Culture / Books
Books to Read Now
Seed Picks March 1, 2010
March releases follow physicists to the ends of the Earth; examine our obsession with stuff; and sift through the annals of the search for wisdom, in science, philosophy, and beyond.
Now In Books
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Numbers Don’t Lie, But People Do
The author of a new book on misleading math examines the Republican blueprint for governing the United States, and comes to one conclusion: Wherever there’s politics, there’s proofiness.
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Deconstructing Death
Why are we so bad at caring for the dying? In Final Exam, surgeon Pauline Chen reveals a complex array of reasons, from the training of young physicians to a culture that believes a cure is the only goal.
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Life in a Box
In Packing for Mars, Mary Roach reveals that space exploration is really an exploration of what it means to be human. In this exclusive excerpt, she talks with former cosmonauts about the psychological challenge of living in space.
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Sexy Beasts
From vibrator sales to troubles with monogamy, evidence aboundsthat Homo sapiens is an exceedingly sexual species. A new book argues that understanding how this sexuality evolved helps to explain our unique creativity inside — as well as outside — the conjugal bedroom.
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On Pleasure
In How Pleasure Works, Paul Bloom argues that understanding why we like what we do—from food and sex to art, science, and religion—is critical to comprehending the human experience.
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Books to Read Now
June releases follow a wizard-bearded scientist on his quest to end aging; mine the essence of pleasure; and explore why being wrong is central to the human experience.
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Books to Read Now
June releases follow cave divers into the bowels of the Earth; chart the geography of hunger; and explore the science of false memories, inflated confidence, and distorted senses.
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The Hidden World of Ants
Mark Moffett travels around the world taking stunning close-up photographs that capture the fascinating lives of ants.
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Books to Read Now
May releases trace the modern obsession with bottled water; revisit the birth of quantum theory; and document an elusive quest for absolute silence.
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We Are Not Alone
In his new book, astrobiologist Dirk Schulze-Makuch says that extraterrestrial life has already been found.
Books
World Wide Mind
For an author with cochlear implants, the merger of computer and brain, bytes and thoughts, has never felt far-fetched. In a brilliant new book, Michael Chorost makes his case: by making the internet a new nervous system for humanity, humans will also re-connect with one another in a profoundly new way.
Innovation
Mapping Science
Mapmaking has a new challenge far more involved than depicting the traits of the physical world. As revealed in a stunning new collection, the Atlas of Science, the task at hand is at once ambitious and amorphous: to map the world of scientific knowledge, the collective wisdom that humans have accumulated over time — and continue to generate at an ever-increasing pace.
Opinion
The Web is Not a Gadget
The Web hasn’t been designed to do anything. And so it doesn’t do anything, much less anything smart, creative, or suggesting awareness.
Book Review
The New North
Human demand on natural resources, globalization, and climate change will dramatically transform the planet in coming decades—mostly for the worse. But global change will have its upsides too. A remarkable new book forecasts an emergent economic powerhouse on the polar frontier.
Now on SEEDMAGAZINE.COM
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Ideas
I Tried Almost Everything Else
John Rinn, snowboarder, skateboarder, and “genomic origamist,” on why we should dumpster-dive in our genomes and the inspiration of a middle-distance runner.
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Ideas
Going, Going, Gone
The second most common element in the universe is increasingly rare on Earth—except, for now, in America.
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Ideas
Earth-like Planets Aren’t Rare
Renowned planetary scientist James Kasting on the odds of finding another Earth-like planet and the power of science fiction.
