arts

Mystery lingers round the sudden defection of cold-war physicist Bruno Pontecorvo, finds Sharon Weinberger.

Paolo Mazzarello argues that the disposal of collections requires clear consultation with the public.

An opera on the astonishing life of Marie Curie enthralls Stefan Michalowski and Georgia Smith.

Robert P. Crease revels in the life of a Hollywood goddess who pioneered wireless technology.

Paul McEuen savours a technothriller from the late Michael Crichton that makes the tiny terrifying.

Tracy K. Smith has her head in the stars. Thanks to her late father's job as an engineer on the Hubble Space Telescope, the US poet gathers inspiration from astrophysics and cosmology. Published this year, her third collection, Life on Mars, explores the future of human life, the great beyond and her father's death. As she prepares for a poetry reading at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, Smith talks about the limits of space and time.

A Dublin exhibition inspires a practical approach to water sustainability, finds Anthony King.

Clive Gamble relishes the inside story on the cognitive abilities of our fossil relatives.

George Ellis appreciates a Stephen Hawking biography that highlights the epochs of an illustrious career — and the personality behind them.

Martin Kemp sifts the evidence that Leonardo da Vinci painted the newly emerged work Salvator Mundi.

Thomas Dietz reassesses Robert Cialdini's revolutionary treatise on the science of decision-making.

Artist Rob Kesseler adorns porcelain, glass and books with incredibly detailed close-ups of pollen, seeds, leaves and fruit, created in collaboration with botanists in London and Lisbon. As he exhibits Jardim Porcelanico, a collection of tableware decorated with magnified sections of plants he collected in Portugal, he discusses the changing face of botany in art.

Science writer Margaret Wertheim's latest book focuses on 'outsider physicists' — fringe theorists who probe the cosmos in their own way. On its publication, to be accompanied by a December exhibition at the newly opened Institute For Figuring gallery in Los Angeles, Wertheim explains her fascination with those who explore beyond the textbooks.

Gillian Beer chronicles the passage of time in its many manifestations through Lewis Carroll's enduring classics.

Martin Daly explores Steven Pinker's treatise on the taming of human aggression.