New Books in Science

Jessica Riskin, "The Power of Life: The Invention of Biology and the Revolutionary Science of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck" (Penguin, 2026)

In the early nineteenth century, the French naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck proposed the first evolutionary theory of life and, with it, a new science: biology. Yet for

Beronda L. Montgomery, "When Trees Testify: Science, Wisdom, History, and America’s Black Botanical Legacy" (Henry Holt & Co.)

The histories of trees in America are also the histories of Black Americans. Pecan trees were domesticated by an enslaved African named Antoine; sycamore trees were both

The New Modern Medicine: Disease, Evidence, and Epidemiological Medicine with Jonathan Fuller

Jonathan Fuller’s The New Modern Medicine: Disease, Evidence, and Epidemiological Medicine (Oxford UP, 2025) takes the reader on a philosophical tour through scientific m

Giulio Boccaletti, "The Environmental Republic: Why Citizens Will Save the World" (Princeton UP, 2026)

Republicanism is arguably the most powerful political idea in history, an extraordinary feat of human imagination that balances individual liberty with collective respo

Adam Barsouk, "Outsmarting Cancer: Risk Reduction and the Power of Prevention" (JHU Press, 2026)

Outsmarting Cancer: Risk Reduction and the Power of Prevention (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2026) reframes one of the most pressing medical challenges of our time: ho

The Science of Memory with Steve Ramirez

Today I’m speaking with neuroscientist Stave Ramirez about bullshit and memory. Steve is an associate professor at Boston University, where he runs a lab dedicated to unc

Siri Carpenter on Why She Self-Published First — and How It Led to a Traditional Book Deal

What does it take to turn a self-published book into a traditional publishing deal? Science writer Siri Carpenter — executive director of The Open Notebook and author of

Georgia Holly et al, .eds., "Heritage in the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030) and Beyond" (U Edinburgh Press, 2025)

Heritage in the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030) and Beyond (U Edinburgh Press, 2025) outlines the need to embed Ocean Heritage into

Philippa Gander, "Life in Sync: The Science of Internal Clocks and How We’re Disrupting Them" (Princeton UP, 2025)

All of life is profoundly shaped by the daily, monthly, and yearly cycles of our planet, and all creatures have internal timekeeping systems that rely on cues from the

Kit Chapman, "The Age of Alchemy: How Early Innovators Shaped Modern Chemistry" (Profile Books, 2026)

The first chemists were Sri Lankan forgers who crafted unimaginably strong steel millennia before it should have been possible. They were alchemists in Roman Egypt, w

Podcast Intellectuals Podcast Panel #3 with Allison Carruth and Ellen Horne

This is a special edition of the New York Institute for the Humanities’ Vault podcast. On May 13, 2026, Princeton’s Center for Human Values hosted a day-long conference t

Ijeoma Uchegbu, "Chain Reaction: How Chemistry Shapes Us and Our World" (HarperCollins, 2026)

By one of the world's leading chemists, an entertaining and revealing tour of the chemical bonds that shape our everyday lives and provide the infrastructure for our chao

Janani Balasubramanian and Natalie Gosnell, "Art-Science Undisciplined: A Playbook for Transformative Collaboration" (U California Press, 2026)

Art-Science Undisciplined invites us into a collaborative journey grounded in mutual exploration and transformation. Moving beyond transactional exchanges of expertise, a

Pedro Domingos, "The Master Algorithm: How the Quest for the Ultimate Learning Machine Will Remake Our World" (Basic Books, 2018)

In the world's top research labs and universities, the race is on to invent the ultimate learning algorithm: one capable of discovering any knowledge from data, and doin

Samuel Markind, "Music Between Your Ears: How Musical Engagement Powers the Human Brain" (JHU Press, 2025)

Explores the profound power of music to influence brain function and well-being. IPA 2026 Distinguished Favorite in the Music Category Why does music influence how we

Yosef Grodzinsky, "How Deeply Human Is Language?: Chomsky, the Brain, and the AI Fantasy" (MIT Press, 2026)

How Deeply Human Is Language? Chomsky, the Brain, and the AI Fantasy (MIT Press, 2026) is Yosef Grodzinsky’s exploration of the criticality of the linguistic theories to

Richard Elwes, "Huge Numbers: A Story of Counting Ambitiously, from 4 1/2 to Fish 7" (Basic Books, 2026)

What if, every time you wanted to write down 1,000,000, you had to draw a picture of a god? And what if that number were the biggest you had a symbol for? If you were d

Sumana Roy, "Plant Thinkers of Twentieth-Century Bengal" (Oxford UP, 2024)

Plant Thinkers of Twentieth-Century Bengal (Oxford UP, 2024) by Sumana Roy takes an unexpected cast of writers and artists and, in studying their work as ‘plant thinkers’

Rina Bliss, "What's Real About Race: Untangling Science, Genetics, and Society" (W.W. Norton, 2025)

Professor Rina Bliss teaches in the sociology department at Rutgers University, and has written on the social significance of genetic studies on intelligence, race, and s

Antony Valentini, "Beyond the Quantum: A Quest for the Origin and Hidden Meaning of Quantum Mechanics" (Oxford UP, 2026)

Based on decades of research, Beyond the Quantum: A Quest for the Origin and Hidden Meaning of Quantum Mechanics (Oxford UP, 2026) offers a panoramic rethink of quantum p