Open main menu

Changes

no edit summary
[[Category:Popular Science|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Popular Science]]==Popular science==__NOTOC__{{newreview|author=Richard Conniff|title=Swimming with Piranhas at Feeding Time: My Life Doing Dumb Stuff with Animals|rating=4|genre=Popular Science|summary=This isn't quite the book it seems. From the subtitle, I inferred a memoir or autobiography. Instead Richard Conniff has chosen twenty <!--three of his journal articles to reprint from a clutch of prestigious magazines, including ''National Geographic'' and ''Smithsonian''. Taken together, they illustrate his wide range of interests in the animal world. While this glimpse of some of the most peculiar creatures on the planet makes for fascinating reading, it's definitely not a book to be galloped through in a single sitting.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393304574</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Russell Foster and Leon Kreitzman|title=Seasons of Life: The Biological Rhythms That Living Things Need to Thrive and Survive|rating=3.5|genre=Popular Science|summary="Seasons of Life" aims to present a rounded picture of the way seasonality affects human life as well as the rest of nature. Covering everything from Seasonal Affective Disorder to the potential for animals to adapt to climate change, this book would be an interesting read for anyone with an enquiring mind and an interest in the natural world.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>186197969X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Mark van Vugt and Anjana Ahuja|title=Selected: Why some people lead, why others follow, and why it matters|rating=4|genre=Business and Finance|summary=''Selected'' is based on the psychology of leadership. Some of us may ask the perfectly reasonable question 'Does it matter who leads and who follows?' Well, apparently it not only matters but it matters greatly. And the coRemove -authors go to great lengths to tell us why. The useful prologue informs us that the whole area of leadership can be traced back in time, by no less than several million years. Vugt and Ahuja explain that the rather innocent (and even a bit airy-fairy to some) word 'leader' is evolved from various academic disciplines. Including the more obvious psychology, there is also biology and anthropology in the mix. Heady stuff. And yes, I did want to read on.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846683270</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Adam Phillips|title=On Balance|rating=4|genre=Politics and Society|summary=Essential for a tightrope walker, prized as an intellectual objective, balance is generally considered something to which we can aspire. We praise someone who makes a balanced decision, we envy people who have a 'good work/life balance' we offer an opinion 'on balance' to demonstrate that we have considered various arguments and options.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241143888</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Geoffrey Miller1787333175|title=Must-Have: The Hidden Instincts Behind Everything We Buy|rating=4|genre=Popular Science|summary=If no one can tell the difference, why shell out $30 000 for a real Rolex when a 'mere' $1200 will get you a virtually identical replica? Why do luxury manufacturers such as BMW spend money advertising in mass media whose typical readership most likely wonYou Don't ever be able Have to afford their products? 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 Mad 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>}} {{newreviewWork Here|author=Paul Bloom|title=How Pleasure Works: The New Science of Why We Like What We LikeBenji Waterhouse
|rating=5
|genre=Popular Science
|summary=How much would you pay for a jumper that used I was tempted to read ''You Don't Have to belong be Mad to Brad Pitt? What about if I had it dry cleaned for you first? Chances are, if you were considering the first offer, youWork Here'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 Bradenjoying Adam Kay's 'essence', thus making the item less valuable?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847921434</amazonuk>}} first book {{newreviewamazonurl|authorisbn=John Farndon1509858636|title=Do You Think You're Clever?: The Oxbridge Questions|rating=3.5|genre=Popular Science|summary=My history This is Going to Hurt}}, a glorious mixture of insight into the workings of interviews with Oxbridge colleges forms a very short dialoguethe NHS, humour and autobiography. Me, to university admissions representative, ''You don’t actually do media studies per se, do you?Don'' He, t Have to be Mad...''No – our graduates run promised the media.'' Had I got a lot further, same elements but moved from physical problems to mental illness and sat in front the work of a potential tutor, psychiatrist. I would have faced did wonder whether it was acceptable to be looking for humour in this setting but the laughter is directed at a question designed to baffle, provoke, bewilder – or to inspire situation rather than a flight of intuitive intelligence. Thus person and it 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 themalways delivered with empathy and understanding. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>184831132X</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lisa Sanders1788360702|title=DiagnosisCharles, The Alternative Prince: Dispatches from the Frontlines of Medical MysteriesAn Unauthorised Biography|author=Edzard Ernst
|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 LisaFor over forty years, 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 Prince Charles has been an ardent supporter of Italian art, alternative medicine and she’s survived much worsecomplementary therapies. Klein’s approach fully works''Charles, 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 scienceThe Alternative Prince's most thought-provoking theories, and try to explain each in thirty seconds or one page. It's all here, from Schrodingercritically assesses the Prince's cat, to cosmic topologyopinions, via the Gaia hypothesis beliefs 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 aims against 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 background of Gardening 'the largest work on horticulture ever published'scientific evidence. His prior works list includes five other plant book credits, three There are few instances of them for the RHS. I shall take all of this on trust, since attempts to find out more about the author his beliefs being vindicated and his background through the usual internet search mechanisms relentless promotion of treatments which have no scientific support has failed miserably. He remains as elusive as done considerable damage to the sacred flower that reputation of a man who is the subject proud of this latest work: the lotushis refusal to apply evidence-based, logical reasoning to his ambitions.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184595100X</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Glenn Murphy0192779230|title=ScienceVery Short Introductions for Curious Young Minds: Sorted! Evolution, Nature and StuffThe Invisible World of Germs|author=Isabel Thomas
|rating=5
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
|summary=Ever wanted 'Germs' seems to have become a catch-all word to know about evolution, nature and stuff? Unsurprisingly, this is cover anything unpleasant which has the book for potential to make youill. If you're interested In the first book in [http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0330508938?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=0330508938 spacewhat looks to be a very promising new series, black holes OUP and stuff], then Glenn Murphy has also written Isabel Thomas have provided a sister book in clear and accessible introduction to the ''Science: Sorted!'' series packed full world of all germs. We get an informed look at how people originally thought about diseases and what they thought caused them and how the information you'd want to knowthinking has developed over time. It The vocabulary can be confusing but Thomas gives a regular box headed 's all written with the fabulous quality that made [[Why is Snot Green? by Glenn Murphy|Why is Snot Green?]] such speak like a must-read.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330508946</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Alex Bellos|title=Alexscientist's Adventures In Numberland|rating=5|genre=Popular Science|summary=Maths is a wonderful thing. ...Wait, donwhich explains some of the trickiest concepts and you't run away. It really is. The way numbers interact ll soon be familiar with each otherbacteria, the way counting systems developed, how mathematical breakthroughs are coming from the world of crochetfungi, protists and viruses – 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 Numberlandwe should protect ourselves.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0747597162</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Richard Forteygareth_steel|title=The Hidden LandscapeNever Work With Animals|author=Gareth Steel
|rating=4
|genre=Popular ScienceAnimals and Wildlife|summary=The purpose of this book is to explore the connection between the landscape and the geology underlying it, which in one of his many vivid similes Fortey compares the surface personality I don't often begin my reviews with the workings of the unconscious mind beneath. He starts by describing a journey he once made from Paddington Station to Haverford West, a market town in Pembrokeshire and warning but with ''Never Work With Animals'' it a passage back into the plutonic depths of geological aeons, indicated by the large 60cm monster trilobites that have been found in the Cambrian rocks near St David's. Fortey describes the magnificence of the Cathedral constructed from the local purple sandstone and mottled with moisture-loving lichens. He contrasts this with the anonymous character of a nearby brightly-coloured service station, anonymous and synthetic, an invader cheaply built and out of contextseems to be appropriate.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847920713</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Alexandra Horowitz|title=Inside Stories of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell and Know|rating=5|genre=Pets|summary=Ivet've long been aware that our two dogs s life have methods of communication which are far more subtle than anything a mere human can muster. They sense exactly how we are feeling – a slight change in the atmosphere proved popular since ''All Creatures Great and they will be alert. The reactions to a frown or a smile, laughter or tears are all different and theySmall''re capable of communicating with us in ways which have no need of words. For a while I thought it was our dogs who were special (well, but ''obviouslyNever Work With Animals'' they are…) but Iis definitely not the companion volume you've noticed other dogs communicating with each other and with humans and been looking for. As a TV show the more author would argue that I see the more that I wonder why they are referred to as 'dumb animals'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184737347X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Philip Ball|title=The Music Instinct: How Music Works and Why We CanAll Creatures't Do without it |rating=4|genre=Popular Science|summary='We need to talk about musiclacked realism, but it is hard. Very few people can as do itother similar programmes.' So Gareth Steel says Philip Ball that the book is not suitable for younger readers and - after 400 pages of talking about musicreading - I agree with him. Very few readers who make He says that he's written it that far will disagree to inform and provoke thought, particularly amongst aspiring vets. It deals with his conclusion, but most will have gained some enlightenment about how music works uncomfortable and why we enjoy distressing issues but itdoesn't lack sensitivity, although there are occasions when you would be best choosing between reading and eating.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847920888</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Derrick Niederman0241480442|title=Number FreakHealthy Vegan The Cookbook: A Mathematical Compendium from 1 to 200Vegan Cooking Meets Nutrition Science|author=Niko Rittenau and Sebastian Copien
|rating=4.5
|genre=Popular ScienceCookery|summary=This is Emotionally, I am a book that definitely does what it says on the tinvegan. Mentally, I am a vegan. Our author has the capacity I read [[How to grab each number between one and two hundred, Love Animals in a Human-Shaped World by Henry Mance]] and wring it for all its worth - all was appalled by the special status it might have way in which we treat animals in our culture search for (more easy with seven than, say, 187preferably cheap)food. Practically, all I am not a vegan. It worked for a while apart from the special properties it might possess (odd blip with regard to cheese but then a perfect, triangular, prime), and as many other things mathematicians and so on would find storm of interestthose events which you hope don't occur too often in your lifetime tempted me back to animal-based protein. Luckily there is enough here It wasn't the taste - I know that I can get plant-based food that tastes just as good as anything plundered from the animal kingdom - it was the ease of being able to make the book well worth get sufficient protein when meals were often snatched in a browse for us who would not deem themselves number buffsfew spare moments.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>071563710X</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kees van DeemterDaniel Gibbs with Teresa H Barker|title=Not Exactly - In Praise Of VaguenessA Tattoo on my Brain
|rating=3.5
|genre=Popular ScienceAutobiography|summary=How warm Alzheimer's is a warm day? Or ratherdisease that slowly wears away your identity and sense of self. I have been directly affected by this cruel disease, given as have many. Your memories and personality worn away like a statue over time affected the weather at the moment, how chilly is a chilly day? Is it better to know I want a small helping of peas, or to know elements. It seems as if nature wants that I want 82 peas? There are times when vagueness final victory over you and your dignity. This is more useful than being specificwhat makes Daniel Gibbs' memoir so admirable. Kees van Deemter makes this point, sharing many examples from Daniel Gibbs is a number of fields, including maths, philosophy, linguistics neurologist who was diagnosed with Alzheimers and AIhas documented his journey in ''A Tattoo on my Brain''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0199545901</amazonuk>1108838936
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Druin Burch0099551063|title=Taking the MedicineThe Wisdom of Psychopaths: Lessons in life from Saints, Spies and Serial Killers|author=Dr Kevin Dutton|rating=54
|genre=Popular Science
|summary=In 1898, Burch points out that a new drug was developed and marketed for the treatment of tuberculosis by Bayer & Co'' 'Donald Trump outscores Hitler on psychopathic traits' claims Oxford University researcher. TB is such an ancient enemy of man that there is apparently evidence of an earlier strain to be found in Egyptian mummies. The German firm had discovered a chemical that seemed to work well, and patients and indeed their own staff, who were tested seemed to respond well - it was named Heroin - and its addictive effects were at first missed.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845951506</amazonuk>}}''
{{newreview|author=Roger Scruton|title=I Drink Therefore I Am|rating=3Until the events of 6 January 2021 that might have surprised, even shocked many readers: now they're probably convinced that they knew it all along.5|genre=Popular Science|summary=Roger Scruton is The statement has lost a conservative philosopher and composer, best known for his work on philosophy and music, little of its shock value but who shares Plato's belief that 'nothing it does help us to understand more excellent or valuable than wine was ever granted by about the gods to mannature of psychopathy. It' and in this book seeks s too easy to combine his two interests of philosophy and associate psychopathy with the Yorkshire Ripper, Jeffrey Dahmer, Saddam Hussein or Robert Maudsley, the fruits of real-life Hannibal Lecter, but the vinetruth is that having psychopathic traits can sometimes be a good thing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847065082</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Keith Laidler1849767343|title=AnimalsCount on Me|author=Miguel Tanco
|rating=4.5
|genre=Popular ScienceChildren's Non-Fiction|summary=''Animals'' is described as a visual guide The title and format of this book might lead you to the animal kingdom, but please don't think of that it as a picture book as 's either about responsibility - or it's far more than thata basic 1-2-3 book for those just starting out on the numbers journey. DonIt isn't think of : it as 's a coffee table book either – despite the fact that its size – midway between A2 and A3 – might tempt you hymn of praise to think that waymaths. It's a journey through the complex diversity of the animal kingdom based on sound scientific principlesabout why maths is so wonderful and how you meet it in everyday life.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184916004X</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Bill ButterworthB08B39QNRH|title=Reversing Global Warming For Profit |rating=3.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=There aren't many climate change deniers left, are there? We all know it's there. We all know, too, that the world's population growth is on a collision course with the dwindling of its resources. The world's going to get hotter, its weather more extreme. Fossil fuels are going to run out. More and more people will compete for fewer and fewer Curious History of civilisationWriter's luxuries. We're all worried. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904312810</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewCramp: Solving an age-old problem|author=Richard Wrangham |title=Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human Michael Pritchard|rating=4.5
|genre=Popular Science
|summary=Humans are cooking apes. According to Richard Wrangham, mastery of fire and cooking of the food that resulted from it was at the root of human evolutionary development and ultimate success. Various factors have been proposed as the crucial stimulus which led to the appearance of the first recognisably human creatures: leaving aside divine intervention (be it from God, extra-terrestrials or future humans travelling in time), ''Society is based on speech but civilisation requires the candidates for what made our ancestral apes stand straighter and start growing brains range from socialised hunting to chattering about kinship to eating seafoodwritten word''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846682851</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview|author=Alexandra Bruce|title=2012: Science or Superstition|rating=3.5|genre=Popular Science|summary=I came to Michael Pritchard's ''The fuss about 2012 has not started just recentlyCurious History of Writer's Cramp'' by a rather strange route. The first book I have problems with my hands which orthopaedic surgeons refer to feature as 'interesting': I prefer the story was from a Yale professor, word 'painful' but I have an interest in 1966. We've also had prog rock bands named after Popol Vuh, the Maya creation mythway that hands work. But as the crunch date An exploration of December 21st, 2012 - the winter solstice that year - nears, it's becoming a very big story indeed. Even though it sounds absurd - the end history of a 5,125-year long cycle problem which has defeated some of the Maya calendar, which started on August 13th, 3114BCE best medical minds for some three-hundred- or was judged to start thenyears seemed liked excellent background reading and so it proved, when they came across this concept a couple of thousand years into that periodwith the book being as much about the doctors treating the sufferers and the changing medical attitudes as the problem itself. Surely they couldn't predict the future from their 'primitive' state with such accuracy?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1934708283</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stephen Baker1776572858|title=They've Got Your Number|rating=4.5|genre=Popular Science|summary=If you are in the slightest bit paranoid, worry that ''Big Brother'' is always watching or like to believe that you are not How Do You Make a number, but a free man (or woman), then this may not be the book for you, as it will do nothing to dispel any of those worries. If, on the other hand, you think 'the mathematical modelling of humanity' sounds like one of the sexiest things ever, and are chomping at the bit to learn more about it, then you might well be interested in what Business Week journalist Baker has to say.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099507021</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewBaby?|author=Dr Aaron Carroll Anna Fiske and Dr Rachel Vreeman|title=Don't Swallow Your GumBartlett (translator)
|rating=5
|genre=LifestyleHome and Family|summary=It's more than sixty years since I asked how babies were made. My mother was deeply embarrassed and told me that she''BANG'''d get me a book about it. That's A couple of days later I was handed a pamphlet (which delivered nothing more than the sound of copious urban myths being shot down. basics, in clinical language which had never been used in our house before) and I was told that it wouldn't be discussed any further as it ''BANGwasn't something which nice people talked about''. ThatI 's the sound of the old wives slamming the door, as their tales get revealed as baseless. 'knew''CLICKmore, but was little ''wiser'. That's the noise lots of ill-informed websites make as they get closed down. All noises come due to this brilliant bookThankfully, times have changed.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141043369</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Robert Rowland Smith Danny Dorling|title=Breakfast with SocratesSlowdown
|rating=4
|genre=Popular SciencePolitics and Society|summary=In ''Breakfast with Socrates'', subtitled A Philosophy We are living in a time of Everyday Liferapid change, former Oxford Fellow Robert Roland Smith takes various elements of a and we'typical' day re worried about it. Dorling tells us that the latter is normal, natural and probably good for us. We are designed to worry and provides insight into with the current state of what an eclectic collection of thinkers might we're doing in the world we have much to offer to make these mundane routines more interestingbe worried about. After all However, over the next three-hundred-and-some pages, if you can follow the arguments, it sets out in scientific detail why either we shouldn't be as worried as Socrates declared we are, or in some cases that we're worrying about the unexamined life wrong things. Mostly. Because mostly, things are not changing as rapidly as we think they are. In fact, the rate of change in many things is not worth living'slowing down and the direction of change will in some cases go into reverse.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846682371</amazonuk>0300243405
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=James HannamLangford_Emily|title=GodEmily's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern ScienceNumbers|author=Joss Langford|rating=54|genre=Popular ScienceChildren's Non-Fiction|summary=Everybody knows that the Medieval people thought the world Emily found words ''useful'', but counting was flat what she loved best. Obviously, you can count anything and that it wasnthere't until Columbus proved otherwise that they found out it was s no limit to how far you can go, but then Emily moved a spherestep further and began counting in twos. She knew all about odd and even numbers. Everybody knows that Then she began counting in threes: half of the inquisition burned people at list were even numbers, but the stake for their scientific ideas other half was odd and that Copernicus lived it was this list of odd numbers which occurred when you counted in perpetual fear threes which she called ''threeven''. (Actually, this confused me a little bit at first as they're a subset of persecution. Everyone knows that the Pope banned human dissection and odd numbers but sound as though they ought to be a subset of the number zeroeven numbers, and everybody is wrongbut it all worked out well when I really thought about it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848310706</amazonuk>)
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sally Kindberg and Tracey Turner1910593508|title=The Comic Strip History of SpaceApollo|author=Matt Fitch, Chris Baker and Mike Collins
|rating=5
|genre=Children's Non-FictionHistory|summary=Sally Kindberg and Tracey Turner treated us This incredible graphic novel is a love letter to a [[The Comic Strip History of the World by Sally Kindberg Moon landings and Tracey Turner|Comic Strip History of the World]]passion for the subject drips off every Apollo by Matt Fitch, Chris Baker and have now turned their attention to spaceMike Collins. They explain to children everything from This is a story we know well and because of this, the authors take a few narrative shortcuts knowing that we can fill in the origins of blanks. These shortcuts are the universe, only downside to what ancient civilisations thought the book. If you've ever read a comic book adaptation of a film you will be familiar with the stars, through astronomers discovering the truth about planets, right up to current space missionsslight feeling that there are scenes missing and that dialogue has been trimmed. This is a graphic novel that could easily have been three times as long and still felt too short.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0747594325</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ian Stewart1999308719|title=Professor Stewart's Hoard of Mathematical TreasuresLive Forever Manual: Science, ethics and companies behind the new anti-aging treatments|author=Adrian Cull
|rating=4.5
|genre=Popular ScienceLifestyle|summary=Ian Stewart has been collecting mathematical curiositiesFor many years now I've (half) joked that I intended to live forever and that so far, puzzles and stories since he it was 14working out OK. He published his Time has passed though and although I''Cabinet m a great deal fitter and healthier than most people of my age there were a few nagging health problems which were tipping my life out of Mathematical Curiositiesbalance. It was time to look for a new approach and as so often happens, the reviewing gods brought me the book I needed. '' in 2008Live Forever Manual: Science, ethics and hot on its success, hecompanies behind the new anti-ageing treatments''s sharing this second volume with usseemed like the answer to my problems - only you get so much more than just 101 tips.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846682924</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mick O'Hare1847941834|title=How To Make A TornadoAtomic Habits|author=James Clear|rating=4.5|genre=Popular ScienceLifestyle|summary=Another year, another must-read book from the New Scientist. WeI've been here said this before with [[Do Polar Bears Get Lonely? by Mick O'Hare|polar bears]]but there are some books that you seek out, some books that you stumble across and some books that drop into your life because you really MUST read them, like, [[Why Don't Penguinsright now! ' Feet Freeze? by Mick O'Hare|penguins]] and [[How To Fossilise Your Hamster by Mick OAtomic Habits'Hare|hamsters]]. Now it's time to turn our attention to how to make a tornado, and all the other crazy experiments that scientists have done over is in the yearslast category.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846682878</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Eva HoffmanHoneyborne BlueII|title=Time (Big Ideas)Blue Planet II|author=James Honeyborne and Mark Brownlow
|rating=4.5
|genre=Popular ScienceAnimals and Wildlife|summary=''Time'' is one You may well remember when the sticking of a number '2'Big Ideas'' series after a film title was suggesting something of books aiming prestige - that the first film had been so good it was fully justified to have something more. That has hardly been proven correct, but it has until recently almost been confined to revisit the greatest notions cinema - you barely got a TV series worthy of a numbered sequel, and concepts never in the world of non-fiction. If someone has made a nature series about, say, Alaska (and to provide them with boy aren't there are a modern summary lot of those these days) and understandingwants to make another, why she just makes another - nothing would justify the numeral. The series strives to cause people to think But some nature programmes do have the prestige, the energy and debate, the heft to redemand follow-evaluate and doubtups. Another ''Big Ideas'' books deal with topics such as ''Democracy''And after five years in the making, the BBC''Identity'' and ''Bodies''s Blue Planet series has delivered a second helping.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846680387</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw1783099593|title=Why Does E Equal mc Squared?Speaking Up|author=Allyson Jule|rating=4.5
|genre=Popular Science
|summary=Why does E=mc² and why should we care? Two questions that every intelligent person should be able to answer, but I'll bet that 95% couldnSpeaking Up'thas a fascinating subject matter - how language reflects and shapes our notions of gender. Brian Cox It looks at our use of language in media, education, religion, the workplace and Jeff Forshaw explain this most famous personal relationships. Author Allyson Jule calls on an encyclopedic body of equations research from the mid-twentieth century to the layperson in such a way present day. Reading it, we feel that she has studied everything that they won't need anything more complicated than Pythagoras' theorem to understand ithas ever been said on gendered linguistics; she references Foucault and the Kardashians with equal rigour.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0306817586</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tadg FarringtonCampbell_Astra|title=The Average Life of Ad Astra: An illustrated guide to leaving the Average Personplanet|author=Dallas Campbell
|rating=5
|genre=Popular Science
|summary=Back in school, we would often bemoan So… you want to leave the planet? Before you do you'd better study the idea whole history of 'average', saying that like being 'normal', if there were such a thing, who would even want human space flight to get up to be it? There speed. That could be nothing worse, we thought, than being average. Except...take a while… if only there is by definition was a whole lot worse than 'average' – the exact same amount handy guide that is better than average, in factcould condense it all down for you. And that was Enter Dallas Campbell with this book: An illustrated guide to leaving the problemplanet.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224086235</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Richard D RyderAdrian_Sock|title=Nelson, Hitler and DianaSock (Object Lessons)|author=Kim Adrian|rating=43.5
|genre=Popular Science
|summary=Was Horatio NelsonThe subject of this book has been around for several millennia, a navy officer and yet my partner's daughter has been employed for several years designing it, or them. It's something I use for about 200 days of great renownevery year, forever thrusting himself into the limelight, doing it because his mother passed away when he was nine? Was Hitler overly affected by his father dying in at a time of paternal disapprovalguess (well, I have my self-diagnosed over-active eccrine glands and a kind of Oedipal reaction other people to being think about) – which clearly puts me at the man in opposite end of the house making him suffer when she herself died? And can Dianascale to well-known mass-murderer of women, Ted Bundy, Princess of Wales' parents' divorce lead to a claim she who was a sufferer of borderline personality disorder?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845401662</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Evalyn Gates|title=Einstein's Telescope: The Hunt for Dark Matter and Dark Energy in the Universe|rating=4|genre=Popular Science |summary=Subtitled ''The Hunt for Dark Matter and Dark Energy in the Universe'' Gates' introduction into stealing credit cards to astro-physics and cosmology is everything that you would expect fund his desire of such having a bookfresh pair every single day. Gates' tries '''so''' hard On which subject, the amount of them we create every year could stack to be readable, the freaking moon and mostly succeedsmore. Some idiots buy more than six pairs a year, but at the same timeapparently, the subject matter which is well-nigh incomprehensibleplain stupid. Or maybeI'm talking, as you can tell, that's just meof the humble sock.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393062384</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stuart SutherlandGermano_Eye|title=IrrationalityEye Chart (Object Lessons)|author=William Germano
|rating=4.5
|genre=Popular Science
|summary=The belief It's happened to me, and like as not it has or will happen to you, too. I mean the receipt of certain little numerical results, with a positive or negative before them to prove the correction needed to my vision to make me see with the intended clarity and normality. I've had that gizmo that humans arephotos the back of my eye to check for diabetes and other problems, essentiallyI've had different tests to check the pressure inside my eye, rational dates and I've come away with glasses I don't need to wear all the Greek antiquitytime, but certainly benefit from on holiday, or when watching TV or a cinema or theatre production. And above and although intellectual beyond that I've stared at – and philosophical fashions changed throughout got wrong – the simple, seemingly ageless test, of various letters in various configurations that diminish in size, to prove to the relevant scientist at what stage things get blurry for me. Of course, it's not ageless, but the epochsscientific progress that led to it, the capacity changes other people made to reason it, and behave in a rational manner is often considered to be a defining characteristics of mature humanity. Irrational behaviours have been seen as an evidence of psychiatric or otherwise pathologythe cultural impact it's had are all on these eye-opening small pages.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905177070</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Brian DunningBall_Wonders|title=Skeptoid 2Wonders Beyond Numbers: More Critical Analysis A Brief History of Pop Phenomena All Things Mathematical|author=Johnny Ball|rating=45
|genre=Popular Science
|summary=Brian Dunning is the author responsible for a series Like many people of weekly podcasts debunking and analysing a variety ''certain age,'' I have fond memories of dubious, pseudo-scientific, un-scientific and downright loony ideas, claims and myths common or persistent tuning in to watch Johnny Ball enthusiastically extolling the pop (virtues of maths and science; succeeding where our schoolteachers had failed and not so pop) culture. actually making these subjects ''Skeptoid 2fun.'' is essentially a written version of Although decades have passed since those podcastsclassic TV shows, a collection his latest book proves that he has lost none of fifty pieces of which many can be also read or listened to at his [http://skeptoid.com/ website]passion and enthusiasm for his subject.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1440422850</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dan GardnerYong_Contain|title=RiskI Contain Multitudes: The Science the microbes within us and Politics a grander view of Fearlife|author=Ed Yong|rating=4.5
|genre=Popular Science
|summary=Picture The world you know is a world terrorised by just two wordslie. A civilised, healthy, wealthy world There is no less, in thrall to such thing as good or bad microbes. Sickness and under threat from two wordshealth are all far more complex than we thought. Not what those two words represent even, just the actual small phrase. It sounds ridiculous, but when I say those two words – ''bird flu'' – Things designed to save us may kill us and you've stopped laughing, you things we think would kill us may well remember how save us. Welcome to the panic started, the non-existent worry was the biggest concern modern study of the western media for some time, and then it went away againmicrobes.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0753515539</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview|author=Iain McCalman|title=Darwin's Armada: Four Voyagers to the Southern Oceans and Their Battle for the Theory of Evolution|rating=3.5|genre=Biography|summary=A look at Darwin's journey Move on The Beagle, as well as journeys by Joseph Hooker, Thomas Huxley and Alfred Wallace. Darwin's Armada provides a broad overview that strikes a different tone to other books in a crowded market. Casual readers who usually steer clear of non-fiction will enjoy it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184737266X</amazonuk>}}[[Newest Reference Reviews]]