Receive regular updates highlighting the latest in science from COSMOS.
|
|
||
|
 Non-fiction The Republican War on ScienceFebruary 2006
In John Wyndham's novel, The Day of the Triffids, the narrator refers to an uncooperative and "intransigent sixth" of planet Earth. It was a reference, none too oblique, to the USSR. I wonder, were he writing today, if Wyndham might apply that label to a different part of the globe.  The Weather MakersDecember 2005
The Weather Makers retells, with new material, a scientific argument we know so well it's becoming a truism. If the sheer number of countries to have ratified the Kyoto Protocol on global warming is any indication, the world is in almost uniform agreement about the trouble we could face.  The PlanetsDecember 2005
Former New York Times science reporter Dava Sobel has covered much ground very quickly in establishing herself as an author. At least two of her books, Longitude and Galileo's Daughter, are bestsellers, and now she is taking on our Solar System.  The Tunguska Fireball: Solving One of the Great Mysteries of the 20th CenturyDecember 2005
The whole idea of the Tunguska fireball sounds like science fiction - but less believable than most. On 30 June 1908, a blindingly bright fireball flashed over Central Siberia, leaving an 800 km trail in the sky, then exploded with enormous force, creating a shock wave that levelled more than 2,000 km2 of forest. Locals witnessing the event believed the god of thunder had sent them a visitation.  The Robot's Rebellion: Finding Meaning in The Age of DarwinismDecember 2005
In this absorbing work, the author's principal theme - that human beings are merely the temporary vessels for DNA bent only on its own survival - isn't entirely new. Several texts have advanced this proposition and the concept is slowly taking hold.  Weighing the SoulNovember 2005
Len Fisher's second book (his first, How to Dunk a Doughnut, was published in 2002) looks at the business of finding, developing and (sometimes) establishing scientific ideas, be they good, bad or downright dotty. He does this by looking at some of the less examined ramifications of great scientific questions, giving rise to much thought and amusement during the process.  The Wayward Mind: An Intimate History of the UnconsciousNovember 2005
Author Guy Claxton uses the most up-to-date neuroscience and psychology, as well as sources from Homer to Shakespeare, in this masterly survey of the workings of the mind.  Einstein, A Hundred Years of RelativityNovember 2005
Like several other volumes published this year invoking the great man's name, Andrew Robinson's large format hardback celebrates the centenary of Albert Einstein's annus mirabilis, 1905, in which he published important papers on Brownian motion, the photoelectric effect and molecular dimensions … and relativity.  A Whole New Mind: Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual AgeNovember 2005
We are complex beings whose abilities go far beyond logic, language-use and analytical thinking, important as these are. We are imaginative, responsive to others and enraptured by beauty.  The Elements of MurderNovember 2005
While Australia has been served well by Ben Selinger over the years with titles such as Chemistry in the Marketplace and Why the Watermelon Won't Ripen Under Your Armpit, good popular chemistry books are generally something of a rarity, which makes John Emsley's latest offering very welcome.  Breaking the Time Barrier: The Race to Build the First Time MachineOctober 2005
The best thing about this book is that it takes readers for a brisk trot down a long list of scientists and their extraordinary discoveries, including Galileo, Newton, Einstein, Heisenberg, Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose. Apart from these giants of discovery, whose names resonate even in the popular imagination, the author visits others who are less well known.  The Labyrinth of Time: Introducing the UniverseOctober 2005
Time, space, consciousness. You can't get three larger, more mysterious concepts than these. Michael Lockwood is a philosopher at Oxford. In The Labyrinth of Time, he takes on these ideas and tries to work his way to a coherent view. He doesn't totally succeed, but it's a valiant attempt.  The greatest story never read?October 2005
Much like the universe, cosmology books are ever-expanding, writes Margaret Wertheim.  DNA and Your BodyOctober 2005
Our understanding of human biology is racing ahead in leaps and bounds: since identifying the structure of DNA in the 1950s human beings have mapped their own genome, learned a lot about chromosomes and begun working their way through the 30,000 human genes.  The Fly in the CathedralSeptember 2005
The discovery of the neutron and the concurrent work on the structure of the atomic nucleus are among the high-water marks of British physics in the 20th century and, in Brian Cathcart's book at least, a classic triumph of clearsighted determination, ingenuity and skill over the limitations of cold, cramped and bleak Cambridge laboratories, ramshackle equipment and eternally inadequate funding. 
|
COSMOS newsletter!Latest News |