Who is the 'Devil'? And what is he due? The Devil is anyone who disagrees with you. And what he is due is the right to speak his mind. He must have this for your own safety's sake because his freedom is inextricably tied to your own. If he can be censored, why shouldn't you be censored? If we put barriers up to silence 'unpleasant' ideas, what's to stop the silencing of any discussion? This book is a full-throated defense of free speech and open inquiry in politics, science, and culture by the New York Times bestselling author and skeptic Michael Shermer. The new collection of essays and articles takes the Devil by the horns by tackling five key themes: free thought and free speech, politics and society, scientific humanism, religion, and the ideas of controversial intellectuals. For our own sake, we must give the Devil his due.

From Galaxies to Turbines: Science, Technology and the Parsons Family looks at the way science and industry relate to each other, and at the way social attitudes affect this relationship. An expert on the Parsons Family, the author beautifully illustrates this by tracing the story of the remarkable endeavors of the Parsons family during the 125 years that embraced their lives in Ireland and Great Britain during the developing Industrial Revolution. The father of the family, William Parsons, Earl of Rosse, discovered the Spiral Nebulae at his observatory in Ireland and displayed an unusual familiarity with engineering principles in the building of his two giant telescopes. His son, Charles, was at the forefront of the new age of technology among shipbuilders and engineers in the northeast coast of England. Lavishly illustrated throughout, with a handy family tree and map of the River Tyne pin-pointing key historic events, this is a highly accessible and fascinating account for the general reader interested in the way scientific knowledge and industrial application have slowly emerged in recent history.

We live in a world that's more interconnected than ever before. Our lives are shaped by outbreaks - of disease, of misinformation, even of violence - that appear, spread and fade away with bewildering speed. To understand them, we need to learn the hidden laws that govern them. From 'superspreaders' who might spark a pandemic or bring down a financial system to the social dynamics that make loneliness catch on, The Rules of Contagion offers compelling insights into human behaviour and explains how we can get better at predicting what happens next.

Along the way, Adam Kucharski explores how innovations spread through friendship networks, what links computer viruses with folk stories - and why the most useful predictions aren't necessarily the ones that come true.

Now revised and updated with content on Covid-19.

The Wonder of Flight. The Science of Evolution. From both, Richard Dawkins weaves a fascinating and beautifully illustrated account of how nature and humans have learned to overcome the pull of gravity and take to the skies.

Do you sometimes dream you can fly like a bird? Gliding effortlessly above the treetops, soaring and swooping, playing and dodging through the third dimension. Computer games, virtual reality headsets, and some drugs can lift our imagination and fly us through fabled, magical spaces. But it's not the real thing. No wonder some of the past's greatest minds, including Leonardo da Vinci's, have yearned for flying machines and struggled to design them.

Flights of Fancy is a book about flying – all the different ways of defying gravity that have been discovered by humans over the centuries and by other animals over the millions of years, from the mythical Icarus, to the sadly extinct but magnificent bird Argentavis magnificens, to the Wright Flyer and the 747. But it also means flights of digression into more general ideas and principles that take off from a discussion about actual flight.

Fascinating and elegantly written, this is a unique collaboration between one of the world's leading zoologists and a talented artist, and perfect for enquiring teenage minds.

In The One, particle physicist Heinrich Pas presents a bold idea: fundamentally, everything in the universe is an aspect of one unified whole. This idea, called monism, has a rich 3,000-year history: Plato believed that 'all is one', but monism was later rejected as irrational and suppressed as a heresy by the medieval Church. Nevertheless, monism persisted, inspiring Enlightenment science and Romantic poetry. Pas shows how monism could inspire physics today, how it could slice through the intellectual stagnation that has bogged down progress in modern physics and help science achieve the 'grand theory of everything' that it has been chasing for decades. Blending physics, philosophy, and the history of ideas, The One is an epic, mind-expanding journey through millennia of human thought and into the nature of reality itself.

Curtis Ebbesmeyer is no ordinary scientist. He's been a consulting oceanographer for multinational firms and a lead scientist on international research expeditions, but he's never held a conventional academic appointment. He seized the world's imagination as no ordinary scientist could when he and his worldwide network of beachcomber volunteers traced the ocean's currents using thousands of sneakers and plastic bath toys spilled from storm-tossed freighters. Now, for the first time, Ebbesmeyer tells the story of his lifelong struggle to solve the sea's mysteries, and shares his most surprising discoveries. He recounts how flotsam has changed the course of history-leading Viking mariners to safe harbours, Columbus to the New World, and Japan to open up to the West - and how it may even have made the origin of life possible. He explores the vast floating garbage patches and waste-heaped junk beaches that collect the flotsam and jetsam of industrial society. Finally, he reveals the music-like mathematical order in oceanic gyres and the threats that global warming and disintegrating plastic waste pose to the seas ...and to us.

Did you know your irises are lying to you and all human eyes are actually brown? Want to know the absolute worst way to die, according to science? Did you know that a smoking psychedelic toad milk could alleviate depression for up to four weeks? 117 Things You Should F*#king Know About Your World tells you the answers to these questions and many more weird and wonderful facts about the universe. Split into the site's different subject areas of environment, technology, space, health and medicine, plants and animals, physics and chemistry, this is the ultimate science book. With 25 million social media followers, I F*#king Love Science is the world's favourite source of science on the web. From missing nuclear weapons and Facebook secret files to the world's smallest computer and why you should wrap your car keys in tinfoil, this is the book that only the world's leading source of crazy-but-true stories could produce.

Some people fear and mistrust numbers. Others want to use them for everything. After a long career as a statistician, Paul Goodwin has learned the hard way that the ones who want to use them for everything are a very good reason for the rest of us to fear and mistrust them. Something Doesn't Add Up is a fieldguide to the numbers that rule our world, even though they don't make sense. Wry, witty and humane, Goodwin explains mathematical subtleties so painlessly that you hardly need to think about numbers at all. He demonstrates how statistics that are meant to make life simpler often make it simpler than it actually is, but also reveals some of the ways we really can use maths to make better decisions. Enter the world of fitness tracking, the history of IQ testing, China's social credit system, Effective Altruism, and learn how someone should have noticed that Harold Shipman was killing his patients years before they actually did. In the right hands, maths is a useful tool. It's just a pity there are so many of the wrong hands about.

'Poignant and lyrical...Slater's experience makes her a convincing travel guide into the history, creation and future of psychotropics.' - The New York Times Book Review A groundbreaking and revelatory story of the psychotropic drugs that have shaped our minds and our reality. As our approach to mental illness has oscillated from biological to psychoanalytical and back again, so have our treatments. With the rise of psychopharmacology, an ever-increasing number of people throughout the globe are taking a psychotropic drug, yet nearly seventy years after doctors first began prescribing them, we still don't really know exactly how or why they work - or don't work - on what ails our brains. In The Drugs that Changed Our Minds, Lauren Slater offers an explosive account not just of the science but of the people - inventors, detractors and consumers - behind our narcotics, from the earliest, Thorazine and Lithium, up through Prozac, Ecstasy, 'magic mushrooms', the most cutting-edge memory drugs and neural implants. In so doing, she narrates the history of psychiatry itself and illuminates the signature its colourful little capsules have left on millions of brains worldwide, and how these wonder drugs may heal us or hurt us. Praise for the book: 'A powerful new book' - The Daily Mail 'The messy history and brave future of psychotropic drugs' - O Magazine 'Vivid and thought-provoking' - Harper's Magazine 'Ambitious...Slater's depictions of madness are terrifying and fascinating' - USA Today 'Vigorous research and intimate reflection...highly compelling' - Kirkus

From the gene that causes people to age prematurely to the "bitter gene" that may spawn broccoli haters, this book explores a few of the more exotic locales on the human genome, highlighting some of the tragic and bizarre ways our bodies go wrong when genes fall prey to mutation and the curious ways in which genes have evolved for our survival. Lisa Seachrist Chiu offers here a smorgasbord of stories about rare and not so rare genetic quirks-the gene that makes some people smell like a fish, the Black Urine Gene, the Werewolf Gene, the Calico Cat Gene. We read about the Dracula Gene, a mutation in zebra fish that causes blood cells to explode on contact with light, and suites of genes that also influence behavior and physical characteristics. The Tangier Island Gene, first discovered after physicians discovered a boy with orange tonsils (scientists now realize that the child's odd condition comes from an inability to process cholesterol). And Wilson's Disease, a gene defect that fails to clear copper from the body, which can trigger schizophrenia and other neurological symptoms, and can be fatal if left untreated. On the plus side, we read about the Myostatin gene, a mutation which allows muscles to become much larger than usual and enhances strength-indeed, the mutations have produced beefier cows and at least one stronger human. And there is also the much-envied Cheeseburger Gene, which allows a lucky few to eat virtually anything they want and remain razor thin. While fascinating us with stories of genetic peculiarities, Chiu also manages to explain much cutting-edge research in modern genetics, resulting in a book that is both informative and entertaining. It is a must read for everyone who loves popular science or is curious about the human body.

The title of our volume refers to what is well described by the following two quota tions: "Godcreated man in his own image"l and "Man creates God in his own image."2 Our approach to symmetry is subjective, and the term "personal" symmetry reflects this approach in our discussion of selected scientific events. We have chosen six icons to symbolize six areas: Kepler for modeling, Fuller for new molecules, Pauling for helical structures, Kitaigorodskii for packing, Bernal for quasicrystals, and Curie for dissymmetry. For the past three decades we have been involved in learning, thinking, speaking, and writing about symmetry. This involvement has augmented our principal activities in molecular structure research. Our interest in symmetry had started with a simple fascination and has evolved into a highly charged personal topic for us. At the start of this volume, we had had several authored and edited symmetry related books behind 3 us. We owe a debt of gratitude to the numerous people whose interviews are quoted 4 in this volume. We very much appreciate the kind and gracious cooperation of Edgar J. Applewhite (Washington, DC), Lawrence S. Bartell (University of Michigan), R."

Modern geologists, Walter Alvarez among them, showed in the last decades of the twentieth century that the history of our planet has witnessed events profoundly more dramatic than even the most spectacular chapters in human history. More violent than wars, more life altering than revolutions-understanding the geologic events that have shaped the Earth's surface is the quest and the passion of geologists. In the knowledgeable and graceful prose of Alvarez, general readers are led to explore the many mysteries that our planet guards. The author has chosen Italy as a microcosm in which to explore this amazing past for several reasons. First, it is the land where the earliest geologists learned how to read the history of the Earth, written in nature's rock archives. Second, it is where Alvarez and his Italian geological friends have continued to decipher the rock record, uncovering more historical episodes from the Earth's past. And third, the lovely land of Italy is unusually rich in geological treasures and offers examples of the key processes that have created the landscapes of the entire world. The Mountains of Saint Francis begins in Rome. We discover that the landscape of Rome was built by violent volcanic eruptions in the very recent past, almost certainly witnessed by our human ancestors. Next we travel to Siena and come face to face with a fundamental discovery of the geologists-that much of the dry land that we currently inhabit was once underwater, beneath ancient seas or oceans. Then we stop in the small medieval city of Gubbio and contemplate the amazing secret that the limestone rocks kept hidden for 65 million years-that a huge asteroid smashed into the Earth, disrupting the environment so severely that the dinosaurs, and perhaps half of the other forms of life inhabiting the Earth at the time, disappeared forever, opening the way for the rise of the mammals and eventually of humans. The impact theory that came from those Italian limestones at Gubbio was one of the great geological discoveries of the twentieth century. Just as important to the field of geology was the theory of plate tectonics-the understanding that the outer layer of the Earth is divided into crustal plates that move around, sometimes carrying continents into collisions with one another, like the great collision between Italy and Europe that built the Alps. And yet, to explain the Mountains of Saint Francis requires something more than a collision between continents. These are mountains that are still jealously guarding the secret of their past, and in this book we go along with the geological detectives as they try to uncover that secret. It is a journey that has seen the land of Italy lifted out of the sea, squashed and folded, torn apart, left high and dry when the Mediterranean Sea evaporated away, and then flooded when the Atlantic waters poured back in. The story of the Earth's history is fascinating in its own right, but with Alvarez as the tour guide, the journey takes on a human dimension, full of stories about the landscape and history of Italy and about the great geologists who uncovered the deep past of this land. It is a journey recounted in warm tones and subtle colors, reflecting the transcendent beauty of Italy itself.

A rich and wonderful history of quinine - the cure for malaria. In the summer of 1623, ten cardinals and hundreds of their attendants, engaged in electing a new Pope, died from the 'mal'aria' or 'bad air' of the Roman marshes. Their choice, Pope Urban VIII, determined that a cure should be found for the fever that was the scourge of the Mediterranean, northern Europe and America, and in 1631 a young Jesuit apothecarist in Peru sent to the Old World a cure that had been found in the New - where the disease was unknown. The cure was quinine, an alkaloid made of the bitter red bark of the cinchona tree, which grows in the Andes. Both disease and cure have an extraordinary history. Malaria badly weakened the Roman Empire. It killed thousands of British troops fighting Napoleon during the Walcheren raid on Holland in 1809 and many soldiers on both sides of the American Civil War. It turned back many of the travellers who explored west Africa and brought the building of the Panama Canal to a standstill. When, after a thousand years, a cure was finally found, Europe's Protestants, among them Oliver Cromwell, who suffered badly from malaria, feared it was nothing more than a Popish poison. More than any previous medicine, though, quinine forced physicians to change their ideas about treating illness. Before long, it would change the face of Western medicine. Using fresh research from the Vatican and the Indian Archives in Seville, as well as hitherto undiscovered documents in Peru, Fiammetta Rocco describes the ravages of the disease, the quest of the three Englishmen who smuggled cinchona seeds out of South America, the way quinine opened the door to Western imperial adventure in Asia, Africa and beyond, and why, even today, quinine grown in the eastern Congo still saves so many people suffering from malaria.

"I loved the book! This book is not just interesting, it is exciting. I have probably read every significant book in the field, and this is the strongest and most convincing one yet. It is also one of the most comprehensive in its explanations. I shall most certainly recommend the book to colleagues." -Richard G. Petty, MD "a very good introduction to the basic theory of quantum systems.... Dr. Georgiev's book aptly prepares the reader to confront whatever might be in store later." -from the Foreword by Prof. James F. Glazebrook, Eastern Illinois University This book addresses the fascinating cross-disciplinary field of quantum information theory applied to the study of brain function. It offers a self-study guide to probe the problems of consciousness, including a concise but rigorous introduction to classical and quantum information theory, theoretical neuroscience, and philosophy of the mind. It aims to address long-standing problems related to consciousness within the framework of modern theoretical physics in a comprehensible manner that elucidates the nature of the mind-body relationship. The reader also gains an overview of methods for constructing and testing quantum informational theories of consciousness.

The spectacular culinary creations of modern cuisine are the stuff of countless articles and Instagram feeds. But to a scientist they are also perfect pedagogical explorations into the basic scientific principles of cooking. In Science and Cooking, Harvard professors Michael Brenner, Pia Soerensen and David Weitz bring the classroom to your kitchen to teach the physics and chemistry underlying every recipe. Science and Cooking answers questions such as why we knead bread, what determines the temperature at which we cook a steak or the how much time our chocolate chip cookies should spend in the oven, through fascinating lessons ranging from the role of pressure and boiling points in pecan praline to that of microbes in your coffee. With beautiful full-colour illustrations and recipes, hands-on experiments, and engaging introductions from world-renowned chefs Ferran Adria and Jose Andres, Science and Cooking will change the way readers approach both subjects-in their kitchens and beyond.

In Curvology, Cambridge Veterinary Anatomist David Bainbridge applies the science of evolutionary biology to women's bodies, to explain why the human female is the only female animal to have curves and how these curves rule our lives, by influencing not only sexual selection but also social hierarchy and self-image. Written in lucid and engaging prose, Bainbridge's unique brand of popular science also draws on illuminating references from zoology, art history, contemporary media culture, and a range of first-person interviews with some actual human women. Offering a level-headed and fresh perspective on a contentious issue, Curvology is a fascinating, controversial, and highly newsworthy read.

Are you considering to test your own DNA? Do you want to learn more about your health and ancestry? Understand your DNA - A Guide is about what you can use genetics for. For a few hundred dollars, you can now scan your own genes. Millions of people all over the world have already done so. Everyone wants to see what they can get to know about themselves, and the market growing rapidly. But what does it require from you? And what can you really use a DNA test for? Understand your DNA - A Guide helps you put the plots and charts of consumer genetics into perspective and enables you to figure out what's up and down in the media headlines. The book is also a key input for today's debate about what we as a society can and want to do with medical genetics. Genetics will play a growing role in the future. Understand your DNA - A Guide is an easy-to-read and necessary guide to that future. The book is provided with a foreword by Professor Sham Pak-Chung of Hong Kong University.While there are many books about genetics, they typically take the perspective of a scientist wanting to understand the molecular levels. At the same time, direct-to-consumer genetics is a booming market, with millions of people already tested. Very little has been published that will guide them for real, because the need here is more focused on medical and practical understanding, than focussed on molecules.This book therefore aims to hit that vacant spot in the market. It's a walk-through of all concepts that are necessary to understand in your own analysis. Meanwhile, it is also limited in scope to only those concepts - thus distinguishing it from broader works.The book is appropriate for the readerships in modern multi-ethnic metropolises because it mixes European and Asian examples, both from the collaboration between the author from Europe and the foreword-writer, Prof. Pak Sham of Hong Kong University. But also, because many of the examples in the book concerns differences and similarities between Asian and European ethnicities, something the author believes is a trend in time.Related Link(s)

In Skeptic, Shermer "turns a critical eye toward questions big, small, and trivial." His trademark combination of deep scientific understanding and entertaining writing style has thrilled his huge and devoted audience for years. Now, seventy-five of these columns are available together for the first time, taking on a wide range of subjects, from psychology and human nature to religion and pseudoscience. A welcome addition for his fans and a stimulating introduction for new readers, Skeptic is a must-read collection from one of our leading science commentators, "Dense with facts, convincing arguments, and curious statistics, this is an ingenious collection of light entertainment for readers who believe that explaining stuff is a good idea."

From an award-winning medic and scientist, the game-changing case that genetic females have greater resilience, immunity, endurance and more, compared with males 'A powerful antidote to the myth of a "weaker sex"' Gina Rippon, author of The Gendered Brain From birth, genetic females are better at fighting viruses, infections and cancer. They do better at surviving epidemics and famines. They live longer, and even see the world in a wider variety of colours. These are the facts; they are simply stronger than men at every stage of life. Why? And why are we taught the opposite? Drawing on his wide-ranging experience and cutting-edge research as a medic, geneticist and specialist in rare diseases, Dr Sharon Moalem set out to understand why women are consistently more likely than men to thrive. The answer, he reveals, lies in our genetics: the female's double XX chromosomes offer a powerful survival advantage. Moalem explains why genetic females outperform males when it comes to immunity, resilience, stamina and much more. And he calls for a long-overdue reconsideration of our male-centric, one-size-fits-all view of the body and of how we prescribe medications - a view that still frames women through the lens of men. Revolutionary, captivating and utterly persuasive, The Better Half will make you see women, men and the survival of our species anew.

Apocalypse, now?

Death by fire, ice, poison gas, suffocation, asteroid. At five moments through history life on Earth was dragged to the very edge of extinction.

Now, armed with revolutionary technology, scientists are uncovering clues about what caused these catastrophes. Deep-diving into past worlds of dragonflies the size of seagulls and fishes with guillotines for mouths, they explore how – against all the odds – life survived and what these ominous chapters can tell us about our future.

The award-winning former editor of Science News shows that one of the most fascinating and controversial ideas in contemporary cosmology-the existence of multiple parallel universes-has a long and divisive history that continues to this day. We often consider the universe to encompass everything that exists, but some scientists have come to believe that the vast, expanding universe we inhabit may be just one of many. The totality of those parallel universes, still for some the stuff of science fiction, has come to be known as the multiverse. The concept of the multiverse, exotic as it may be, isn't actually new. In The Number of the Heavens, veteran science journalist Tom Siegfried traces the history of this controversial idea from antiquity to the present. Ancient Greek philosophers first raised the possibility of multiple universes, but Aristotle insisted on one and only one cosmos. Then in 1277 the bishop of Paris declared it heresy to teach that God could not create as many universes as he pleased, unleashing fervent philosophical debate about whether there might exist a "plurality of worlds." As the Middle Ages gave way to the Renaissance, the philosophical debates became more scientific. Rene Descartes declared "the number of the heavens" to be indefinitely large, and as notions of the known universe expanded from our solar system to our galaxy, the debate about its multiplicity was repeatedly recast. In the 1980s, new theories about the big bang reignited interest in the multiverse. Today the controversy continues, as cosmologists and physicists explore the possibility of many big bangs, extra dimensions of space, and a set of branching, parallel universes. This engrossing story offers deep lessons about the nature of science and the quest to understand the universe.

_______________ 'One of the best books yet written on data and algorithms. . .deserves a place on the bestseller charts.' (The Times) You are accused of a crime. Who would you rather determined your fate - a human or an algorithm? An algorithm is more consistent and less prone to error of judgement. Yet a human can look you in the eye before passing sentence. Welcome to the age of the algorithm, the story of a not-too-distant future where machines rule supreme, making important decisions - in healthcare, transport, finance, security, what we watch, where we go even who we send to prison. So how much should we rely on them? What kind of future do we want? Hannah Fry takes us on a tour of the good, the bad and the downright ugly of the algorithms that surround us. In Hello World she lifts the lid on their inner workings, demonstrates their power, exposes their limitations, and examines whether they really are an improvement on the humans they are replacing. A BBC RADIO 4: BOOK OF THE WEEK SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2018 BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE AND 2018 ROYAL SOCIETY SCIENCE BOOK PRIZE

Swearing, it turns out, is an incredibly useful part of our linguistic repertoire. Not only has some form of swearing existed since the earliest humans began to communicate, but it has been shown to reduce physical pain, help stroke victims recover their language, and encourage people to work together as a team.

Swearing Is Good For You is a spirited and hilarious defence of our most cherished dirty words, backed by historical case studies and cutting-edge research. From chimpanzees creating their own curse words to a man who lost half his brain in a mining accident experiencing a new-found compulsion to swear, Dr Emma Byrne outlines the fascinating science behind swearing: how it affects us both physically and emotionally, and how it is more natural and beneficial than we are led to believe.

What games can teach us about life, the universe and ourselves. If you shuffle a deck of cards what are the odds that the sequence is unique? What is the connection between dice, platonic solids and Newton's theory of gravity? What is more random: a dice tower or a number generator? Can you actually employ a strategy for a game as basic as Rock-Paper-Scissors? These are all questions that are thrown up in games and life. Games involve chance, choice, competition, innovation, randomness, memory, stand-offs and paradoxes - aspects that designers manipulate to make a game interesting, fun and addictive, and players try to master for enjoyment and winning. But they also provide a fascinating way for us to explore our world; to understand how our minds tick, our numbers add up, and our laws of physics work. This is a book that tackles the big questions of life through the little questions of games. With short chapters on everything from memory games to the Prisoner's Dilemma, to Goedel's theorems, GameTek is fascinating reading anyone for who wants to explore the world from a new perspective - and a must-read book for serious designers and players. PRAISE 'Math, physics, psychology and all the other stuff you didn't even realise you were using while playing board games! Dr E has opened the door to the game under the game in fascinating, fun detail. Now you have NO reason to ever lose again! Rock!' Tommy Dean, board-gamer and stand-up comic

An insider's view on bringing extinct species back to life Could extinct species, like mammoths and passenger pigeons, be brought back to life? In How to Clone a Mammoth, Beth Shapiro, an evolutionary biologist and pioneer in ancient DNA research, addresses this intriguing question by walking readers through the astonishing and controversial process of de-extinction. From deciding which species should be restored to anticipating how revived populations might be overseen in the wild, Shapiro vividly explores the extraordinary cutting-edge science that is being used to resurrect the past. Considering de-extinction's practical benefits and ethical challenges, Shapiro argues that the overarching goal should be the revitalization and stabilization of contemporary ecosystems. Looking at the very real and compelling science behind an idea once seen as science fiction, How to Clone a Mammoth demonstrates how de-extinction will redefine conservation's future.