Natural sciences

From New Yorker staff writer and author of The Longing for Less Kyle Chayka comes a timely history and investigation of a world ruled by algorithms, which determine the shape of culture itself. From trendy restaurants to city grids, to TikTok and Netflix feeds the world round, algorithmic recommendations dictate our experiences and choices. The algorithm is present in the familiar neon signs and

With fun, fascinating vignettes, a renowned neurobiologist illuminates the interconnectedness of plant life and how we can learn from it to better plan our communities. We animals account for a paltry 0.3% of the planet´s biomass while plants add up to 85%. And when, with just a little training, we are able to look at the world without seeing it solely as humanity´s playground, we cannot help but

Starting with the moment of the Big Bang—at exactly one ten-millionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second—this book charts a history of space and time all the way through the evolution of our solar system, the birth of stars and the formation of life on Earth, to the future of our galaxy and beyond.With deeply insightful and fascinating text by Hayden Planetarium Associate

Become a moggy mastermind with nine fun and easy-to-score personality tests. From cat speak to curious quirks, discover your feline’s true nature to better nurture your bond. It begins with a simple question: what are your cat's classic behaviours? Whether they're testily knocking over your mug of piping hot tea or affectionately cuddling into your arms for a morning squeeze, each of these en

A special 10th anniversary edition of the million-copy bestseller What If? from the creator of the wildly popular webcomic xkcd—revised and annotated with brand-new illustrations and answers to important questions you never thought to ask. Fans of xkcd ask Munroe a lot of strange questions: What if you tried to hit a baseball pitched at 90 percent the speed of light? How fast ca

The bestselling author of Your Inner Fish takes readers on an epic adventure to the North and South Poles to reveal the secrets locked in the ice about life, the cosmos, and our planet´s future. Renowned scientist Neil Shubin has made extraordinary discoveries by leading scientific expeditions to the sweeping ice landscapes of the Arctic and Antarctic. He´s survived polar storms, tr

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A life-altering journey through the science of neuroaesthetics, which offers proof for how our brains and bodies transform when we participate in the arts—and how this knowledge can improve our health, enable us to flourish, and build stronger communities. “This book blew my mind!”—Angela Duckworth, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Grit A BLOOM

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • An urgent warning of the unprecedented risks that AI and other fast-developing technologies pose to global order, and how we might contain them while we have the chance—from a co-founder of the pioneering artificial intelligence company DeepMind and current CEO of Microsoft AI “A fascinating, well-written, and important book.”—Yuval Noah

Brief Answers, Big Questions: four new books celebrating the genius of Stephen Hawking's brilliant posthumous work, Brief Answers to the Big Questions, with each one offering two electrifying essays from one of the greatest minds of our age.

In an age where technologies such as AI threaten to supplant human intelligence, an award-winning scientist offers a radical new view of our innate human technology and what we're truly capable of. There are rare moments in time when we make choices that irreversibly change the world, and our lives, forever. Today is one of those moments. Scientists, engineers and philosophers alike warn us that

Stories brought us together Books spread our ideas – and our mythologies The internet promised infinite knowledge The algorithm learned our secrets – and then turned us against each other What will AI do? NEXUS is the thrilling account of how we arrived at this moment, and the urgent choices we must now make to survive – and to thrive.

In the bestselling The Signal and the Noise, Nate Silver showed how forecasting would define the age of Big Data. Now, in this timely and riveting new book, Silver investigates "the River," the community of like-minded people whose mastery of risk allows them to shape-and dominate-so much of modern life.

A boxed notecard set featuring beautiful prints of medicinal plants. Healing Plants features 16 hand-coloured plates from Elizabeth Blackwell’s A Curious Herbal (1737–39). Blackwell, a talented artist with a passion for the natural world, published her herbal as a means of financial support after her husband landed in debtor’s prison, and it quickly became a valuable reference for doctors and a

An “important and deeply researched” (The Wall Street Journal) exploration of allergies, from their first medical description in 1819 to the cutting-edge science that is illuminating the changes in our environment and lifestyles that are making so many of us sick Hay fever. Peanut allergies. Eczema. Either you have an allergy or you know someone who does. Billions of people worldwide—an est

An eye-opening investigation into the history of diabetes research and treatment by the award-winning journalist and best-selling author of Why We Get Fat • "[Gary] Taubes´s meticulous, science-based work makes him the Bryan Stevenson of nutrition, an early voice in the wilderness for an unorthodox view that is increasingly becoming accepted."—Niel Barsky, The Guardian Before the disco

You make hundreds of decisions every day, from what to eat for breakfast to how you should invest, and not one of those decisions would be possible without emotion. It has long been said that thinking and feeling are separate and opposing forces in our behavior. But as Leonard Mlodinow, the best-selling author of Subliminal, tells us, extraordinary advances in psychology and neuroscience have pr

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Stephen Hawking´s closest collaborator offers the intellectual superstar´s final thoughts on the cosmos—a dramatic revision of the theory he put forward in A Brief History of Time. “This superbly written book offers insight into an extraordinary individual, the creative process, and the scope and limits of our current understanding of the cosmos.”—Lord

LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • “A riveting feat of science writing that recasts that most familiar of celestial objects into something eerily extraordinary, pivotal to our history, and awesome in the original sense of the word.”—Ed Yong, New York Times bestselling author of An Immense World A New York Times Book Review Editors´ Choice Many of

Quanta and Fields, the second book of Sean Carroll´s already internationally acclaimed series The Biggest Ideas in the Universe, is an adventure into the bare stuff of reality.   Sean Carroll is creating a profoundly new approach to sharing physics with a broad audience, one that goes beyond analogies to show how physicists really think. He cuts to the bare mathematical essence of our mos

From prehistoric cave paintings to the prints and etchings of Picasso, owls have captivated and inspired us for millennia. Whether they appear as ancient Athenian symbols of wisdom, ghostly harbingers of death, or the cuddly sidekicks of Harry Potter and Winnie the Pooh, these birds have continued to fascinate and disturb us in equal measure. Through revelatory new behavioural research, Jennifer