Showing titles in Science & Engineering

Approximately 66 million years ago, an asteroid struck the Earth, triggering a chain of events that would end the reign of the dinosaurs and usher in the age of mammals. Despite its colossal scale, this incident was not the only event of its kind—in fact, it wasn’t even the first. Rather, it’s only the most recent mass extinction our planet has witnessed across its 4-billion-year lifespan.

Gut Reactions by chemist Simon Quellen Field shows us how our bodies react to food and the environment, and how our brain affects what and how much we eat, and in turn, is affected by what we eat. It shows why some diets work for some people but not for others, based on genetics, previous weight history, brain chemistry, environmental cues, and social pressures. It explores how dozens of hormones affect hunger and satiety and interact with the brain and the gut to regulate feeding behavior. 

Richard Dawkins' brilliant reformulation of the theory of natural selection has the rare distinction of having provoked as much excitement and interest outside the scientific community as within it. His theories have helped change the whole nature of the study of social biology, and have forced thousands to rethink their beliefs about life.

Brought to you by Penguin. From celebrated writer Robert Macfarlane comes this brilliant, perspective-shifting new book – which answers a resounding yes to the question of its title. At its heart is a single, transformative idea: that rivers are not mere matter for human use, but living beings...

“As ‘The Secret’ meets the scientist in Dawson’s work, the boundaries of what you’ve believed possible will be stretched far beyond your existing picture of reality.” — Jack Canfield, co-author of the #1 New York Times bestselling Chicken Soup series and featured teacher in The...

Award-winning Wharton professor Katy Milkman has devoted her career to the study of behaviour change. An engineer by training, she approaches all challenges as problems to be solved and, with this mindset, has drilled into the roadblocks that prevent us from achieving our goals and breaking unwanted behaviours. The key to lasting change, she argues, is not to set ever more audacious goals or to foster good habits but to get your strategy right.

The ultimate non-technical guide to the fast-developing world of quantum computing. Computer technology has improved exponentially over the last 50 years. But the headroom for bigger and better electronic solutions is running out. Our best hope is to engage the power of quantum physics...

*** Shortlisted for William Hill Sports Book of the Year 2013 *** Is Usain Bolt a superhuman one-off? Are sports stars like Paula Radcliffe and Tiger Woods born or made? Could we all be Olympians if we trained hard enough? And is the answer to be found by looking at Alaskan huskies? In this...

Brought to you by Penguin. How to Change Your Mind is a report from what could very well be the future of human consciousness, written and read by Michael Pollan. When LSD was first discovered in the 1940s, it seemed to researchers, scientists and doctors as if the world might be on the cusp of...

In The Marshmallow Test, Mischel explains how self-control can be mastered and applied to challenges in everyday life - from weight control to quitting smoking, overcoming heartbreak, making major decisions, and planning for retirement. With profound implications for the choices we make in parenting, education, public policy and self-care, The Marshmallow Test will change the way you think about who we are and what we can be.

A New York Times Bestseller! For millennia, Buddhists have enjoyed the limitless benefits of meditation. But how does it work? And why? The principles behind this ancient practice have long eluded some of the best minds in modern science. Until now. In this groundbreaking work, world-renowned...

Epigenetics is the science of living DNA, charting the chemical pathways that spur DNA into action by turning genes on and off. While the Human Genome Project of the early 2000s was hailed as the key to understanding human heredity and disease, that historic effort was just the beginning. It has taken epigenetics to fill in the picture, explaining how the fixed code of our genome is implemented in countless living processes.

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER As you read these words, copies of you are being created. 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...

This memoir is soaked in the sunshine of Corfu, where Gerald Durrell lived as a boy, surrounded by his eccentric family - as well as puppies, toads, scorpions, geckoes, ladybugs, glowworms, octopuses, bats, and butterflies.

The Blind Watchmaker, knowledgably narrated by author Richard Dawkins, is as prescient and timely a book as ever. The watchmaker belongs to the 18th-century theologian William Paley, who argued that just as a watch is too complicated and functional to have sprung into existence by accident, so too must all living things, with their far greater complexity, be purposefully designed. Charles Darwin's brilliant discovery challenged the creationist arguments; but only Richard Dawkins could have written this elegant riposte.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Celebrated futurist Ray Kurzweil presents an “elaborate, smart, and persuasive” (The Boston Globe) view of the future course of human development. “Artfully envisions a breathtakingly better world.”—Los Angeles Times “Startling in scope and bravado...

Bloomsbury presents The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert, read by Anne Twomey ________________ WINNER OF THE 2015 PULITZER PRIZE FOR GENERAL NON-FICTION ________________ 'An invaluable contribution to our understanding of present circumstances, just as the paradigm shift she calls for is...

*An instant New York Times Bestseller* *Publishers Weekly #1 Most Anticipated Science Book of Spring 2016* "You will be enthralled." — Wall Street Journal "A tour de force." — Salon.com Already internationally acclaimed for his elegant, lucid writing on the most challenging notions in modern...

The existence of free will - our ability to choose between one course of action and another, to determine our own destiny - is a foundation stone of Western society, dictating our notions of fairness and justice, punishment and reward, our very identity as individuals and humans. But as world-renowned scientist Robert Sapolsky shows, there is not a shred of evidence to suggest that free will exists, even while everything in our biology leads us to believe that it does.

Over the past 20 years, Evolutionary Biologist Herman Pontzer has conducted ground-breaking studies across a range of settings, including pioneering fieldwork with Hadza hunter-gatherers in northern Tanzania. This book draws on his eye-opening research to show how, contrary to received wisdom, exercise does not increase our metabolism. Instead, we burn calories within a very narrow range: nearly 3,000 calories per day, no matter our activity level.