Linked to a special mini season of the award-winning StarTalk podcast, this enlightening illustrated narrative by the world’s most celebrated astrophysicist explains the universe from the solar system to the farthest reaches of space with authority and humour.
"Another love letter from Wohlleben to the green world… makes the case for how we should allow forests throughout the world to regrow and in the process help heal not only the climate but us, as well."—Lydia Millet, Oprah DailyAn illuminating manifesto on ancient forests: how they adapt to climate change by passing their wisdom through generations, and why our future lies in protecting them.In his beloved book The Hidden Life of Trees, Peter Wohlleben revealed astonishing discoveries about the social networks of trees and how they communicate. Now, in The Power of Trees, he turns to their future, with a searing critique of forestry management, tree planting, and the exploitation of old growth forests.As human-caused climate change devastates the planet, forests play a critical role in keeping it habitable. While politicians and business leaders would have us believe that cutting down forests can be offset by mass tree planting, Wohlleben offers a warning: many tree planting campaigns lead to ecological disaster. Not only are these trees more susceptible to disease, flooding, fires, and landslides, we need to understand that forests are more than simply a collection of trees. Instead, they are ecosystems that consist of thousands of species, from animals to fungi and bacteria. The way to save trees, and ourselves? Step aside and let forests—which are naturally better equipped to face environmental challenges—heal themselves.With the warmth and wonder familiar to readers from his previous books, Wohlleben also shares emerging scientific research about how forests shape climates both locally and across continents; that trees adapt to changing environmental conditions through passing knowledge down to their offspring; and how old growth may in fact have the most survival strategies for climate change.At the heart of The Power of Trees lies Wohlleben's passionate plea: that our survival is dependent on trusting ancient forests, and allowing them to thrive.Published in Partnership with the David Suzuki Institute.
The Song of the Cell is the vivid, thrilling and suspenseful story of the fundamental unit of life. It describes how scientists discovered cells, began to understand them, and are now using that knowledge to create new humans. Both panoramic and intimate, it is Siddhartha Mukherjee's most spectacular book yet.
In the late 1600s, a distinguished English polymath, Robert Hooke, and an eccentric Dutch cloth-merchant, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, look down their hand-made microscopes. What they see introduces a radical concept that alters both biology and medicine forever. It is the fact that complex living organisms are assemblages of tiny, self-contained, self-regulating units. Our organs, our physiology, our selves, are built from these compartments. Hooke christens them 'cells'.
The discovery of cells announced the birth of a new kind of medicine. A hip fracture, a cardiac arrest, Alzheimer's, AIDS, lung cancer - all could be re-conceived as the results of cells, or a cellular ecosystem, functioning abnormally. And all could be treated by therapeutic manipulations of cells.
This revolution in cell biology is still in progress: it represents one of the most significant advances in science and medicine.
Rich with stories of scientists, doctors, and the patients whose lives may be saved by their work, The Song of the Cell is the third book in this extraordinary writer's exploration of what it means to be human.
An invaluable guide to understanding the underlying machinery and technology that controls modern society, with a foreword by social psychologist, Jonathan Haidt, author of THE RIGHTEOUS MIND
A groundbreaking exploration of the parental brain that untangles insidious myths from complicated realities, MOTHER BRAIN explodes the concept of 'maternal instinct' and tells a new story about what it means to become a parent
Our brains have distinct mechanisms for talking about thoughts, about memories, about feelings and about the future. In Praise of Talking will be about the neuroscience of how we talk about ourselves, how we disclose information, and how that activity is central to the bonds we make with each other. It draws on a wealth of the latest neurological research, some of which the author has conducted himself, on talking about ourselves to other people - how we do it and why we do it, and what our brains are up to while we do it.
We talk about ourselves so consistently and pervasively we are unaware how much talking about ourselves to others supports our intense social lives. It is the currency underlying social transactions and social life, allowing us to build trust and rapport with others. In turn, building trust and rapport with others is at the core of our mental and social well-being. Conversation depends critically on having a richly-stocked autobiographical memory that we use not just in the service of remembering, but also in negotiating our position and status with others. We talk about ourselves to change what other people think of us, feel about us, will do for us.
This novel way of thinking about talking turns our view of identity inside-out because our sense of identity arises out of what we think others think about us. We tell our stories to others, drawing on our fragile and fallible autobiographical memories, which are in turn shaped by the questions we are asked and the stories we want to tell about ourselves, and by what others tell us. And we do so to affect what others think about us - not simply to disclose ourselves to others. And this is all in the service of social belonging: to the family, to tribes, to institutions, to cultures and subcultures, to nations, to those who profess the same ideals and stories that we do.
In Praise of Talking blends expertise and a scientific journey of discovery, leavened by Shane O'Mara's warm tone and evangelical gift for transmitting the wonder of the brain to a wide readership.
The past, present and future of the world's most popular and beloved pet, from a leading evolutionary biologist and great cat lover. ‘Engaging and wide-ranging … The Age of Cats is a readable and informed exploration of the wildcat that lurks within Fluffy’ Washington Post Why don’t lions meow? Why does my cat leave a dead mouse at my feet? And why is a pet ocelot a bad idea? Jonathan B. Losos unravels the secrets of the cat using all the tools of modern technology, from GPS tracking (you’ll be amazed where they roam) and genomics (what is your so-called Siamese cat, really?) to forensic archaeology. He tells the story of the cat’s domestication (if you can call it that) and gives us a cat's-eye view of the world today. Along the way we also meet their wild cousins, whose behaviours are eerily similar to even the sweetest of house cats. Drawing on his own research and life in his multi-cat household, Losos deciphers complex science and history and explores how selection, both natural and artificial, over the millennia has shaped the contemporary cat. Yet the cat, ever a predator, still seems to have only one paw out of the wild, and readily reverts to its feral ways as it occupies new habitats around the world. Looking ahead, this charming and intelligent book suggests what the future may hold for the special bond between Felis catus and Homo sapiens.
Prize-winning science writer Philip Ball explores the diversity of thinking minds, from the variety of human minds to those of mammals, insects, computers and plants, in a book that brilliantly illuminates how many different ways there are to think and engage with the world; and how unique are our own.
From the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs, the story of the mammals, our own kind, from their earliest development and their co-existence with the great lizards to their emergence out of the shadows to dominance of the recent history of our planet.
Sunday Times top ten bestselling author of The Science of Fate neuroscientist Hannah Critchlow brilliantly illuminates the new science of collective intelligence, showing how it can work to improve our lives and help solve the huge global challenges confronting us.
Being Human is history made flesh. It will change the way you see the world.
We are a wonder of evolution. Powerful yet dextrous, instinctive yet thoughtful, we are expert communicators and innovators. Our exceptional abilities have created the civilisation we know today.
But we're also deeply flawed. Our bodies break, choke and fail, whether we're kings or peasants. Diseases thwart our boldest plans. Our psychological biases have been at the root of terrible decisions in both war and peacetime.
This extraordinary contradiction is the essence of what it means to be human - the sum total of our frailties and our faculties. And history has played out in the balance between them. Now, for the first time, Lewis Dartnell tells our story through the lens of this unique, capricious and fragile nature. He explores how our biology has shaped our relationships, our societies, our economies and our wars, and how it continues to challenge and define our progress.
Praise for Lewis Dartnell's Origins and The Knowledge:
'Stands comparison with Yuval Harari's Sapiens ... A thrilling piece of big history' Sunday Times on Origins
'The most inspiring book I've read for a long time' Independent on The Knowledge
A mind-expanding exploration size, the measure of all things, from the New York Times bestselling author The New York Times bestselling author returns with a mind-opening exploration of how size defines life on Earth. Explaining the key processes shaping size in nature, society and technology, Smil busts myths around proportions - from bodies to paintings and the so-called golden ratio - tells us what Jonathan Swift got wrong in Gulliver's Travels - the giant Brobdingnagian's legs would buckle under their enormous weight - and dives headfirst into the most contentious issue in ergonomics- the size of aeroplane seats. It is no exaggeration to say this fascinating and wide-ranging tour de force will change the way you look at absolutely everything.
'A dazzling, funny and elegantly angry demolition of our preconceptions about female behaviour and sex in the animal kingdom ... Bitch is a blast. I read it, my jaw sagging in astonishment, jotting down favourite parts to send to friends and reading out snippets gleefully...' Observer
'A book that is tearing down the stereotypes and the biases. Absolutely fascinating.' BBC R4 Woman's Hour
'From the heir to Attenborough. 5*' - Telegraph
'Glorious ... A bold and gripping takedown of the sexist mythology baked into biology ... Full of marvellous surprises. Guardian
'Colourful, committed and deeply informed.' Sunday Times
'Gloriously original' Daily Mirror
A 'sparkling attack on scientific sexism' Nature
'Humorous, absorbing, sometimes shocking (for a variety of reasons), and bound to be a conversation starter' BBC Wildlife
'Brilliant ... Cooke is a superb science writer' TLS
'Zoologist Lucy Cooke's hilarious and enlightening book reclaims evolutionary biology for females of all species.' New Statesman
'Introduces us to a marvelous zoetrope of animals.' The Atlantic
'[An] effervescent exposé ... [A] playful, enlightening tour of the vanguard of evolutionary biology.' Scientific American
Selected for the Telegraph's 'best books for summer 2022' and as one of the Guardian's '50 hottest new books for a great escape'.
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What does it mean to be female? Mother, carer, the weaker sex? Think again.
In the last few decades a revolution has been brewing in zoology and evolutionary biology. Lucy Cooke introduces us to a riotous cast of animals, and the scientists studying them, that are redefining the female of the species.
Meet the female lemurs of Madagascar, our ancient primate cousins that dominate the males of their species physically and politically.
Or female albatross couples, hooking up together to raise their chicks in Hawaii.
Or the meerkat mothers of the Kalahari Desert - the most murderous mammals on the planet.
The bitches in BITCH overturn outdated binary expectations of bodies, brains, biology and behaviour. Lucy Cooke's brilliant new book will change how you think - about sex, sexual identity and sexuality in animals and also the very forces that shape evolution.
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Praise for Lucy's previous book THE UNEXPECTED TRUTH ABOUT ANIMALS
'Endlessly fascinating' - Bill Bryson
'I cannot remember when I enjoyed a non-fiction book so much' - Daily Express
'A joy from beginning to end' - Guardian
'Best science pick: deeply researched, sassily written' - Nature
*A BBC RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK* AN INSTANT #2 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 'Humanity has transformed the Earth: Frankopan transforms our understanding of history' Financial Times 'Vast, learned and timely work' Sunday Times _______________ From the international bestselling author of The Silk Roads comes a major history of how a changing climate has dramatically shaped the development—and demise—of civilisations across time. A 2023 HIGHLIGHT FOR: BBC NEWS * SUNDAY TIMES CULTURE * FINANCIAL TIMES * NEW EUROPEAN * GUARDIAN * NEW STATESMAN * THE TIMES * THE WEEK * WATERSTONES * BLACKWELL'S _______________ When we think about history, we rarely pay much attention to the most destructive floods, the worst winters, the most devastating droughts or the ways that ecosystems have changed over time. In The Earth Transformed, Peter Frankopan, one of the world’s leading historians, shows that the natural environment is a crucial, if not the defining, factor in global history – and not just of humankind. Volcanic eruptions, solar activities, atmospheric, oceanic and other shifts, as well as anthropogenic behaviour, are fundamental parts of the past and the present. In this magnificent and groundbreaking book, we learn about the origins of our species: about the development of religion and language and their relationships with the environment; about how the desire to centralise agricultural surplus formed the origins of the bureaucratic state; about how growing demands for harvests resulted in the increased shipment of enslaved peoples; about how efforts to understand and manipulate the weather have a long and deep history. All provide lessons of profound importance as we face a precarious future of rapid global warming. Taking us from the Big Bang to the present day and beyond, The Earth Transformed forces us to reckon with humankind’s continuing efforts to make sense of the natural world. ----------------------- 'This is epic, gripping, original history that leaps off the page. I wanted to buy everyone I know a copy' Sathnam Sanghera, author of Empireland ‘All Historians aiming to tell a narrative face the problem of when exactly to start it. Only Peter Frankopan would go back 2.5 billion years to the Great Oxidation Event’ Tom Holland
Tackling some of the most common scientific myths still believed today, Brian Clegg blows these widely held misconceptions about the workings of our world out of the water in this engaging and entertaining book.
Anil Seth's radical new theory of consciousness challenges our understanding of perception and reality, doing for brain science what Dawkins did for evolutionary biology.
Bringing his cosmic perspective to civilization on Earth, Neil deGrasse Tyson, bestselling author of Astrophysics for People in a Hurry, shines new light on the crucial fault lines of our time–war, politics, religion, truth, beauty, gender, race, and tribalism–in a way that stimulates a deeper sense of unity for us all.
