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"It is a good morning exercise for a research scientist to discard a pet hypothesis every day before breakfast. It keeps him young." - Konrad Lorenz.

Scientists read PDFs, we're told, but those of us who read for pleasure like to dip into science nonfiction now and then to keep up with what's happening in a world scientists are still uncovering. New on the Kindle popular science shelves:

What Einstein Told His Cook, by Robert L. Wolke. W. W. Norton & Company. Print Length: 368 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (60 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Wolke, longtime professor of chemistry and author of the Washington Post column Food 101, turns his hand to a Cecil Adams style compendium of questions and answers on food chemistry. Is there really a difference between supermarket and sea salt? How is sugar made? Should cooks avoid aluminum pans? Interspersed throughout Wolke's accessible and humorous answers to these and other mysteries are recipes demonstrating scientific principles. There is gravy that avoids lumps and grease; Portuguese Poached Meringue that demonstrates cream of tartar at work; and juicy Salt-Seared Burgers. Wolke is good at demystifying advertisers' half-truths, showing, for example, that sea salt is not necessarily better than regular salt for those watching sodium intake. ...one chapter tackles Those Mysterious Microwaves; elsewhere readers learn about the burning of alcohol and are privy to a rant on the U.S. measuring system. ...With its zest for the truth, this book will help cooks learn how to make more intelligent choices." - Publishers Weekly.

The Fever: How Malaria Has Ruled Humankind for 500,000 Years, by Sonia Shah. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Print length: 320 p. Amazon customer rating: none yet. Kindle edition $12.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"This fascinating, mordant pop-sci account tells us why malaria is one of the world's greatest scourges, killing a million people every year and debilitating another 300 million, and why we have remained complacent about it. Journalist Shah ... shows how the Plasmodium parasite, entering through a mosquito's bite and feasting on human red blood cells, has altered human history by destroying armies, undermining empires, and driving changes in our very genome. We've learned to fight back with antimalarial drugs and insecticides, but malaria's adaptability and its buzzing vector, Shah notes, give it the upper hand. Shah provides an intricate and lucid rundown of the biology and ecology of malaria, but her most original insights concern the ways in which human society accommodates and abets the parasite." - Publishers Weekly.

How Pleasure Works, by Paul Bloom. W. W. Norton & Company. Print length: 304 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (9 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"Some teenage girls enjoy cutting themselves with razors. The average American spends more than four hours a day watching television. The thought of sex with a virgin is intensely arousing to many men. Abstract art can sell for millions of dollars. Young children enjoy playing with imaginary friends and can be comforted by security blankets. People slow their cars to look at gory accidents, and go to movies that make them cry.In this fascinating and witty account, Paul Bloom examines the science behind these curious desires, attractions, and tastes, covering everything from the animal instincts of sex and food to the uniquely human taste for art, music, and stories. Drawing on insights from child development, philosophy, neuroscience, and behavioral economics, How Pleasure Works shows how certain universal habits of the human mind explain what we like and why we like it." - Amazon.
Paul Bloom is a professor of psychology at Yale University.

Here's Looking at Euclid: A Surprising Excursion Through the Astonishing World of Math , by Alex Bellos. Free Press. Print length: 240 p. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (5 reviews). Kindle edition $11.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.


"Unlike in a traditional classroom setting, Bellos's book aims to reintroduce readers into the world of math by wandering off the beaten algebraic path and investigating interesting topics. Bellos, a former international newspaper correspondent, jets off to exotic places to talk to people about mathematical concepts that catch his fancy. Readers learn the remarkable story of how Sudoku became an overnight international sensation only after its developer, a retired judge, worked for six years on a computer program to write the puzzles. In Japan he visits a club whose school-age members can almost instantaneously add up a string of three-digit numbers by visualizing an abacus in their heads. When in America, Bellos finds himself in Nevada, exploring Reno's casino scene with a discussion of why some gamblers win, but most don't." - Publishers Weekly.

Hamlet's BlackBerry: A Practical Philosophy for Building a Good Life in the Digital Age, by William Powers. Harper Collins. Print length: 288 p. Amazon customer rating: 3 1/2 stars (14 reviews). Kindle edition $11.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"At a time when we're all trying to make sense of our relentlessly connected lives, this revelatory book presents a bold new approach to the digital age. Part intellectual journey, part memoir, Hamlet's BlackBerry sets out to solve what William Powers calls the conundrum of connectedness. Our computers and mobile devices do wonderful things for us. But they also impose an enormous burden, making it harder for us to focus, do our best work, build strong relationships, and find the depth and fulfillment we crave. ... we need a new way of thinking, an everyday philosophy for life with screens. To find it, Powers reaches into the past, uncovering a rich trove of ideas that have helped people manage and enjoy their connected lives for thousands of years. New technologies have always brought the mix of excitement and stress that we feel today. Drawing on some of history's most brilliant thinkers, from Plato to Shakespeare to Thoreau, he shows that digital connectedness serves us best when it's balanced by its opposite, disconnectedness." - Amazon.

How It Ends: From You to the Universe, by Chris Impey. W. W. Norton & Company. Print length: 352 p. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (2 reviews). Kindle edition $9.64. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.
"A scientific view of the apocalypse unfolds in this tour of terminations. An astronomer by trade, the author eventually addresses how the universe will chill down, but first he explains how you will chill down. Completing his discussion of death with a biological description of the inevitable, Impey tarries with commiserative commentary about its awful finality and with the ideas of technofuturists (or fantasists) for delaying or stopping the aging process. Also in peril of extinction is the entire human species, and Impey ambles through the ways that could happen (the march of natural selection; a close-by supernova explosion) before he proceeds to demolish hope in the endurance of terra firma. Delivering bad news with a bemused touch, Impey entertains as he informs about the facts of life and death." - Gilbert Taylor for Booklist.
Impey is a professor of Astronomy at the University of Arizona and the author of The Living Cosmos: Our Search for Life in the Universe.