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I’m a British science editor and author of a string of books on the scientific, medical, and social implications of advances in genetics research. I trained as a geneticist but found more personal satisfaction wielding a pen rather than a pipette. I’m especially drawn to science stories that have medical implications for the public and a strong narrative thread. Prior to writing Editing Humanity, I covered the race for the BRCA1 breast cancer gene (Breakthrough), the Human Genome Project (Cracking the Genome), and the rise of personal genomics (The $1,000 Genome). I’m currently writing a biography of sickle cell disease, arguably the most famous genetic mutation in human history.
I have seldom read a book with as much zeal as The Code Breaker, written by the famous biographer and historian, Walter Isaacson, whom I’d met on the CRISPR conference circuit.
Isaacson focuses on Doudna’s life and science, but also introduces the reader to a large cast of characters, including Doudna’s former colleague and fellow Nobelist, Emmanuelle Charpentier. He even has a crack at running a CRISPR experiment himself.
The success of this book has likely done more than anything to educate the public on the transformative promise of CRISPR.
The best-selling author of Leonardo da Vinci and Steve Jobs returns.
In 2012, Nobel Prize winning scientist Jennifer Doudna hit upon an invention that will transform the future of the human race: an easy-to-use tool that can edit DNA.
Known as CRISPR, it opened a brave new world of medical miracles and moral questions. It has already been deployed to cure deadly diseases, fight the coronavirus pandemic of 2020, and make inheritable changes in the genes of babies.
But what does that mean for humanity? Should we be hacking our own DNA to make us less susceptible to disease? Should…
I first read Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene in 1980. It blew me away and precipitated my transformation from bee breeder into evolutionary geneticist. Later, I realised almost all evolutionary biologists of my generation were similarly drawn to their careers by Dawkins’ book. Why? People like Dawkins have the astonishing ability to transform complex theories into engaging narratives, to ferret out weird and wonderful examples from nature, and to exploit them for their explanatory power. My "best books" all have this in common. Big ideas about evolution and genetics illustrated by examples. I think they are the best kind of ‘pop science’ in that they are written for lay people, yet they inspire professionals.
Is it nature or nurture that makes a person? Well, it depends on the trait. Many things (e.g., number of noses or biological sex) are genetically determined. Other traits like IQ are about 50/50 genes and environment. Still others, like language, are entirely environmental.
Humans are fascinated by genetic determinism and its contributions to race, gender, feeble-mindedness, disease. Witness the popularity of 23 and Me. Zimmer’s wonderful book gives an even-handed and sometimes brave account of the history of our obsession with heredity and some of the terrible things that have emerged from it: eugenics, forced sterilization, concern about human "mongrels," the concept of racial purity.
I was fascinated by the details he dug up, explaining the life experiences of individual people who fell afoul of government programs to "improve" the human population.
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2018 BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION
'Elegantly written, wittily constructed . . . My science book of the year.' Robin McKie, Observer, 'Best Books of 2018'
She Has Her Mother's Laugh presents a profoundly original perspective on what we pass along from generation to generation. Charles Darwin played a crucial part in turning heredity into a scientific question, and yet he failed spectacularly to answer it. The birth of genetics in the early 1900s seemed to do precisely that. Gradually, people translated their old notions about heredity into a language of genes. As the technology for studying…
K. Lee Lerner is an author, editor, and producer of science and factual media, including four editions of the Gale Encyclopedia of Science and the Encyclopedia of Espionage, Intelligence, and Security. His expansive writing on science, climate change, disasters, disease, and global issues has earned multiple book and media awards, including books named Outstanding Academic Titles. An aviator, sailor, and member of the National Press Club in Washington, his two global circumnavigations and portfolio of work in challenging and dangerous environments reveal a visceral drive to explore and investigate. With a public intellectual's broad palate and a scientist's regard for evidence-based analysis, Lerner dissects and accessibly explains complex issues.
With both humor and scientific precision, Ed Yong takes us through the microscope lens into the world of microbes and microbiology that share our world and, in some cases, our bodies. Yong's book connects those worlds to show our interdependence. His book provides ample evidence that while disease-causing microbes grab most of the headlines, many others in the microbiome are essential allies for a healthy life and are critical to advancements in biotechnology.
THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER FROM THE WINNER OF THE 2021 PULITZER PRIZE
Your body is teeming with tens of trillions of microbes. It's an entire world, a colony full of life.
In other words, you contain multitudes.
They sculpt our organs, protect us from diseases, guide our behaviour, and bombard us with their genes. They also hold the key to understanding all life on earth.
In I Contain Multitudes, Ed Yong opens our eyes and invites us to marvel at ourselves and other animals in a new light, less as individuals and more as thriving ecosystems.
K. Lee Lerner is an author, editor, and producer of science and factual media, including four editions of the Gale Encyclopedia of Science and the Encyclopedia of Espionage, Intelligence, and Security. His expansive writing on science, climate change, disasters, disease, and global issues has earned multiple book and media awards, including books named Outstanding Academic Titles. An aviator, sailor, and member of the National Press Club in Washington, his two global circumnavigations and portfolio of work in challenging and dangerous environments reveal a visceral drive to explore and investigate. With a public intellectual's broad palate and a scientist's regard for evidence-based analysis, Lerner dissects and accessibly explains complex issues.
John Rhodes, author of The End of Plagues: The Global Battle Against Infectious Disease now offers us a timely, concise, and easy-to-digest book that spans the history of vaccines, including the recent development of mRNA vaccines now on the frontlines of efforts to quell the COVID-19 global pandemic. Rhodes' experience and expertise in immunology and vaccine development show in his clear and easy-to-understand explanations of how vaccines work and why they are an essential public health tool.
As the COVID-19 pandemic has affected every corner of the world, changing our relationship to our communities, to our jobs, and to each other, the most pressing question has been-when will it end? Researchers around the globe are urgently trying to answer this question by racing to test and distribute a vaccine that could end the greatest public health threat of our time. In How to Make a Vaccine, an expert who has firsthand experience developing vaccines tells an optimistic story of how three hundred years of vaccine discovery and a century and a half of immunology research have come…
I'm enchanted by ecology – how life on Earth is both a web and a seamless continuum. In my first book, Corpse, I explored the organisms that colonize the human body after death. In Good Germs, Bad Germs, I immersed myself in our symbiotic relationship with the ever-present bacteria that live in us and on us. I’m passionate about understanding how we evolved to survive in a bacterial world and how we must take the long-term view of surviving – and thriving – in their ever-present embrace. My joy has been in exploring the world of science and translating this joy into lay-accessible stories that entertain as well as educate.
I know I’m double dipping here with another of Carl’s books. I love how he takes one, ubiquitous micro-inhabitant of the human body and uses it to explore what it means to be alive and interconnected with the life in and around us. I love how Carl flips away our human perspective to “view” the word through the chemical-sensing molecules of a single-celled organism – E. coli. Superb, fun science writing.
A Best Book of the YearSeed Magazine • Granta Magazine • The Plain-DealerIn this fascinating and utterly engaging book, Carl Zimmer traces E. coli's pivotal role in the history of biology, from the discovery of DNA to the latest advances in biotechnology. He reveals the many surprising and alarming parallels between E. coli's life and our own. And he describes how E. coli changes in real time, revealing billions of years of history encoded within its genome. E. coli is also the most engineered species on Earth, and as scientists retool this microbe to produce life-saving drugs and clean fuel,…
Coming from two very different backgrounds gives Dean and I a unique ‘view’ of a topic that we are both hugely passionate about: artificial intelligence. Our work together has gifted us a broader perspective in terms of understanding the development of and the philosophy beneath what is coined as artificial intelligence today and where we truly stand in terms of its potential for good – and evil. Our book list is intended to provide a great starting point from where you can jump into this incredibly absorbing topic and draw your own conclusions about where the future might take us.
We found this book to be an eye-opening exploration of the revolutionary merging of artificial intelligence and biotechnology. Brian Hilbush expertly guided us through the cutting-edge advancements that are transforming drug discovery and therapeutics without being too technical or scientific in his use of language.
We found Hilbush’s story to be a fascinating breakdown of how AI and deep learning are revolutionizing medicine, with some great insights into the rise of data science in healthcare, groundbreaking biotech innovations, and the exciting startup landscape shaping the industry's future.
Learn how AI and data science are upending the worlds of biology and medicine
In Silico Dreams: How Artificial Intelligence and Biotechnology Will Create the Medicines of the Future delivers an illuminating and fresh perspective on the convergence of two powerful technologies: AI and biotech. Accomplished genomics expert, executive, and author Brian Hilbush offers readers a brilliant exploration of the most current work of pioneering tech giants and biotechnology startups who have already started disrupting healthcare. The book provides an in-depth understanding of the sources of innovation that are driving the shift in the pharmaceutical industry away from serendipitous therapeutic…
As a massive nerd from a very young age, I have always gravitated towards science and sci-fi stories. When it comes to YA and NA novels, most tend to be dystopian fiction or borrow heavily from fantasy. Hard sci-fi scenarios and real scientific speculation are hard to come by. When well-researched science meets an awesome storyline, that is my definition of perfection—what I love reading and also what I strive for as a writer.
This medical sci-fi thriller is an exploration of the darker side of biotechnology. It follows a med student as he unravels the strange mystery of multiple cases of medulloblastoma and how a prestigious medical center is claiming a 100% remission rate for this type of cancer. Readers sink into the medical world and are kept at the edge of their seats as this mesmerizing tale takes them on a wild ride from start to finish.
Sean, a highly motivated medical student in his third year at Harvard Medical School, is thrilled to take a two-month research post at the renowned Forbes Cancer Centre. But Sean is denied the opportunity to work on the cancer project and so he starts his own investigations into the centre.
I’m secretly eight years old inside. I love fascinating animal and science stuff, especially cool, weird, and gross facts. Readers of my children’s books see this passion in action. My best-selling and award-winning nonfiction animal books have sold more than 3 million copies worldwide since 2000. I focus particularly on reaching reluctant, struggling, and English-language-learning readers by packing my books with lots of action and high-interest topics to keep them turning pages. I’m recommending these top-five narrative nonfiction animal books for adults because these authors have influenced my research and thinking—and because they’re terrific stories!
Jellyfish may be lacking bones, blood, and brains, but they are full of mystery.
To me, the most compelling narrative nonfiction tells something about the author as well as their subject, becoming part memoir while explaining the research process.
I read this book as research for my nonfiction children’s book on jellyfish, but I learned so much more—about the worldwide jellyfish research community, the past and future health of our oceans, both the perils and possibilities of ever-increasing jellyfish populations, and Juli Berwald’s journey to reclaim her love of the ocean.
Discover some cutting-edge science and marvel at these simple but beautiful blobs from below.
"A book full of wonders" —Helen Macdonald, author of H Is for Hawk
"Witty, insightful. . . .The story of jellyfish. . . is a significant part of the environmental story. Berwald's engaging account of these delicate, often ignored creatures shows how much they matter to our oceans' future." —New York Times Book Review
Jellyfish have been swimming in our oceans for well over half a billion years, longer than any other animal that lives on the planet. They make a venom so toxic it can kill a human in three minutes. Their sting—microscopic spears that pierce with five million…
I am a philosopher, neuroscientist, geostrategist, and futurologist. My work at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, St. Antony’s College, and the World Economic Forum (as a member of the Global Future Council on the Future of Complex Risks) focuses on transdisciplinarity, with an emphasis on the interplay between philosophy, neuroscience, strategic culture, applied history, technology, and global security. I am particularly interested in the exponential growth of disruptive technologies, and how they have the potential to both foster and hinder the progress of human civilization. My mission is rooted in finding transdisciplinary solutions to identify, predict and manage frontier risks, both here on earth and in Outer Space.
The highly respected Cambridge scientist and Astronomer Royal Martin Rees provides a fascinating and highly accessible read on how we can harness science and technology for the betterment – and ultimately preservation – of humanity.
The book is a refreshingly optimistic take on how advances in, for example, robotics and biotechnology, can protect us against the greatest threats facing humanity. This is a must-read book which pushes the boundaries of scientific knowledge while building bridges to many other academic disciplines.
A provocative and inspiring look at the future of humanity and science from world-renowned scientist and bestselling author Martin Rees
Humanity has reached a critical moment. Our world is unsettled and rapidly changing, and we face existential risks over the next century. Various outcomes-good and bad-are possible. Yet our approach to the future is characterized by short-term thinking, polarizing debates, alarmist rhetoric, and pessimism. In this short, exhilarating book, renowned scientist and bestselling author Martin Rees argues that humanity's prospects depend on our taking a very different approach to planning for tomorrow.
This is a unique tale of exciting personal encounters with wild tigers as well my hard science that revealed their mysterious world. Readers will experience the conflicts, violence, and corruption, inherent to struggle to recover the charismatic, dangerous predator. Among Tigers is not the usual doomsday prophecy, but a clear roadmap for how we can grow tiger populations to new levels of abundance. While it does not gloss over the very real challenges, overall, it delivers a message of reasonable hope to nature lovers worldwide. I have scientifically researched tigers and, fought passionately to save them, making me uniquely qualified to tell this story like no one else can.
I love tigers and nature. But through a half-century of experience and science in my own struggle to save tigers in an ancient, crowded nation aspiring for modernity and prosperity for its citizens, I have realized that we cannot hope to rewind the clock of material progress back to save wild nature by rejecting technology. Brand, the original counter-culture Guru, boldly shook off such baggage at an advanced age, and became a passionate, early advocate of ecomodernism, which tries to decouple human needs from nature in an effort to save nature through tools of modern science. I arrived independently at similar conclusions after years of hard scientific study of tigers, as well as my lived experiences of Indian society in transition. I believe Brand’s clearheaded manual provides a succinct introduction to ideas I have outlined in my own book as a framework to get to a world harboring ten times…
An icon of the environmental movement outlines a provocative approach for reclaiming our planet
According to Stewart Brand, a lifelong environmentalist who sees everything in terms of solvable design problems, three profound transformations are under way on Earth right now. Climate change is real and is pushing us toward managing the planet as a whole. Urbanization?half the world?s population now lives in cities, and eighty percent will by midcentury?is altering humanity?s land impact and wealth. And biotechnology is becoming the world?s dominant engineering tool. In light of these changes, Brand suggests that environmentalists are going to have to reverse some…
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