Science and nature
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Review The best paperbacks of 2014
Nicholas Lezard’s paperbacks of the year: Hunting in the wild west, a creepy story about motherly love, and the plight of the bumblebee
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GrrlScientist: Today, I share my first impressions of books about how human use of toxic chemicals is affecting evolution, how modern humans came into being after the human-chimp split, and the ethics of everyday life.
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This nature diary’s wry, delightful observations reveal a bigger picture of troubled times, writes Richard Kerridge
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Review Lingo: A Language-Spotter’s Guide to Europe by Gaston Dorren review – learned and pleasantly ironic
English is illogical, French has a mother fixation – and the future is Mandarin. By Steven Poole -
GrrlScientist: Today I share my first impressions of books about urban birds, materials science and a children’s dystopian novel that was recently adapted into a film.
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Hopes surround the protein that suppresses tumours – but what about Big Pharma, asks Peter Forbes
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GrrlScientist: Benders, a children’s book by Clive Gifford & Professor Anil Seth, is filled with optical illusions. The authors explain the science behind how these illusions work and demonstrate the many different ways that they trick your brain.
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Clive Gifford’s book Eye Benders: The Science of Seeing and Believing has just been crowned winner of the Royal Society Young People’s book prize, which is judged by young people. Here Clive shares some his favourite optical illusions from the book
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GrrlScientist: This week, I share my first impressions about a scientific biography about John Napier, a Very Small Introduction about Alexander the Great, and a novel by an Australian writer.
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GrrlScientist: Our teen-aged hero, Itch, is back. This, the third book in a mystery-thriller trilogy, follows Itch’s continuing adventures as he and his friends try to outwit criminal masterminds who are desperately seeking radioactive chemical element 126 -- an element that still lurks out there. Somewhere.
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The Bible garnered 37% of public vote, while On the Origin of Species received 35%, writes Alison Flood
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GrrlScientist: Mark Miodownik’s Stuff Matters has won the 2014 Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books. Stuff Matters, published by Viking, takes the reader on a lively and engaging exploration of some of the myriad materials that shape the modern world.
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Review Royal Society books shortlist: Seven Elements That Have Changed the World by John Browne – review
Ian Sample: Carnegie and Rockefeller feature in this engaging history of how the use of natural resources has underpinned greed and dramatic industrial development
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An account of the Flood significantly different from that told in the Bible should have resonances with modern audiences, writes Nick Fraser
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The best popular science book of the year, Rosetta's moment in space and Cern's new leader
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GrrlScientist: This week, I share my initial impressions of three wonderful hot-off-the-presses science books that just arrived in the mail; two books are about genetics and one is a diary by a citizen scientist
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Vibrators, erotica, condoms … Christopher Turner puts on his plastic gloves to examine treasures from the Institute of Sexology, and finds that the pioneers of the study of sex were not just campaigners, they were political activists and collectors, too
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Robin McKie: A life-affirming and reassuring analysis that treats cancer as a subject of study for the natural historian and social scientist
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Nicola Davis: An alimentary voyage packed full of fun factoids shines a light on the fate of food inside us
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James Kingsland: From chocolate to Samurai swords, a fascinating take on the sensory and social dimension of materials
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Doctor and New Yorker writer Atul Gawande argues that we should focus less on prolonging life and more on making it meaningful, writes Geraldine Bedell
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GrrlScientist: This absorbing book is an engaging and wistful, yet measured, chronicle about the tragic loss of one very special, iconic, species, the passenger pigeon.
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A life in ... Jared Diamond: ‘Humans, 150,000 years ago, wouldn’t figure on a list of the five most interesting species on Earth’
The bestselling biogeographer talks to Oliver Burkeman about dealing with the critics who condemn him as a cultural imperialist -
GrrlScientist: Here’s a few more books to help you become that modern polymath you want to become.
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We have exalted longevity over what makes life worth living. GP Gavin Francis salutes a moving exploration of illness and death
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GrrlScientist: After my bookgasm (book-buying binge) at last week’s Frankfurt Book Fair, I’ve got a mountain of wonderful books to share with you -- a project that will take place over the next few weeks.
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GrrlScientist: The newest instalment in the Nick and Tesla “science mysteries” series, where young people learn to use their scientific and electronics knowledge to solve mysteries around them.
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The 19th century ornithologist had a surprisingly progressive view of Australian animals, championing the fast-disappearing thylacine and broad-faced potoroo, writes Fred Ford – even if he also knew how to cook a wombat
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Review Rising Ground: A Search for the Spirit of Place review – Philip Marsden’s love letter to Cornwall
A thought-provoking exploration of Cornish lives and landscapes has an affinity with the work of Simon Armitage, writes Kate Kellaway -
A life in ... Atul Gawande: 'If I haven't succeeded in making you itchy, disgusted or cry I haven't done my job'
The books interview: The surgeon-author talks to Sukhdev Sandhu about the limits of medicine, our view of death, and battles over taste with the editor of the New Yorker -
Although I recently returned from visiting London, books still arrived in the mail during my absence for me to share with you. Here’s some of the treasure-trove ...
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Martin Robbins: A poorly researched diatribe on the ‘youth of today’, Susan Greenfield’s exploration of Mind Change reads like a Littlejohn column wrapped in the trappings of science
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From death rays to digital music – this is a pleasing survey of innovations that have made the modern world. By Peter Forbes
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The Greeks cast their science from first principles, without troubling to examine the natural world. Aristotle changed everything, argues this elegantly written book. By Henry Gee
GrrlScientist New Books Party: Books that arrived recently