Books & Arts

Dava Sobel mixes fact and fiction to great effect in her biography of Copernicus, finds Owen Gingerich.

Martin Kemp explores the nature of science–art collaborations after 15 years of major initiatives around the world.

Paul D. Miller, also known as DJ Spooky, is famed for his digital sampling techniques. His 2007 foray to Antarctica inspired a multimedia symphony, Terra Nova: Sinfonia Antarctica, and a companion volume, The Book of Ice. Ahead of a performance of Terra Nova this week at the New York Academy of Sciences, he discusses how he uses weather patterns in his compositions.

Kevin Laland commends a campaign to forge a better community using the principles of natural selection.

John Robinson directs the Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability (CIRS), a hub for sustainability research that opens for business this month in an ultra-green building at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, Canada. Robinson explains the practical challenges involved in turning a campus into a 'living lab'.

Two provocative books skirt around why universities should get back to teaching, finds David Helfand.

Joseph Silk enjoys an eloquent take on the Higgs boson, supersymmetry and the world's largest particle smasher.

Jim Ottaviani is the author of several comic books about famous scientists. His latest, with illustrations by Leland Myrick, covers the life of physicist Richard Feynman, who is known for his bongo playing and enthusiastic lectures as much as his work on quantum mechanics. Ottaviani explains why a graphic-novel format is a perfect match for such a zany character.

Shahid Naeem compares two books that call for us to embrace the influence of humans on ecosystems.

Deborah Dixon explores an elegiac exhibition about the far reaches of the Arctic.

Jean-Jacques Hublin enjoys a book supporting the idea that modern humans replaced Neanderthals.

Biology is too complex to be unified by mathematics, finds Marc Feldman.

George Rousseau learns about the impact of cocaine on physicians Sigmund Freud and William Halsted.

Daphne Sheldrick was the first person to rear baby elephants successfully by hand, and has worked with animals for 50 years in Kenya. As she stars in an IMAX film chronicling her efforts, she describes her experience of conservation and animal husbandry.

Jay Pasachoff relishes a novel that brings to life the scientific stars of the 1600s.

Hugh Gusterson enjoys a history of the quirky group that pursued quantum physics when it was unfashionable.

Our fondness for fauna comes from an evolved human need to nurture, argues Juliet Clutton-Brock.

Alison Abbott revels in a stellar mix of brain imageries.