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Trinity

Emily Seyl Univ. Chicago Press (2026)

Many books describe how the first atomic bomb was built. But this history by Emily Seyl stands apart. It tells the story of the bomb’s Trinity test in New Mexico in July 1945 through restored photographs from the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s National Security Research Center, where Seyl works. These include images of once-clandestine documents and experiments, as well as unfamiliar restored photographs of ‘trinitite’ — green glass found at the test crater — which fell from the bomb’s fireball in molten drops.

It’s On You

Nick Chater & George Loewenstein Basic Venture (2026)

Can profound societal problems, such as climate change and obesity, be solved by nudging people to change their behaviour? Or do they require changes at the corporate and governmental levels? Psychologist Nick Chater and behavioural economist George Loewenstein once favoured the former view but now support the latter. “The primary challenge is to fix broken or malfunctioning systems,” they argue. Hence, legislation is needed to control oil giants, rather than blaming individuals for their carbon footprints.

Emergence

David Sussillo Grand Central (2026)

When David Sussillo spoke about how he became a neuroscientist — after growing up with parents who were heroin addicts and prone to violence and neglect — he reduced his audience at the Princeton Neuroscience Retreat in New Jersey to near-silence. His brutally intimate memoir reveals that an early fascination with computing led him to study the brain, consciousness and artificial intelligence. He asks: “Does thinking control the neurons in your brain, or do the neurons in your brain cause thinking?”

Writing Timbuktu

Shamil Jeppie Princeton Univ. Press (2026)

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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-026-01500-0

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