Seventy years ago, doctors began an experiment that would revolutionise our understanding of human development. For a week, in March 1946, they recorded the births of almost every baby born in the UK. Thousands were then tracked through later life, creating the world’s longest-running birth cohort study. Thanks to that study, and to four follow-ups, many inescapable truths have been learned: the grim impact on infants of poor health service provision, smoking during pregnancy and air pollution. We also know now that reading regularly to children has clear educational benefits; that babies are safe sleeping on their backs; and that breast-fed children tend to have better health. The influence on social services and daily lives has been immeasurable.

Have we all gone nuts, asks Garfield. To judge by this hugely enjoyable romp, the answer is ‘almost but not quite’

Helen Pearson’s book, The Life Project: The Extraordinary Story of Our Ordinary Lives (Allen Lane £20) points out: “No other country in the world is tracking generations of people in quite this way: the studies have become the envy of scientists around the world, a jewel in the crown of British science, and yet...remarkably few people know that they even exist.”

An elegant mix of science and human drama, The Life Project was – by a considerable measure in my view – the best science book published this year.

Several others also stand out, however. In Timekeepers: How the World Became Obsessed With Time (Canongate £16.99), Simon Garfield reveals how our mastery of time’s measurement has made us slaves to the watch and calendar.

In fact, the word “time” turns out to be the most commonly used noun in the English language today according to the Oxford English Dictionary. Digital clocks are fitted free on our phones, computers and domestic devices, yet many people are prepared to shell out thousands of pounds on watches made by Montblanc, TAG Heuer, and the like. Have we all gone completely nuts, asks Garfield. To judge from the pages of this hugely enjoyable romp, the answer is “almost but not quite”.

Adam Rutherford, whose A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived is ‘an entertaining account of the lessons learned from the recent decoding of our genes’. Photograph: Richard Saker/The Observer

Adam Rutherford’s A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived: The Stories in Our Genes (W&N £20), is an entertaining account of the lessons learned from the recent decoding of our genes by the Human Genome Project. This is no bombastic view of a world transformed by modern genetics or a health service revolutionised by gene-based therapies. In fact, very little in these fields has yet been achieved, Rutherford reveals, despite scientists’ promises. On the other hand, we have used DNA to show that modern humans are of recent African origin and once interbred with our Neanderthal predecessors. In short, modern genetics – so far – has less to say about us as individuals than we have been led to believe, while it is already shedding a great deal of light on us as a species.

The Gene: An Intimate History (Vintage £25) by Siddhartha Mukherjee – whose previous work, on cancer, The Emperor of All Maladies, won a Pulitzer – covers similar territory and also bursts with complex ideas. Its coverage of individual topics is erratic, however, and in concentrating heavily on US genetic research it paints a distorted picture of the field.

By contrast, another author of a previous bestseller, Yuval Noah Harari – who had a major UK hit with Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, in 2014 – managed his follow-up more adroitly, with Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow (Harvill Secker £25), taking the story of our species into a chilling future in which humans acquire godlike qualities, thanks to digital science and modern biology.

Other science highlights

Reality Is Not What it Seems by Carlo Rovelli (4Allen Lane £16.99)

A Farewell to Ice: A Report from the Arctic by Peter Wadhams (Allen Lane £20)

I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life by Ed Yong (Bodley Head £20)

When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi (Bodley Head £12.99)

The Voices Within: The History and Science of How We Talk to Ourselves by Charles Fernyhough (Profile £16.99)

Tide: The Science and Lore of the Greatest Force on Earth by Hugh Aldersey-Williams (Viking £18.99)

• Click on the titles to order any of the books above for a special price. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99