Books & Arts in 2014

Andrew P. Ingersoll relishes a study of scientific discoveries on hot, toxic Venus.

Roberto Lo Presti applauds a brilliant reappraisal of Aristotle as the father of observational biology.

Barbara Kiser reviews five of the week’s best science picks.

Andrew Robinson delves into a study inspired by James Watt's fascinating workshop.

Philip Ball unveils the scientific iconography in Albrecht Dürer's enigmatic engraving Melencolia I.

Patricia Smith Churchland welcomes a critique of the mirror-neuron theory linking brain and behaviour.

Kevin Padian considers two books on tree diagrams and what they can represent.

Tilli Tansey ponders a turbulent history of vaccine research in Nazi-occupied Europe.

Barbara Kiser revels in an immersive show revealing the scientific base coat to 700 years of European art.

David Edgerton applauds a study of a scientific elite whose impact spanned two world wars.

Jonathan Adams takes the measure of the uses and misuses of scholarly impact.

Roger D. Launius is perplexed by a biography of Neil Armstrong that profiles the missions, not the man.

Nancy Moran enjoys a treatise on symbiosis — the intimate association of species that transformed life and Earth.

Michael John Gorman is intrigued by a survey of art informed and invigorated by science.

Investigative food journalist Jo Robinson has spent more than a decade scouring the literature on plant nutrition. Her demonstration garden in Washington state opens this month as her book Eating on the Wild Side (Little, Brown, 2013) emerges in paperback. She talks about eating tomatoes to protect from sunburn, why bitter is better — and how purple is the new green.