Planet Without Apes

  • Craig B. Stanford
Harvard Univ. Press 272 pp. $25.95 (2012)

Will electronic gadgetry bring down the great apes? The link may seem surreal, but in this study of the plight of gorillas, chimpanzees, orangutans and bonobos, primatologist Craig Stanford reveals how mining coltan, a mineral used in electronics, destroys primate habitats and fuels the illegal bushmeat trade. In his wide-ranging call for action, Stanford — co-director of the Jane Goodall Research Center in Los Angeles, California — lays out the critical threats, arguing that humanity's closest cousins are viewed as savage 'others' and subjected to a genocidal urge last seen in the colonial era.

Jefferson's Shadow: The Story of His Science

  • Keith Thomson
Yale Univ. Press 322 pp. $30 (2012)

Architect, philosopher, critic of slavery, slave-owner: the contradictions of American 'founding father' Thomas Jefferson are well known. That he was a scientist is not. Natural historian Keith Thomson redresses the balance in this finely wrought biography. Immersed in the work of Isaac Newton and Francis Bacon, Jefferson was arguably the most clued-up American naturalist of his time. This scintillating intellectual traced climate fluctuations, delighted in data tables, pored over fossils and helped to introduce the nation to palaeontology, geography, scientific archaeology and climatology.

A Single Sky: How an International Community Forged the Science of Radio Astronomy

  • David P. D. Munns
MIT Press 264 pp. $34 (2012)

During the past 60 years, radio technology has transformed astronomy from a venerable practice reliant on visible light to an astounding new window on the cosmos. As historian David Munns reveals, it was all down to an international network of scientists who defied the rivalries of the cold war to ensure collaborative exploration of a 'single sky'. This remarkable science, forged by American, British, Australian and Dutch radio astronomers, ultimately led to the mapping of the Milky Way.

Newton and the Origin of Civilization

Jed Z. Buchwald and Mordechai Feingold. Princeton Univ. Press 544 pp. £34.95, $49.50 (2012)

Isaac Newton spent most of his 84 years in pursuit of knowledge — mathematical to metaphysical. In this tome, historians Jed Buchwald and Mordechai Feingold unveil yet another strand: historical chronology. When Newton's Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended was published in 1728, it drew fire for its dramatic revisions to timelines of civilizations past. Yet Newton, the authors show, approached the study — using astronomy and population dynamics — with the same rigour he brought to science.

Chasing Doctor Dolittle: Learning the Language of Animals

  • Con Slobodchikoff
St. Martin's Press 320 pp. $25.99 (2012)

An alarmed prairie dog can recognize and communicate the colour, shape, size and species of a predator. So says biologist Con Slobodchikoff, who — after 25 years of studying these hefty ground squirrels of the US grasslands — posits that animals have language. He bases his theory on a physiological and structural system not unlike the skeletal system that has parallels in humans and other vertebrates (think of human vocal chords and the avian double syrinx).