As a child, Seymour Papert fell in love with gears. Papert, now considered a pioneer in artificial intelligence, describes this love in very grown-up, scientific terms: “I remember quite vividly my excitement at discovering that a system could be lawful and completely comprehensible without being rigidly deterministic.” So Papert and other scientists recount in this collection of essays that, in their personal approach, provide an innovative way to talk about science. A sociologist and psychologist by training, Turkle is a scholar in MIT’s Program in Science, Technology and Society. F...

People cry when they watch sad movies or wince when they see athletes fall. This sense of shared experience is thought to be at the core of human society. How empathy physically happens, however, wasn’t known until neuroscientists in Italy stumbled upon a possible explanation 15 years ago. Iacoboni, one of those pioneers at the University of Parma, describes how he and his colleagues initially sought to find which neurons fired when a monkey moved its hands. They attached tiny electrodes to individual cells in the monkeys’ brains, and the monitor buzzed when the monkeys snatched a peanut...

Miller, a Brown University biology professor and outspoken opponent of intelligent design, examines the arguments, passion and motivations of those who reject Darwin’s theory in the larger context of American culture, ending with an exploration of how the ongoing debate over evolution is threatening public understanding of scientific thought. Viking, 2008, 244 p., $25.95

A baby bonobo named Lucy tells children just how similar she is to them. Blue Bark Press, 2008, 33 p., $19.95 To order, go to www.bonobokids.org

Take a journey to the far corners of the Earth to learn about the emergence of amphibians and reptiles from the primeval water millions of years ago as well as their current plight as some of the species most at risk for extinction. Princeton Univ. Press, 2008, 288 p., $29.95

A scientist and ethicist team up to reveal how decades of animal rights extremism has impacted scientific advancement and examines cases in which activists used terrorist tactics to threaten medical researchers’ lives and work. Palgrave Macmillan, 2008, 174 p., $34.95

Critical to keeping any naturalist, gardener or wanderer of woods rash- and itch-free, this updated pocket-sized guide helps readers identify, avoid and, when all else fails, wade through the many myths, lore and home remedies that have grown up about these noxious plants. FalconGuides/Globe Pequot Press, 2008, 84 p., $14.95

As Jonathan Swift once said, everyone wants to live forever, but no one wants to be old. Despite that snag, the question has lingered: Must we die so soon? Some people have lived to be mighty old, and Haycock does them justice in this well-researched ramble through the pursuit of long life. Thomas Hobbes’ observation that life in the old days was “nasty, brutish and short” wasn’t entirely true. Europeans have shown an obsession with living longer, even publishing texts in the 1700s that mention people who lived a particularly long time. Among them: a French fellow who lived ...

The former CEO of Amgen narrates the company's rise from start-up to biotech giant. Harvard Business School Press, 2008, 288 p., $29.95

The story of a chimp being raised by humans —and washing the dishes (p.130). Bantam Books, 2008, 269 p., $23.