Showing titles in Science & Technology

A “delightfully macabre” (The New York Times) Cold War medical history about a brilliant and eccentric surgeon and his quest to transplant the human soul. In the early days of the Cold War, a spirit of desperate scientific rivalry birthed a different kind of space race: not the race to outer...

Edison era un paraculo e Tesla un sociopatico, Lavoisier ha assassinato l'alchimia e Curie ha scoperto una nuova chimica, Einstein era un disagiato che ce l'ha fatta e Galileo un provocatore, Darwin assaggiava la natura mentre Spallanzani la seviziava. Otto storie di scienza raccontate da Barbascura X a sé stesso... letteralmente! Ecco cosa succede quando si affida un podcast ad un pirata affetto da personalità multiple.

This fascinating and inspiring biography of John Haynes - the man behind Haynes manuals - looks ‘under the bonnet’ at his extraordinary life, and his legacy to the motoring world. This is the story of how one man’s vision and enthusiasm gave a small enterprise in rural Somerset a global footprint.  

In this approachable and fascinating biography of the galaxy, an astrophysicist and folklorist details everything humans have discovered—from the Milky Way's formation to its eventual death, and what else there is to learn about the universe we call home. After a few billion years of bearing...

An “intriguing and accessible” (Publishers Weekly) interpretation of the life of Galileo Galilei, one of history’s greatest and most fascinating scientists, that sheds new light on his discoveries and how he was challenged by science deniers. “We really need this story now, because...

From dusty deserts to high-security prisons, Michael Farmer: Adventures of a Meteorite Hunter is the jaw-dropping true story of one man's relentless quest to find treasures from space—and the price he pays chasing them across the globe. Part adventure epic, part survival tale, and part deep dive into the mysterious world of meteorites, this is a rare glimpse into a life lived on the edge—where every rock has a story and every journey comes with a risk.

W czasach Kopernika nic nie wskazywało na to, że do największej naukowej rewolucji dojdzie w Europie. O gwiazdach Chińczycy i Arabowie wiedzieli więcej, ale to my jako pierwsi zrozumieliśmy, jakie jest miejsce Ziemi w kosmosie. Ktoś może powiedzieć, że to przede wszystkim zasługa Keplera, Galileusza, Newtona–ale gdybyśmy zapytali tych panów o zdanie, wskazaliby na dzieło bardzo skromnego, genialnego uczonego, który by pracować w spokoju nad swoim odkryciem, zaszył się na skraju Europy.

Three years ago, 32-year-old Markus "Notch" Persson of Stockholm was an unknown and bored computer programmer. Today, he is a multi-millionaire international icon. Minecraft, the "virtual Lego" game Markus crafted in his free time, has become one of the most talked about activities since Tetris. Talked about by tens of millions of people, in fact.It is the story of unlikely success, fast money, and the power of digital technology to rattle an empire. And it is about creation, exclusion, and the feeling of not fitting in.

Bestselling author Steven Johnson recounts—in dazzling, multidisciplinary fashion—the story of the brilliant man who embodied the relationship between science, religion, and politics for America’s Founding Fathers. The Invention of Air is a book of world-changing ideas wrapped around a...

Plague and pestilence have both fascinated and terrified humanity from the very beginning. Societies and individuals have struggled to make sense of them, and more importantly, they’ve often struggled to avoid them. Before the scientific age, people had no knowledge of the microbiological agents - unseen bacteria and viruses - which afflicted them, and thus, the maladies were often ascribed to wrathful supernatural forces.

Many of us know little about Archimedes other than his "Eureka" exclamation upon discovering that he could immerse an object in a full tub of water and measure the spillage to determine the object's weight. That seemingly simple observation not only proved to King Hieron II of Syracuse that a certain amount of silver had been used in what was supposed to be his solid-gold crown, it established the key principles of buoyancy that govern the flotation of hot-air balloons, ships, and denizens of the sea.

In The Smallest Lights in the Universe, MIT astrophysicist Sara Seager interweaves the story of her search for meaning and solace after losing her first husband to cancer, her unflagging search for an Earth-like exoplanet and her unexpected discovery of new love. Sara Seager has made it her life's work to peer into the spaces around stars - looking for exoplanets outside our solar system, hoping to find the one-in-a-billion world enough like ours to sustain life. But with the unexpected death of her husband, her life became an empty, lightless space. 

The year 2016 marks the 60-year anniversary of the phrase 'artificial intelligence', and in this fascinating audiobook Luke Dormehl charts the weird and wonderful journey of one of mankind's greatest projects, the creation of Thinking Machines. This is a story of what it means to be human in the face of accelerating machine intelligence. It's about trying to make computers that are smarter than we are and what happens when it goes wrong. About what creativity means when all knowledge is data that can be stored on microchips.

According to Winston Churchill, Alan Turing made the single biggest contribution to the Allied victory over Nazi Germany with his code-breaking machine. The world is also indebted to Turing's genius for the modern computer. It was clear that Turing had a remarkable mind from an early age. He taught himself to read in just three weeks. At his first school, the headmistress said, "I have had clever and hardworking boys, but Alan has genius."

When neuroscientist Susan Barry was 50 years old, she took an unforgettable trip to Manhattan. As she emerged from the dim light of the subway into the sunshine, she saw a view of the city that she had witnessed many times in the past but now saw in an astonishingly new way. Skyscrapers on street corners appeared to loom out toward her like the bows of giant ships. Tree branches projected upward and outward, enclosing and commanding palpable volumes of space.

Stephen Hawking has dazzled listeners worldwide with a string of best-sellers exploring the mysteries of the universe. Now, for the first time, the most brilliant cosmologist of our age turns his gaze inwards for a revealing look at his own life and intellectual evolution. My Brief History recounts Stephen Hawking’s improbable journey, from his post-war London boyhood to his years of international acclaim and celebrity.

A Home in the Cosmos has descriptive copy which is not yet available from the Publisher...

As featured on CNN’s Amanpour & Company and BBC Radio 4’s Start the Week with Andrew Marr One of the Financial Times’ best books of 2021 In this compelling journey through twenty-six countries, Simon Mundy traces how the struggle to respond to the climate crisis is rapidly reshaping the...

In Simply Freud, Professor Stephen Frosh offers an engaging and accessible introduction to Freud and his major ideas, including the unconscious, sexual repression, free association, and the interpretation of dreams. At the same time, he reminds us that Freud was also a person - ambitious, conflicted, amorous, irritable, blind about some things, prophetically insightful about others.

Modern medicine is a world that glimmers with new technology and cutting-edge research. To the public eye, medical stories often begin with sirens and flashing lights and culminate in survival or death. But these are only the most visible narratives. As a critical care doctor treating people at their sickest, Daniela Lamas is fascinated by a different story: what comes after for those whose lives are extended by days, months, or years as a result of our treatments and technologies?