Presents a collection of the year's best essays written by American authors that discuss topics in science and nature.

"A Mariner original."

The organ dealer /Yudhijit Bhattacharjee -- Nature's spoils / Burkhard Bilger -- The chemist's war / Deborah Blum -- Fertility rites / Jon Cohen -- The brain that changed everything / Luke Dittrich -- Emptying the skies / Jonathan Franzen -- Fish out of water / Ian Frazier -- Lies, damned lies, and medical science / David H. Freedman -- Letting go / Atul Gawande -- The treatment / Malcolm Gladwell -- Cosmic blueprint of life / Andrew Grant -- The (elusive) theory of everything / Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow -- Spectral light / Amy Irvine -- The spill seekers / Rowan Jacobsen -- New dog in town / Christopher Ketcham -- Taking a fall / Dan Koeppel -- The first church of robotics / Jaron Lanier -- The love that dare not squawk its name / Jon Mooallem -- Could time end? / George Musser -- Sign here if you exist / Jill Sisson Quinn -- Face-blind / Oliver Sacks -- Waste MGMT / Evan I. Schwartz -- The whole fracking enchilada / Sandra Steingraber -- The new king of the sea / Abigail Tucker -- The killer in the pool / Tim Zimmermann.