Articles

A number of endangered wild animals have been making a comeback, raising questions about how best to thrive alongside them. Vision reviews Tenacious Beasts by Christopher Preston.

If we’re all 99.9 percent the same genetically, does DNA have any impact on our chances of success in life?

Both Stephen Hawking and Martin Rees have expressed optimism about the role of science and technology in resolving humanity’s overarching questions and problems. Vision reviews their recent books.

Why does America’s Christian Right take such an active interest in how we view and use scientific findings—to the point of creating its own version of science?

Immortality may not be an option, but can degeneration and the terrors of aging be lessened or even eliminated? These authors think so.

Interstellar, nominated for five 2015 Oscars, explores the meaning of love. Can a film shed light on such a vast subject, or should we look elsewhere?

Are we future-positive or future-negative? When we look out at the world today, the question of what will happen next is not easy to answer.

More scientists are hoping to help people transform their minds. Vision reviews three books offering do-it-yourself instructions for building the best brain ever.

In this review, Vision looks at three books focusing on the cognitive tricks employed by the brain as it works to preserve our cherished beliefs and self-deceptions.

Is the universe accidental—now pictured as a single bubble within a cosmic foam? Or is this just a choice of belief, not an empirical conclusion?

In The Big Thirst: The Secret Life and Turbulent Future of Water, journalist Charles Fishman reintroduces the reader to life’s most precious resource—water.

The worry that we will overstep our ability to control the use of our material knowledge has been a recurring literary theme.

Is preserving the species, or even the planet, the ultimate in human meaning? Vision looks at three recent books that outline potential end-time disasters.

Economic, financial and industrial downturns are causing international distress; the prescribed cure creates its own set of debilitating consequences.

The problem of how blind processes of evolution create new species and biological systems through small steps is addressed in two recent books.

Is human life the result of many coincidences and random chance? Or is it instead the fine-tuning of the laws that govern it which have led to our existence?

Will the next few years see the development of a truly intelligent computer? Will our own tools become our masters?

Vision reviews three books on the field of genetics which is in the process of delivering what amounts to the greatest revolution in the history of the world.

A number of notable books addressing pollution and the prognosis for our planet were published last year. Vision looks at three of them.