Books & Arts in 2018

Food and the gut go on show, Angolan ‘sea monsters’ resurface and Alexander von Humboldt pops into focus. Nicola Jones reports.

In seafarers’ journals, Huw Lewis-Jones found a rich record of discoveries made in cramped cabins, on open decks and on forays to shore to bring back proofs of marvels.

Barbara Kiser reviews five of the week’s best science picks.

Ancient robots, suffragist scientists, Tom Lehrer at 90 and the ultimate food fight – 2018 was a gift for science books and art.

Philip Ball plunges into a chronicle of the subcontinent’s human and environmental histories.

Artists and performers inform the physical act of experimentation — Roger Kneebone, Claudia Schlegel and Alan Spivey explore.

Barbara Kiser reviews five of the week’s best science picks.

Kendall Powell probes a study claiming that swanky buildings spark discovery.

A collaboration between geneticists and an artist invites us through the looking glass into a speculative future, finds Anna Kriebs.

Barbara Kiser reviews five of the week’s best science picks.

Mark Buchanan savours a study of the social effects that boost fame and recognition.

Architectural solutions to hostile environments run through science fact and fiction, show Rachael Squire, Peter Adey and Rikke Bjerg Jensen.

Huw Lewis-Jones reflects on how conceptualizing nature anew changed our relationship to it.

Joanne Baker lauds a paean to the experimentalists of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.

Barbara Kiser reviews five of the week’s best science picks.

Amy Maxmen lauds a study of the bold project to rescue Owens Lake.

Barbara Kiser reviews five of the week’s best science picks.

Queen guitarist and astrophysicist Brian May’s latest collaboration is a stereoscopic delight, finds May Chiao.

Todd Oakley enjoys a meander through the biology and physics of eyes in organisms from scallops to humans.

Nahid Bhadelia appraises an analysis of the fraught campaign to contain the 2013–16 crisis.