Plant biologist and President of the Genetics Society (http://www.genetics.org.uk/) Enrico Coen offers us a wonderful book in Cells to Civilizations. This is a unified account of how life transforms itself – from the production of bacteria to the emergence of complex civilizations. What are the connections between evolving microbes, an egg that develops into an infant, and a child who […]
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James Gleick (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Gleick and http://around.com/) is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, writer and lecturer. He made his name in 1987 with Chaos. Chaos theory has made huge advances since that time but this is possibly still the best introduction on the subject for the layperson. It describes the Mandelbrot set, Julia sets, and Lorenz attractors without resorting to
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This is an elegant and wonderfully lucid introduction to the philosophy of science. 288 pages in Open University Press paperback edition. ISBN 978-0335201099
What is this thing called science? by Alan Chalmers Read More »
MANY people have argued that humans are naturally cooperative. Charles Darwin, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, the Dalai Lama, Russian zoologist and anarchist Peter Kropotkin, neurobiologist James Rilling and psychologist Dacher Keltner, among many others have all made the case that our animal nature is characterised as much by kindness and collaboration as it is by
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Physics and Cosmology are moving forward with unprecedented speed. It’s therefore difficult to recommend any one volume which can summarize our latest understanding of the Universe. This is as good as any, published in 2007. Gribbin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gribbin) attempts the complete sweep of the Universe from its beginning at the Big Bang to its possible ends,
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A superb study (2009) into the social insects – ants, bees, wasps and termites. Richly illustrated and brimming with first class scholarship throughout, this volume will give you an exciting and absorbing education into its subject matter. 576 pages in W.W. Norton & Co. hardback edition. ISBN 978-0393067040
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Professor Steve Jones (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jones_(biologist)) of University College London offers us (1999) Darwin’s account of evolution by natural selection illuminated by the findings of twentieth century science. Evidence is brought forward from palaeontology, geology, botany, zoology, oceanography, anthropology, microbiology, epidemiology, medicine and plate tectonics. Jones beautifully expands or enriches Darwin’s themes using Darwin’s examples – pigeons, dogs, farm
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Bill Bryson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Bryson) offers us an education in science within one volume. Written in an entertaining style his approach to the subject matter is through the lives of the scientists who made the discoveries. The tone is conversational and the explanation assisted by homely metaphor. Bryson interviews leading researchers in their fields and reveals many an amusing
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Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters (1999) is about as easy as it gets to understand this subject matter. Matt Ridley is a science journalist and author. He is best known for his books on genetics, evolution and looking at human behaviour from an evolutionary viewpoint. Genome has one chapter for every
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