A collection of twenty pieces that represent the best science and nature writing published the previous year and explores our ever-changing world. The Best American series, launched in 1915, is the premier annual showcase for the country’s finest short fiction and nonfiction, and it is the most respected—and most popular—of its kind. This year's Best American Science and Nature Writing complies twenty pieces that represent the best writing in the genre published the previous year. Randall Munroe is the author of the webcomic xkcd and the New York Times bestsellers What If? , What If? 2 , Thing Explainer , and How To. A former NASA roboticist, he left the agency in 2006 to draw comics on the internet full time. The International Astronomical Union has named an asteroid after him; that asteroid, 4942 Munroe, is large enough that it could cause widespread devastation if it were to hit Earth. He lives in Massachusetts. Jaime Green , series editor, is a science writer and essayist. Her work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, Aeon, Slate, The Nation, The New York Times Book Review, Astrobites , and elsewhere. She is the author of The Possibility of Life: Science, Imagination, and Our Quest for Kinship in the Cosmos .