Popular Science

James Lovelock, creator of the Gaia hypothesis and the greatest environmental thinker of our time, has produced an astounding new theory about future of life on Earth. He argues that...

CHOSEN AS A BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE GUARDIAN, DAILY TELEGRAPH, NEW STATESMAN AND BBC SCIENCE FOCUS'An intimate, unique, and inspiring perspective on the life and work of one...

A FINANCIAL TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2020Hello. I am a book. But I'm also a portal to the universe.I have 112 pages, measuring 20cm high and wide. I weigh...

Statistics has played a leading role in our scientific understanding of the world for centuries, yet we are all familiar with the way statistical claims can be sensationalised, particularly in...

Have you ever asked yourself how the inventions, gadgets, and devices that surround us actually work? Discover the hidden workings of everyday technology with this graphic guide.How Technology Works demystifies...

'IMPRESSIVE AND ILLUMINATING' TOM HANKS This is the definitive account of the heroic Apollo programme. When astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin took their 'giant leap for mankind' across a...

NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE ECONOMIST, OBSERVER, NEW SCIENTIST, BBC FOCUS, INDEPENDENT AND WASHINGTON POST 'Weird science, explained beautifully' - John Scalzi'A rollicking tour of the...

'Absorbing, mind-enlarging, studded with insights ... This could have significant real-world results' Sunday TimesHumanity's greatest feat is our incredible ability to learn. Even in their first year, infants acquire language,...

'Through the windows of the slowly turning spacecraft they looked out at the place where the sun had once been, and there was the moon: a huge, magnificent sphere bathed...

An all-in-one visual guide to human anatomy with encyclopedic coverage from bones and muscles to systems and processes. This in-depth manual to the human body's physical structure, chemical workings, and...

The Mexico we hear of in the news - the drug cartels, migration and senseless violence - is rich soil for Herrera's moving stories of people who live in this...

A complete visual guide to the universeTake a look through the lens and discover the beauty and science of the magnificent world that is our night sky - and beyond.From...

Unlock the mysteries of the night sky with this comprehensive guide to astronomy.The Practical Astronomer explains and demystifies stargazing and teaches you how to observe and navigate the night sky....

Is mathematics a discovery or an invention? Do numbers truly exist? What sort of reality do formulas describe?The complexity of mathematics - its abstract rules and obscure symbols - can...

'Endlessly fascinating and full of surprises. Easily one of my books of the year' BILL BRYSONThe myth-busting science behind our modern attitudes to exercise: what our bodies really need, why...

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...

'Brilliantly written and genuinely one of the most important books I have ever read' - Ellie Mae O'Hagan An engrossing exploration of the science, history and politics of the Anthropocene,...

'Michael Lewis could spin gold out of any topic he chose ... his best work ... vivid, original and hard to forget' Tim Harford, Financial Times'Gripping ... There is war,...

A world-renowned astrophysicist takes us through the huge, unfolding history of the universeThe night sky is an endless source of wonder and mystery. For thousands of years it has been...

Since the dawn of humankind, people have looked upward to the heavens and tried tounderstand what's out there. This encyclopedia takes you on a journey through time and space to...

While geeks' obsessive desire for data makes them constant curators of useless information, it also drives them to great lengths to find the solutions to everyday problems. How do you...

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was conceived against the backdrop of rapid change in the scientific world. And the science that inspired it is almost as strange as the novel itself. Shelley...

All eyes are on Mars. NASA's new lander, InSight, has touched down on the red planet, and in two years Mars 2020 rover will depart Cape Canaveral bound for the...

The very best images captured by the new generation of terrestrial telescopes, orbiting telescopes and deep-space probes and landers have been collected in this magnificent volume. Detailed captions explain the...

Known as the father of modern electricity, Nikola Tesla's work transformed the world. The scientist and engineer was devoted to discovery, registering over 700 patents in his lifetime. From X-ray...

Hawking explores the life and work, explaining the breakthroughs at the cutting edge of cosmology, from the Big Bang to black holes, and the ups and downs of Stephen Hawking's...

Einstein is an introduction to the man who has contributed more to theoretical physics than anyone else in the last 150 years. Written by the first author allowed access to...

Genius Inventions gives readers an unprecedented insight into the events, people and histories behind technological and scientific developments that have helped shape modern civilization. Discover the inspiration for some of...

Mathematics - A Curious History opens new doors to the amazing world of maths. Telling the exciting story from a historical perspective, it shows how mathematical science advanced through the...

The Red Planet holds an enduring fascination. Filled with extraordinary detail and documents, this book offers a visually stunning insider's look at how Mars has been explored and the challenges...

A sweeping tour of the galaxies, from our Milky Way to infinity. Galaxies are glittering islands in the Universe, interwoven in the web of Dark Matter. From Earth's mountaintops enormous...

The development of the placenta was a pivotal event in evolution. Without it, we would still be laying eggs instead of giving birth to live offspring. It represents the critical...

Mathematics is a fundamental human activity that can be practised and understood in a multitude of ways; indeed, mathematical ideas themselves are far from being fixed, but are adapted and...

From the sudden expansion of a cloud of gas or the cooling of a hot metal, to the unfolding of a thought in our minds and even the course of...

This Very Short Introduction uses Newton's own unpublished writings to provide fascinating insight into the man who kept the Royal Society under his thumb, was Head of the Mint, and...

The eye is one of the most remarkable achievements of evolution, and has evolved up to 40 times in different parts of the animal kingdom. In humans, vision is the...

Authoritative and reliable, this A-Z provides jargon-free definitions for even the most technical mathematical terms. With over 3,000 entries ranging from Achilles paradox to zero matrix, it covers all commonly...

Where did I come from? Why do I have two arms but just one head? How is my left leg the same size as my right one? Why are the...

For many centuries, Aristotle's Physics was the essential starting point for anyone who wished to study the natural sciencesThis book begins with an analysis of change, which introduces us to...

The Cosmic Mystery Tour takes us on a lightning tour of the mysteries of the universe enlivened by brief stories of the colourful characters who created modern science. It explores...

The past few years have seen a revolution in our ability to map whole genome DNA from ancient humans. With the ancient DNA revolution, combined with rapid genome mapping of...

For all the discussion in the media about creationism and 'Intelligent Design', virtually nothing has been said about the evidence in question - the evidence for evolution by natural selection....

Mitochondria are tiny structures located inside our cells that carry out the essential task of producing energy for the cell. They are found in all complex living things, and in...

For many decades, the proponents of `artificial intelligence' have maintained that computers will soon be able to do everything that a human can do. In his bestselling work of popular...

Games are everywhere: Drivers manoeuvring in heavy traffic are playing a driving game. Bargain hunters bidding on eBay are playing an auctioning game. A firm negotiating next year's wage is...

Seventy years ago, Erwin Schroedinger posed a profound question: 'What is life, and how did it emerge from non-life?' This problem has puzzled biologists and physical scientists ever since. Living...

In a startling reinterpretation of the evidence, Stillman Drake advances the hypothesis that Galileo's trial and condemnation by the Inquisition was caused not by his defiance of the Church, but...

Nuclear physics began long before the identification of fundamental particles, with J. J. Thomson's discovery of the electron at the end of the 19th century, which implied the existence of...