Charles C. Mann (born 1955) is an American journalist and author, specializing in scientific topics. He currently lives in Amherst, Massachusetts with his wife and children.

He is the coauthor of four books, and contributing editor for Science, Atlantic Monthly, and "Wired". He has also written for "Fortune", "The New York Times", "Smithsonian", "Technology Review", "Vanity Fair", and "The Washington Post". In 2005 he wrote 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, followed in 2011 by 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created.

1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus won the National Academies Communication Award for best book of the year. He is a three-time "National Magazine Award" finalist and a recipient of writing awards from the American Bar Association, the American Institute of Physics, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and the Lannan Foundation.

The Columbian Exchange was a dramatically widespread exchange of animals, plants, culture, human populations (including slaves), communicable disease, and ideas between the Western and Eastern Hemispheres. The contact between the two areas circulated a wide variety of new crops and livestock which supported increases in population in both hemispheres. Explorers returned to Europe with maize, potatoes, and tomatoes, which became very important crops in Eurasia by the 18th century. Similarly, Europeans introduced manioc and the peanut to tropical Southeast Asia and West Africa, where they flourished and supported growth in populations on soils that otherwise would not produce large yields.

In the biological and ecological exchange that took place following Spanish establishment of colonies in New World, people of Europe and Africa settled in the New World, and animals, plants and diseases of Eurasia and the Western Hemisphere were introduced to each area in an interchange.

This exchange of plants and animals transformed European, American, African, and Asian ways of life. New foods became staples of human diets, and new growing regions opened up for crops. For example, before AD 1000, potatoes were not grown outside of South America. By the 1840s, Ireland was so dependent on the potato that a diseased crop led to the devastating Irish Potato Famine. Since being introduced by 16th-century Portuguese traders, who brought them from the Americas,maize and manioc replaced traditional African crops as the continent’s most important staple food crops. New staple crops that were introduced to Asia from the Americas via Spanish colonizers in the 16th century, including maize and sweet potatoes, contributed to the population growth in Asia.

Peter J. Menzel (born 7 Feb 1948) is an American freelance photojournalist best known for his coverage of scientific and technological subjects. His work has appeared in many national and international publications including National Geographic, Forbes, Fortune, Wired, Geo, Stern, Paris Match, Life and Le Figaro. In conjunction with his wife, writer/producer Faith d'Aluisio, Menzel has also published five books including Material World: A Global Family Portrait (1994) and Hungry Planet: What The World Eats (2005). He is the founder of Peter Menzel Photography.

Born in Hartford, Connecticut, Menzel became a professional photographer in 1970 and soon began to focus on high-tech stories, including virtual reality, DNA fingerprinting, micromachines and solar cars. But he has also covered more traditional photojournalistic subjects. His work on the Kuwait oil well fires of 1991 ran as a 26-page cover story for German Geo and won a Communication Arts award.

His photographs have been exhibited at the United Nations, the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, the National Museum of Natural History, the Museum of Science in Boston, and Visa Pour L'Image, the annual international photojournalism congress in Perpignan, France.