Featured Book: The Gene, by Siddhartha Mukherjee.

The gene shapes who we are. While the science of genetics is still fairly young, it’s advancing at a breakneck speed. What will we do with this new knowledge? 

And on the nightstand: Surfing Uncertainty, by Andy Clark; and Black Hole Blues, by Janna Levin.

Featured Book: Spooky Action at a Distance, by George Musser.

Quantum entanglement is one of the strangest ideas in modern physics – and could end up changing the way we think about space and time.

And on the nightstand: Why Information Grows, by César Hidalgo; and Inventology, by Pagan Kennedy.

Featured Book: Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs, by Lisa Randall.

A physicist puts forward a bold idea about how the dinosaurs met their demise – and the role that an exotic kind of matter may have played.

And on the nightstand:  The Brain, by David Eagleman; and Seven Brief Lessons on Physics by Carlo Rovelli.

Featured Books: Ada’s Algorithm, by James Essinger; and It Began with Babbage, by Subrata Dasgupta.

Two new books look at the history of the computer – the invention that would usher in the modern age.