Twenty years ago, the search for planets outside the Solar System was a job restricted to science-fiction writers. Now it's one of the fastest-growing fields in astronomy with thousands of exoplanets discovered to date, and the number is rising fast.

These new-found worlds are more alien than anything in fiction. Planets larger than Jupiter with years lasting a week; others with two suns lighting their skies, or with no sun at all. Planets with diamond mantles supporting oceans of tar; possible Earth-sized worlds with split hemispheres of perpetual day and night; waterworlds drowning under global oceans and volcanic lava planets awash with seas of magma. The discovery of this diversity is just the beginning. There is a whole galaxy of possibilities.

The Planet Factory tells the story of these exoplanets. Each planetary system is different, but in the beginning most if not all young stars are circled by clouds of dust, specks that come together in a violent building project that can form colossal worlds hundreds of times the size of the Earth. The changing orbits of young planets risk dooming any life evolving on neighbouring worlds or, alternatively, can deliver the key ingredients needed to seed its beginnings. Planet formation is one of the greatest construction schemes in the Universe, and it occurred around nearly every star you see. Each results in an alien landscape, but is it possible that one of these could be like our own home world?

A clarion call to save humanity's most essential fellow creatures - and our health Far beneath our skin exists an unfathomable, ancient universe - an internal ecosystem that is critical to our health. Dr Martin Blaser invites us into the wilds of the human 'microbiome', unfurling its inner workings and evolution. For thousands of years, bacteria and human cells have co-existed in a relationship that has ensured the health and equilibrium of our body. But now, much like the natural world outside of us, our internal environment is being irrevocably destroyed. The culprit: some of our most revered medical advances - antibiotics - which appear to be linked to the epidemics of asthma, eczema, obesity, certain forms of cancer, and other diseases plaguing modern society. In a book that stands as the Silent Spring of its day, Blaser sounds a provocative alarm that we ignore at our peril.

In What Do Animals Think and Feel?, the biologist Karsten Brensing has something astonishing to tell us about the animal kingdom: namely that animals, by any reasonable assessment, have developed the sophisticated systems of social organization and behaviour that human beings call 'culture'.

Dolphins call one another by name and orcas inhabit a culture that is over 700,000 years old. Chimpanzees wage strategic warfare, while bonobos delight in dirty talk. Ravens enjoy snowboarding on snow-covered roofs, and snails like to spin on hamster exercise wheels. Humped-back whales follow the dictates of fashion and rats are dedicated party animals. Ants recognize themselves in mirrors and spruce themselves up before they return home. Ducklings can pass complicated tests in abstract thinking. Dogs punish disloyalty, though they are also capable of forgiveness if you apologize to them.

Brensing draws on the latest scientific findings as well as his own experience working with animals, to reveal a world of behavioural and cognitive sophistication that is remarkably similar to our own.

Phantoms In The Brain, using a series of case histories, introduces strange and unexplored mental worlds. Ramachandran, through his research into brain damage, has discovered that the brain is continually organising itself in response to change. A woman maintains that her left arm is not paralysed, a young man loses his right arm in a motorcycle accident, yet he continues to feel a phantom arm with vivid sensation of movement. In a series of experiments using nothing more than Q-tips and dribbles of warm water the young man helped Ramachandran discover how the brain is remapped after injury. Ramachandran believes that cases such as these illustrate fundamental principles of how the human brain operates. The brain ‘needs to create a "script" or a story to make sense of the world, a unified and internally consistent belief system.’

Ramachandran’s radical new approach will have far-reaching effects.

How to make it, break it, hack it, crack it. The secret history of codes and code breaking. Simon Singh's best-selling title The Code Book now re-issued for the young-adult market. The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography. Simon Singh brings life to an amazing story of puzzles, codes, languages and riddles -- revealing the continual pursuit to disguise and uncover, and to work out the secret languages of others. Codes have influenced events throughout history, both in the stories of those who make them and those who break them. The betrayal of Mary Queen of Scots and the cracking of the enigma code that helped the Allies in World War II are major episodes in a continuing history of cryptography. In addition to stories of intrigue and warfare, Simon Singh also investigates other codes, the unravelling of genes and the rediscovery of ancient languages and most tantalisingly, the Beale ciphers, an unbroken code that could hold the key to a USD20 million treasure.

To some, science is simply a means to an end; to others it is an almost spiritual meditation on theories and formulae. The Curious World of Science embraces both views and much more besides. Focusing on the human endeavours at the heart of science, it presents a miscellany of essential classifications, intriguing biographies, amusing curiosities, and irresistible trivia. Bite-size morsels of text explore the worlds of physics, chemistry, biology, and maths, while also venturing into those magical areas where science meets art. This illustrated edition is brimming with graphics and illustrations, and includes a system of icons to signpost different paths through the miscellany. From the Large Hadron Collider rap to the sins of Isaac Newton, it offers a dizzying flight through the wonderfully human world of scientific knowledge.

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.

Forensic DNA analysis plays a central role in the judicial system. A DNA sample can change the course of an investigation with immense consequences. Because DNA typing is recognized as the epitome of forensic science, increasing public awareness in this area is vital. Through several cases, examples and illustrations, this book explains the basic principles of forensic DNA typing, and how it integrates with law enforcement investigations and legal decisions. Written for a general readership, Understanding Forensic DNA explains both the power and the limitations of DNA analysis. This book dispels common misunderstandings regarding DNA analysis and shows how astounding match probabilities such as one-in-a-trillion are calculated, what they really mean, and why DNA alone never solves a case.

Whether you are a student struggling to fulfill a math or science requirement, or you are embarking on a career change that requires a higher level of math competency, "A Mind for Numbers" offers the tools you need to get a better grasp of that intimidating but inescapable field. Engineering professor Barbara Oakley knows firsthand how it feels to struggle with math. She flunked her way through high school math and science courses, before enlisting in the army immediately after graduation. When she saw how her lack of mathematical and technical savvy severely limited her options--both to rise in the military and to explore other careers--she returned to school with a newfound determination to re-tool her brain to master the very subjects that had given her so much trouble throughout her entire life.
In "A Mind for Numbers," Dr. Oakley lets us in on the secrets to effectively learning math and science--secrets that even dedicated and successful students wish they'd known earlier. Contrary to popular belief, math requires creative, as well as analytical, thinking. Most people think that there's only one way to do a problem, when in actuality, there are often a number of different solutions--you just need the creativity to see them. For example, there are more than three hundred different known proofs of the Pythagorean Theorem. In short, studying a problem in a laser-focused way until you reach a solution is not an effective way to learn math. Rather, it involves taking the time to step away from a problem and allow the more relaxed and creative part of the brain to take over. "A Mind for Numbers "shows us that we all have what it takes to excel in math, and learning it is not as painful as some might think

An eye-opening investigation - combining reporting, history and cutting-edge science - into allergies and their rise in recent decades Hay fever. Peanut allergies. Eczema. Billions of people worldwide have some form of allergy; millions have one severe enough to seriously endanger their health. And over the past decade, the number of people diagnosed with allergy has been steadily increasing, an ever-growing medical burden on individuals, families, and our health care system. Medical anthropologist Theresa MacPhail, herself an allergy sufferer whose father died of a bee sting, set out to understand why. The result is a holistic and deeply researched examination of allergies, from their first medical description in 1819 to the mind-bending new treatments that are giving patients hope. MacPhail spent years interviewing hundreds of experts, patients and activists, in an effort to understand how recent changes in our environment and lifestyle are contributing to the dramatic rise in cases globally. Pollution, chemicals, antibiotics and, increasingly, climate change are all making our immune systems become more and more irritated. But, as she shows us in Allergic, understanding what is irritating us and why will help us to craft better environments in the future-so we can all breathe easier.

Very Short Introductions: Brilliant, Sharp, Inspiring In the last few years global awareness of climate change has grown very rapidly - through the school strikes led by Greta Thunberg, groups like Extinction Rebellion, the IPCC's recent high impact reports, tv documentaries, and declarations from governments around the world that we are in a climate emergency. This awareness is continuing to grow, as the science shows us that our planet and our species are facing a massive crisis, which we ourselves have caused. Climate change is one of the few scientific theories that make us examine the whole basis of modern society. It is a challenge that has politicians arguing, sets nations against each other, queries individual lifestyle choices, and ultimately asks questions about humanity's relationship with the rest of the planet. This Very Short Introduction draws on the very latest science from the 2021 IPCC Report, examining the evidence that climate change is already happening, and discussing its potential catastrophic impacts in the future. Mark Maslin also explores the geopolitics of climate change and the win-win solutions we can employ to avoid the very worst effects of climate change. Throughout, he demonstrates how we must develop new modes of thinking for the 21st century at individual, corporate, and government levels to collectively tackle the challenge of climate change. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

This book challenges the perception of chemistry as too difficult to bother with and too clinical to be any fun. Cathy Cobb and Monty L. Fetterolf, both professional chemists and experienced educators, introduce readers to the magic, elegance, and, yes, joy of chemistry. From the fascination of fall foliage and fireworks, to the functioning of smoke detectors and computers, to the fundamentals of digestion (as when good pizza goes bad ), the authors illustrate the concepts of chemistry in terms of everyday experience, using familiar materials.
The authors begin with a bang--a colorful bottle rocket assembled from common objects you find in the garage--and then present the principles of chemistry using household chemicals and friendly, nontechnical language. They guide the reader through the basics of atomic structure, the nature of molecular bonds, and the vibrant universe of chemical reactions. Using analogy and example to illuminate essential concepts such as thermodynamics, photochemistry, electrochemistry, and chemical equilibrium, they explain the whys and wherefores of chemical reactions. Hands-on demonstrations, selected for their ease of execution and relevance, illustrate basic principles, and lively commentaries emphasize the fun and fascination of learning about chemistry.
This delightful and richly informative book amply proves that chemistry can appeal to our intuition, logic, and--if we're willing to get down and dirty--our sense of enjoyment too.

The wise win before they fight, while the ignorant fight to win. So wrote Zhuge Liang, the great Chinese military strategist. He was referring to battlefield tactics, but the same can be said about any strategic situation. Even seemingly certain defeat can be turned into victory whether in battle, business, or life by those with the strategic vision to recognize how to change the game to their own advantage.

The aim of David McAdams s Game-Changer is nothing less than to empower you with this wisdom not just to win in every strategic situation (or game ) you face but to change those games and the ecosystems in which they reside to transform your life and our lives together for the better.

Game-Changer develops six basic ways to change games commitment, regulation, cartelization, retaliation, trust, and relationships enlivened by countless colorful characters and unforgettable examples from the worlds of business, medicine, finance, military history, crime, sports, and more.

The book then digs into several real-world strategic challenges, such as how to keep prices low on the Internet, how to restore the public s lost trust in for-charity telemarketers, and even how to save mankind from looming and seemingly unstoppable drug-resistant disease. In each case, McAdams uses the game-theory approach developed in the book to identify the strategic crux of the problem and then leverages that game-awareness to brainstorm ways to change the game to solve or at least mitigate the underlying problem.

So get ready for a fascinating journey. You ll emerge a deeper strategic thinker, poised to change and win all the games you play. In doing so, you can also make the world a better place. Just one Game-Changer is] enough to seed and transform an entire organization into a more productive, happier, and altogether better place, McAdams writes. Just imagine what we can do together."

'Grayling brings satisfying order to daunting subjects' Steven Pinker _________________________ In very recent times humanity has learnt a vast amount about the universe, the past, and itself. But through our remarkable successes in acquiring knowledge we have learned how much we have yet to learn: the science we have, for example, addresses just 5 per cent of the universe; pre-history is still being revealed, with thousands of historical sites yet to be explored; and the new neurosciences of mind and brain are just beginning. What do we know, and how do we know it? What do we now know that we don't know? And what have we learnt about the obstacles to knowing more? In a time of deepening battles over what knowledge and truth mean, these questions matter more than ever. Bestselling polymath and philosopher A. C. Grayling seeks to answer them in three crucial areas at the frontiers of knowledge: science, history and psychology. A remarkable history of science, life on earth, and the human mind itself, this is a compelling and fascinating tour de force, written with verve, clarity and remarkable breadth of knowledge. _________________________ 'Remarkable, readable and authoritative. How he has mastered so much, so thoroughly, is nothing short of amazing' Lawrence M. Krauss, author of A Universe from Nothing 'This book hums with the excitement of the great human project of discovery' Adam Zeman, author of Aphantasia

Recent scientific discoveries indicate that all of life – from the most primitive cells, up to human societies, corporations and nation-states, even the global economy – is organized along the same basic patterns and principles: those of the network.

However, the new global economy differs in important aspects from the networks of life: whereas everything in a living network has a function, globalism ignores all that cannot give it an immediate profit, creating great armies of the excluded. The global financial network also relies on advanced information technologies – it is shaped by machines, and the resulting economic, social and cultural environment is not life-enhancing but life-degrading, in both a social and an ecological sense.

Capra demonstrates conclusively how tightly humans are connected with the fabric of life and makes it clear that it is imperative to organize the world according to a different set of values and beliefs, not only for the well-being of human organizations, but for the survival and sustainability of humanity as a whole.

"A remarkable addition to the literature of the science of the mind…Shenk has drawn together neurobiology, art history and psychology into a literary portrait of Alzheimer's perfectly balanced between sorrow and wonder, devastation and awe."
'LA Times'

Jonathan Swift once pointed to a diseased elm and declared 'I shall be like that tree, I shall die first at the top'. And, as our lifespans continue to expand, the illness he so dreaded has reached epidemic proportions. Today Alzheimer's afflicts on in twenty over the age of sixty-five. There are currently around twelve million sufferers worldwide, and this number is rising fast. Poignant and hopeful, 'The Forgetting' is the first book to record the history and explain the future of this difficult, frightening disease.

"[An] absorbing and enlightening book…and an engrossing story."
'TLS'

"A lucid, often moving book with an excellent preface from Adam Phillips…Shenk is a wonderful writer…His prose zings with apt metaphors. He has an eye for the social and financial forces that shape scientific interests and he brings key players, whether proteins or people, to dramatic life."
'Independent'

"'The Forgetting' is completely absorbing, fascinating, the best of writing, thought-provoking, socially important and imperative to read – with the narrative pull of a well-written murder mystery."
AMY TAN, author of 'The Bonesetter's Daughter'

Drawn from the cutting-edge frontiers of science, This Explains Everything will revolutionize your understanding of the world.

What is your favorite deep, elegant, or beautiful explanation?

This is the question John Brockman, publisher of Edge.org ("The world's smartest website"--The Guardian), posed to the world's most influential minds. Flowing from the horizons of physics, economics, psychology, neuroscience, and more, This Explains Everything presents 150 of the most surprising and brilliant theories of the way of our minds, societies, and universe work.

Jared Diamond on biological electricity - Nassim Nicholas Taleb on positive stress - Steven Pinker on the deep genetic roots of human conflict - Richard Dawkins on pattern recognition - Nobel Prize-winning physicist Frank Wilczek on simplicity - Lisa Randall on the Higgs mechanism - BRIAN Eno on the limits of intuition - Richard Thaler on the power of commitment - V. S. Ramachandran on the "neural code" of consciousness - Nobel Prize winner ERIC KANDEL on the power of psychotherapy - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi on "Lord Acton's Dictum" - Lawrence M. Krauss on the unification of electricity and magnetism - plus contributions by Martin J. Rees - Kevin Kelly - Clay Shirky - Daniel C. Dennett - Sherry Turkle - Philip Zimbardo - Lee Smolin - Rebecca Newberger Goldstein - Seth Lloyd - Stewart Brand - George Dyson - Matt Ridley

This text reveals research that has transformed scientists' understanding of healthy ageing and shows what everyone can do to help prevent Alzheimer's disease. One of the world's leading experts on Alzheimer's disease, David Snowdon, is the director of the "Nun Study", a long term research project involving 678 nuns. Ranging in age from 75 to 106, these women have allowed Snowdon access to their medical and personal records and they have agreed to donate their brains upon death. The study's findings are already helping scientists unlock the secrets to living a longer, healthier life. With one of the largest brain donor studies in the world, Dr Snowdon and his colleagues are at the forefront of some of the most fascinating and useful research on aging today. This book combines cutting-edge research on the brain with the poignant and inspiring stories of the ageing nuns who are teaching scientists how we grow old. We meet nuns like Sister Clarissa, who at the age of 90 drives around the convent in a motorized cart she calls her "Chevy" and knows as much about baseball as any die-hard fan a third her age, and "The Magnificent Seven", centenarians from a single convent who remain activ

Throughout history, from the Ancient Egyptians to medieval saints and the remains of figures like Eva Peron and Lenin, mummies have held a powerful place in our collective imagination. THE MUMMY CONGRESS is a riveting survey of the history, science and popular culture of mummies and of man's ancient quest for immortality. When acclaimed science journalist Heather Pringle was dispatched to a remote part of northern Chile to cover a little-known scientific conference, she found herself in the midst of the most passionate gathering of her working life - dozens of mummy experts crammed into a rambling seaside hotel, battling over the implications of their latest discoveries. Infected with their mania, Pringle spent the next year circling the globe, stopping in to visit the leading scientists so she could see first-hand the breathtaking delicacy and unexpected importance of their work. In The Mummy Congress, she recounts the intriguing findings from her travels, bringing to life the hitherto unknown worlds of the long-dead, and revealing what mummies have to tell us about ourselves. Pringle's journeys lead her to the lifelike remains of medieval saints entombed in Italy's grand cathedrals, eerily preserved bog bodies in the Netherlands bearing signs of violent and untimely slaughter, and frozen Inca princesses glimpsed for the first time atop icy mountains. She learns of the extraordinary skills of ancient Egyptian embalmers capable of preserving bodies, in the words of one mummy expert, "until the end of time"; of the horrifying sacrifices made by ancient South Americans to pacify their gods; and of the weird mummified parasites preserved in the guts of millennia-old bodies and that still wreak havoc across the world today.

There are some mathematical problems whose significance goes beyond the ordinary - like Fermat's Last Theorem or Goldbach's Conjecture - they are the enigmas which define mathematics. The Great Mathematical Problems explains why these problems exist, why they matter, what drives mathematicians to incredible lengths to solve them and where they stand in the context of mathematics and science as a whole. It contains solved problems - like the Poincare Conjecture, cracked by the eccentric genius Grigori Perelman, who refused academic honours and a million-dollar prize for his work, and ones which, like the Riemann Hypothesis, remain baffling after centuries. Stewart is the guide to this mysterious and exciting world, showing how modern mathematicians constantly rise to the challenges set by their predecessors, as the great mathematical problems of the past succumb to the new techniques and ideas of the present.

What is the secret of happy relationships?

How do companies build collaborative cultures?

What lies behind some of the greatest scientific and creative breakthroughs?

The surprising answer is: conflict.

Insight and empathy spring from the clash of different perspectives. In a world where it's easier than ever for people to share their opinions, we should be reaping the benefits of diverse views. Instead, we too often find ourselves mired in hostility or - worse - avoiding disagreement altogether. Ian Leslie argues that this is because most of us never learn how to air our differences in a way that leads to progress.

Conflicted draws essential lessons on how to disagree well from world-class experts: interrogators, hostage negotiators, divorce mediators, diplomats and addiction counsellors. It tells inspiring stories of productive disagreements, from the invention of the aeroplane to the success of The Rolling Stones, and combines them with fascinating insights from the science of human communication.

Whether it's at work, at home, or in public, confronting our differences is the only way to make the most of them. Conflicted is about how to do that successfully.

Is there life on Mars? If not, why not? These questions have gripped mankind throughout the twentieth century. In the shadow of the new millennium, The Genesis Question seeks the definitive answers from the scientists participating in the race to discover life on the Red Planet. 'Ever since I was a small child, I've believed there was life out there. When I look at the magnitude of the universe, with its billions of stars, I believe that if life developed here on Earth, it must have developed elsewhere. We simply can't be unique. I really don't think we're the most intelligent life forms in the universe, but that's just my gut feeling', Dr Claire Parkinson, NASA scientist. Of all the planets, Mars has exerted the most powerful allure over the human intellect and imagination. Generations of astronomers have expected to find clues to the origin and destiny of Earth and its inhabitants concealed amid the red storms sweeping across the surface of Mars. Today, public interest in the Mars mission is sky-high; the exploits of the tiny Mars Rover 'Sojourner' in the summer of 1997 excited the greatest curiosity in a space mission in a generation. In The Quest for Mars Laurence Bergreen has unrestricted access to a team of NASA employees - engineers, geologists and other scientists - who are consumed by the search for proof of life on Mars. As one formidable obstacle after another attempts to scupper their quest for a deeper understanding of life on Mars and throughout the Solar System, the narrative takes us step by step through the exhilaration and the despondency of their extraordinary adventure. Nothing is off limits in this unique, behind-the-scenes story of space exploration.

While we joke that men are from Mars and women are from Venus, our gender differences can't compare to those of other animals. For instance: the male garden spider spontaneously dies after mating with a female more than fifty times his size. Female cichlids must guard their eggs and larvae--even from the hungry appetites of their own partners. And male blanket octopuses employ a copulatory arm longer than their own bodies to mate with females that outweigh them by four orders of magnitude. Why do these gender gulfs exist? Introducing readers to important discoveries in animal behavior and evolution, "Odd Couples" explores some of the most extraordinary sexual differences in the animal world. From the fields of Spain to the deep oceans, evolutionary biologist Daphne Fairbairn uncovers the unique and bizarre characteristics--in size, behavior, ecology, and life history--that exist in these remarkable species and the special strategies they use to maximize reproductive success. Fairbairn describes how male great bustards aggressively compete to display their gorgeous plumage and large physiques to watching, choosey females. She investigates why female elephant seals voluntarily live in harems where they are harassed constantly by eager males. And she reveals why dwarf male giant seadevils parasitically fuse to their giant female partners for life. Fairbairn also considers humans and explains that although we are keenly aware of our own sexual differences, they are unexceptional within the vast animal world.

Looking at some of the most amazing creatures on the planet, "Odd Couples" sheds astonishing light on what it means to be male or female in the animal kingdom.

Sally Coulthard explores the miraculous world of the earthworm, the modest little creature without whom life as we know it would not be possible. For Charles Darwin - who estimated every acre of land contained 53,000 earthworms - the humble earthworm was the most important creature on the planet. And yet, most people know almost nothing about these little engineers of the earth. We take them for granted but, without the earthworm, the world's soil would be barren, and our gardens, fields and farms wouldn't be able to grow the food and support the animals we need to survive. Sally Coulthard provides a complete profile of the earthworm by answering fifty questions about these wiggling creatures, from 'What happens if I chop a worm in half?' to 'Would humans survive if worms went extinct?' Fascinating and beautifully illustrated, The Book of the Earthworm offers a feast of quirky facts and practical advice about the world's most industrious - but least understood - invertebrate.

We are the product of our evolutionary history and this history colours our everyday lives - from why we kiss to how religious we are. In How Many Friends Does One Person Need? Robin Dunbar explains how the distant past underpins our current behaviour, through the groundbreaking experiments that have changed the thinking of evolutionary biologists forever. He explains phenomena such as why 'Dunbar's Number' (150) is the maximum number of acquaintances you can have, why all babies are born premature and the science behind lonely hearts columns. Stimulating, provocative and highly enjoyable, this fascinating book is essential for understanding why humans behave as they do - what it is to be human.