NATIONAL BOOK FOUNDATION (January 22, 2025): The National Book Foundation (NBF) and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation today announced selected titles for the fourth year of the Science + Literature program.
Ramona Ausubel, The Last Animal
Riverhead Books / Penguin Random House
“…follows two teenage sisters who join their mother—a paleontology graduate student—on scientific expeditions near and far. Ausubel’s novel captures the wonder of scientific discovery as Jane and her daughters navigate grief, sexism, and a journey to find a wooly mammoth and themselves.“
Claire Wahmanholm, Meltwater
Milkweed Editions
“…dissects the vulnerability of parenthood and our natural world, with embedded erasure poems of Lacy M. Johnson’s “How to Mourn a Glacier” throughout the collection. Meltwater simultaneously mourns the disastrous effects of the climate crisis while finding moments of joy in the everyday through the eyes of a new mother.“
Ed Yong, An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us
Random House / Penguin Random House
“…invites readers into the remarkable sensory worlds of birds, bugs, crocodiles, dogs, and many other animals to show us how these creatures experience the world. Yong argues that all creatures, humans included, have their own unique way of perceiving their surroundings, making the case for why we must collectively protect our biologically diverse planet.”
It’s dusk on the first night of Bonnaroo, and the lotus-eaters are all around us. There are candy flippers in white Moon Boots with impressively lacquered eyelashes, and a portly man with a Gandalf beard who’s magnanimously handing out shot glasses. There are hemp-studded undergraduates whose eyes are pinwheeling from whippets, and a cluster of pixie-winged teenagers who are piggishly snorting Percocet….
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN MAGAZINE (January 21, 2025): The latest issue features ‘A Cellular Revolution’ – Long-overlooked molecular blobs are transforming our understanding of how life works….
Climate change has brought both fiercer rains and deeper droughts, leaving the city with brush like kindling—and the phenomenon is on the rise worldwide. By Elizabeth Kolbert
Traversing the Metropolitan Museum’s Eight Hundred Galleries, One by One
Dan and Becky Okrent spent seven years on the Met Project, a labor of love that took them from ancient Sumer to Synchronism. By Ben McGrath
After the Fires, a Slow Night in Hollywood
The freeways were traffic-free, and so were hotels, where a handful of forlorn locals waited for what would come next. By Sheila Yasmin Marikar
THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE (January 18, 2025): The The 1.19.25 Issue features Jennifer Kahn on chronic pain; Moises Velasquez-Manoff on raw milk; Alia Malek on Syrians in Turkey; and more.
After developing chronic pain, I started looking into what scientists do — and still don’t — understand about the disease. Here is what I learned.By Jennifer Kahn
Despite the serious risks of drinking it, a growing movement — including the potential health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — claims it has benefits. Should we take them more seriously?By Moises Velasquez-Manoff