Science

Of course, nobody needs telling that there isn't enough time. We're obsessed by our lengthening to-do lists, our overfilled inboxes, the struggle against distraction and the sense that our attention spans are shrivelling....

As the country's top forensic pathologist, Dr Richard Shepherd has spent a lifetime uncovering the secrets of the dead....

Until very recently, science had no answer to the question of why we sleep, or what good it served, or why its absence is so damaging to our health....

People talk a lot about the problems with intensive farming. But the problem isn't the adjective. It's the noun....

Tim Marshall's global best seller Prisoners of Geography showed how every nation's choices are limited by mountains, rivers, seas and concrete. Since then, the geography hasn't changed, but the world has....

Neither plant nor animal, it is found throughout the earth, the air and our bodies....

All around us people are looking at their phones too much, eating too much, drinking too much. Our world is addicted to fleeting distracting pleasures that get us nowhere. Dr Anna Lembke provides a clear way back to a balanced life....

Full of extraordinary facts and astonishing stories, The Body: A Guide for Occupants is a brilliant, often very funny attempt to understand the miracle of our physical and neurological makeup.... 

In The Power of Habit, award-winning New York Times business reporter Charles Duhigg takes us to the thrilling edge of scientific discoveries that explain why habits exist and how they can be changed....

To this day A Brief History of Time remains a staple of the scientific canon, and its succinct and clear language continues to introduce millions to the universe and its wonders....

Keats accused Newton of destroying the poetry of the rainbow by explaining the origin of its colours. In this illuminating and provocative book, Richard Dawkins argues that Keats could not have been more mistaken and shows how an understanding of science enhances our wonder of the world....

Dawkins' brilliant reformulation of the theory of natural selection has the distinction of having provoked as much excitement and interest outside the scientific community as within it....

How do trees live? Do they feel pain or have awareness of their surroundings? Research is now suggesting trees are capable of much more than we have ever known....

As a botanist and professor of plant ecology, Robin Wall Kimmerer has spent a career learning how to ask questions of nature using the tools of science....

You heard it here first! This unabridged audiobook is only available as a digital download from Audible.
Winner of the British Book Awards, Author of the Year, 2007.
Shortlisted for the British Book Awards, Book of the Year, 2007.
Longlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize, 2007.
Winner of the Audiobook Download of the Year, 2007.

The final book from Professor Stephen Hawking, the best-selling author of A Brief History of Time and arguably the most famous scientist of our age....

This book asks questions about our origins, our destiny, and our place in the universe....

In this mesmerizing debut, award-winning palaeontologist Thomas Halliday gives us a breath-taking up close encounter with worlds that are normally unimaginably distant....

For decades, the medical community has looked to a variety of reasons for why we age, and the consensus is that no-one dies of old age; they die of age-related diseases....

How do we fit within the universe? How does the universe fit within us? There's no better guide through these questions than astrophysicist and best-selling author Neil deGrasse Tyson....

It's not what you eat that's damaging your health; it's how that food is 'made'. The truth behind ultra-processed food that the food industry doesn't want you to know....

We have never had so much information at our fingertips, and yet most of us simply don't understand how our world really works. Professor Vaclav Smil is not a pessimist or an optimist, he is a scientist, and this book is a much-needed reality check on a wide range of topics....

While the planetary emergency of climate change is finally getting the attention it deserves, the inevitability of mass migration has been largely ignored. In Nomad Century, Gaia Vince provides, for the first time, an examination of the most pressing question facing humanity....

From poverty and policing, homelessness and overrun prisons to Grenfell and hostile environments, Britain has long been failing those who need our help the most.... 

Cosmos is one of the bestselling science books of all time. In clear-eyed prose, Sagan reveals a jewel-like blue world inhabited by a life form that is just beginning to discover its own identity and to venture into the vast ocean of space....

Taking its title from a chilling warning made by the United Nations that the world’s soils could be lost within a lifetime, Sixty Harvests Left uncovers how the food industry is threatening the planet. Put simply, without soils there will be no food. And time is running out. From the United Kingdom to Italy, from Brazil to the Gambia to the USA, Philip Lymbery, the internationally acclaimed author of Farmageddon, goes behind the scenes of industrial farming and confronts ‘Big Agriculture’, where mega-farms, chemicals and animal cages are sweeping the countryside.

In this timely and exciting contribution to a wider conversation about our relationship with the natural world, wildlife journalist Millie Kerr takes listeners on a global journey of discovery. She considers the practicalities and possibilities of ecological restoration around the world, while exploring first-hand some of the most ambitious undertakings occurring today, many of which involve species reintroductions in the Global South. 

Visiting Iceland as an anthropologist and film-maker in 2008, Sarah Thomas is spellbound by its otherworldly landscape. An immediate love for this country and for Bjarni, a man she meets there, turns a week-long stay into a transformative half-decade, one which radically alters Sarah's understanding of herself and of the living world. She embarks on a relationship not only with Bjarni, but with the light, the language and the old wooden house they make their home. 

Psilocybin mushrooms are being extensively researched and cultivated these days for their prominent medicinal benefits, especially for people with depression or anxiety. One of the most utilized hallucinogens, magic mushrooms, is used for rehab treatments. There are many steps you need to follow and different techniques to opt for when cultivating shrooms. This book explains each one in extensive detail. If you're someone who's been interested in growing magic mushrooms, but couldn't find anything worthwhile on the internet or other resources, this book is for you.

With plenty of comprehensive and beginner-friendly advice and practical techniques, this book will guide you through the world of psilocybin mushroom cultivation. The health benefits of psilocybin mushrooms are widely known. By learning how to cultivate them properly, you gain the ability to provide everything the shrooms can offer. Whether you grow them for personal or commercial purposes, this book will help you create a premium quality product—with all its advantages.

Have you ever contemplated living off the grid? Does the prospect of self-sufficient survival appeal to you? Is resourcefulness a skill you've always wanted to hone? This comprehensive guide will show you the ropes of the survivalist lifestyle, teach you numerous skills, and introduce ready-to-apply DIY projects for your personal sustenance. Complete with practical knowledge and step-by-step instructions all along, this beginner-friendly book is your ultimate reference for when you decide to give modern civilization a break (or if you're already anticipating its downfall).

The antiquated Apollo space exploration model has expired. Not only is it dangerous, it is headed toward a catastrophic collapse. But there is still time to stop the mad rush out to infinity, rethink, redesign, and rebuild a model that will open the solar system to permanent occupation. This is the manual for the future of human space exploration and settlement, with solutions utilizing new First Principle Solar System Class vehicles. 

After a few billion years of bearing witness to life on Earth, of watching 100 billion humans go about their day-to-day lives, of feeling unbelievably lonely, and of hearing its own story told by others, the Milky Way would like a chance to speak for itself. All 100 billion stars and 50 undecillion tons of gas of it. It all began some 13 billion years ago, when clouds of gas scattered through the universe's primordial plasma just could not keep their metaphorical hands off each other. They succumbed to their gravitational attraction, and the galaxy we know as the Milky Way was born.

The puzzling lack of evidence for the peculiar but widespread belief that birds have no sense of smell irked evolutionary biologist Danielle Whittaker. Exploring the science behind the myth led her on an unexpected quest investigating mysteries from how juncos win a fight to why cowbirds smell like cookies. In The Secret Perfume of Birds―part science, part intellectual history, and part memoir―Whittaker blends humor, clear writing, and a compelling narrative to describe how scent is important not just for birds but for all animals, including humans.

This book chronicles the creation of Everglades National Park, the largest subtropical wilderness in the United States. Prior to the park's creation, the Everglades was seen as a reviled and useless swamp, unfit for typical recreational or development projects. Park advocates drew on new ideas concerning the value of biota and ecology, the importance of wilderness, and the need to protect habitats, marine ecosystems, and plant life to redefine the Everglades. Using these ideas, the Everglades began to be recognized as an ecologically valuable and fragile wetland.

We will depart Earth using a far different plan than ever imagined. The harsh realities of the space environment reveal the error-laden misunderstandings left by our limited experience. We have discovered the grave weaknesses of our fatally flawed current exploration model. Instead of empty darkness, we are facing a hostile environment that the antiquated Apollo model is incapable of confronting.

In this groundbreaking book, John Morrison examines the theory of evolution currently being taught in high schools and colleges across the world. This planet was once nothing but liquid and gas, but somehow, over billions of years, the countless number of living organisms currently on Earth came into existence. This includes humans descending from apes. Once the currently taught theory is understood, John then proceeds to explain what the textbooks don't teach, which puts the theory of evolution in a new light.

With food prices rising, sustainability becoming an increasing concern, and a greater awareness of health and nutrition spreading throughout the population, foraging is the golden ticket to a better way of life. Despite the rise in newbie foragers, many people are hesitant because they don’t think they have the skills or knowledge to do it safely. But all of that is about to change. When you know where to look, what to look for, and how to confidently identify and harvest safe and nutritious treats, a whole world of possibility opens up

In the wake of a traumatic lockdown, Nancy Campbell buys an old caravan and drives it into a strip of neglected woodland between a canal and railway. It is the first home she has ever owned. As summer begins, Nancy embraces the challenge of how to live well in a space in which possessions and emotions often threaten to tumble—clearing industrial junk from the soil to help wild beauty flourish. But when illness and uncertainty loom once more, it is this van anchored in the woods, and the unconventional friendships forged off -grid, that will bring her solace and hope.

The climate is the fundamental issue of our time, yet it seems we can barely agree on what is really going on, let alone what needs to be done. We urgently need facts. The Carbon Almanac is a once-in-a-lifetime collaboration between hundreds of writers, researchers, thinkers and leaders that focuses on what we know, what has come before and what might happen next. With thousands of data points, articles and charts explaining carbon's impact on everything in our society, it is the definitive source for facts and the basis for a global movement to fight climate change.