Science writers get into the game with all kinds of noble, high-minded ambitions. We want to educate. To enlighten," notes guest editor Amy Stewart in her introduction to The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2016. "But at the end of the day, we're all writers . . . We're here to play for the folks." The writers in this anthology brought us the year's highest notes in the genre. From a Pulitzer Prize-winning essay on the earthquake that could...