Stephen Hawking’s phenomenal, multimillion-copy bestseller, A Brief History of Time, introduced the ideas of this brilliant theoretical physicist to readers all over the world.Now, in a major publishing event, Hawking returns with a lavishly illustrated sequel that unravels the mysteries of the major breakthroughs that have occurred in the years since the release of his acclaimed first book.

    After all, we ourselves are the product of evolution, and we can tackle many of our gravest challenges –– from lethal resurgence of antiobiotic–resistant diseases to the wave of extinctions that looms before us –– with a sound understanding of the science.

    Penned by award-winning science writer John Emsley, Nature's Building Blocks explains the what, why and wherefore of the chemical elements. Arranged alphabetically, from Actinium to Zirconium, it is a complete guide to all 115 of those that are currently known, with more extensive coverage of those elements we encounter in our everyday life. The entry on each element reveals where it came from, what role it may have in the human body, and the foods that contain it. There are also sections on its discovery, its part in human health or illness, the uses and misuses to which it is put, and its environmental role. Readers discover that the Earth consists of around 90 elements, some of which are abundant, such as the silicon and oxygen of rocks and soils, while some are so rare that they make gold seem cheap. Our own bodies contain about 30 elements, some in abundance, some in trace amounts; some vital to our health, and some that are positively harmful. A list of the main scientific data, and outline properties, are given for every element and each section ends with an Element of Surprise, which highlights some unexpected way in which each element influences our everyday life. Both a reliable reference source and a high browsable account of the elements, Nature's Building Blocks offers a pleasurable tour of the very essence of our material world.

    William H. Cropper vividly portrays the life and accomplishments of such giants as Galileo and Isaac Newton, Marie Curie and Ernest Rutherford, Albert Einstein and NielsBohr, right up to contemporary figures such as Richard Feynman, Murray Gell-Mann, and Stephen Hawking. We meet scientists--all geniuses--who could be gregarious, aloof, unpretentious, friendly, dogged, imperious, generous to colleagues or contentious rivals. As Cropper captures their personalities, he also offers vivid portraits of their great moments of discovery, their bitter feuds, their relations with family and friends, their religious beliefs and education. In addition, Cropper has grouped these biographies by discipline--mechanics, thermodynamics, particle physics, and others--eachsection beginning with a historical overview. Thus in the section on quantum mechanics, readers can see how the work of Max Planck influenced Niels Bohr, and how Bohr in turn influenced Werner Heisenberg.Our understanding of the physical world has increased dramatically in the last four centuries. With Great Physicists, readers can retrace the footsteps of the men and women who led the way.

    These torchlight adventures have since inspired a generation of scientists, and his research is still considered useful today. In The Secret Life of Wombats, James Woodford pursues Nicholson's story and embarks on his own journey to uncover the true nature of our most intriguing marsupial."Woodford has done the research, he has read widely, spoken with the major wombat pundits and with the lay observers. He has travelled to gain direct experience of all species...I know more about wombats than I did, and retain some stark images which I hope never to lose." - Sunday Age.

    The immensity of these creatures is overwhelming. Fully grown they reach at least thirty-five feet in length and weigh more than thirty tons -- ten times the size of a large elephant. The mother dwarfs our little boat. The calf is nearly one-third her size. With a mere flick of the tail, either whale could overturn us. Eye of the Whale focuses on one great whale in particular -- the coastal-traveling California gray whale. Gray whales make the longest migration of any mammal -- from the lagoons of Baja California to the feeding grounds of the Bering Strait between Alaska and Siberia (nearly 6,000 miles). That the gray whale exists today is nothing short of miraculous. Whaling fleets twice massacred the species to near extinction -- first during the nineteenth century and again during the early part of the twentieth century. As they moved in for the kill, whalers claimed their prey by naming it: "Hard-Head"; "Devil-fish"; "sea-serpent crossed with an alligator." These ominous tags suggest a fearsome creature, yet today the grays are most commonly known as the friendly whale, the species that inspired the whale-watching industry. Eye of the Whale shows the life-changing effect the gray whale has had upon people past and present -- whalers, hunters, marine scientists, whale watchers, and even businessmen -- who have looked into the eye of a whale and have come away transformed. Over the course of this astonishing book, the gray whale emerges as a millennial metaphor, mirroring a host of ecological, political, and social issues concerning our relationship to nature. The book also traces the remarkable story of Charles Melville Scammon, the whaling captain responsible for bringing gray whales to the brink of extinction after discovering the Baja lagoons in the 1850s to 1860s. Paradoxically, he went on to become one of the most renowned naturalist writers of his time, and in 1874 authored and illustrated a still-definitive work, The Marine Mammals of the North-Western Coast of North America. More than a hundred years later, author Dick Russell sets out to track the migration of the gray whale and to retrace Scammon's own path. This epic journey stretches from Mexico to California, Oregon, Washington, Vancouver Island, Alaska, and into Siberia and even remote Sakhalin Island in the Russian Far East. In these exotic locales seethe the current controversies surrounding the gray whale: an effort by Mitsubishi and the Mexican government to build a massive new salt factory within its pristine nursery area; the Makah tribe's renewed hunting of gray whales after a hiatus of seventy years; Japan's recruitment of the Makah and other indigenous peoples in their quest to resurrect commercial whaling. Eye of the Whale is a stunning work of scientific reporting and travel writing that greatly advances our understanding not only of the gray whale but of the natural world. While it may be impossible to know for certain the fate of this majestic creature, with Russell's sage guidance we may glimpse it -- in the eye of the whale.

    It challenges the current wisdom of cell function, and presents a new, simpler approach to fundamental processes such as movement, transport, division, and communication, based on sound physical principles. The book is profusely illustrated with many color figures. It is written for the non-expert in an accessible, often humorous style.

    Through this astonishing work, he manages to stoke wonder at the powers and unlikely events that conspired to create our solar system, our ecosystem, and us.

    Covers all the important groups on a worldwide basis and explains what makes insects successful. The book is in three sections: first is a straightforward introduction to insect biology; followed by a section on field work; lastly an order-by-order catalog of the insects giving essential facts and details of life-histories, highlighting what makes each order distinct. To make the material as accessible as possible, the information for each order is presented in a standard manner and is written in a straighforward style with as little technical language as possible. Essential terms are fully explained in context with marginal notes. A pictoral guide, specially commissioned by Richard Lewington, is included to aid in the identification of the orders.

    

    He explains its role in history, and elaborates on the botany of a grass field or lawn in fascinating detail.

    In this book Elton introduced and drew together many principles still central to ecology today, including succession, niche, food webs, and the links between communities and ecosystems, each of which he illustrated with well-chosen examples. Many of Elton's ideas have proven remarkably prescient—for instance, his emphasis on the role climatic changes play in population fluctuations anticipated recent research in this area stimulated by concerns about global warming.For Chicago's reprint of this classic work, ecologists Mathew A. Leibold and J. Timothy Wootton have provided new introductions to each chapter, placing Elton's ideas in historical and scientific context. They trace modern developments in each of the key themes Elton introduced, and provide references to the most current literature. The result will be an important work for ecologists interested in the roots of their discipline, for educated readers looking for a good overview of the field, and for historians of science.

    There have now been space probes to all the major planets of the Earth's Solar System -- the only worlds that are likely to be physically explored in our lifetime. Beyond the Solar System, across the final frontier of space, however, astronomers are now able to explore the Universe by proxy, using evidence from light, radio waves, x-ray, and other information gathered by telescopes on the Earth's surface and by orbiting satellites. Astronomers can now work out the life cycles of stars, the evolution of galaxies, the location of other solar systems, and the fate of the Universe itself. Hyperspace: Our Final Frontier provides a compelling insight into the way that astronomers work, explaining how they make the discoveries that make headlines, as well as the stories behind those headlines. From the first steps which measured the distances to the nearest stars, to the latest discovery that the Universe is expanding at an ever faster rate, John Gribbin puts deep space into perspective with the aid of specially commissioned illustrations and revealing photographs from the latest generation of astronomical telescopes.