Popular Science Non-Fiction Book Club

What the Chicken Knows: A New Appreciation of the World's Most Familiar Bird explores the surprising intelligence, complex social lives, and individual personalities of chickens, challenging common perceptions of them as simple farm animals. Drawing on her two decades of experience with her own flock, Montgomery combines personal narrative with scientific facts to reveal that chickens can recognize over 100 other chickens, communicate with at least 24 distinct calls, remember the past, and anticipate the future. The book highlights their remarkable abilities, such as walking and pecking hours after hatching, and argues for a new appreciation of this familiar bird.

After soaking in the potential apocalypse of AI in April let’s step back in May and appreciate the natural and human history of our underappreciated companion of the last few thousand years 😎. Finish the book, don’t finish the book, love it, or hate it…just come along for a lively discussion 👏.

EARTH IS NOT WELL. The promise of starting life anew somewhere far, far away — no climate change, no war, no doom-scrolling — beckons, and settling the stars finally seems within our grasp.

Or is it?

Kelly and Zach Weinersmith initially set out to write the essential guide to a glorious future of space settlements, but after years of research, they aren’t so sure it’s a good idea. Space technologies and space businesses are progressing fast, but we lack the knowledge needed to have space kids, build space farms, and create space nations in a way that doesn’t spark conflict back home.

In a world hurtling toward human expansion into space, A City on Mars investigates whether the dream of new worlds won’t create nightmares, both for settlers and the people they leave behind. In the process, the Weinersmiths answer every question about space you’ve ever wondered about, and many you’ve never considered:

Can you make babies in space? Should corporations govern space settlements? What about space war? Are we headed for a housing crisis on the Moon’s Peaks of Eternal Light — and what happens if you’re left in the Craters of Eternal Darkness? Why do astronauts love taco sauce? Speaking of meals, what’s the legal status of space cannibalism?

With deep expertise, a winning sense of humor, and art from the beloved creator of Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, the Weinersmiths investigate perhaps the biggest questions humanity will ever ask itself—whether and how to become multi-planetary.