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Not one for an easy life, Michael Pollan has taken on tricky subjects before in the shape of psychedelics, plants and food. This time, it’s that ultra-slippery beat, consciousness. It’s taken five years to bring to fruition, but is all the better for that, because, like the subject itself, the book is discursive, expansive – and sometimes abstruse (in a good way). It has one of the best titles of any book on the topic, while its author has the humility to admit that after a journey through sentience, feelings and emotion, thought and self, he knows less than he did when he began.

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Are we up to the challenges of the 21st century, as its powerful, hyperconnected and pervasive technology drives us ever on? Neuroscientist Hannah Critchlow is optimistic, believing in the mental attributes we already possess to see us through, such as imagination, creativity and flexibility. And she has hints about how to hone those attributes, including maintaining mobility (from physical to social) and drawing on as much diversity as possible in the shape of food, people and ideas.

In less than 250 pages, particle physicist Sarah Alam Malik manages to lay out: how the universe came to be and what will become of it eons from now; how we humans came to our current understanding of said universe and its physical laws; the quantum realm; and the origin, and future, of life on Earth. Clear and engaging, this is a thrilling, if rather sweeping, guide to cosmology.

Thinking optimistically about climate change is hard work for anyone these days. But after four decades of environmental journalism (much of that time for Â鶹´«Ã½) in which he filed many a bad-news story, Fred Pearce believes it is necessary work. The source of his (cautious) optimism comes down to two things. First, the “ability of nature to regrow, adapt and restore itself”. Second is us, humanity. Not just in our ability to innovate “but in our ability to change our ways, to rediscover old wisdom, and to imagine the best, then mobilize and act on it”. He ends by saying that he’d place a bet that we can have a good Anthropocene, adding: “Though sadly, at my age, I may not be around to pick up my winnings.”

Shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction, this book lays out in detail the astonishing effects the arts – from music to theatre to magic – can have on our health, both physical and mental. Fancourt is a professor of psychobiology and epidemiology at University College London and she backs up all her claims with detailed science, presented in an engaging and inspiring way. The Â鶹´«Ã½ Book Club read it in March and thoroughly approved.

Men’s testosterone levels drop around the birth of their children. Fathers can experience postpartum depression and birth trauma. And men who are involved in rearing their children are generally happier. These are some of the findings of Darby Saxbe, a clinical psychologist at the University of Southern California, who has conducted one of the world’s largest longitudinal studies on men’s brains as they become fathers. In a great addition to the small but growing field, she writes that “fatherhood is both innate and learned”.

Â鶹´«Ã½’s physics reporter turns inward in their first book, examining key times in their own life through the lens of quantum physics. The work brims with wonder, as well as their trademark clear explanations of the science. Born in Croatia, Padavic-Callaghan was offered a place at a New York boarding school at 16, and went on to earn a physics PhD. “Physics offers itself to me when I try to make sense of all the paths my life did and did not take,” they write. “It reassures me when I try to reconcile… all the identities that I feel describe me.”

For those still struggling with the idea of birds as dinosaurs, University of Edinburgh palaeontologist Steve Brusatte has some help in his latest book. Most dinosaurs were indeed wiped out 66 million years ago when the asteroid struck, but some of the birds survived and, er, birds are dinosaurs. Though in a delightful surprise, Brusatte reveals that Zealandia (the newly discovered eighth continent, of which New Zealand is a part) is the only place where dinosaurs continued until nearly now – that is, until the Maori settlers arrived. So there should be lots of great fossils to find there then.

Here’s a wonderful wild card, as the book’s subtitle flags: “Particles, poetry and the cosmic dream boogie”. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein (a Â鶹´«Ã½ columnist) researches dark matter, the early universe and neutron stars, while also digging deep into Black feminist science studies. This makes for the kind of genre-defying writing guranteed to blow our minds – in a good way.

At the age of 34, no one wants to know that they are biologically 36. Left unchecked, this could result in a higher risk of developing chronic diseases like cancer or diabetes. Health journalist David Cox decided to take matters into his own hands: diet, it turned out, was the easiest way to keep the clock on time. This is the story of his voyage through geroscience, with lab visits for every kind of test and key lessons on how nutrition drives ageing. Don’t worry, he delivers a happy ending.

Seeing the world through a very different lens is Rowan Hooper’s radical mission. Â鶹´«Ã½’s podcast editor has set himself the challenge of rethinking the importance of symbiosis. It is, he argues, nothing less than a rule of nature. From the workings of cells, to the complex relationship between corals and the algae that sustain them, to the symbiotic gut microbes that play a role in our moods, biological cooperation is fundamental, right up to the planetary scale. Without understanding symbiosis, writes Hooper, we can’t understand evolution, agriculture, nor how to tackle climate change.

AI isn’t just eating jobs. In this bracing book, Financial Times staffer Sarah O’Connor shows how technology is forcing humans to be more machine-like, deskilling work while also making it harder and less creative. She has some solutions, but argues convincingly that it will take serious worker involvement.

Carrying messages throughout the body, hormones run everything from appetite, weight, thirst and stress to sleep, growth and puberty. Yet for all that power, they have a poor image, and there are few good books about them. Signals will remedy that, with endocrinologist Saira Hameed skilfully interleaving patient stories with science to justify her claim that we are all “hormonal” all the time.

Some books are scary all the way down – be warned, this is one of them. It is a glimpse into the use of AI in war, and not in some future, but right now. The US launched Project Maven in 2017 to build a tool for extracting useful intelligence from the vast trove of drone data that was defying human interpretation. The plan was to go further, to get Maven to choose targets, hunt and kill them. The US and other NATO members have used it in conflicts, and it is being employed at border crossings and in hunting drug runners. AI in action indeed.

The sheer beauty of flowers can make it easy to overlook their role as revolutionary forces in natural history. Luckily, biologist David George Haskell is having none of it, reminding us in his latest book that “flowers are world changers”. Ever since flowering plants evolved in the late dinosaur era, they have transformed ecosystems and helped other groups of organisms to evolve new traits. Everything from rainforests to meadows, and from honeybees to humans, are based on flowers or depend on them for survival.

Who knew that the first human artefact to touch the moon was not Neil Armstrong’s space-booted foot but a radio wave? This is one of many delicious stories served up by astrophysicist Emma Chapman, as she explores how radio waves help us tune in to our universe. They travel further than all their electromagnetic relatives, so telescopes that emit or collect them can probe deeper into the cosmos than others. They also function day and night, a real plus for astronomers, and, writes Chapman, they may even help in finding where any aliens hang out.

From the final identification of King Richard lll in a drab car park to the clearing of Amanda Knox of murder, DNA guru Turi King has brought all her expertise to bear here. A must-read account of how genetics has changed the world.

From on the page to in person
Hear from many of these authors at Â鶹´«Ã½ Live on 10-11 October 2026 newscientist.com/nslmag

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