Showing 97–108 of 221 resultsSorted by latest
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£16.99
As a retired brain surgeon, Henry Marsh thought he understood illness, but he was unprepared for the impact of his diagnosis of advanced cancer. ‘And Finally’ explores what happens when someone who has spent a lifetime on the frontline of life and death finds himself contemplating what might be his own death sentence. As he navigates the bewildering transition from doctor to patient, he is haunted by past failures and projects yet to be completed, and frustrated by the inconveniences of illness and old age. But he is also more entranced than ever by the mysteries of science and the brain, the beauty of the natural world and his love for his family.
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£12.99
A bold, provocative history of our species finds the deep origins of society’s success and failure in our evolutionary history. We are living through the most prosperous age in all of human history, yet people are more listless, divided and miserable than ever. The authors cut through the noise surrounding issues like sex, gender, diet, parenting, sleep, education, and much else besides to outlines a science-based worldview that will empower you to live a better, wiser life. They distill over 20 years of research and first-hand accounts from the most biodiverse ecosystems on Earth into straightforward principles and guidance for confronting our culture of hyper-novelty.
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£9.99
Anil Seth’s radical new theory of consciousness challenges our understanding of perception and reality, doing for brain science what Dawkins did for evolutionary biology. Consciousness is the great unsolved mystery in our scientific understanding of the brain. Somewhere, somehow, inscribed in the brain is everything that makes you you. But how do we grasp what happens in the brain to turn mere electrical impulses into the vast range of perceptions, thoughts and emotions we feel from moment to moment? Anil Seth, one of Britain’s leading neuroscientists, charts the developments in our understanding of consciousness, revealing radical interdisciplinary breakthroughs that must transform the way we think about the self.
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£10.99
In the 21st century, humanity is reaching new heights of scientific understanding Рand at the same time appears to be losing its mind. How can a species that discovered vaccines for Covid-19 in less than a year produce so much fake news, quack cures and conspiracy theorising? In this book, Steven Pinker rejects the cynical clich̩ that humans are simply an irrational species Рcavemen out of time fatally cursed with biases, fallacies and illusions. After all, we discovered the laws of nature, lengthened and enriched our lives and set the benchmarks for rationality itself. Instead, he explains, we think in ways that suit the low-tech contexts in which we spend most of our lives, but fail to take advantage of the powerful tools of reasoning we have built up over millennia: logic, critical thinking, probability, causal inference, and decision-making under uncertainty.
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£10.99
From age 5 to 12, parenting decisions do not come with the frequency that they do with a baby, but they are almost always more complicated. What’s the right kind of school? How do you get them to eat healthily? Should they play a sport? Are you a helicopter parent, a free range parent, a tiger parent, an ostrich parent? Is that last one even a thing? Daily logistical challenges are punctuated by big, consequential decisions that you often have no idea how to think about. Oster outlines a framework and some systems: a way to run your family a bit more like a firm, beginning with the ‘Big Picture’ for your family and going on to explain ways to structure your day-to-day, and how to approach big decisions. People will often tell you parenting is a job, albeit an underpaid one where the employees frequently tell you they hate you and you ruined their life. So maybe it’s time to start treating it like one.
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£20.00
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.
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£10.99
The robots are here. They make our cars, they deliver fast food, they mine the sea floor. And in the near-future their presence will increasingly enter our homes and workplaces – making human-robot interaction a frequent, everyday occurrence. What will this future look like? What will define the relationship between humans and robots? Here Kate Darling, a world-renowned expert in robot ethics, shows that in order to understand the new robot world, we must first move beyond the idea that this technology will be something like us. Instead, she argues, we should look to our relationship with animals. Just as we have harnessed the power of animals to aid us in war and work, so too will robots supplement – rather than replace – our own skills and abilities.
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£12.99
Tackling some of the most common scientific myths still believed today, Brian Clegg blows these widely held misconceptions about the workings of our world out of the water in this engaging and entertaining book.
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£16.99
Knowledge is power. Which is why the rich and powerful don’t want you to have it. ‘The Playbook’ is an exposé of the extraordinary lengths that corporations will go to in order to deny the scientific facts – around climate change, public health risks and worker safety – when they don’t suit their agenda. Written in the form of a corporate handbook for tobacco, oil and pharmaceutical company executives, it is a litany of obfuscation techniques, denial, delays and outright lies. Part satire, part social history, part guide to resistance, this is a charge sheet against the powerful.
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£9.99
Drawing on ten years of immersion in the topic, Nordell digs into the cognitive science and social psychology that underpin efforts to eliminate bias, meets the people working to end it, and reveals what really works, and what doesn’t.
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£19.99
Discover and understand the key ideas that underpin the core science of chemistry and learn about the great minds who uncovered them. Written in plain English, ‘The Chemistry Book’ is packed with short, pithy explanations of some of the most historic moments in science, from the birth of atomic theory to the discovery of polythene and the development of new vaccine technologies to combat COVID-19. Simple graphics, such as flowcharts and mind maps, support the text and make the explanation of key concepts easy to follow. Arranged in chronological order, the book covers key themes in the physical and natural sciences, such as geochemistry and the elements.
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£10.99
Of all the many things humans rely on plants for, surely the most curious is our use of them to change consciousness: to stimulate, calm, or completely alter the qualities of our mental experience. In this book, Michael Pollan explores three very different drugs – opium, caffeine and mescaline – and throws the fundamental strangeness of our thinking about them into sharp relief.
