The award-winning author Melanie Mitchell, a leading computer scientist, now reveals AI’s turbulent history and the recent spate of apparent successes, grand hopes, and emerging fears surrounding it.In Artificial Intelligence, Mitchell turns to the most urgent questions concerning AI today: How intelligent—really—are the best AI programs? How do they work? What can they actually do, and when do they fail? How humanlike do we expect them to become, and how soon do we need to worry about them surpassing us? Along the way, she introduces the dominant models of modern AI and machine learning, describing cutting-edge AI programs, their human inventors, and the historical lines of thought underpinning recent achievements. She meets with fellow experts such as Douglas Hofstadter, the cognitive scientist and Pulitzer Prize–winning author of the modern classic Gödel, Escher, Bach, who explains why he is “terrified” about the future of AI. She explores the profound disconnect between the hype and the actual achievements in AI, providing a clear sense of what the field has accomplished and how much further it has to go.Interweaving stories about the science of AI and the people behind it, Artificial Intelligence brims with clear-sighted, captivating, and accessible accounts of the most interesting and provocative modern work in the field, flavored with Mitchell’s humor and personal observations. This frank, lively book is an indispensable guide to understanding today’s AI, its quest for “human-level” intelligence, and its impact on the future for us all.

    We wouldn’t have unraveled DNA or discovered Neptune or figured out how to put 5,000 songs in your pocket. Though many of us were scared away from this essential, engrossing subject in high school and college, Steven Strogatz’s brilliantly creative, down‑to‑earth history shows that calculus is not about complexity; it’s about simplicity. It harnesses an unreal number—infinity—to tackle real‑world problems, breaking them down into easier ones and then reassembling the answers into solutions that feel miraculous. Infinite Powers recounts how calculus tantalized and thrilled its inventors, starting with its first glimmers in ancient Greece and bringing us right up to the discovery of gravitational waves (a phenomenon predicted by calculus). Strogatz reveals how this form of math rose to the challenges of each age: how to determine the area of a circle with only sand and a stick; how to explain why Mars goes “backwards” sometimes; how to make electricity with magnets; how to ensure your rocket doesn’t miss the moon; how to turn the tide in the fight against AIDS. As Strogatz proves, calculus is truly the language of the universe. By unveiling the principles of that language, Infinite Powers makes us marvel at the world anew.

    New technologies have revealed secrets locked in prehistoric bones that no one could have previously predicted. We can now work out the color of dinosaurs, the force of their bite, their top speeds, and even how they cared for their young.Remarkable new fossil discoveries—giant sauropod dinosaur skeletons in Patagonia, dinosaurs with feathers in China, and a tiny dinosaur tail in Burmese amber—remain the lifeblood of modern paleobiology. Thanks to advances in technologies and methods, however, there has been a recent revolution in the scope of new information gleaned from such fossil finds.In Dinosaurs Rediscovered, leading paleontologist Michael J. Benton gathers together all the latest paleontological evidence, tracing the transformation of dinosaur study from its roots in antiquated natural history to an indisputably scientific field. Among other things, the book explores how dinosaur remains are found and excavated, and especially how paleontologists read the details of dinosaurs’ lives from their fossils—their colors, their growth, and even whether we will ever be able to bring them back to life. Benton’s account shows that, though extinct, dinosaurs are still very much a part of our world.

    I was mentally and physically broken. So fractured, I hadn't eaten properly or slept well, or even changed my expression for months. I sat in a cubicle, behind paper-thin curtains, listening to the rest of the hospital happen around me, and I shook with the effort of not crying. I was an inch away from defeat, from the acceptance of a failure I assumed would be inevitable, but I knew I had to carry on. I had to somehow walk through it.Because I wasn't the patient. I was the doctor."A frank account of mental health from both sides of the doctor-patient divide, from the bestselling author of The Trouble with Goats and Sheep and Three Things About Elsie, based on her own experience as a doctor working on a psychiatric ward.

    But how has the earth itself determined our destiny? Our planet wobbles, driving changes in climate that forced the transition from nomadism to farming. Mountainous terrain led to the development of democracy in Greece. Atmospheric circulation patterns later on shaped the progression of global exploration, colonization, and trade. Even today, voting behavior in the south-east United States ultimately follows the underlying pattern of 75 million-year-old sediments from an ancient sea. Everywhere is the deep imprint of the planetary on the human.From the cultivation of the first crops to the founding of modern states, Origins reveals the breathtaking impact of the earth beneath our feet on the shape of our human civilizations.

    On what would have been my daughter's 29th birthday, Detective Superintendent Stephen Fulcher knocked on the door and told me my beautiful Becky was dead. Found buried in a shallow grave in a remote field, Becky had been brutally murdered.'When Becky Godden-Edwards was killed, her mother Karen awoke to a world where the truth was never guaranteed; where taxi driver Christopher Halliwell got away with murder and the police officer who found her daughter was punished instead. This is Karen's story. Despite unimaginable tragedy, her love for her daughter has been unbreakable: from her despair through Becky's troubled teenage years, to the agonising eight years when Becky was missing, and then the dramatic story of how a killer's confession led to a terrible discovery. The one constant has been Karen's determination to fight for Becky, tirelessly campaigning for the truth about what happened to be heard and for Halliwell to face the consequences of his evil actions. *The murders of Becky Godden-Edwards and Sian O'Callaghan will soon be the focus of major new ITV series A Confession starring Martin Freeman as Stephen Fulcher and Imelda Staunton as Karen Edwards*

    It may seem a big claim, but knowing how to think clearly and critically has literally helped save the world. In September 1983, at the height of the Cold War, the Soviet Union's early warning system showed five US missiles heading towards the country. Stanislaw Petrov knew his duty: he was to inform Moscow that nuclear war had begun, so that they could launch an immediate and devastating response. Instead, he made a call to say the system was faulty. He'd assessed the situation and reasoned that an error was more likely than such a limited attack.  We may not have to save the planet from nuclear annihilation, of course, but our ability to think critically has never been more important. In a world where fake news, mistrust of experts, prejudice and ignorance all too often hold sway, we can all too easily be misled over issues such as vaccinations, climate change or conspiracy theories. We live in an era where access to all the knowledge in the world is at our fingertips, yet that also means misinformation and falsehoods can spread further and faster than ever before.  In The Irrational Ape, David Robert Grimes shows how we can be lured into making critical mistakes or drawing false conclusions, and how to avoid such errors. Given the power of modern science and the way that movements can unite to protest a cause via social media, we are in dangerous times. But fortunately, we can learn from our mistakes, and by critical thinking and scientific method we can discover how to apply these techniques to everything from deciding what insurance to buy to averting global disaster. This book, packed with fascinating case studies and examples, helps ensure we are ready for the modern world.

    Most of the time this math works quietly behind the scenes . . . until it doesn't. All sorts of seemingly innocuous mathematical mistakes can have significant consequences.Math is easy to ignore until a misplaced decimal point upends the stock market, a unit conversion error causes a plane to crash, or someone divides by zero and stalls a battleship in the middle of the ocean.Exploring and explaining a litany of glitches, near misses, and mathematical mishaps involving the internet, big data, elections, street signs, lotteries, the Roman Empire, and an Olympic team, Matt Parker uncovers the bizarre ways math trips us up, and what this reveals about its essential place in our world. Getting it wrong has never been more fun.

    How To is a guide to the third kind of approach. It's full of highly impractical advice for everything from landing a plane to digging a hole.Bestselling author and cartoonist Randall Munroe explains how to predict the weather by analyzing the pixels of your Facebook photos. He teaches you how to tell if you're a baby boomer or a 90's kid by measuring the radioactivity of your teeth. He offers tips for taking a selfie with a telescope, crossing a river by boiling it, and powering your house by destroying the fabric of space-time. And if you want to get rid of the book once you're done with it, he walks you through your options for proper disposal, including dissolving it in the ocean, converting it to a vapor, using tectonic plates to subduct it into the Earth's mantle, or launching it into the Sun.By exploring the most complicated ways to do simple tasks, Munroe doesn't just make things difficult for himself and his readers. As he did so brilliantly in What If?, Munroe invites us to explore the most absurd reaches of the possible. Full of clever infographics and amusing illustrations, How To is a delightfully mind-bending way to better understand the science and technology underlying the things we do every day.

    By spinning 28 mathematical tales, Orlin shows us that calculus is simply another language to express the very things we humans grapple with every day -- love, risk, time, and most importantly, change. Divided into two parts, "Moments" and "Eternities," and drawing on everyone from Sherlock Holmes to Mark Twain to David Foster Wallace, Change is the Only Constant unearths connections between calculus, art, literature, and a beloved dog named Elvis. This is not just math for math's sake; it's math for the sake of becoming a wiser and more thoughtful human.

    “A riveting tale of derring-do” (Nature), this book reads like James Gleick’s Chaos combined with an Indiana Jones adventure.When leading Princeton physicist Paul Steinhardt began working in the 1980s, scientists thought they knew all the conceivable forms of matter. The Second Kind of Impossible is the story of Steinhardt’s thirty-five-year-long quest to challenge conventional wisdom. It begins with a curious geometric pattern that inspires two theoretical physicists to propose a radically new type of matter—one that raises the possibility of new materials with never before seen properties, but that violates laws set in stone for centuries. Steinhardt dubs this new form of matter “quasicrystal.” The rest of the scientific community calls it simply impossible. The Second Kind of Impossible captures Steinhardt’s scientific odyssey as it unfolds over decades, first to prove viability, and then to pursue his wildest conjecture—that nature made quasicrystals long before humans discovered them. Along the way, his team encounters clandestine collectors, corrupt scientists, secret diaries, international smugglers, and KGB agents. Their quest culminates in a daring expedition to a distant corner of the Earth, in pursuit of tiny fragments of a meteorite forged at the birth of the solar system. Steinhardt’s discoveries chart a new direction in science. They not only change our ideas about patterns and matter, but also reveal new truths about the processes that shaped our solar system. The underlying science is important, simple, and beautiful—and Steinhardt’s firsthand account is “packed with discovery, disappointment, exhilaration, and persistence...This book is a front-row seat to history as it is made” (Nature).

    The way we express affection, the sort of people we find appealing, our understanding of success and respectability, our approach to work and money… all have a habit of being decisively shaped by events in childhood. This isn’t to say that we have to remain prisoners of the past; it simply means that in order to liberate ourselves from our histories, we first have to become fully aware of them. This is a book about such a liberation. It acts as a guide to the influence of childhood on our adults selves, as well as to the way we can – through understanding – move on from some of the more unhelpful aspects of our early family dynamics. We learn about the way that character is formed, about the concept of ‘emotional inheritance,’ about the formation of our concepts of being ‘good’ or ‘bad’ - and the impact of parental styles of love on the way we choose adult partners. We learn too about how we might evolve emotionally and, in particular, how we may sometimes need to have a breakdown in order to have a breakthrough. The tone throughout is gentle, wry and humane. We are left with a powerful sense that building up an emotionally successful adult life is possible so long as we reflect with sufficient imagination and compassion on what happened to us a long while back.

    For thousands of years it has been at the heart of scientific and philosophical inquiry, from the first star catalogues etched into ancient Mesopotamian clay tablets to the metres-wide telescopes constructed in Chile's Atacama Desert today. On a clear night it is hard not to look up and pick out familiar constellations, and to think of the visionary minds who pioneered our understanding of what lies beyond.In this thrilling new guide to our Universe and how it works, Professor of Astrophysics Jo Dunkley reveals how it only becomes more beautiful and exciting the more we discover about it. With warmth and clarity, Dunkley takes us from the very basics - why the Earth orbits the Sun, and how our Moon works - right up to massive, strange phenomena like superclusters, quasars, and the geometry of spacetime. As she does so, Dunkley unfurls the history of humankind's heroic journey to understand the history and structure of the cosmos, revealing the extraordinary, little-known stories of astronomy pioneers including Williamina Fleming, Vera Rubin and Jocelyn Bell Burnell.Illuminating and uplifting, this is your essential guide to the biggest subject of all.

    Written by Oxford astrophysicist Dr Becky Smethurst and composed of ten captivating, simple essays, it guides you swiftly through the galaxies, explaining the mysteries of black holes, dark matter and what existed before the Big Bang, presenting the evidence as to whether we really are alone, illuminating what we still don't know, and much more besides.If you have big questions about Space, this book will provide you with the answers in an engaging and succinct way.

    “Science is important because this is how we seek to discover the truth about the world. And this is what makes excellent science and nature writing essential,” observes New York Times best-selling author Sy Montgomery. “Science and nature writing are how we share the truth about the universe with the people of the world.” And collected here are truths about nearly every corner of the universe. From meditations on extinction, to the search for alien life, to the prejudice that infects our medical system, the pieces in this year’s Best American Science and Nature Writing seek to bring to the people stories of some of the most pressing issues facing our planet, as well as moments of wonder reflecting the immense beauty our natural world offers.

    Sean Carroll, theoretical physicist and one of this world’s most celebrated writers on science, rewrites the history of 20th century physics. Already hailed as a masterpiece, Something Deeply Hidden shows for the first time that facing up to the essential puzzle of quantum mechanics utterly transforms how we think about space and time. His reconciling of quantum mechanics with Einstein’s theory of relativity changes, well, everything. Most physicists haven’t even recognized the uncomfortable truth: physics has been in crisis since 1927. Quantum mechanics has always had obvious gaps—which have come to be simply ignored. Science popularizers keep telling us how weird it is, how impossible it is to understand. Academics discourage students from working on the "dead end" of quantum foundations. Putting his professional reputation on the line with this audacious yet entirely reasonable book, Carroll says that the crisis can now come to an end. We just have to accept that there is more than one of us in the universe. There are many, many Sean Carrolls. Many of every one of us. Copies of you are generated thousands of times per second. The Many Worlds Theory of quantum behavior says that every time there is a quantum event, a world splits off with everything in it the same, except in that other world the quantum event didn't happen. Step-by-step in Carroll's uniquely lucid way, he tackles the major objections to this otherworldly revelation until his case is inescapably established. Rarely does a book so fully reorganize how we think about our place in the universe. We are on the threshold of a new understanding—of where we are in the cosmos, and what we are made of.

    From the Giant Golden Crowned Flying Fox, a megabat with a wingspan of more than five feet, to the aptly named Bumblebee Bat, the world's smallest mammal, the number and diversity of bat species have proven to be both rich and underestimated. Nocturnal, fast-flying, and secretive, bats are difficult to observe and catalog. This richly illustrated handbook presents bats' evolution, biology, behavior, and ecology. It offers in-depth profiles of four hundred megabats and microbats and detailed summaries of all the species identified to date. Complete with an introduction exploring bats' natural history and their unique adaptations to life on the wing, Bats includes close-up images of these animals' delicate and intricate forms and faces, each shaped by evolution to meet the demands of an extraordinarily specialized life.

    In the quantum realm, objects can be in two places at once. It's a place where time travel is not only possible, but necessary. It's a place where cause and effect can happen in reverse and observing something changes its state. From parallel universes to antimatter, quantum mechanics has revealed that when you get right down to it, the laws of nature are insane. The scientist J. B. S. Haldane once said, 'Reality is not only stranger than we imagine . . . it's stranger than we can imagine.' Never is this more true than with quantum mechanics; our best, most recent attempt to make sense of the fundamental laws of nature.Fundamental is a comprehensive beginner's guide to quantum mechanics, explaining not only the weirdness of the subject but the experiments that proved it to be true. Using a humorous and light-hearted approach, Fundamental tells the story of how the most brilliant minds in science grappled with seemingly impossible ideas and gave us everything from microchips to particle accelerators. Fundamental gives clear explanations of all the quantum phenomena known to modern science, without requiring an understanding of complex mathematics; tells the eccentric stories of the scientists who made these shattering discoveries and what they used them for; explains how quantum field theory (a topic not covered in detail by any other popular-science book) gave rise to particle physics and why the Higgs boson isn't the end of the story.

     'A deeply fascinating and rousing book' Mail on Sunday. 'What makes this book a delightful, if unsettling read, is not just O'Mahony's scholarly and witty prose, but also his brutal honesty' The Times. Seamus O'Mahony writes about the illusion of progress, the notion that more and more diseases can be 'conquered' ad infinitum. He punctures the idiocy of consumerism, the idea that healthcare can be endlessly adapted to the wishes of individuals. He excoriates the claims of Big Science, the spending of vast sums on research follies like the Human Genome Project. And he highlights one of the most dangerous errors of industrialized medicine: an over-reliance on metrics, and a neglect of things that can't easily be measured, like compassion.

     A Cloud a Day urges all of us to keep our heads in the clouds with 365 fascinating cloud formations from his extraordinarily popular Cloud Appreciation Society collection. Inspirational quotes and informative cloud facts accompany provocative and meditative images of the sky, encouraging readers to pause for a moment and look up. • Beautifully illustrated book of stunning cloud images • Features cloud facts and inspirational quotes • Encourages appreciation of the natural worldFans of In The Cloudspotter's Guide or The Cloud Collector's Handbook will love this book.This book is perfect for: • Weather and cloud watchers • Daydreamers • Cloud Appreciation Society members and anyone interested in clouds • Introduction to weather book for kids

       From the New York Times bestselling creator of Lost in Translation, Eating the Sun is a delicately existential, beautifully illustrated, and welcoming exploration of the universe—one that examines and marvels at the astonishing principles, laws, and phenomena that we exist alongside, that we sit within.

    The human system for processing sound is a biological marvel, an intricate assembly of delicate membranes, bones, receptor cells, and neurons. Yet many people take their ears for granted, abusing them with loud restaurants, rock concerts, and Q-tips. And then, eventually, most of us start to go deaf.Millions of Americans suffer from hearing loss. Faced with the cost and stigma of hearing aids, the natural human tendency is to do nothing and hope for the best, usually while pretending that nothing is wrong. In Volume Control, David Owen argues this inaction comes with a huge social cost. He demystifies the science of hearing while encouraging readers to get the treatment they need for hearing loss and protect the hearing they still have.Hearing aids are rapidly improving and becoming more versatile. Inexpensive high-tech substitutes are increasingly available, making it possible for more of us to boost our weakening ears without bankrupting ourselves. Relatively soon, physicians may be able to reverse losses that have always been considered irreversible. Even the insistent buzz of tinnitus may soon yield to relatively simple treatments and techniques. With wit and clarity, Owen explores the incredible possibilities of technologically assisted hearing. And he proves that ears, whether they're working or not, are endlessly interesting.

    

    After years of failed diets Dr Nadja Hermann weighed over 23 stone at the age of 30. All her life, she had heard and read about hundreds of reasons why diets wouldn't work for her. But when her weight started to seriously affect her health, she took a hard look at the science and realised that most of what she believed about dieting was a myth. What was more, those very myths were preventing her from losing weight.Forget clean eating, paleo, or fasting — it was conquering these elements of ‘Fat Logic’ that finally led to Hermann achieving a healthy weight. One and a half years later, she weighed 10 stone, and has maintained that weight to this day. Now, using humour, the insight she’s acquired, and a dose of science, Hermann debunks widespread lies about weight loss, and shows how it is possible to attain a healthy weight.

    In The History of the Future, Harris once again deep-dives into a tech drama for the ages to expertly tell the larger-than-life true story of Oculus, the virtual reality company founded in 2012 that—less than two years later—would catch the attention of Mark Zuckerberg and wind up being bought by Facebook for over $2 billion dollars.This incredible underdog story begins with inventor Palmer Luckey, then just a nineteen-year-old dreamer, living alone in a camper trailer in Long Beach, California. At the time, virtual reality—long-hailed as the ultimate technology—was so costly and experimental that it was unattainable outside of a few research labs and military training facilities. But with the founding of Oculus, and the belief that his tantalizing vision of the future could one day be more than science fiction, Luckey put everything he had into creating a device that would allow gamers like him to step into virtual worlds and, in doing so, hopefully kickstart a VR revolution. With the help of an industry legend, a serial entrepreneur, and a slew of colorful characters—including those behind gaming sensations like Doom, Words with Friends, and Guitar Hero—Luckey’s scrappy startup would finally deliver the dream of immersive and affordable virtual reality to consumers, leading geeks and gamers to be excited in a way that they hadn’t been in years, and tech firms and investors scrambling to get in on the action before it was too late.Over the course of three years (and with unprecedented access from Oculus and Facebook), Harris conducted hundreds of interviews with key players in the VR revolution—including Luckey, his partners, and their cult of dreamers—to weave together a rich, cinematic narrative that captures the breakthroughs, breakdowns, and human drama of trying to change the world. The result is a supremely accessible, entertaining look at the birth of a new multi-billion-dollar industry; one full of heroes, villains, and twists at every corner. Take, for instance, Harris’ own discovery while writing this story. When he started this endeavor, he had no idea that this tale would somehow involve Donald Trump, billion-dollar lawsuits, illegal practices, and end with Luckey—eventually ousted from Facebook—as one of the most polarizing figures in Silicon Valley.

    Sustainability journalist Tim Smedley explains exactly what air pollution is, which chemicals are the dangerous ones and where they come from. He interviews the scientists and politicians at the forefront of air pollution research as well as those whose lives have been affected by smog. This groundbreaking book reveals the extreme instances of air pollution that have happened around the world, including London, Beijing, Delhi and LA, as well as examining recent stories like the VW diesel scandal.Globally, 18,000 people die each day from air pollution. For the most part, air pollution is anonymous; an invisible killer borne from the cars in our driveways and the industrial processes used to make stuff, but there is so much we don't know. Parents on the school run in their 4x4s have never been told that the pollution inside the car is 5 times worse than that on the street outside, or that studies show how air pollution stunts lung growth in children.Around the world, more than eight-out-of-ten people who live in cities breathe in concentrations of air pollutants that exceed international air quality guidelines. The annual number of deaths--6.5 million--is far greater than those from HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and car crashes combined, and it is getting worse. These problems can be solved, and the message of the book is positive. The overwhelming majority of air pollutants are local, short-lived, and can be stopped at source; the benefits to health, instant and dramatic. There are many stories that show how the fightback against air pollution can and does work, and we can all play a part to clear our air.

    Nashef tells heart-stopping stories of transplants, bypasses, coronary artery repair, and cardiac arrest. He also delivers humane advice about medical realities rarely observed: the futility of obsessing over diet, the necessity of calculating risks, the role of decision making, the resilience of doctor and patient alike, and the threadbare brilliance of the NHS.Nashef is a magnificently warm and likeable doctor and writer; and he has the best imaginable bedside manner.

    But the evidence is all around us–in the fossils of long-dead creatures, and in our genes and the relationships between all living beings. Amazing Evolution shines a light on this incredible process, from the beginnings of life around 3.8 billion years ago, to the millions of different species alive today, including the moon-walking, talking apes with super-powerful brains–human beings!Filled with clear explanations, beautiful illustrations and fascinating facts about the planet’s strangest and most spectacular creatures, Amazing Evolution will keep children (and adults, too!) enthralled for hours.Delve into the pages and learn what makes a fish a fish, why giraffes have such long necks and how all living things, from cabbages to tigers, are related! Amazing Evolution is the perfect first book about evolution for young readers.

    But there remains a critical gap in our knowledge: we still know very little about what happened in the first seconds after the Big Bang. At the Edge of Time focuses on what we have recently learned and are still striving to understand about this most essential and mysterious period of time at the beginning of cosmic history.Delving into the remarkable science of cosmology, Dan Hooper describes many of the extraordinary and perplexing questions that scientists are asking about the origin and nature of our world. Hooper examines how we are using the Large Hadron Collider and other experiments to re-create the conditions of the Big Bang and test promising theories for how and why our universe came to contain so much matter and so little antimatter. We may be poised to finally discover how dark matter was formed during our universe's first moments, and, with new telescopes, we are also lifting the veil on the era of cosmic inflation, which led to the creation of our world as we know it.Wrestling with the mysteries surrounding the initial moments that followed the Big Bang, At the Edge of Time presents an accessible investigation of our universe and its origin.

    if you want to understand how the concept of life is changing, read this' Professor Andrew Briggs, University of OxfordWhen Darwin set out to explain the origin of species, he made no attempt to answer the deeper question: what is life? For generations, scientists have struggled to make sense of this fundamental question. Life really does look like magic: even a humble bacterium accomplishes things so dazzling that no human engineer can match it. And yet, huge advances in molecular biology over the past few decades have served only to deepen the mystery. So can life be explained by known physics and chemistry, or do we need something fundamentally new?In this penetrating and wide-ranging new analysis, world-renowned physicist and science communicator Paul Davies searches for answers in a field so new and fast-moving that it lacks a name, a domain where computing, chemistry, quantum physics and nanotechnology intersect. At the heart of these diverse fields, Davies explains, is the concept of information: a quantity with the power to unify biology with physics, transform technology and medicine, and even to illuminate the age-old question of whether we are alone in the universe.From life's murky origins to the microscopic engines that run the cells of our bodies, The Demon in the Machine is a breath-taking journey across the landscape of physics, biology, logic and computing. Weaving together cancer and consciousness, two-headed worms and bird navigation, Davies reveals how biological organisms garner and process information to conjure order out of chaos, opening a window on the secret of life itself.

    The rest is hidden. This could be the biggest puzzle that science has ever faced. Since the 1970s, astronomers have been aware that galaxies have far too little matter in them to account for the way they spin around: they should fly apart, but something concealed holds them together. That ’something' is dark matter – invisible material in five times the quantity of the familiar stuff of stars and planets. By the 1990s we also knew that the expansion of the universe was accelerating. Something, named dark energy, is pushing it to expand faster and faster. Across the universe, this requires enough energy that the equivalent mass would be nearly fourteen times greater than all the visible material in existence. Brian Clegg explains this major conundrum in modern science and looks at how scientists are beginning to find solutions to it.

    Lose yourself in icy landscapes, dense jungles and endless oceans. Learn how our fascinating habitats, and the plants and creatures living there, interconnect to create the one place we all call home – Our Planet.This beautifully written and informative book for children has an uplifting message of hope that will strike a chord with all the family. The perfect gift for families the world over to treasure forever.‘You will be among the next characters who can, if they wish, tell the most extraordinary story of all – how human beings in the twenty-first century came to their senses and started to protect Planet Earth’ Sir David Attenborough

    Profiles of the most commonly used toxins of each era reveal how the power-hungry, the dangerous and the desperate have harnessed these natural killers to achieve their ends.Poisoning is a dark art as old as human history itself. The Roman emperors used poison liberally to dispose of rivals, guests at Renaissance dinner parties were quietly assassinated with adulterated wine, and professional poisoners equipped murderous wives with toxic tonics for their husbands. In twentieth-century warfare, poisonous substances were used in new and awful ways to terrorize and obliterate both civilians and enemy forces. Today, in the search for the perfect covert weapon, shadowy figures deploy pernicious poisons which are almost impossible to trace. They are only the latest in a long line of experimenters: for the same poisons used to kill or injure others have been used throughout history as intoxicants, aphrodisiacs and even elixirs of life. As every amateur toxicologist knows, the difference between a poison and medicine is often simply the dose.

    The first is Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity, which describes the large-scale behaviour of matter in a curved spacetime. This theory is the basis for the standard model of big bang cosmology. The discoveryof gravitational waves at the LIGO observatory in the US (and then Virgo, in Italy) is only the most recent of this theory's many triumphs.The second is quantum mechanics. This theory describes the properties and behaviour of matter and radiation at their smallest scales. It is the basis for the standard model of particle physics, which builds up all the visible constituents of the universe out of collections of quarks, electrons andforce-carrying particles such as photons. The discovery of the Higgs boson at CERN in Geneva is only the most recent of this theory's many triumphs.But, while they are both highly successful, these two structures leave a lot of important questions unanswered. They are also based on two different interpretations of space and time, and are therefore fundamentally incompatible. We have two descriptions but, as far as we know, we've only ever hadone universe. What we need is a quantum theory of gravity.Approaches to formulating such a theory have primarily followed two paths. One leads to String Theory, which has for long been fashionable, and about which much has been written. But String Theory has become mired in problems. In this book, Jim Baggott describes the road less travelled: anapproach which takes relativity as its starting point, and leads to a structure called Loop Quantum Gravity. Baggott tells the story through the careers and pioneering work of two of the theory's most prominent contributors, Lee Smolin and Carlo Rovelli.

    The foods we enjoy, the people we love, the emotions we feel, and the beliefs we hold can all be traced back to our DNA, germs, and environment. This witty, colloquial book is popular science at its best, describing in everyday language how genetics, epigenetics, microbiology, and psychology work together to influence our personality and actions. Mixing cutting-edge research and relatable humor, Pleased to Meet Me is filled with fascinating insights that shine a light on who we really are--and how we might become our best selves.

    This trial serves as the backdrop for Superbugs, and the results will impact nothing less than the future of humanity.Dr. McCarthy explores the history of bacteria and antibiotics, from Alexander Fleming's discovery of penicillin, to obscure sources of innovative new medicines (often found in soil samples), to the cutting-edge DNA manipulation known as CRISPR, bringing to light how we arrived at this juncture of both incredible breakthrough and extreme vulnerability. We also meet the patients whose lives are hanging in the balance, from Remy, a teenager with a dangerous and rare infection, to Donny, a retired New York City firefighter with a compromised immune system, and many more.

    What should you and your company be doing today to ensure that you're poised for success and keeping up with your competitors in the age of AI?Artificial Intelligence: The Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review brings you today's most essential thinking on AI and explains how to launch the right initiatives at your company to capitalize on the opportunity of the machine intelligence revolution.Business is changing. Will you adapt or be left behind?Get up to speed and deepen your understanding of the topics that are shaping your company's future with the Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review series. Featuring HBR's smartest thinking on fast-moving issues--blockchain, cybersecurity, AI, and more--each book provides the foundational introduction and practical case studies your organization needs to compete today and collects the best research, interviews, and analysis to get it ready for tomorrow. You can't afford to ignore how these issues will transform the landscape of business and society. The Insights You Need series will help you grasp these critical ideas--and prepare you and your company for the future.

    In Mapping Cloud Nine, bestselling author and award-winning journalist Steven Kotler takes us on a heady thrill ride through the history of human potential—and how what we’ve learned so far might unlock even greater levels of creativity, performance, and meaning in our lives.From Nietzsche to now—a tour of human consciousnessIn this six-part audio program, Kotler bridges science and spirituality to explore how our understanding of peak experiences has evolved over time—from early inquiries into altered and mystical states; to the birth of positive psychology and research on high performers; to pioneering studies on meditation and near-death experiences; and into current explorations of psychedelics, flow states, and technological breakthroughs. A brilliant synthesizer and gifted storyteller, Kotler paints a compelling portrait of our greatest human potential, inspiring us to leverage this growing body of research and step into new realms of possibility. HIGHLIGHTS- The evolutionary impulse for altered states of mind—psychedelics throughout time- The neurobiology of flow states, mystical experiences, and hallucinations- The spiritual path and the high-performance path—are they one and the same?- Altered states lead to altered traits—the next wave of consciousness hacking- Why bridging the gap between science and spirituality leads to even greater breakthroughs- How you can leverage flow states for a more meaningful—and interesting—life

    Behaviour that to our grandparents' generation might have seemed stupid, harmful or simply wicked now seems rational, natural, woven into the very logic of things. And, asserts Jonathan Aldred in this revelatory new book, it's economics that's to blame.Licence to be Bad tells the story of how a group of economics theorists changed our world, and how a handful of key ideas, from free-riding to Nudge, seeped into our decision-making and, indeed, almost all aspects of our lives. Aldred reveals the extraordinary hold of economics on our morals and values. Economics has corrupted us. But if this hidden transformation is so recent, it can be reversed. Licence to be Bad shows us where to begin.Over the past fifty years, the way we value what is 'good' and 'right' has changed dramatically. Behaviour that to our grandparents' generation might have seemed stupid, harmful or simply wicked now seems rational, natural, woven into the very logic of things. And, asserts Jonathan Aldred in this revelatory new book, it's economics that's to blame.Licence to be Bad tells the story of how a group of economics theorists changed our world, and how a handful of key ideas, from free-riding to Nudge, seeped into our decision-making and, indeed, almost all aspects of our lives. Aldred reveals the extraordinary hold of economics on our morals and values. Economics has corrupted us. But if this hidden transformation is so recent, it can be reversed. Licence to be Bad shows us where to begin.

    Each animal’s story of how it came to extinction is told through graphically stunning illustrations and information packed spreads. Further scientific resources and profiles of animals that have been rediscovered or successfully reintroduced into the wild empower children with the knowledge and tools necessary to aid in conservation and encourage sustainability.

    He sleeps in your blanket. He takes a good stretch on your sofa after you have taken your afternoon nap. In fact, he’s standing beside you and reading this description. Still, he is NOT YOUR FRIEND.In fact, he is the BIGGEST ENEMY YOU HAVE.This book is a non-fiction reality of a bloodcurdling, time-wasting demon that every procrastinator carries. Being a worshiper of short-term pleasures and delaying tasks, he is trying his best to make you his slave. This guide talks about how a procrasdemon thinks and works his way out to lure you into things that give you instant gratification, thus getting the power to ruin your entire life. Well, there is one way to fight it. Get yourself ready as it is going to be a hell long of a journey. And yes, don’t forget this exorcism book.

    First posed by the ancient Greeks, these compass and straightedge problems--squaring the circle, trisecting an angle, doubling the cube, and inscribing regular polygons in a circle--have served as ever-present muses for mathematicians for more than two millennia. David Richeson follows the trail of these problems to show that ultimately their proofs--which demonstrated the impossibility of solving them using only a compass and straightedge--depended on and resulted in the growth of mathematics.Richeson investigates how celebrated luminaries, including Euclid, Archimedes, Vi�te, Descartes, Newton, and Gauss, labored to understand these problems and how many major mathematical discoveries were related to their explorations. Although the problems were based in geometry, their resolutions were not, and had to wait until the nineteenth century, when mathematicians had developed the theory of real and complex numbers, analytic geometry, algebra, and calculus. Pierre Wantzel, a little-known mathematician, and Ferdinand von Lindemann, through his work on pi, finally determined the problems were impossible to solve. Along the way, Richeson provides entertaining anecdotes connected to the problems, such as how the Indiana state legislature passed a bill setting an incorrect value for pi and how Leonardo da Vinci made elegant contributions in his own study of these problems.Taking readers from the classical period to the present, Tales of Impossibility chronicles how four unsolvable problems have captivated mathematical thinking for centuries.

    Including accessible primers on: • The early Ancient Greek philosophers and the ‘big three’: Socrates, Plato and Aristotle • Key schools of philosophy and their impact on modern life • Insights into the main questions philosophers have explored over the years: Who am I? What is the meaning of life? Do I have free will? • Practical applications for the theories of Descartes, Kant, Wollstonecraft, Marx, Nietzsche and many more. This illuminating little book will introduce you to the key thinkers, themes and theories you need to know to understand how human ideas have sculpted the world we live in and the way we think today.

    Drawing on examples from across the animal kingdom, clinical psychologist Hector A. Garcia reveals how even the most complex political processes can be influenced by our basic drives to survive and reproduce--including the policies we back, whether we are liberal or conservative, and whether we are inspired or repelled by the words of a president. The author demonstrates how our political orientations derive from an ancestral history of violent male competition, surprisingly influencing how we respond to issues as wide-ranging as affirmative action, women's rights, social welfare, abortion, foreign policy, and even global warming. Critically, the author shows us how our instinctive political tribalism can keep us from achieving stable, functioning societies, and offers solutions for rising above our ancestral past.

    

    Yet around the world, in rich countries and poor ones, it is quietly poisoning us.  Air pollution prematurely kills seven million people every year, including more than one hundred thousand Americans. It is strongly linked to strokes, heart attacks, many kinds of cancer, dementia, and premature birth, among other ailments. In Choked, Beth Gardiner travels the world to tell the story of this modern-day plague, taking readers from the halls of power in Washington and the diesel-fogged London streets she walks with her daughter to Poland’s coal heartland and India’s gasping capital. In a gripping narrative that’s alive with powerful voices and personalities, she exposes the political decisions and economic forces that have kept so many of us breathing dirty air. This is a moving, up-close look at the human toll, where we meet the scientists who have transformed our understanding of pollution’s effects on the body and the ordinary people fighting for a cleaner future. In the United States, air is far cleaner than it once was. But progress has failed to keep up with the science, which tells us that even today’s lower pollution levels are doing real damage. And as the Trump administration rips up the regulations that have brought us where we are, decades of gains are now at risk. Elsewhere, the problem is far worse, and choking nations like China are scrambling to replicate the achievements of an American agency—the EPA—that until recently was the envy of the world. Clean air feels like a birthright. But it can disappear in a puff of smoke if the rules that protect it are unraveled. At home and around the world, it’s never been more important to understand how progress happened and what dangers might still be in store. Choked shows us that we hold the power to build a cleaner, healthier future: one in which breathing, life’s most basic function, no longer carries a hidden danger.

    With more than 180 entries--on topics as varied as Alice in Wonderland, chestnut blight, medicinal mushrooms, poisonings, Santa Claus, and waxy caps--this collection will transport both general readers and specialists into the remarkable universe of fungi.Combining ecological, ethnographic, historical, and contemporary knowledge, author and mycologist Lawrence Millman discusses how mushrooms are much more closely related to humans than to plants, how they engage in sex, how insects farm them, and how certain species happily dine on leftover radiation, cockroach antennae, and dung. He explores the lives of individuals like African American scientist George Washington Carver, who specialized in crop diseases caused by fungi; Beatrix Potter, creator of Peter Rabbit, who was prevented from becoming a professional mycologist because she was a woman; and Gordon Wasson, a J. P. Morgan vice-president who almost single-handedly introduced the world to magic mushrooms. Millman considers why fungi are among the most significant organisms on our planet and how they are currently being affected by destructive human behavior, including climate change.With charming drawings by artist and illustrator Amy Jean Porter, Fungipedia offers a treasure trove of scientific and cultural information. The world of mushrooms lies right at your door--be amazed!-- "IMA Fungus"

    She jumps on top of the body and rips open its neck with her teeth. The ornithopod becomes still and limp.Satisfied, Gualicho begins to feast. But, after only two bites, she senses something is wrong. She lifts her head and sees a Mapusaurus making its way toward her."Blending fiction with fact, 50 Dinosaur Tales imagines the way 50 newly described dinosaurs from the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous lived in their natural habitats.Also included is a list of fun facts for each dinosaur story, and facts about 108 additional dinosaurs.If you want to hear more about new dinosaurs as soon as they are discovered, listen to the weekly podcast I Know Dino.Review from SPR:"50 Dinosaur Tales: And 108 More Discoveries From the Golden Age of Dinos is the perfect blend of education and entertainment, as both young and old readers are invited to see the world through a very different set of eyes. Authors Sabrina Ricci and Garret Kruger bring to life some lesser-known dinosaurs from Earth’s prehistory, weaving unique facts into simple stories. At times, this book reads like Aesop’s Fables, if they had been set in the Mesozoic Era, while the post-story bullet points and reference materials give the book significant authority and impact."

    Indeed it’s often hard to work out what actually is native, and what is foreign.From early settlement of our islands, through the Roman and mediaeval period, to the age of exploration and globalisation, today’s complement of alien species tells a story about our past.

    A region with physical conditions so extreme that they have not yet been reproduced in any terrestrial laboratory. A region so dense that an object as tiny as a walnut would have the same mass as our entire planet. This phenomenon is a black hole: one of the most exotic, mind-boggling, and profound subjects in astrophysics. Nearly everyone has heard of black holes, but few people outside of complex scientific fields understand their true nature and their implications for our universe. No movie, novel, or other fictional treatment of black holes matches Professor Filippenko's absorbing presentation of the actual science behind these amazing objects. Black holes are at the heart of some of the most intriguing phenomena in the universe. Not only that, they are ideal gateways to fundamental and cutting-edge concepts in astronomy.

      Spanning Earth’s entire history, from its birth 4.6 billion years ago to its inevitable destruction billions of years into the future, this stunning volume chronicles the life of our home planet in 250 well-chosen milestones. Jim Bell leads us on a tour of the events, processes, people, and places that have shaped our growing knowledge of Earth, from the oceans’ formation and the first perilous polar expeditions to deadly volcanoes and Earth “selfies” from space. He covers relevant topics in a range of fields, including physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, geology, mineralogy, planetary science, life science, public policy, atmospheric/climate science, and engineering, along with notes on key scientists and inventors. At a time when it's crucial to understand Earth as a complex interdependent system, and our role in that system, The Earth Book will enhance your appreciation of our home.

    The result is a visual record of the evolving human form that feels alive in a way no scientific illustration could match. While science provides an underpinning to Gurche’s art, his work’s primary purpose is to forge an aesthetic connection to the hominins that preceded us on Earth, capturing their humanity. With essays by leading authorities, Lost Anatomies carries the story of human evolution from apes and early hominins; to Australopithecus; to archaic Homo sapiens, including Homo erectus; to derived Homo sapiens, including Neanderthals and other species that are our most recent ancestors.

    Trees are storehouses of the complex origins and histories of city growth, coming as they do from different parts of the world, brought in by various local and colonial rulers. From the tree planted by Sarojini Naidu at Dehradun's clock tower to those planted by Sher Shah Suri and Jahangir on Grand Trunk Road, trees in India have served, above all, as memory keepers. They are our roots: their trunks our pillars, their bark our texture, and their branches our shade. Trees are nature's own museums.Drawing on extensive research, Cities and Canopies is a book about both the specific and the general aspects of these gentle life-giving creatures.

    The money spent on AM is considerable: the global market is expected to reach nearly US $ 200 billion by 2025, with most of these funds coming directly out of consumers’ pockets. The reasons for this popularity are complex, but misinformation is certainly a prominent factor. The media seem to have an insatiable appetite for the subject and often report uncritically on it. Misinformation about AM on the Internet (currently about 50 million websites are focused on AM) is much more the rule than the exception. Consumers are thus being bombarded with misinformation on AM, and they are ill-protected from such misinformation and therefore prone to making wrong, unwise or dangerous therapeutic decisions, endangering their health and wasting their money. This book is a reference text aimed at guiding consumers through the maze of AM. The concept of the book is straightforward. It has two main parts. The first, short section provides essential background on AM, explaining in simple terms what is (and what is not) good, reliable evidence, and addressing other relevant issues like, for instance, the placebo response, informed consent, integrative medicine, etc. The second and main part consists of 150 short chapters, topically grouped and each dedicated to one single alternative therapeutic or diagnostic method. In each of them, seven critical points are raised. These points relate to issues that are important for consumers’ decisions whether it is worth trying the method in question. Restricting the discussion to just seven points means that issues must be prioritized to those themes which are most relevant in the context of each given modality.

    They can navigate more data than a doctor or lawyer and act with greater precision. For many years we’ve taken solace in the notion that they can’t create. But now that algorithms can learn and adapt, does the future of creativity belong to machines, too?It is hard to imagine a better guide to the bewildering world of artificial intelligence than Marcus du Sautoy, a celebrated Oxford mathematician whose work on symmetry in the ninth dimension has taken him to the vertiginous edge of mathematical understanding. In The Creativity Code he considers what machine learning means for the future of creativity. The Pollockizer can produce drip paintings in the style of Jackson Pollock, Botnik spins off fanciful (if improbable) scenes inspired by J. K. Rowling, and the music-composing algorithm Emmy managed to fool a panel of Bach experts. But do these programs just mimic, or do they have what it takes to create? Du Sautoy argues that to answer this question, we need to understand how the algorithms that drive them work―and this brings him back to his own subject of mathematics, with its puzzles, constraints, and enticing possibilities.While most recent books on AI focus on the future of work, The Creativity Code moves us to the forefront of creative new technologies and offers a more positive and unexpected vision of our future cohabitation with machines. It challenges us to reconsider what it means to be human―and to crack the creativity code.

    They change things. A single idea can start a war, save billions of lives, even rearrange whole planetary systems, or simply make a person giggle until they pee a little bit. They can be totally wrong but widely believed, or undoubtedly right and completely ignored. What’s more, they’re free, and anyone can have one–including you! The Book of Big Science Ideas looks at 15 brilliant science ideas and more than 50 ingenious thinkers who have helped shape our understanding of the world – whether they were right or wrong!   Thinkers include, Wang Zhenyi, Louis Pasteur, Marie Curie, James Joule, Rosalind Franklin, Charles Darwin, Aristotle, Edith Clarke, Isaac Newton, Grace Hopper, Alan Turing, Ada Lovelace and many, many more! From established ideas like atoms, electricity and the solar system, and ideas that are still evolving such as gravity, energy and classification, right up to recent discoveries like AI and genetics – this jam-packed book takes a fresh approach to science.

    Engaging and accessible, the book explores how photographers captured this celestial body—and how the images have in turn inspired artists, writers, and scientists.    The book’s wide-ranging focus includes extraordinary reproductions of the first successful series of lunar daguerreotypes by the American photographer John Adams Whipple, along with film stills from Voyage dans la Lune (1902) by Georges Méliès; American “paper moon” studio portraits; images from the Apollo mission; and works by contemporary artists, including Vija Celmins, Roy Lichtenstein, Aleksandra Mir, Vik Muniz, Nam June Paik, and Robert Rauschenberg. Related prints, drawings, paintings, and astronomical instruments explore artists’ fascination with the moon, as an object of both art and science. A foreword by actor Tom Hanks, star of the award-winning 1995 film Apollo 13, outlines the importance of lunar images to art and cinema, reinforcing the universal fascination with representations of the cosmos.

    It is beautiful and bizarre, violent and mysterious. Inhabited by a cast of characters stolen from fantasy, it’s a dystopian world where dragons are real, and monsters are commonplace. Today's spectacular marine life has an ancient history preserved in stone - fossil strata that read like dramatic pages from the longest story ever told - tales of evolution, extinction, and surprising continuity. Having thrived a tumultuous 500 million years, this marine kingdom is now challenged by a new, arrogant and domineering life form. This book looks beyond the media focus on climate change and extinction to celebrate the continuity of ocean life. I’ll take you on a personal journey to explore origins and destinies, from primordial soup to today’s threatened oceans - towards a future we can influence. We always have a choice.

    Immerse yourself in the history of medicine - a colourful story of skill, serendipity, trial and error, moments of genius, and dogged determination.From traditional chinese medicine to today's sophisticated gene therapies and robotic surgery, A Short History of Medicine combines riveting storytelling and beautiful images, historical accounts and lucid explanations, to illuminate the story of medicine through time.Witness early, bloody, anaesthetic-free operations; see the first crude surgical instruments; trace the mapping of the circulatory system; follow the painstaking detective work that led to the decoding of the human genome; and understand the role that potions, cures, therapies, herbal medicines, and drugs have played in the human quest to tame and conquer disease, injury, and death.A Short History of Medicine is an engrossing illustrated history and tale of drama and discovery that celebrates the milestones of medical history across generations and cultures.

    The result ushered in a new era and made Einstein a global celebrity by confirming his dramatic prediction that the path of light rays would be bent by gravity. Today, Einstein's theory is scientific fact. Yet the effort to "weigh light" by measuring the gravitational deflection of starlight during the May 29, 1919, solar eclipse has become clouded by myth and skepticism. Could Arthur Eddington and Frank Dyson have gotten the results they claimed? Did the pacifist Eddington falsify evidence to foster peace after a horrific war by validating the theory of a German antiwar campaigner? In No Shadow of a Doubt, Daniel Kennefick provides definitive answers by offering the most comprehensive and authoritative account of how expedition scientists overcame war, bad weather, and equipment problems to make the experiment a triumphant success.The reader follows Eddington on his voyage to Africa through his letters home, and delves with Dyson into how the complex experiment was accomplished, through his notes. Other characters include Howard Grubb, the brilliant Irishman who made the instruments; William Campbell, the American astronomer who confirmed the result; and Erwin Findlay-Freundlich, the German whose attempts to perform the test in Crimea were foiled by clouds and his arrest.By chronicling the expeditions and their enormous impact in greater detail than ever before, No Shadow of a Doubt reveals a story that is even richer and more exciting than previously known.

    

    Now, a scientist and sceptic turned qualified acupuncturist explains how, and why, this works.Blakeway takes the reader on a journey from the Stanford and Princeton professors researching the physics of energy medicine, to a Qi Gong master from China who manifests healing herbs directly from her palm; and from the Harvard team studying the placebo effect, to a group of sceptical scientists who use hands-on healing to cure mammary cancer in mice. From hard science to the spiritual and back again, The Energy That Heals Us is a quest to find out why these alternative methods of healing are proving successful for thousands worldwide.