101 Facts You Should Know About Food

One-third of all fruit and vegetables we eat contain pesticide residues 80% of 10-year-old American girls diet Blueberries may be more effective than drugs in protecting against heart disease The way fast food changes brain chemistry can make it as addictive as heroin Eating less could be the best way to stop growing old 75% of the salt in our diet comes from processed foods A typical fami…

30-Second Theories (HARDBACK)

A lavish, full-colour tour through mankind’s greatest scientific ideas. When it comes to big science, very few things are conclusively known. From Quantum Mechanics to Natural Selection, what we have instead are theories – ideas explain why things happen the way they do. We don’t know for certain these are correct – no one ever saw the Big Bang – but with them we can…

A Mind of Its Own (HARDBACK)

Can you trust your brain? Perhaps it occasionally misfires when faced with the 13 times table, or persistently fails to master parallel parking. But the brain is pretty amazing. Never before have we known so much about the sophistication of those one hundred billion grey cells. You might feel justified in thinking that you know what your brain's up to, and that you're in control. Sorry. Think aga…

A Mind of Its Own (PAPERBACK)

Can you trust your own mind? Perhaps it stumbles when faced with the 13 times table, or persistently fails to master parallel parking. But the brain is amazing. Never before have we known so much about what it's up to. You might feel justified in thinking that you're in control. Sorry. Think again. Your brain is fooling you. It's stubborn, emotional and deceitful. Cordelia Fine, described by The…

A New Science of Life

After chemists crystallized a new chemical for the first time, it became easier and easier to crystallize in laboratories all over the world. After rats at Harvard first escaped from a new kind of water maze, successive generations learned quicker and quicker. Then rats in Melbourne, Australia learned yet faster. Rats with no trained ancestors shared in this improvement. Rupert Sheldrake…

An Entertainment for Angels: Electricity in the Enlightenment

Electricity was the scientific fashion of the Enlightenment, 'an Entertainment for Angels, rather than for Men'. Lecturers attracted huge audiences to marvel at sparkling fountains, flaming drinks, pirouetting dancers and electrified boys. Flamboyant experimenters made chains of soldiers leap into the air, while wealthy women titillated their admirers with a sensational electric kiss. Enlightenmen…

Atom (HARDBACK)

  Written by award-winning science writer Piers Bizony and with a foreword by series presenter Jim Al-Khalili, Atom - the official tie-in with the BBC programme of the same name - is the truly incredible story of a discovery with a strong claim to be the most important in the history of science. Atomic theory has a reputation for complexity, but this is a human story - of the men and women w…

Atom (PAPERBACK)

'Bizony brings an enthusiasm to his subject that elevates it to high drama, and shows how after even after two centuries we are still being confronted with bizarre discoveries and questions in this brand of science.' Good Book Guide 'Bizony's insightful, compelling book chronicles our quest to understand the atom through the personalities of those who looked furthest into its abyss - a human dram…