NHM Evolution

The NHM Evolution iPad app features timelines, 3-D models and artwork. Credit: National History Museum, London

IF YOU LOVE science, the NHM Evolution app, from the Natural History Museum in London, might be reason enough to purchase an iPad (if the COSMOS app hasn’t already convinced you, of course).

The app is a portal into Earth’s past, a wealth of knowledge presented in a generous variety of complementary ways. Study 3-D models of fossilised skulls.

Swipe along an interactive timeline that begins at life’s origin and culminates with, well, you. Watch the tectonic drama of Earth’s shifting continents over millions of years, or read the book of life as told by key events such as the Cambrian explosion and the Chicxulub asteroid.

Read up on all the weird and wonderful creatures that have walked, swam, flown and crept across our planet, or about the intrepid heroes of science who paved the way for Darwin, and those who took up his torch – and those, such as Lamarck, who proposed different mechanisms for evolution altogether.

NHM Evolution puts a treasury of knowledge at your fingertips. Learning has never been this much fun.