Book cover of Vagina Obscura: An Anatomical Voyage by Rachel E. Gross
Biological Sciences

Vagina Obscura: An Anatomical Voyage

A myth-busting voyage into the female body.

A camera obscura reflects the world back but dimmer and inverted. Similarly, science has long viewed woman through a warped lens, one focused narrowly on her capacity for reproduction. As a result, there exists a vast knowledge gap when it comes to what we know about half of the bodies on the planet. […Learn More]

Book cover of Aroused: The History of Hormones and How They Control Just About Everything by Randhi Hutter Epstein
Biological Sciences

Aroused: The History of Hormones and How They Control Just About Everything

A guided tour through the strange science of hormones and the age-old quest to control them.

Metabolism, behavior, sleep, mood swings, the immune system, fighting, fleeing, puberty, and sex: these are just a few of the things our bodies control with hormones. Armed with a healthy dose of wit and curiosity, medical journalist Randi Hutter Epstein takes us on a journey through the unusual history of these potent chemicals from a basement filled with jarred nineteenth-century brains to a twenty-first-century hormone clinic in Los Angeles. […Learn More]

Book cover of Rise of the Necrofauna: The Science, Ethics, and Risks of De-Extinction by Britt Wray
Biological Sciences

Rise of the Necrofauna: The Science, Ethics, and Risks of De-Extinction

What happens when you try to recreate a woolly mammoth—fascinating science, or conservation catastrophe?

In Rise of the Necrofauna, Wray takes us deep into the minds and labs of some of the world’s most progressive thinkers to find out. She introduces us to renowned futurists like Stewart Brand and scientists like George Church, who are harnessing the powers of CRISPR gene editing in the hopes of “reviving” extinct passenger pigeons, woolly mammoths, and heath hens. […Learn More]

Book cover of Genetics in the Madhouse: The Unknown History of Human Heredity by Theodore M. Porter
Biological Sciences

Genetics in the Madhouse: The Unknown History of Human Heredity

The untold story of how hereditary data in mental hospitals gave rise to the science of human heredity

In the early 1800s, a century before there was any concept of the gene, physicians in insane asylums began to record causes of madness in their admission books. Almost from the beginning, they pointed to heredity as the most important of these causes. […Learn More]

Book cover of Breathless: The Scientific Race to Defeat a Deadly Virus by David Quammen
Biological Sciences

Breathless: The Scientific Race to Defeat a Deadly Virus

The story of the worldwide scientific quest to decipher the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, trace its source, and make possible the vaccines to fight the Covid-19 pandemic.

Breathless is the story of SARS-CoV-2 and its fierce journey through the human population, as seen by the scientists who study its origin, its ever-changing nature, and its capacity to kill us. […Learn More]