Popular Science

On April 12 1961, Yuri Gagarin became the first human to leave the Earth's atmosphere and venture into space. An icon of the 20th century, he also became a danger to himself and a threat to the Soviet state. At the age of 34, he was killed in a plane crash. Based on KGB files, restricted documents from Russian space authorities, and interviews with his friends and colleagues, this biography of the Russian cosmonaut reveals a man in turmoil: torn apart by powerful political pressures, fighting a losing battle against alcoholism an... read more

Matt Ridley, acclaimed author of the classics Genome and Nature via Nurture, turns from investigating human nature to investigating human progress.
In The Rational Optimist Ridley offers a counterblast to the prevailing pessimism of our age, and proves, however much we like to think to the contrary, that things are getting better. Over 10,000 years ago there were fewer than 10 million people on the planet. Today there are more than 6 billion, 99 per cent of whom are better fed, better sheltered, better entertained and better... read more

Herve This (pronounced 'Teess') is an internationally renowned chemist, a popular French television personality, a bestselling cookbook author, a longtime collaborator with the famed French chef Pierre Gagnaire, and the only person to hold a doctorate in molecular gastronomy, a cutting-edge field he pioneered. Bringing the instruments and experimental techniques of the laboratory into the kitchen, This uses recent research in the chemistry, physics, and biology of food to challenge traditional ideas about cooking and eating.... read more

This years best selling Massey Lecture The Wayfinders takes readers on a journey through time on a discovery of ancient wisdoms, languages and cultures. Some are already extinct, others are quickly on their way out. It is estimated that 50% of the languages spoken today will disappear in our lifetime. The Wayfinders is an enlightening, awe-inspiring and cautionary look at vanishing cultures and languages from one of the worlds most celebrated and distinguished anthropologists.

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Frank Bowden, a specialist in the field of infectious disease and sexual health, looks at one bug at a time, weaving around them the stories of his patients and their families, the doctors and the difficulties they face, and the horrors and successes of hospitals and health care programs. Through Bowden's own work in the field, we encounter Swine Flu, Golden Staph, SARS, Hepatitis and HIV, and learn crucial lessons about public health and the human experience of disease.

After a chance conversation in Egypt in 2008, bestselling historian Gavin Menzies launched himself on a quest that would reveal the truth behind the mystery of Atlantis and her destruction. Through an examination of documentary and academic research, metallurgy, ancient shipbuilding and navigation techniques, artefacts and DNA evidence, Menzies slowly and painstakingly reveals a trading empire that spanned from the Great Lakes in North America to Kerala in India. And in doing so finally explains the incredible reality behind the l... read more

Like most of us, Ian Vince used to think of the British countryside as average, unexciting - as dramatic as a nice cup of tea. Then, over the course of a single car journey, the features of our green and pleasant land reawakened a fascination with geology that he had long forgotten, and he began to delve beneath the surface (metaphorically, that is). From the rocks of north-west Scotland which are amongst the oldest on the planet to St Michael's Mount off the coast of Cornwall, which was still being shaped in human memory, The Lie ... read more

Jeremy Keeling first met Amy, an orang-utan abandoned by his mother, when he was looking after the private menagerie of music impresario Gordon Mills. A friendship was forged that would become the defining relationship of both their lives. One day, when Jeremy was driving along with one-year-old Amy sitting beside him in the passenger seat, he fell asleep at the wheel and caused a horrific car crash. The first policeman on the scene crawled into the wreckage where he was staggered to see a hairy, non-human hand cradling Jere... read more

The huge international bestseller that takes you on a journey through your mind and gives you the answers to the big philosophical questions. There are many books about philosophy, but Who Am I? And If So How Many? is different from the rest. Never before has anyone introduced readers so expertly and, at the same time, so light-heartedly and elegantly to the big philosophical questions. Drawing on neuroscience, psychology, history, and even pop culture, Richard David Precht deftly elucidates the questions at the heart of human exi... read more

In this ambitious book, acclaimed writer Marilynne Robinson applies her astute intellect to some of the most vexing topics in the history of human thought - science, religion and consciousness. Crafted with the same care and insight as her award-winning novels, Absence of Mind challenges postmodern atheists who crusade against religion under the banner of science. In Robinson's view, scientific reasoning does not denote a sense of logical infallibility, as thinkers like Richard Dawkins might suggest. Instead, in its purest fo... read more

Selections from Science and Sanity represents Alfred Korzybski's authorized abridgement of his magnum opus, Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics. This second edition, published in response to the recent Korzybski revival, adds new introductory material and a revised index, providing an accessible introduction to Korzybski's arguments concerning the need for a non-Aristotelian approach to knowledge, thought, perception, and language, to coincide with our non-Newtonian physi... read more

What does it mean to call yourself British in the 21st Century? If Obama was raised by his white mother, why is he the first black president? Why do Muslims feel more at home in America, which invaded Iraq, than in France, which opposed the invasion? Who are we, and why does it matter?

In 140 pages, two masterly popularisers present 140 explanations of the biggest questions in physics - in the form of 10 or so tweets per page. They set themselves the challenge of boiling down what is essential on each subject into sentences of 140 characters, and the results are both entertaining and brilliantly informative. Not a word is wasted. The reader is not patronized and learns something on every page. If only all science writing could be so precise and so economical. Only science writers of a very high calibre could achi... read more

Publication delayed, now due November 2009. In Roman legend, a shepherd named Magnes, climbing a rocky hillside, was shocked to find that he could hardly move: his iron-studded boots and iron-tipped rod kept sticking to the rocks. Thus was recorded a mysterious natural phenomenon - magnetism - that would intrigue scientists and other ordinary mortals. What was this invisible force? What caused it? Even after the compass was invented, no-one understood what caused its needle to swing. Astonishingly, the answer to the mystery was no... read more

Water is the chemical matrix required for life, the molecular chain that connects all organisms on the planet. But in the twenty-first century, water may replace oil as the most prized of resources. Just as gas-guzzling SUVs use more than their share of fuel, water-guzzling regions threaten the water supply for the rest of the world. In "Water, " writers, scientists, architects, and artists consider the many aspects of water, at levels from the microscopic to the global, touching on subjects that range from new water infrastructure... read more

Do we have bigger brains than dolphins? Does your dog remember where it buried its bone? Why don't sheep laugh or gorillas lie? Why do we remember faces but not names?
In 21 short walks around the human brain, acclaimed psychologist Michael Corballis answers these and other questions by introducing us to what we've learned about the human mind in the last fifty years. Corballis leads us through behavioural experiments and neuroscience, cognitive theory and Darwinian evolution, puncturing a few hot-air balloons ("You only use... read more

DNA technology has already changed our health care, the food we eat, and our criminal justice system. This title reveals information about the experiment's participants and scientists; how the experiment was, is, and can be conducted; and, the profound implications of having an unfiltered view of our hardwired selves for us and for our children.

A groundbreaking, unique and utterly fascinating book about what we learn about human nature when the brain goes wrong, by one of the world's leading neuroscientists.
Explores why the human brain is unique and how it became enchantingly complex. Taking us to the frontiers of neurology, this title reveals what baffling and extreme case studies can teach us about the brain and how it evolved.

Welcome to the future, where you'll be able to take an elevator hundreds of miles into space, the internet will be in your contact lens, nanobots will scan your DNA for signs of disease and you'll be able to control computers with your brain - and even rearrange the physical world itself. It may sound like science fiction but, as physics guru Michio Kaku shows, this is the shape of things to come. Based on interviews with over three hundred of the world's top scientists who are already inventing this future in their labs, "Physics ... read more