Natural sciences

It's been said that, after 9/11, the 2008 financial crash and the Covid-19 pandemic, we're a more fearful society than ever before. Yet fear, and the panic it produces, have long been driving forces - perhaps the driving force - of world history: fear of God, of famine, war, disease, poverty, and other people. In Fear: An Alternative History of the World, Robert Peckham considers the impact of fea

The word raccoon is drawn from the Native American Algonquian language. Their term arakun roughly translates to "he who scratches with his hands." Anyone who has found a raccoon rummaging around in a once securely closed trash container can attest to how skilful raccoons are with their front paws.

The Light Eaters is a deep immersion into the drama of green life and the complexity of this wild and awe-inspiring world that challenges our very understanding of agency, consciousness, and intelligence.

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.

'Illuminating' TIM MARSHALL 'Refreshing' THOMAS HALLIDAY A revolutionary journey through time, showing how biology has shaped human history. This book will change your perspective. We are evolutionary wonders, yet flawed. Our bodies and minds fail, and to be human is to live with this contradiction. Being Human reveals how our nature shaped history, and still impacts progress today.

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 p