A review of The Symmetries of Things by John Conway, Heidi Burgiel and Chaim Goodman-Strauss. A review of Nature's Patterns: A Tapestry in Three Parts by Philip Ball. The newest science: Replacing physics, ecology will be the master science of the 21st century. Embracing the Anthropocene: The Earth has entered a new geological period in which human influence dominates the state of the planet, compounding uncertainty about the future. Beyond Hades: A proposal to extend geological time into the era before the Earth existed. What is time? Sean Carroll hunts for the ultimate theory (and more). An excerpt from A Tenth of a Second: A History by Jimena Canales. Time travel may in fact be possible, but it wouldn't work like in Back to the Future. Space travel in the year million: An excerpt from Year Million: Science at the Far Edge of Knowledge. An excerpt from The Edge of Physics: A Journey to Earth's Extremes to Unlock the Secrets of the Universe by Anil Ananthaswamy (and more and more). A review of No Small Matter: Science on the Nanoscale by Felice Frankel and George Whitesides (and more). International body approves the name "copernicium" for element 112. An interview with Jim Al-Khalili on books about the atom. An article on the case for the descent of electrons. The Standard Model is our (nearly) complete map of every fundamental particle and force that exists. From Discover, an interview with Saul Perlmutter on the acceleration of the entire universe; and an interview with Brian Greene, the man who plucks all the strings. The introduction (and a video) to The Little Book of String Theory by Steven Gubser (and more). The first chapter from String Theory for Dummies. The universe is a quantum computer — so says Vlatko Vedral — and that's not metaphor, it's hard science.
