BookLab
From neurons to nanotech and from quarks to the cosmos, BookLab is the podcast that puts science books under the microscope! Join hosts Dan Falk and Amanda Gefter for a look at the latest in popular science writing: what’s new, what’s hot, and what you ought to be reading right now.

Featured book: Until the End of Time, by Brian Greene.

Where exactly do human beings fit in, in this vast cosmos?  Brian Greene tackles the mysteries of life, the universe, and everything in an ambitious new book.

And on the nightstand: Superior, by Angela Saini; and Moral Tribes by Joshua Greene

Direct download: BookLab_024.mp3
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Featured book: The Feeling of Life Itself, by Christof Koch.

A neuroscientist who’s spent decades studying the puzzle of consciousness explores the problem of how the brain gives rise to the mind.

And on the nightstand: Supernavigators, by David Barrie; and The Math of Life and Death, by Kit Yates.

Direct download: BookLab_023.mp3
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It’s one of the most provocative ideas in all of science – the notion that our universe might just an infinitesimal part of a much larger reality.  In this episode, we look at two new books that take us deep into the multiverse: The Number of the Heavens, by Tom Siegfried; and Something Deeply Hidden, by Sean Carroll.

Direct download: BookLab_022.mp3
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Featured book: The Goodness Paradox, by Richard Wrangham. 

Our species, Homo sapiens, is less violent than any of our primate cousins -- but how did we get that way? A Harvard anthropologist suggests an answer.

And on the nightstand: The Overstory, by Richard Powers; and The Trouble with Gravity, by Richard Panek.

Direct download: BookLab_021.mp3
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Featured Books:What is Real? by Adam Becker; and Beyond Weird by Philip Ball.

Quantum physics has been with us for more than 100 years – but what is it actually telling us about the world?

Direct download: BookLab_020.mp3
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Featured Book: Adventures in Memory, by Hilde Østby and Ylva Østby

 

Few things are as fundamental to the human experience as memory. But what exactly is memory?  How do memories actually work, in our brains? And why did we evolve to have memories? 

And on the nightstand: Outside Color, by Mazviita Chirimuuta; and The Invention of Nature, by Andrea Wulf 

Direct download: BookLab_019.mp3
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Featured Book:Lost in Math, by Sabine Hossenfelder

Physics made enormous progress in the 20th century – but Sabine Hossenfelder says we’ve reached a dead-end in the 21st, because today’s physicists take their equations too seriously.

And on the nightstand: Through Two Doors at Once, by Anil Ananthaswamy; and The Order of Time, by Carlo Rovelli. 

Direct download: BookLab_018.mp3
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Featured Book:The Strange Order of Things, by Antonio Damasio

How did emotions and feelings – and conscious awareness in general – come into existence? Neuroscientist and philosopher Antonio Damasio weighs in.

And on the nightstand: Internal Time, by Till Roenneberg; and The Last Man Who Knew Everything, by David Schwartz.

Direct download: BookLab_017.mp3
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Stephen Hawking’s first book aimed at a popular audience, A Brief History of Time, became a surprise bestseller and turned the world of popular science writing upside down. We look back at this remarkable book, 30 years after its publication.

Direct download: BookLab_016.mp3
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Featured Book: Life 3.0, by Max Tegmark

Artificial intelligence is set to change the world. Will humanity have what it takes to survive, in the age of intelligent machines? 

And on the nightstand: Prehension, by Colin McGinn; and The Social Conquest of Earth by E.O. Wilson.

Direct download: BookLab_015.mp3
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