the best science books of 2013

评语：Apparently, heart rate is a good predictor of criminal tendencies. More about this and other telltale signs from criminologist Adrian Raine as he builds a case that violent criminals differ biologically from the rest of humanity.

评语：Primatologist Frans de Waal argues that morality developed as a by-product of our evolution in small, tightly knit, cooperative groups. We needed to be fine-tuned to one another's moods, needs and intentions. And there's an intriguing twist about religion

评语：Ginkgo is a rare work about a tree unlike any other. Written by Peter Crane, a palaeobotanist and former head of the UK's Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, his passion for the subject makes you want to go out and hug a ginkgo.

评语：Discover the "most profound idea in science", formulated by little-known mathematician Emmy Noether, in this hymn to symmetry's fundamental place in physics.

评语：You could say the periodic table is elementary, but Eric Scerri shows that the stories behind the key discoveries in chemistry were dramatic, political and full of blind alleys.

评语：A bet in 1980 on the stock market value of metals pitted human ingenuity against dwindling resources. This fascinating book explores the wager that encapsulated decades of polarised opinion about human population and the state of the planet.

评语：A unique explanation of the Higgs boson, and a look at the international experiments needed to take us to the next level of understanding of matter, by two particle physicists at the heart of the action.

评语：If we are impoverished in terms of money, time or happiness, we will devote most of our mental bandwidth to trying to deal with the lack of that resource – with far-reaching implications. It's the scarcity trap, and you need to know about it.

评语：An excellent exploration of the physical, cultural and personal reasons why we like what we like in art, by a neuroscientist who used his Guggenheim Fellowship award to explore the relationships between art, mind and brain.

评语：Part autobiography, part anthropological discourse, penned by a member of "the fierce people" of the Amazon. This unique book challenges us to look anew at the infamous indigenous Yanomami culture, and ourselves.

评语：If Mark Buchanan is right, economics might become a real science. A new generation could morph it into a branch of physics by applying rice piles, power laws, positive feedback, phase changes, chaos and complexity theory. Who knows, they might even work o

评语：Everything, from where you are sitting right now to how kind you are, can be digitised and "datafied" thanks to cheaper storage, faster processing and better algorithms. And not just your data, but everyone's. This is important for us all, but for science