An awe-inspiring exploration of the sounds of the living Earth, and the joys and threats of human music, language and noise. 'A symphony, filled with the music of life . . . fascinating, heartbreaking, and beautifully written.' ELIZABETH KOLBERT, author of The Sixth Extinction 'Sounds Wild and Broken affirms Haskell as a laureate for the earth, his finely tuned scientific observations made more potent by his deep love for the wild he hopes to save.' NEW YORK TIMES 'Wonderful . . . a reminder that the narrow aural spectrum on which most of us operate, and the ways in which human life is led, blocks out the planet's great, orchestral richness.' GUARDIAN We live on a planet alive with song, music, and speech. David George Haskell explores how these wonders came to be. In rainforests shimmering with insect sounds and swamps pulsing with frog calls we learn about evolution's creative powers. From birds in the Rocky Mountains and on the streets of Paris, we discover how animals learn their songs and adapt to new environments. Below the waves, we hear our kinship to beings as different as snapping shrimp, toadfish, and whales. In the startlingly divergent sonic vibes of the animals of different continents, we experience the legacies of plate tectonics, the deep history of animals and their movements around the world, and the quirks of aesthetic evolution. Starting with the origins of animal song and traversing the whole arc of Earth's history, Haskell illuminates and celebrates the emergence of the varied sounds of our world. In mammoth ivory flutes from Paleolithic caves, violins in modern concert halls, and electronic music in earbuds, we learn that human music and language belong within this story of ecology and evolution. Yet we are also destroyers, now silencing or smothering many of the sounds of the living Earth. Haskell takes us to threatened forests, noise-filled oceans, and loud city streets to show that sonic crises are not mere losses of sensory ornament. Sound is a generative force, and so the erasure of sonic diversity makes the world less creative, less beautiful. Sounds Wild and Broken is an invitation to listen, wonder, act. 'Absolutely fascinating.' MARIELLA FROSTRUP, TIMES RADIO 'Enlightening and sobering.' JINI REDDY, METRO

This is a book about what it feels like to be exceptional - and what it takes to get there. Why can some people achieve greatness when others can't, no matter how hard they try? What are the secrets of long life and happiness? Just how much potential does our species have? In this inspirational book, New Scientist Managing Editor Rowan Hooper takes us on a tour of the peaks of human achievement. We sit down with some of the world's finest minds, from a Nobel-prize winning scientist to a double Booker-prize winning author; we meet people whose power of focus has been the difference between a world record and death; we learn from international opera stars; we go back in time with memory champions, and we explore the transcendent experience of ultrarunners. We meet people who have rebounded from near-death, those who have demonstrated exceptional bravery, and those who have found happiness in the most unexpected ways. Drawing on interviews with a wide range of superhumans as well as those who study them, Hooper assesses the science of peak potential, reviewing the role of genetics alongside the famed 10,000 hours of practice. For anyone who ever felt that they might be able to do something extraordinary in life, for those who simply want to succeed, and for anyone interested in incredible human stories, Superhuman is a must-read.

Since humans began writing, they have been communicating in code. This obsession with secrecy has had dramatic effects on the outcome of wars, monarchies and individual lives.

With clear mathematical, linguistic and technological demonstrations of many of the codes, as well as illustrations of some of the remarkable personalities behind them – many courageous, some villainous – The Code Book traces the fascinating development of codes and code-breaking from military espionage in Ancient Greece to modern computer ciphers, to reveal how the remarkable science of cryptography has often changed the course of history.

Amongst many extraordinary examples, Simon Singh relates in detail the story of Mary, Queen of Scots, trapped by her own code and put to death by Elizabeth I; the strange history of the Beale Ciphers, describing the hidden location of a fortune in gold, buried somewhere in Virginia in the nineteenth century and still not found; and the monumental efforts in code-making and code-breaking that influenced the outcomes of the First and Second World Wars.

Now, with the Information Age bringing the possibility of a truly unbreakable code ever nearer, and cryptography one of the major debates of our times, Singh investigates the challenge that technology has brought to personal privacy today.

Dramatic, compelling and remarkably far-reaching, The Code Book will forever alter your view of history, what drives it and how private your last e-mail really was.

A Spectator Book of the Year An Observer, New Statesman, Financial Times, Irish Times and Scotsman 2021 Non-Fiction Highlight 'Compassionate, beautifully written .. will only grow in importance and interest as the years go by' Jenny Colgan, Spectator 'Searing yet beautiful ... less a hot take that an astute manifesto for what matters most in life, as well as in medicine.' Rachel Clarke, author of Breathtaking: Inside the NHS in a Time of Pandemic and Your Life in My Hands 'Well written, often entertaining and occasionally deeply moving; an unmissable account of a year we will all try too hard to forget.' The Times 'Inspiring. I can't recommend it too strongly. You will learn a lot from it, and you will find much more that is encouraging.' Allan Massie, Scotsman Intensive Care is about how coronavirus emerged, spread across the world and changed all of our lives forever. But it's not, perhaps, the story you expect. Gavin Francis is a GP who works in both urban and rural communities, splitting his time between Edinburgh and the islands of Orkney. When the pandemic arrived in our society he saw how it affected every walk of life: the anxious teenager, the isolated care home resident, the struggling furloughed worker and homeless ex-prisoner, all united by their vulnerability in the face of a global disaster. And he saw how the true cost of the virus was measured not just in infections, or deaths, or ITU beds, but in the consequences of the measures taken against it. In this deeply personal account of eighteen months spent caring for a society in crisis, Francis will take you from rural village streets to local clinics and communal city stairways. And in telling this story, he reveals others: of loneliness and hope, illness and recovery, and of what we can achieve when we care for each other.

'Funny, wise and absolutely fascinating.' Adam Kay, author of This Is Going to Hurt

Do you want to be happy?

If so – read on.

This book has all the answers*

In The Happy Brain, neuroscientist Dean Burnett delves deep into the inner workings of our minds to explore some fundamental questions about happiness. What does it actually mean to be happy? Where does it come from? And what, really, is the point of it? Forget searching for the secret of happiness through lifestyle fads or cod philosophy ― Burnett reveals the often surprising truth behind what make us tick. From whether happiness really begins at home (spoiler alert: yes – sort of) to what love, sex, friendship, wealth, laughter and success actually do to our brains, this book offers a uniquely entertaining insight into what it means to be human.

*Not really. Sorry. But it does have some very interesting questions, and at least the occasional answer.

A son's journey through his father's dementia. As a cardiologist, Sandeep Jauhar is trained to think logically and dispassionately about medical problems, and primed to offer his patients reassurance and solutions. But when his father is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s there are no magic treatments or miracle drugs – only the promise of unstoppable decline. For years Jauhar watches his father undergo a distressing transformation. Once a prominent research geneticist and author, he now repeats questions over and over, forgets what he has eaten for breakfast, makes baffling financial decisions and turns into a liability behind the wheel. Jauhar investigates the science of dementia and what actually happens in the brain as we age and our memory falters, uncovering the history of Alzheimer’s from first discovery to the most cutting-edge research, and whether modern treatments offer any hope in a global crisis. A blend of science, history and memoir, My Father’s Brain is a brutally honest and moving account of how Jauhar and his siblings grappled every day with some of life’s toughest questions.

A brief look at a complex and intriguing topic, this book takes a look at bees from a variety of perspectives, from the physiology of individual bees of different species to analysis of their complex behaviors and social interactions. Written by an eminent entomologist and apiculturist.

In Women After All, anthropologist Melvin Konner traces the arc of evolution to explain the relationships between women and men. Drawing on colorful examples from the natural world the octopus, the black widow spider, and coral reef fish, which can switch from male to female in a single reproductive career he sheds light on our biologically different human identities and the poignant exceptions that challenge the male/female divide. We meet hunter-gatherers in Botswana whose culture gave women a prominent place, inventing the working mother and respecting women s voices around the fire. History upset this balance as a dense world of war fostered extreme male dominance. But our species has been recovering over the past two centuries, and an unstoppable move toward equality is afoot. It will not be the end of men, but it will be the end of male supremacy and a better, wiser world for women and men alike."

DUST is unmistakably a major book in the making. This is a book with an extraordinary global story to tell, but - and - also with an ethical argument to advance. - Robert Macfarlane __________ Four-and-a-half billion years ago, Planet Earth was formed from a vast spinning nebula of cosmic dust, the detritus left over from the birth of the sun. Within the next hundred years, human life on swathes of the earth's surface will also end, in a haze of heat, drought and, again, dust. Dust is the legacy of twentieth-century progress and a profound threat to life in the twenty-first. And yet it's something we hardly ever consider - so small and so mundane as to be beyond the threshold of thought. All of history is recorded in the dust we create: the pollution we make, the fires we start, the chemicals we use, the volcanos that erupt. Now, for the first time DUST will examine this substance and reveal it's importance and the fascinating stories it has.

In this humane and important exploration of modern medicine, Druin Burch examines the future of medicine, our changing physicalities and the implications of longer life. From birth to death and through the exploration of topics such as disease, sex, mind, eating and drinking, Burch tracks the future of medicine by looking at what is already possible today. Weaving in insights from literature, art and history, The Shape of Things to Come considers the cultural complexity surrounding medicine as well as its impact on the humanities. As a specialist in geriatric medicine Burch writes with a keen understanding of the medical profession. He outlines the areas of medicine which have seen the greatest improvements and optimistically offers insight into further advancements. Praise for Druin Burch: 'A writer of searing intelligence and lively wit' GOOD BOOK GUIDE 'Each chapter is a self-contained pleasure to read' SUNDAY TIMES 'Intriguing and informed' THE TIMES

Imagine algebra class meets The Hitchhiker 's Guide to the Galaxy

Meet JJ, an unusual character with a unique vantage position from which he can measure and monitor humanity 's progress. Armed with a device that compels all around it to tell the truth, JJ offers a satirical evaluation of our attitudes to numeracy and logic, touching upon several aspects of life on Earth along the way, from the criminal justice system and people 's use of language to highway driving and modern art.

A collection of mathematically-flavored stories and jokes, interlaced with puzzles, paradoxes and problems, fuse together in an entertaining, free-flowing narrative that will engage and amuse anyone with an interest in the issues confronting society today. JJ demonstrates how a lack of elementary mathematical knowledge can taint our work and general thinking and reflects upon the importance of what is arguably our most valuable weapon against ignorance: a sound mathematical education.

Almost half of adults in the UK suffer from chronic pain. Yet this is often unrelated to any physical injury. So why does it still hurt? Research over the last few decades shows that many of us are victims of a devilish trick of the nervous system: our brains prolong pain long after our bodies have healed from injury. This leads to hundreds of billions of pounds being spent each year on treatments that sometimes do nothing and sometimes make matters worse. Paul Biegler, a science journalist and former doctor who has been on his own pain journey, investigates the true source of chronic pain - our brain's so-called neuroplasticity - and emerging therapies that can rewire the brain and end suffering. As he knows only too well, this doesn't mean pain is all in a person's head. Pain is real, but its meaning is often misunderstood. Through conversations with scientists, doctors, and people who have overcome chronic pain, Biegler shines a light on the rigorous new studies - and emotional personal stories - that are changing the way we understand and treat pain. Most importantly, he shows how to take control over persistent pain and truly heal.

An Observer, New Statesman, Financial Times, Irish Times and Scotsman 2021 Non-Fiction Highlight 'Searing yet beautiful ... less a hot take that an astute manifesto for what matters most in life, as well as in medicine.' Rachel Clarke, author of Breathtaking: Inside the NHS in a Time of Pandemic and Your Life in My Hands 'Well written, often entertaining and occasionally deeply moving; an unmissable account of a year we will all try too hard to forget.' The Times 'Inspiring. I can't recommend it too strongly. You will learn a lot from it, and you will find much more that is encouraging.' Allan Massie, Scotsman Intensive Care is about how coronavirus emerged, spread across the world and changed all of our lives forever. But it's not, perhaps, the story you expect. Gavin Francis is a GP who works in both urban and rural communities, splitting his time between Edinburgh and the islands of Orkney. When the pandemic arrived in our society he saw how it affected every walk of life: the anxious teenager, the isolated care home resident, the struggling furloughed worker and homeless ex-prisoner, all united by their vulnerability in the face of a global disaster. And he saw how the true cost of the virus was measured not just in infections, or deaths, or ITU beds, but in the consequences of the measures taken against it. In this deeply personal account of nine months spent caring for a society in crisis, Francis will take you from rural village streets to local clinics and communal city stairways. And in telling this story, he reveals others: of loneliness and hope, illness and recovery, and of what we can achieve when we care for each other.

The explorations of eighteenth-century British travelers to the "European frontiers" were often geared to define the cultural, political and historical boundaries of "European civilization." In an age when political revolutions shocked nations into reassessing what separated the civilized from the barbaric, how did literary travelers contemplate the characteristics of their continental neighbors? Focusing on the writings of British travelers, we see how a new view of Europe was created, one that attempted to define'modern Europe against a yet unenlightened Europe.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE ROYAL SOCIETY SCIENCE BOOK PRIZE 2018 Bestselling author Simon Winchester writes a magnificent history of the pioneering engineers who developed precision machinery to allow us to see as far as the moon and as close as the Higgs boson. Precision is the key to everything. It is an integral, unchallenged and essential component of our modern social, mercantile, scientific, mechanical and intellectual landscapes. The items we value in our daily lives – a camera, phone, computer, bicycle, car, a dishwasher perhaps – all sport components that fit together with precision and operate with near perfection. We also assume that the more precise a device the better it is. And yet whilst we live lives peppered and larded with precision, we are not, when we come to think about it, entirely sure what precision is, or what it means. How and when did it begin to build the modern world? Simon Winchester seeks to answer these questions through stories of precision’s pioneers. Exactly takes us back to the origins of the Industrial Age, to Britain where he introduces the scientific minds that helped usher in modern production: John ‘Iron-Mad’ Wilkinson, Henry Maudslay, Joseph Bramah, Jesse Ramsden, and Joseph Whitworth. Thomas Jefferson exported their discoveries to the United States as manufacturing developed in the early twentieth century, with Britain’s Henry Royce developing the Rolls Royce and Henry Ford mass producing cars, Hattori’s Seiko and Leica lenses, to today’s cutting-edge developments from Europe, Asia and North America. As he introduces the minds and methods that have changed the modern world, Winchester explores fundamental questions. Why is precision important? What are the different tools we use to measure it? Who has invented and perfected it? Has the pursuit of the ultra-precise in so many facets of human life blinded us to other things of equal value, such as an appreciation for the age-old traditions of craftsmanship, art, and high culture? Are we missing something that reflects the world as it is, rather than the world as we think we would wish it to be? And can the precise and the natural co-exist in society?

Humans are the only mammals to walk on two, rather than four, legs. From an evolutionary perspective, this is an illogical development, as it slows us down. But here we are, suggesting there must have been something tremendous to gain from bipedalism. First Steps takes our ordinary, everyday walking experience and reveals how unusual and extraordinary it truly is. The seven-million-year-long journey through the origins of upright walking shows how it was in fact a gateway to many of the other attributes that make us human-from our technological skills and sociality to our thirst for exploration. DeSilva uses early human evolution to explain the instinct that propels a crawling infant to toddle onto two feet, differences between how men and women tend to walk, physical costs of upright walking, including hernias, varicose veins and backache, and the challenges of childbirth imposed by a bipedal pelvis. And he theorises that upright walking may have laid the foundation for the traits of compassion, empathy and altruism that characterise our species today and helped us become the dominant species on this planet.

In 1901 divers salvaging antiquities from a Hellenistic shipwreck serendipitously recovered the shattered and corroded remains of an ancient Greek gear-driven device, now known as the Antikythera Mechanism. Since its discovery, scholars relying on direct inspection and on increasingly powerful radiographic tools and surface imaging have successfully reconstructed most of the functions and workings of the Mechanism. It was a machine simulating the cosmos as the Greeks understood it, with a half dozen dials displaying coordinated cycles of time and the movements of the Sun, Moon, and planets. A Portable Cosmos presents the Antikythera Mechanism as a gateway to understanding Greek astronomy and scientific technology and their place in Greco-Roman society and thought. Although the Mechanism has long had the reputation of being an object we would not have expected the ancient world to have produced, the most recent researches have revealed that its displays were designed so that an educated layman would see how astronomical phenomena were intertwined with one's natural and social environment. It was at once a masterpiece of the genre of wonder-working devices that mimicked nature by means concealed from the viewer, and a mobile textbook of popular science.

More than 200 million years ago, a cataclysmic event known as the Permian extinction destroyed more than 90% of all species and nearly 97% of all living things. Its origins have long been a puzzle for paleontologists, and during the 1990s and the early part of this century a great battle was fought between those who thought that death had come from above and those who thought something more complicated was at work.

Paleontologist Peter D. Ward, fresh from helping prove that an asteroid had killed the dinosaurs, turned to the Permian problem, and he has come to a stunning conclusion. In his investigations of the fates of several groups of mollusks during those extinctions and others, he discovered that the near-total devastation at the end of the Permian was caused by rising levels of carbon dioxide leading to climate change. But it's not the heat (nor the humidity) that's directly responsible for the extinctions, and the story of the discovery of what is responsible makes for an fascinating, globe-spanning adventure.

Dubai's Burj Khalifa - the world's tallest building - looks nothing like Microsoft's Office Suite, and digital surround sound doesn't work like a citywide telecommunication grid. Yet these engineering feats are all the result of a unique thinking process combining abstract and structured thinking, common sense and creativity. In this groundbreaking new work, Guru Madhavan reveals the extraordinary influence of engineering on society. Drawing on a cast of star engineers like Steve Jobs, the Wright brothers and Thomas Edison, Madhavan explores this mindset and shows how to apply it to life and business in areas as varied as traffic congestion, healthcare and filmmaking. Think Like an Engineer demonstrates how key engineering concepts can help you solve problems, make better decisions and innovate in a complex world.

Spy-Fi Culture with a License to Kill From Sean Connery to Daniel Craig, James Bond is the highest-grossing movie franchise of all time. Out-grossing Star Wars, Harry Potter, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the world's most iconic and international secret agent has a shelf life of almost six decades, from Dr. No to Spectre. As nuclear missile threats are replaced by a series of subtler threats in a globalized and digital world, Bond is with us still. In The Science of James Bond, we recognize the Bond franchise as a unique genre: spy-fi. A genre of film and fiction that fuses spy fiction with science fiction. We look at Bond's obsessions with super-villains, the future, and world domination or destruction. And we take a peek under the hood of trends in science and tech, often in the form of gadgets and spy devices in chapters such as: Goldfinger: Man Has Achieved Miracles in All Fields but Crime! You Only Live Twice: The Race to Conquer Space Live and Let Die: Full Throttle: Bond and the Car Skyfall: The Science of Cyberterrorism And more! This is the only James Bond companion that looks at the film and fiction in such a spy-fi way, taking in weapon wizards, the chemistry of death, threads of nuclear paranoia, and Bond baddies' obsession with the master race!

The classic case for why government must support science-with a new essay by physicist and former congressman Rush Holt on what democracy needs from science today Science, the Endless Frontier is recognized as the landmark argument for the essential role of science in society and government's responsibility to support scientific endeavors. First issued when Vannevar Bush was the director of the US Office of Scientific Research and Development during the Second World War, this classic remains vital in making the case that scientific progress is necessary to a nation's health, security, and prosperity. Bush's vision set the course for US science policy for more than half a century, building the world's most productive scientific enterprise. Today, amid a changing funding landscape and challenges to science's very credibility, Science, the Endless Frontier resonates as a powerful reminder that scientific progress and public well-being alike depend on the successful symbiosis between science and government. This timely new edition presents this iconic text alongside a new companion essay from scientist and former congressman Rush Holt, who offers a brief introduction and consideration of what society needs most from science now. Reflecting on the report's legacy and relevance along with its limitations, Holt contends that the public's ability to cope with today's issues-such as public health, the changing climate and environment, and challenging technologies in modern society-requires a more capacious understanding of what science can contribute. Holt considers how scientists should think of their obligation to society and what the public should demand from science, and he calls for a renewed understanding of science's value for democracy and society at large. A touchstone for concerned citizens, scientists, and policymakers, Science, the Endless Frontier endures as a passionate articulation of the power and potential of science.

Physics is the science that studies how our universe behaves: from the tiny subatomic world of particle physics to the cosmos of astrophysics and so much more in between.Mind Maps: Physics helps the reader to understand the importance of physics and to learn its language by exploring ten mind maps, which are powerful tools for visual learning and understanding. Complex ideas are explained using text and illustrations that are easy to follow. Featuring specially commissioned, hand-drawn maps, diagrams and doodles, together with an expert analysis of concepts, this book provides a wealth of visual information to explore and discover.

From Poe's Dupin and Doyle's Holmes to the television hits Quincy and CSI, the public's fascination with science employed to solve crimes continues and grows. But this understanding of how science works in the forensic laboratory is filtered through the fictional worlds of books and television. How is science really used to fight crime? What techniques are used to catch criminals and free the innocent? Forensic scientists work with police, investigators, medical personnel, attorneys, and others to uphold justice, but their methods are often misunderstood, overestimated, underestimated, revered, or disputed. Here, the author answers many common questions about forensic science: How is the science conducted and by whom? What are the real limits, and real benefits, of forensic science? What new techniques are emerging to catch 21st-century criminals? Readers are treated to an insider's overview of the realties of forensic science. Forensic Science: Modern Methods of Solving Crime covers the basic concepts of forensic science and how it assists in criminal investigations. Starting with a brief history of forensic science, from its early days in Europe to the modern advances of today, the book describes each method and presents cases that highlight the applications of the methods. Houck profiles pioneers in forensic science, offers an overview of such forensic topics as DNA, fibers, fingerprints, and firearms, takes readers through the collection and processing of evidence, and uses frequent examples and anecdotes to illustrate all the major areas of forensic science. This introduction to the field is a useful starting point for anyone wishing to learn more about the real world of forensicscience.

This book explores a collection of natural surfaces, their scientific characteristics and their unique engineering potential - demonstrating that engineering applications can be found in unexpected places. The surfaces covered range from botanical ones, like rice and lotus leaves, to insect surfaces, like butterfly and dragonfly wings. The variety of surfaces and numerous engineering potentials described show how biomimicry can be utilized to solve countless real-world problems.

"The Hungry Scientist Handbook" taps into the hot DIY technology trend that is capturing the imagination of young, creative minds. It compiles the most fascinating and rewarding projects created by mechanical engineer Patrick Buckley and his band of intrepid techie friends, whose collaboration on contraptions started at a memorable 2005 Bay area dinner party and resulted in the formation of The Hungry Scientist Society, a loose confederation of inventive minds dedicated to the pursuit of projects possessing varying degrees of bizarreness and utility.