GoKawiilWhat Science Says About Astrology
Carlos Orsi Columbia Univ. Press (2026)
Seventeenth-century astronomers Galileo Galilei and Johannes Kepler were active astrologers. But in the Age of Enlightenment during the eighteenth century, astrology was relegated to a pseudoscience. Today, notes science writer Carlos Orsi in his engaging study of the relationship between astrology and science, astrologers “do much better work on finding stars and planets to explain the past than on using them to foresee the future”. Yet astrology remains popular, with a growing global market value estimated at US$12.8 billion in 2020.
Albert Sabin
Karen Torghele Yale Univ. Press (2026)
Virologist Jonas Salk’s injectable vaccine against poliovirus was first marketed in 1955. Yet, it was physician-researcher Albert Sabin’s oral vaccine, distributed from 1961, that made mass immunization possible. Sabin’s life and work deserve to be celebrated, which they are in this definitive biography by epidemiologist Karen Torghele, who recounts years of original research in fascinating detail. She explores Sabin’s “abrasive” but efficient personality, while noting that he “never sold or profited from” his vaccine.
It’s (Just) Rocket Science
Trisha Muro Johns Hopkins Univ. Press (2026)
In the wake of the 1986 disintegration of NASA’s Challenger space shuttle, 12-year-old Trisha Muro was inspired by the scientists working to uncover what had gone wrong. She became a physics teacher, and is now a science writer. Her book on the physics of space flight — aimed at untrained enthusiasts — explains both basic physics principles and the challenges faced by missions such as the Voyager probes’ exploration of deep space. “In some ways,” Muro notes, “humanity is still wrestling with the same questions faced by Brahe, Kepler and Galileo.”
Against Money
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