As staff writer for Scientific American, John Horgan has a window on contemporary science unsurpassed in all the world. Who else routinely interviews the likes of Lynn Margulis, Roger Penrose, Francis Crick, Richard Dawkins, Freeman Dyson, Murray Gell-Mann, Stephen Jay Gould, Stephen Hawking, Thomas Kuhn, Chris Langton, Karl Popper, Stephen Weinberg, and E.O. Wilson, with the freedom to probe their innermost thoughts? In The End Of Science, Horgan...

Whether fighting off a hungry predator with an explosive burst of rocket fuel, or tantalizing a potential mate with a provocative perfume, organisms utilize built-in chemistry to go about their business. Animals and plants send each other warning signals and even broadcast calls for help, as well as create protective camouflage, make glue, lay trails, and poison their enemies. Bombardier Beetles and Fever Trees unravels the mystery behind these chemical...