The future of AI, Russia’s glorious space past, undercover golfers, and the man who’s so famous we can’t remember why, New Scientist’s staff loved it all

SUMIT PAUL-CHOUDHURY, EDITOR

The Four-Dimensional Human: Ways of being in the digital world by Laurence Scott, William Heinemann

My reading this year was largely prescribed by the Samuel Johnson prize, which I helped to judge. The submissions didn’t include much pure science, but it was won for the first time by a science book: NeuroTribes, Steve Silberman’s powerful reassessment of autism.


Another shortlisted book may interest New Scientist readers: Laurence Scott’s The Four-Dimensional Human. Most books on digital communication are either grumpy or evangelistic; Scott’s is a thoughtful attempt to describe how it is altering the human condition in ways both familiar and strange, drawing on everything from philosophy to pop culture along the way.

The resulting collage of ideas and images won’t appeal to everyone. But Scott’s book is a notable contribution to a strand of literature that needs to flourish.

GRAHAM LAWTON, DEPUTY EDITOR

A welcome break from heavyweight must-reads, The Ingenious Mr Pyke is essential reading of a different sort. It’s the tale of a true British eccentric, Geoffrey Pyke. He was an inventor, adventurer and polymath who escaped from a German prison camp during the first world war, and launched his own bid to avert the second. He sent a group of interviewers disguised as golfers into Nazi Germany to check on the real views of the people.

In 1942, he even persuaded Winston Churchill to build an aircraft carrier out of reinforced ice. It was never built, though the plans were real enough. But along with the tales of derring-do, there’s a big question: who was he really? Read it and find out. Sheer magic.

JULIAN RICHARDS, ACTING DIGITAL EDITOR

Ex Machina, directed by Alex Garland, various formats

When movies take on science, science rarely survives. So I was surprised to find Ex Machina was all its fans had said: a gripping paranoiac thriller, bouncing off key concepts in AI and consciousness. Not just the Turing test – it dismissed that early on – but questions about knowledge, experience and empathy, with Jackson Pollock paintings chucked in for good measure, and sexual perversity trowelled on before an ending that is… a victory? A disaster? The film’s closing success is to leave us pondering.

LIZ ELSE, ASSOCIATE EDITOR/CULTURELAB EDITOR

The Health Gap: The challenge of an unequal world by Michael Marmot, Bloomsbury

I love books with a quietly revolutionary flavour. Michael Marmot’s The Health Gap is welcome as a stealth takedown of the UK’s passion for austerity. In the ironic spirit of “I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him”, his message about what the unequal distribution of wealth does to the health of us all is a distillation of decades of research, written for a reading public. Give it to any finance ministers you may know (or right-wing relatives).

STEPHANIE PAIN, CONSULTANT

The Invention of Nature: The adventures of Alexander von Humboldt, the lost hero of science by Andrea Wulf, John Murray

Everyone’s heard the name. It’s dotted over half the world’s maps. But who knows why? Alexander von Humboldt was a scientific superstar, his life packed with adventures, discovery and a cast of 19th-century movers and shakers. Napoleon envied him his fame. Darwin was an ardent admirer. Read Andrea Wulf’s gripping biography and you will be wowed by him too. If Humboldt doesn’t win prizes I’ll eat my party hat.

ROWAN HOOPER, MANAGING EDITOR

Divers, Joanna Newsom

Joanna Newsom has been called this generation’s Kate Bush but no one has a voice like hers, and no one plays the harp like her. Extraordinary and magical, and she sings about space and time, so she ticks all boxes really.

JACOB ARON, NEWS REPORTER

The Martian, directed by Ridley Scott (out on DVD in 2016)

The Martian is the latest in a string of “realistic” space films, following on from Gravity and Interstellar, and I hope there will be many more. The joy of seeing stranded astronaut Mark Watney, cleverly played by Matt Damon, scavenge every possible resource on Mars – including some you might not expect – in his quest to get home is only slightly spoiled by the fact that we most probably won’t be visiting the Red Planet for real any time soon.

DOUGLAS HEAVEN, FEATURE EDITOR

TIS-100, developed by Zachtronics, £4.99 (on Windows/OS X/Linux)

For the frustrated hacker in your life. TIS-100 is a puzzle game in which you rewrite corrupted code to unlock the secrets of titular computer and star of the show: the Tessellated Intelligence System. Solving puzzles actually requires learning a made-up programming language. Comes with a handy 1980s-style reference manual to pore over. A perfect brain workout.

SIMON INGS, CULTURELAB EDITOR

The Age of Earthquakes: A guide to the extreme present by Shumon Basar, Douglas Coupland and Hans Ulrich Obrist, Penguin

Are your older relatives losing the plot? Are you? Then The Age of Earthquakes is for you. Critic Shumon Basar, novelist Douglas Coupland and curator Hans Ulrich Obrist explore “the extreme present”, where the future is apocalyptic and the past no longer remembered, just uploaded onto Swedish server farms. Did you know that the time it takes your brain to process the present – 2.5 seconds – is also the time your social media feed needs to refresh, and also the average time gallery visitors spend looking at an artwork? Contains cat memes.

“It takes 2.5 seconds to process the present — also the time your social media feed needs to refresh”

DEBORA MACKENZIE, CONSULTANT

Gut by Giulia Enders, Scribe Publications

The Good Gut by Justin and Erica Sonnenburg, Transworld

Two fun books about guts would make great presents, even for people who are not especially scientific. For the youngster fascinated by excreta (or just the body’s inner workings), Gut by Giulia Enders is an amazing romp down our alimentary canal. For new or prospective parents mired in a morass of advice, The Good Gut, by scientist parents Justin and Erica Sonnenburg, has the lowdown on giving a baby’s all-important gut bacteria the best start in life.

MICK O’HARE, EDITORIAL PRODUCTION EDITOR

Cosmonauts: Birth of the space age, Science Museum, London, until 13 March 2016

The most comprehensive collection of Soviet space hardware and artefacts from the 1950s and 60s ever gathered together continues to wow visitors to London’s Science Museum. The Christmas holiday season would be an ideal time to see what senior curator Doug Millard describes as “the Russian equivalent of the crown jewels”. From Yuri Gagarin through Valentina Tereshkova via Alexei Leonov, and from Sputnik to Salyut, the Soviet Union’s astonishing contribution to the space race is unmissable.

(Images: Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, Tabatha Fireman/Getty, State Museum and Exhibition Centre Rosizo, DNA Films/Film4/Photoshot, Ullstein Bild/Getty)

This article appeared in print under the headline “These we loved…”