BookLab

Tech billionaires talk about colonizing Mars, building grand space stations far from Earth, lengthening life spans, and maybe even eradicating aging and death, or uploading our minds into computers. Well, not so fast, says Adam Becker in this provocative new book.

There's no question that animals communicate -- but only humans have full-blown symbolic language. So, how did we get here? In The Language Puzzle, archeologist Steven Mithen tries to figure out how we became such a talkative species.

And on the nightstand: Ways of Being, by James Bridle; and Playing Possum by Susana Monsó.

Hosts Dan Falk and Amanda Gefter reflect on favorite science books, publishing trends, and more as BookLab marks its first ten years.

You know about Galileo, Newton, and Einstein -- but what about the many women scientists who helped shape our understanding of the cosmos? In this episode, we look at two books give those overlooked women the recognition they deserve.

It's one of the oldest and most vexing questions in science and philosophy: Do we have free will? In this episode of BookLab, we take a close look at two books by two scientists who have considered the question at length -- and have been led to two very different conclusions.

Featured book: Being You, by Anil Seth.

A lot has been written on the subject of consciousness, but few are positioned to tackle the problem better than neuroscientist Anil Seth, whose new book examines how we experience "life in the first person."

And on the nightstand: The Monster's Bones, by David K. Randall; and Quantum Legacies, by David Kaiser.

Featured book: Hawking Hawking, by Charles Seife.

Charles Seife's new biography of Stephen Hawking takes an unflinching look at the good and bad sides of the famous physicist.

And on the nightstand: The Zoologist's Guide to the Galaxy, by Arik Kershenbaum; and When We Cease to Understand the World, by Benjamin Labatut.

What is life? As Carl Zimmer shows in Life's Edge, the more we try to pin it down, the more elusive an answer becomes. And in The Genesis Quest, Michael Marshall examines the age-old puzzle of how life began on our planet.

Featured Book: Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain, by Lisa Feldman Barrett.

Neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett take a deep dive into our most remarkable organ – and explains why the brain is for much more than just thinking.

And on the nightstand: Why Fish Don't Exist, by Lulu Miller; and The Precipice, by Toby Ord.

We double up on the physics in this episode: First, Katie Mack looks at the universe's end-game in The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking). Then we explore the universe's most exotic objects in Janna Levin's new book, Black Hole Survival Guide.

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

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.

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.

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.