May 2015

God’s Traitors

Lively interest in the Tudor and Elizabethan ages have been stimulated in recent years by the histories and popularisations of David Starkey (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Starkey) and Hilary Mantel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilary_Mantel). Should you wish to immerse yourself further into this world you’ll find an excellent new book in God’s Traitors: Terror and Faith in Elizabethan England.  The Catholics of Elizabethan England […]

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Trilobite!

Before retirement Richard Fortey (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Fortey) was Professor of Palaeontology at the Natural History Museum. He is a world expert on the trilobites, a group of ancient marine arthropods resembling woodlice which roamed the oceans for almost 300 million years. That’s three thousand times longer than Homo Sapiens have so far been on the planet. The study of these creatures has contributed hugely

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The Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence by Margaret Boden

There is much talk these days about artificial intelligence, and whether advanced computer systems could ever really ‘think’. Might they, after we have birthed them, go on to replicate and take over the world? This is not idle speculation, or the draft plot for a science fiction novel. Stephen Hawking is only one of many

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Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language by Robin Dunbar

I’m assuming you don’t spend a lot of time picking out unwanted insects from your best friend’s fur. Yet the function of that activity in apes is exactly what Robin Dunbar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Dunbar) believes language does for us. Apes and monkeys, humanity’s closest kin, differ from other animals in the intensity of their social relationships. All their

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Spirals in Time

There is a delightful scene in the film Pretty Woman (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100405/?ref_=nv_sr_1) with Julia Roberts and Richard Gere. Roberts plays a hooker who has been hired by Gere as an escort to accompany him to a business meeting dinner. She is beautifully presented in cocktail dress but lacks table manner etiquette. On been presented with escargots she is

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Memory Man

David Baldacci (http://davidbaldacci.com/) began writing stories as a child, when his mother gave him a notebook in which to record them. He wrote for more than two decades, penning short stories and later screenplays without much success. While practicing law, he turned to novel writing, taking three years to write Absolute Power. Published in 1996,

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Cuckoo

The familiar call of the common cuckoo, “cuck-oo,” has been a harbinger of spring ever since our ancestors walked out of Africa many thousands of years ago. However, for naturalist and scientist Nick Davies, the call is an invitation to solve an enduring puzzle: how does the cuckoo get away with laying its eggs in

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Time of Death

Multi-talented Mark Billingham (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Billingham#Novels_2, http://www.markbillingham.com/) began attracting admirers for his crime and mystery fiction in the early 2000’s with Sleepyhead (2001), Scaredy Cat (2002) and Lazybones (2003). He has produced a novel a year since that time, as well as writing for TV and being involved in comedy. His latest is Time of Death. The summary

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