The Best American Science And Nature Writing 2013

Pulitzer Prize–winning author Siddhartha Mukherjee, a leading cancer physician and researcher, selects the year’s top science and nature writing from journalists who dive into their fields with curiosity and passion, delivering must-read articles from a wide array of fields.

This collection presents reports on investigators who plunge into demanding inquiries with relentless focus, uncovering cellular mechanisms behind cancer vaccines and tracking ice along Arctic shipping routes.

Individual selections follow contributors who examine the living world through careful observation, detailing ecological triage in endangered habitats and ancient trees in remote valleys.

• Marine Biology: Researchers deploy underwater acoustic transmitters to attempt two-way communication with wild spotted dolphins in the Bahamas, while veteran oceanographers document decades of ecological shifts across Atlantic coral reefs.
• Scientific Innovation: Experimentalists construct a forty-meter laser interferometer at Fermilab to probe whether spacetime is digital, while Danish technologists adapt software-testing workflows to harness the focus of autistic adults.
• Cognitive Science: Psychologists evaluate how neural circuits handle high-stakes moral dilemmas in psychopathic minds, while neurological patients illuminate the hidden chemistry of perception and memory.
• Evolutionary Biology: Marine researchers in Japan study how the immortal jellyfish undergoes cellular transdifferentiation to escape death, while primatologists examine how ancient savanna adaptations shape modern human behavior.