May 22: Books Published Today

A Feast of Science: Intriguing Morsels from the Science of Everyday Life by Dr. Joe Schwarcz

Chemist Joe Schwarcz provides easy-to-understand examples of chemistry in your everyday life. Are there fish genes in tomatoes? Can snail-slime cream and bone broth really make your wrinkles disappear? What’s the problem with sugar, resistant starch, hops in beer, microbeads, and “secret” cancer cures? Are “natural” products the key to good health?

Fallout: Disasters, Lies, and the Legacy of the Nuclear Age by Fred Pearce

Fallout is an eye-opening history of mankind’s complicated relationship with nuclear technology. Environment and science reporter Fred Pearce takes us to Hiroshima, Chernobyl, and Fukushima, to the site of nuclear testing, nuclear accidents, and nuclear waste, to the closed cities of the Soviet Union, and to the legacies of nuclear technology.

Booklist says, “Pearce insightfully dissects the profound psychological and political impact nuclear technology has had on humankind and unflinchingly questions whether it might be time to acknowledge that its promises for both energy and defense have been largely unfulfilled.”

Conjuring the Universe: The Origins of the Laws of Nature by Peter Atkins

Author Peter Atkins considers here the origin of the conservation of energy, electromagnetism, classical and quantum mechanics, the dual nature of electrons and photons, entropy, the speed of light, and thermodynamics, showing how all these laws spring from deep symmetries.

Publishers Weekly says, “Atkins provides readers with a solid understanding of modern physics in this entertaining unpacking of the notion that ‘nothing is the foundation of everything.'”