With all the global politics happening this summer, I have been turning more and more to my books to offer some much needed R&R. Here are some of the scientific non-fiction books that I am reading/looking forward to reading this summer:
1. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (Amazon, Goodreads)
Sapiens provides a condensed history of how Homosapiens became the species who took over the earth by Yuval Noah Harari, an Israeli historian. The book was first published in Hebrew in 2011, then translated to English in 2014 and quickly turned into an international bestseller.
2. Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup (Amazon, Goodreads)
Author John Carreyrou is a two-time Pulitzer winning journalist who broke the story about the deceit behind Theranos and its chief executive, Elizabeth Holmes.
3. A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived: The Human Story Retold Through Our Genes (Amazon, Goodreads)
In this book, Dr. Adam Rutherford explores the field of genetics and talks about the history revealed by our genes and the history of our genes.
4. The Lock and Key of Medicine: Monoclonal Antibodies and the Transformation of Healthcare (Amazon, Goodreads)
Dr. Lara Marks is a medical historian at King’s College London. In this book, she talks about entrepreneurs who realized and furthered the use of Monoclonal antibodies (Mabs) and allowed for faster diagnostics.
5. Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence (Amazon, Goodreads)
Max Tegmark is a Swedish-American physicist and cosmologist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In this book, he explores how to advance the field of Artificial Intelligence without hurting humans along the way.
6. Chasing Captain America: How Advances in Science, Engineering and Biotechnology Will Produce a Superhuman (Amazon, Goodreads)
E. Paul Zehr is a Canadian professor of kinesiology and neuroscience at the University of Victoria. This book uses the premise of the famous Captain America to talk about the limit and possibilities of modern science.
7. A Crack in Creation: Gene Editing and the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution (Amazon, Goodreads)
Dr. Jennifer Doudna is a biologist at the University of California, Berkeley, who was a key individual in discovering the gene-editing system, CRISPR. Dr. Samuel Sternberg is a biologist and CRISPR expert who completed his doctoral research with Dr. Doudna. This book talked about the discovery, development, and applications of CRISPR-Cas9.
8. What’s Your Bio Strategy?: How to Prepare Your Business for Synthetic Biology (Amazon, Goodreads)
In this book by Dr. John Cumbers and Karl Schmieder is a collection of 25 interviews with experts talking about advances in biology. It also provides a framework to incorporate bioengineering into your business.
9. p53: The Gene that Cracked the Cancer Code (Amazon, Goodreads)
Sue Armstrong is a science writer who expertly tells the story about the p53 gene, which prevents cells from turning cancerous. From its initial discovery to the hunt for new cures.
10. The Body Builders: Inside the Science of the Engineered Human (Amazon, Goodreads)
In this book, Adam Piore explores how new technology has expanded our physical and mental capabilities.
