Johnson writes the monthly Emerging Technology column for Discover magazine, and is a contributing editor at Wired. He knows how to make complicated science clear and easy to follow, and his style is cheerful, honest, friendly—and filled with those nervous jokes. In his last book, "Emergence," he explored the ways in which the 25 complicated behavior of brains, software, cities, and ant heaps can emerge from the vastly simpler behavior of their smallest working parts—from collections of nerve cells, bits and bytes, citizens and ants—to become the webs and spheres of efficient mass circuitry.