Intellectual bees, doyenne of dark matter, and mathematical grief: Books in brief | Nature

Andrew Robinson reviews five of the week’s best science picks.

Bright Galaxies, Dark Matter, and Beyond, Ashley Jean Yeager MIT Press (2021)

‘More matter than meets the eye’ is a chapter title of this insightful biography of the pioneering astronomer Vera Rubin by science journalist Ashley Yeager, who interviewed her in later life. Best known for her observations of galactic rotation rates, which provided evidence for the existence of dark matter, Rubin also campaigned for equality in science. Her many honours did not include a Nobel prize, but a new observatory in Chile bears her name and this is the second biography of her in a year (see A. Abbott Nature 591, 523–524; 2021).

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