Science Book Gift Guide 2025 STEM-related books for any time of the year

Still hunting for that perfect last-minute gift? Our staff rounded up the STEM reads they can’t put down—discover your next brilliant pick.

Your Science Is Important Tallies vary, but it appears that recent terminations of grants issued by the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and other federal agencies number in the thousands and amount to billions of U.S. dollars. Many scientists who have been swept up in these terminations have been posting online about their research that has been cut short. A common thread from these posts is that there is little public understanding of the level of oversight that goes into both grant proposals and grant management. As one researcher posted on social media, “I feel like some people must think that grants are like medieval patronage arrangements or something. Like we just show up with an open burlap sack and they shake a lot of money into it, and we go away and do whatever we feel like doing.”

Your science is important. In the latest issue of American Scientist, we remind researchers that what they do has great value. And we have a request. Tell us about your work and why you do it! See the post for more details. And please share! www.americanscientist.org/article/your...

“Why Are We Funding This?” Long-standing myths about “silly science” have contributed to the reckless slashing of government-supported research.

Wide-ranging, curiosity-driven research has led to enormous theoretical and practical benefits over the decades, ranging from anti-obesity drugs to the internet.

Features in American Scientist are largely invited, but we do accept submissions. If you are a scientist with a peer-reviewed body of work that you would like to discuss in a way that describes the process of discovery, consider submitting a proposal. www.americanscientist.org/content/writ...

I am really proud of our whole team at American Scientist for this recognition! The article that won was Gliflozins for Diabetes, a truly innovative diabetes drug, which all started with a researcher digging up and relocating an apple orchard.
www.americanscientist.org/article/glif...

NOAA Scientists Are Cleaning Bathrooms and Reconsidering Lab Experiments After Contracts for Basic Services Expire A Seattle lab has lost janitorial services, hazardous waste support, IT and building maintenance as it waits for the Commerce Department secretary to personally approve all contracts over $100,000.

NEW: NOAA scientists are cleaning office bathrooms and reconsidering critical experiments after the Commerce Department failed to renew contracts for hazardous waste disposal, janitorial services, IT and building maintenance.

By @lisalsong.bsky.social

US map via scienceimpacts.org visualization of economic loss due to IDC cuts to 15% as part of Feb 7, 2025 executive order, with shading denoting intensity of cuts.

Working with an interdisciplinary team, we have developed a website to communicate how the White House's proposed cuts to health research would cause losses of $16B and 68,500 jobs.

Find out how your community may be impacted.

Explore more at SCIMaP: scienceimpacts.org

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YouTube video by Mandro SA PI Song || Wonder Park [FULL SONG]

If you don't know this gem from the movie Wonder Park for #PiDay, you really should! www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqlS...

‘Scientists will not be silenced’: thousands protest Trump research cuts Researchers at Stand Up for Science rallies voice defiance against the policies of US President Donald Trump’s administration.

The mood was defiant at many of the rallies, where chants of “Scientists will not be silenced”, “Facts over fear” and “What do we want? Peer review! When do we want it? Now!” were heard.


https://go.nature.com/3F8T6FX

A crowd of people on a green field holding signs to support science

Raleigh NC #standupforscience March today, courtesy of Wren Taylor. (I attended but didn't get my own photos.)

In 2015, "Kofta-Gate" in Egypt exposed scientific and medical misinformation being spread by military leaders for political gains. One brave researcher led a personally uncomfortable but successful campaign to debunk the claims. www.americanscientist.org/article/scie...

Today is the day! Join us at 12:30 pm for Science by the Slice with Dr. Ryan Russell of North Carolina A&T University! Dr. Russell will discuss how the axis between gut microbiome, liver, and muscle impacts cardiometabolic diseases and related comorbidities.

More info: https://buff.ly/4aIuYFZ

Paleo-anthropology’s Superstar Fifty years after the discovery of the fossilized skeleton nicknamed “Lucy,” the hominin continues to inspire research into human origins.

Why does the Lucy skeleton play such an outsized role in the public perception of human origins, and where does it fit in our current understanding of human evolutionary history?

Photograpgh of Maryam Naghibolhosseini. Courtesy of Maryam Naghibolhosseini

Maryam Naghibolhosseini, a leader in communicative science and disorders at Michigan State University, discusses voice disorder diagnosis in her Q&A with the editor-in-chief of American Scientist Fenella Saunders @fenellasaunders.bsky.social. 🧪

Read more: www.americanscientist.org/article/the-...

The excerpts pictured here show different kinds of elephants: the African savanna elephant and the African forest elephant on one page; on the other, the taxonomic order of the Proboscidea is shown, which has only one living family—Elephantidae. From Science Comics: Elephants: Living Large

Whether you love elephants or just want to learn more about these animals, this volume of the STEM graphic novel series Science Comics focusing on the world’s largest land mammals is one you won’t want to miss.

Learn more: www.americanscientist.org/article/gent...

Large aggregations of marine life, from krill to fish, undertake a daily vertical migration within the ocean (swarming brine shrimp are shown here in a laboratory simulation). Such massive movement of so many organisms seems like it would impart significant energy to the water and induce a measurable amount of mixing. But for years, scientists have believed this energy must be negligible compared to that from the wind and tides, and dissipated mostly as heat. Now, new methods and simulations are reexamining the influence that these creatures have on their environments. Isabel Houghton/John O. Dabiri

The perpetual teeming of aquatic swimming animals has long been thought to be a negligible contributor to the physical and biogeochemical structure of the ocean.

Read more: www.americanscientist.org/article/do-s...

Mud Acoustics Imaging the ocean requires an understanding of how different seafloor sediments interact with sound waves.

Acoustic waves interact with the seafloor, where its sediments include mud, so it is necessary to characterize mud’s geoacoustic properties to use acoustics in marine environments.

Scientific discovery is rarely so instantly gratifying; sometimes it can take decades for a discovery’s importance to be fully realized.

https://buff.ly/488hCBk

The Myxomycetes: Nature’s Quick-Change Artists Slime molds thrive in a range of environments, displaying an unexpected beauty in a variety of forms and life cycle stages.

And there it was: a jellylike mass creeping on the bark surface of a white oak tree some 25 meters high in the tree canopy, leaving behind a network of veinlike black tracks where it once was feeding.

Gliflozins for Diabetes: From Bark to Bench to Bedside Drugs targeting the kidneys for diabetes treatment stem from almost two centuries of research that began with an uprooted apple orchard.

Almost two millennia ago, a Greek physician from a rugged plateau in the middle of present-day Turkey was confronted with patients in Alexandria who urinated excessively and complained of insatiable thirst.