Sciences

An astonishing new scientific discovery called neuroplasticity is overthrowing the centuries-old notion that the adult human brain is fixed and unchanging. It is, instead, able to change its own structure and function, even into old age. Psychiatrist and researcher Norman Doidge travelled around the US to meet the brilliant s... read more

This book accompanies the landmark television series Kingdom of Plants 3D: With David Attenborough. In the last 500 million years, plants have undertaken an epic journey that has not only spanned the ages but has altered the very make-up of the planet. It was a journey that began in a dark and barren world, and has culminated... read more

Ben Goldacre's wise and witty bestseller, shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize, lifts the lid on quack doctors, flaky statistics, scaremongering journalists and evil pharmaceutical corporations. Since 2003 Dr Ben Goldacre has been exposing dodgy medical data in his popular Guardian column. In this eye-opening book he take... read more

Barbara Arrowsmith-Young was born with severe learning disabilities that caused teachers to label her slow, stubborn - or worse. As a child, she read and wrote everything backward, struggled to process concepts in language, continually got lost, and was physically uncoordinated. She could make no sense of an analogue clock. B... read more

Neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran is internationally renowned for uncovering answers to the deep and quirky questions of human nature that few scientists have dared to address.
His bold insights about the brain are matched only by the stunning simplicity of his experiments -- using such low-tech tools as cotton swabs... read more

Become the master of your world Presents 20 key concepts, or keys, to aid critical thinking Authored by one of the world's most eminent psychologists - and founder of the Flynn Effect Looks at topics such as Race and IQ, "good" science and the current world economic crisis Written in a clear and lucid style, illustrated with many examples

Science is about discovery, a journey towards knowledge. With authors as diverse as Galileo and Lewis Carroll, the extracts featured in this anthology span centuries and continents; they include startling revelations that changed the way we think and tackle more prosaic questions such as why the sea is salty; they consider th... read more

Internationally renowned theoretical physicist and bestselling author Lawrence Krauss offers provocative, revelatory answers to the biggest philosophical questions: Where did our universe come from? Why does anything exist? And how is it all going to end? 'Why is there something rather than nothing?' is the question atheists ... read more

While Washington, London and Canberra fiddle, the planet burns. It has become painfully clear that the big democracies won't take the hard decisions to halt climate change. Climate scientists now expect the worst, and they're considering a response which sounds like science fiction: climate engineering. This means large-scale... read more

What is it that separates Sherlock Holmes from his long-suffering friend and side-kick Dr John Watson? What makes Holmes such a superior detective, able to piece together clues and solve problems that seem elementary to Watson only in hindsight? And can we - most of us Watsons ourselves - ever harness a bit of Holmes' extraor... read more

What is it like to be a swift, flying at over one hundred kilometres an hour? Or a kiwi, plodding flightlessly among the humid undergrowth in the pitch dark of a New Zealand night? And what is going on inside the head of a nightingale as it sings, and how does its brain improvise? Bird Sense addresses questions like these and... read more

The universe is a mind-boggling place, full of things seemingly too big and too small to understand. How can we visualise the minuscule world of the atom and the vastness of our galaxy? How can we grasp a billionth of a second and a billion years? Or the freezing point of Helium and the heat generated by the blast of an atomi... read more

What came before the big bang? How do cells talk to each other? Why do cats purr?
Explore the wonders of science through the eyes of artists. A science book like no other, The Where, the Why and the How turns loose 75 of today's hottest artists onto life's vast questions. From how we got here to where we are going, myst... read more

Taking a uniquely cheeky approach, acclaimed writer Lone Frank swabs up her DNA to provide this first, intensely intimate account of the new science of personal genomics. She tests the limits of genetic fortune-telling, from opting for pre-emptive breast cancer surgery to picking a child's schooling based on promising DNA 'sn... read more

'To suppose that the eye ...should have formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree' - thus wrote Charles Darwin in "On The Origin Of Species". The eye's 'perfection', he found, was the one problem he could not resolve with his theory of evolution by natural selection: no intermediate st... read more

On the form, varieties and errors of the human body Full of fascinating and bizarre cases of genetic mutation and irregularity, Mutants is an amazing exploration of the human form in all its beautiful and unique guises. Why are most of us born with one nose, two legs, ten fingers and twenty-four ribs - and some of us not... read more

David Suzuki cuts through the gloom surrounding the current state of the world's natural resources, and draws attention to the numerous positive instances where private companies, communities and individual citizens are making a real difference to the environment.We all know the bad news. The natural systems that support our ... read more

Stephen Hawking's worldwide bestseller, <i>A Brief History of Time</i>, has been a landmark volume in scientific writing. Its author's engaging voice is one reason, and the compelling subjects he addresses is another: the nature of space and time, the role of God in creation, the history and future... read more

In this ground-breaking book Chris Stringer sets out to answer all the big questions in the debate about our origins.

It's time to stop just worrying about climate change, says Paul Gilding. Instead we need to brace for impact, because global crisis is no longer avoidable. The 'Great Disruption' started in 2008, with spiking food and oil prices and dramatic ecological change like the melting polar icecap. It is not simply about fossil fuels ... read more