Soccer is the most mathematical of sports--riddled with numbers, patterns, and shapes. How to make sense of them? The answer lies in mathematical modeling, a science with applications in a host of bio
The year 1818 saw the publication of one of the most influential science-fiction stories of all time. Frankenstein: Or, Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley had a huge impact on gothic horror and science
An all-encompassing history of mathematics from beloved TV presenter Johnny Ball.By introducing us to the major characters and leading us through many historical twists and turns, Johnny slowly unrave
Air pollution has become the world's single biggest environmental health risk, and science has only recently begun to reveal its wide-ranging effects. Around the world, nine out of ten people now brea
Have you ever made someone you love a mix-tape? Forty years ago, a group of scientists, artists and writers gathered in a house in Ithaca, New York to work on the most important compilation ever conce
As featured on Sunday Brunch and Woman's Hour'Laura Mucha has found the proof that love actually is all around.' Richard Curtis'A fascinating book' Daily MailPoets, philosophers and artists have been
Algorithms are running our society, and as the Cambridge Analytica story has revealed, we don’t really know what they are up to.Our increasing reliance on technology and the internet has opened a wind
The award-winning, Booker and Goldsmiths Prize-shortlisted author Magnus Mills is back with his best novel yet, a hilarious and surreal exploration of power, fanaticism and really, really good records
Helen Pilcher is uniquely qualified to explain the cutting-edge science that makes the resurrection of extinct animals a very real possibility, while acknowledging the serious and funny aspects of giv
A first class book' Sunday TimesWe're all conspiracy theorists. Some of us just hide it better than others.Conspiracy theorists do not wear tin-foil hats (for the most part). They are not just a few k
If you could bring back one living being from the whole of the history of time, what would you choose? Comedian and former stem-cell biologist Helen Pilcher has thought about this problem, a lot. In B
The animal world is full of mysteries. Why do dogs slurp from their drinking bowls while cats lap up water with a delicate flick of the tongue? How does a tiny turtle hatchling from Florida circle the
Shortlisted for the Macavity Awards 2016Fourteen novels. Fourteen poisons. Just because it's fiction doesn't mean it's all made-up ...Agatha Christie revelled in the use of poison to kill off unfortun
We are surrounded by the material culture of the people who lived before us: architecture, artworks and artefacts. But can we be certain that, even when allowing for the ravages of time, what we obser
... a chill-cabinet of curiosities: hot stuff, and deeply cool ...'Heat and fire have been at humanity's command for at least 100,000 years, but we've been in control of the cold for barely one hundre
Cities are a big deal. More people now live in them than don't, and with a growing world population, the urban jungle is only going to get busier in the coming decades. But how often do we stop to thi
An expert romp through the science of extraterrestrial life.' Adam Rutherford Today we know of only a single planet that hosts life: the Earth. But across a Universe of at least 100 billion possibly h
Far away, in the ancient empire of Greater Fallowfields, things are falling apart. The imperial orchestra is presided over by a conductor who has never played a note, the clocks are changed constantly
It is the beginning of the century, and two teams of explorers are racing across a cold, windswept, deserted land to reach the furthest point from civilisation. It is, they find, 'an awfully long way'
Living on a windy plain in a house made entirely from tin, a recluse's quiet life is transformed by the severely critical Mary Petrie who arrives unannounced with a trunk of her belongings in tow. As
It is the end of the summer. The tourists have already gone, and now the sun is abandoning the Lake District's damp valleys. Only a lone camper remains, enjoying the quiet. He plans to stay just long
'He has no literary precedent, and he also appears to have no imitators. He mines a seam that no one else touches on, every sentence in every book having a Magnus Mills ring to it that no other writer
'Tam and I took hold of Mr McCrindle and lowered him into the hole, feet first. We decided to leave his cap on.' Fencers Tam, Richie and their ever-exasperated English foreman are forced to move from
It is the beginning of the century, and two teams of explorers are racing across a cold, windswept, deserted land to reach the furthest point from civilisation. It is, they find, 'an awfully long way'
