Without our Sun in (the relatively) close proximity of 93 million miles it would be a cold and dark world indeed. It is the source of all our light and heat. The object is a massive ball of gas and plasma. Thanks to the nuclear fusion reactions taking place at its core, the Sun has been shining […]
Have you ever wondered how the 3.3 pounds of gelatinous material inside your skull generates the amazing magic lantern show that humans call ‘consciousness’? This, in philosophy, is known as the ‘hard problem of consciousness’ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness). Experimental science, undaunted, is having a go at finding out the answer. You may be surprised to learn just how long
Headhunters by Ben Shephard Read More »
The idea of emergent properties (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence) is a fascinating defence against reductionism. The notion is that genuinely novel features and patterns can arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions at a ‘lower’ level. E.g. psychology can be understood as an emergent property of neurobiological dynamics. Crucially, psychological behaviour cannot be fully understood, accounted for,
Brian Greene (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Greene), one of the world’s leading string theorists, peels away layers of mystery to reveal a universe that consists of eleven dimensions, where the fabric of space tears and repairs itself, and all matter — from the smallest quarks to the most gargantuan supernovas — is generated by the vibrations of microscopically tiny
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Dirt, soil, — it’s everywhere we go. It is the root of our existence, supporting our feet, our farms, our cities. This fascinating yet disquieting book finds, however, that we are running out of soil, and it’s no laughing matter. An engaging natural and cultural history of soil that sweeps from ancient civilizations to modern
Cosmologists tell us that the Universe is 13.75 billion years old (roughly!). It’s not that I’m disinclined to believe this. What is staggering is the ingenuity that it must have taken to work this out. John Gribbin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gribbin) and (http://www.johngribbinbooks.com/) tells the story in this most useful book. In the 19th century astronomers, geologists and evolutionists first
Before the microscope thinkers had speculated about what the world is made of at the minutest level. The miroscope introduced evidence for the first time and it has revolutionised our knowledge of the world and the organisms that inhabit it. In the seventeenth century the pioneering work of two scientists, the Dutchman Antonie van Leeuwenhoek and
What enables individually simple insects like ants to act with such precision and purpose as a group? How do trillions of neurons produce something as extraordinarily complex as consciousness? In this remarkably clear and companionable book, leading complex systems scientist Melanie Mitchell (http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~mm/) provides an intimate tour of the sciences of complexity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complexity), a broad set
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Lonesome George (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lonesome_George) was the most famous reptile in the world. He is believed to have been the last surviving giant tortoise from the northernmost island of Pinta in the Galápagos archipelago. It had been thought that the last tortoise there was carried away by scientists in 1906. In the previous two centuries, passing sailors had
