Science News

All Stories by Science News

  1. Humans

    BOOK LIST | Human Origins: What Bones and Genomes Tell Us about Ourselves

    A guided tour of our pre-history and how we understand it. Texas A&M Univ. Press, 2008, 216 p., $29.95. HUMAN ORIGINS: WHAT BONES AND GENOMES TELL US ABOUT OURSELVES

  2. Health & Medicine

    BOOK LIST | Guilty Robots, Happy Dogs: The Question of Alien Minds

    The alien minds are of animals. The question: Can robots mimic them? Oxford Univ. Press, 2008, 252 p., $34.95. GUILTY ROBOTS, HAPPY DOGS: THE QUESTION OF ALIEN MINDS

  3. Life

    BOOK LIST | Finding Home

    For young readers, the story of a koala who survived a brush fire. Charlesbridge, 2008, 16 p., $15.95. FINDING HOME

  4. Ecosystems

    BOOK LIST | Trees, Truffles, and Beasts: How Forests Function

    An argument that simple policies will not save complex forests.Rutgers Univ. Press, 2008, 280 p., $26.95 (paperback). TREES, TRUFFLES, AND BEASTS: HOW FORESTS FUNCTION

  5. Letters

  6. Science Future

    Through June 15 “Darwin’s Garden: An Evolutionary Adventure,” at the New York Botanical Garden. Visit the New York Botanical Garden online. September 27 Scheduled opening of Ocean Hall at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. Visit The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History online. 2009 International Year of Astronomy, a UNESCO […]

  7. Humans

    From the May 24, 1958 issue

    Ancient Skull Puzzles — The 45,000-year-old Neanderthal skull recently assembled from fragments found in Shanidar Cave in Iraq presents a real scientific puzzle to anthropologists because, although his face was very primitive, the back of his head was more like modern man. The description of Shanidar Man as a being who appeared to be a […]

  8. Life

    BOOK LIST | Manipulative Monkeys: The Capuchins of Lomas Barbudal

    Primatologists follow the social lives of these big-brained Costa Rican monkeys. Harvard Univ. Press, 2008 358 p. $45 MANIPULATIVE MONKEYS

  9. Math

    BOOK LIST | Guesstimation: Solving the World’s Problems on the Back of a Cocktail Napkin

    Learn to use simple arithmetic to approximate anything. Princeton Univ. Press, 2008, 300 p. $19.95 GUESSTIMATION

  10. Space

    BOOK LIST | Newton: Ackroyd’s Brief Lives

    The book promises a personal history of Isaac Newton. Ackroyd also wrote Shakespeare: The Biography and London: The Biography. Nan A. Talese, 2008 176 p. $21.95 NEWTON: ACKROYD’S BRIEF LIVES

  11. Plants

    BOOK LIST | Winter Trees

    In this picture book, a child uses sight and touch to identify seven common trees, even after they’ve lost their leaves. Charlesbridge Publishing, 2008, 30 p. $15.95 WINTER TREES

  12. Physics

    John Wheeler (1911-2008)

    SN Editor in Chief Tom Siegfried remembers the late physicist John Wheeler, who coined the term "black hole" in 1967, with excerpts from conversations the two had engaged in over the past two decades.