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Pillars of Creation: How the James Webb Telescope Unlocked the Secrets of the Cosmos

An in-depth account of both the decades-long effort to design, construct, and launch the James Webb Space Telescope and the too-numerous-to-quantify discoveries that are now challenging and changing our understanding of the universe.

The Trouble with Gravity: Solving the Mystery Beneath Our Feet

A metaphysical romp about a concept everyone assumes we understand, except scientists, who know we don't.

The 4% Universe: Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and the Race to Discover the Rest of Reality

Scientists have discovered that only 4 percent of the universe consists of the matter that makes up people, planets, stars, and galaxies. The rest is ... who knows? In-depth, on-site reporting captures an intimate portrait of the eureka moments and blind alleys that have redefined science and reinvented the universe.

The Autistic Brain: Thinking Across the Spectrum

(by Temple Grandin and Richard Panek)
The world’s foremost expert on autism teams up with a leading interpreter of the history and philosophy of science to explore and explain what we know and don’t know about the human brain.

The Invisible Century: Einstein, Freud, and the Search for Hidden Universes

In the early twentieth century, Einstein and Freud were the foremost figures in search of the next level of scientific knowledge—evidence we can’t see—and their investigations reached unprecedented realms—relativity and the unconscious. Their parallel journeys of discovery forever altered our understanding of the very nature of reality.

Seeing and Believing: How the Telescope Opened Our Eyes and Minds to the Heavens

When Galileo looked through a new instrument and discovered the universe was not what we'd always assumed it to be, he began a centuries-long search for new worlds, new stars, new galaxies--and a new understanding of what it means to be us.

Waterloo Diamonds: A Midwestern Town and Its Minor League Team

The true story of a struggling industrial Iowa town, its minor league baseball franchise, and how they combined to battle Reagan-era economics and Major League forces in a fight for survival.

The Last Word on Nothing

Serious and silly musings on modern science...or whatever: http://www.lastwordonnothing.com/category/richard/