==Popular science==
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{{newreview
|author=Steve Backshall
|title=Predators
|rating=4
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
|summary=Many readers would probably know that on the simple count of humans they helped to dispatch, mosquitoes may be the most deadly animals ever. But did you know that if you take into account the success rate of hunts, diversity and spread, ladybirds are more successful predators than tigers?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444004174</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Sam Leith
And just why is the ''i'' in iPod so important?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099437929</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Bruce Bueno de Mesquita
|title=Prediction: How to See and Shape the Future with Game Theory
|rating=3.5
|genre=Popular Science
|summary=As a rather mediocre recreational poker player I've often been intrigued by game theory. The academic discipline used by politicos during the chilliest days of the Cold War has been utilised by the more mathematically minded players on the professional circuit to improve profitability. Rather than poker, author and politics professor Bruce Bueno de Mesquita uses game theory models to forecast political, economic and international security scenarios and in Prediction he shares some of his secrets.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099531844</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Tim Dee
|title=The Running Sky: A Bird-Watching Life
|rating=4
|genre=Popular Science
|summary=Tim Dee may already be known to you as a distinguished critic and adjudicator of contemporary poetry, or for producing BBC Radio 4's 'Poetry Please'. So it's hardly surprising that my first impression of his birdwatching memoir, ''The Running Sky'' is of poetic exactitude transferred to another genre. But I remain dazzled by the sustained quality of his writing over 80,000 words. Opened at any page, paragraphs of graceful prose enclose figurative language capturing the very essence of flight (hence the title, from a Philip Larkin poem). To Dee, flight is the nub of a bird's independence. He describes and wonders poetically – be it the collective sweep of flock formations, the mysteries of migration, or individual observations of nightjars, carrion crows or peregrines.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099516497</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Paul Bloom
|title=How Pleasure Works: The New Science of Why We Like What We Like
|rating=5
|genre=Popular Science
|summary=How much would you pay for a jumper that used to belong to Brad Pitt? What about if I had it dry cleaned for you first? Chances are, if you were considering the first offer, you've just been put off somewhat. But why? The jumper hasn't changed, after all. Do you honestly and rationally, believe that dry cleaning would destroy some of Brad's 'essence', thus making the item less valuable?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847921434</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=John Farndon
|title=Do You Think You're Clever?: The Oxbridge Questions
|rating=3.5
|genre=Popular Science
|summary=My history of interviews with Oxbridge colleges forms a very short dialogue. Me, to university admissions representative, ''You don’t actually do media studies per se, do you?'' He, ''No – our graduates run the media.'' Had I got a lot further, and sat in front of a potential tutor, I would have faced a question designed to baffle, provoke, bewilder – or to inspire a flight of intuitive intelligence. Thus is the media-running wheat separated from the media-consuming chaff. And thus is this book given its basis – sixty of the more remarkable questions, answered as our erudite author might have wished to answer them.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184831132X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Lisa Sanders
|title=Diagnosis: Dispatches from the Frontlines of Medical Mysteries
|rating=4
|genre=Popular Science
|summary=Fans of ‘’House, M.D.’’ may recognise the name of Lisa Sanders. She’s the technical advisor to the TV show as well as being the writer of the ‘’Diagnosis’’ column in the New York Times. Many of the stories which appear in the column are recounted in this book, which is a look at the way in which doctors reach a diagnosis and how the method has changed (or not) over the years. I’m not a fan of the hospital dramas which seem to be a major feature of the TV schedules, but I was fascinated by what is, essentially, a series of medical detective stories.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848311338</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Stefan Klein
|title=Leonardo's Legacy: How Da Vinci Reinvented the World
|rating=5
|genre=Biography
|summary=This excellent combination of science history and biography starts with the most populist and some of the most awkwardly scientific. Basically it throws modern-day science at the Mona Lisa, which you might think is a little unfair – can she cope with being analysed, and the neuroscience we now know used in interpreting her? Of course she can – she’s the world’s best-known masterpiece of Italian art, and she’s survived much worse. Klein’s approach fully works, when we see also the science da Vinci did know and that he worked on himself, which all helps us know partly why the truths of La Gioconda are still unknowable.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0306818256</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Paul Parsons
|title=30-Second Theories
|rating=3
|genre=Popular Science
|summary=Take fifty of science's most thought-provoking theories, and try to explain each in thirty seconds or one page. It's all here, from Schrodinger's cat, to cosmic topology, via the Gaia hypothesis and chaos theory.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184831129X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Mark Griffiths
|title=The Lotus Quest
|rating=4
|genre=Travel
|summary=Mark Griffiths is one of Britain's leading plant experts. I know this because his brief biog in the front of The Lotus Quest tells me so; just as it tells me that he is the editor of The New Royal Horticultural Society Dictionary of Gardening 'the largest work on horticulture ever published'. His prior works list includes five other plant book credits, three of them for the RHS. I shall take all of this on trust, since attempts to find out more about the author and his background through the usual internet search mechanisms has failed miserably. He remains as elusive as the sacred flower that is the subject of this latest work: the lotus.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184595100X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Glenn Murphy
|title=Science: Sorted! Evolution, Nature and Stuff
|rating=5
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
|summary=Ever wanted to know about evolution, nature and stuff? Unsurprisingly, this is the book for you. If you're interested in [http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0330508938?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=0330508938 space, black holes and stuff], then Glenn Murphy has also written a sister book in the ''Science: Sorted!'' series packed full of all the information you'd want to know. It's all written with the fabulous quality that made [[Why is Snot Green? by Glenn Murphy|Why is Snot Green?]] such a must-read.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330508946</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Alex Bellos
|title=Alex's Adventures In Numberland
|rating=5
|genre=Popular Science
|summary=Maths is a wonderful thing. ...Wait, don't run away. It really is. The way numbers interact with each other, the way counting systems developed, how mathematical breakthroughs are coming from the world of crochet, and how people can mentally calculate the 13th root of a 200 digit number in almost less time than it takes to read it out loud. There's all sorts of weird and wonderful stuff going on in Numberland.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0747597162</amazonuk>
}}