Robert M. Sapolsky (https://med.stanford.edu/profiles/robert-sapolsky, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Sapolsky) is a distinguished primatologist working broadly in the life and social sciences to examine human behaviour, manifestations of which, he writes, belong to the nervous system and to sensory stimuli. Some of human behaviour is purely mechanical, with payoffs in dopamine, that ‘invidious, rapidly habituating reward.’ Other aspects are located […]
In this book Richard Prum (http://prumlab.yale.edu/) argues that natural selection is not the only evolutionary mechanism at work in animal life. Beauty and desire in nature are also dynamic forces, and those features in males that females prefer in choosing mates evolve rapidly. In a nutshell, each species evolves its own standard of beauty by
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Karin Slaughter (http://www.karinslaughter.com/) has been thrilling her readers with grisly mystery crime since 2001 with her first novel Blindsighted . She is already the author of sixteen novels, her most recent being The Kept Woman, published in 2016. Having sold more than 35 million copies of her fiction in 36 languages, you may wish to check out whether you
Marcus du Sautoy (https://www.simonyi.ox.ac.uk/) shows us the successes and limitations of maths and science in this book. The reader is taken to seven different ‘edges’ of knowledge and is shown why even Newton, Leibniz, and Galileo didn’t have a comprehensive grip on knowledge in their own day. From chaos theory, which ‘placed huge limits on what
In 1916 Albert Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves: miniscule ripples in the fabric of space-time generated by enormously powerful events. If such vibrations could somehow be recorded, we might ‘observe’ the universe for the first time through sound: the hissing of the Big Bang, the whale-like tunes of collapsing stars, the low tones
Not many history books offer the brilliant blend of accurate record and compelling narrative as does The Defeat of the Spanish Armada. The reader is entertainingly informed about a raft of fascinating detail – the execution of Mary, the attack on Cadiz (the famous “singeing of the beard”), the capture of Sluys, the battle of
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Ruth Ware (http://www.ruthware.com/) had a variety of jobs before happily finding her vocation as a fiction writer. Her psychological thrillers In a Dark, Dark Wood (2015) and The Woman in Cabin 10 (2016) are now followed by this year’s The Lying Game (2017). The summary is as follows. On a cool June morning, Isa Wilde, a
American author Dennis Lehane (http://dennislehane.com/) has written several novels, two of which have transferred successfully to the screen. These are Mystic River (2001) (a 2003 film directed by Clint Eastwood, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0327056/) and Shutter Island (2003) (a 2010 film directed by Martin Scorsese, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1130884/?ref_=nv_sr_1). Directors are attracted to the author’s insightful and empathetic characterisation, his razor-sharp dialogue,
The Spanish tourist industry hopes Britons do not abandon their traditional summer holiday after Brexit. The Spanish economy is hugely dependent on Northern European visitors, especially the British. 2017 may see up to 15 million Brits (https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2016/aug/30/record-numbers-britons-travel-spain-summer-holidays-tourism) (3 times the entire population of Scotland) get their annual dose of sun there. It may be that
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