Sexism in science has roots in Victorian whispering campaigns, claims new book
Jealous rivals’ rumours about the supposed effeminacy of popular figures such as Humphry Davy left an enduring legacy, says Dr Heather Ellis Jealous rivals’ attempts to destroy 19th-century chemist Sir...
View ArticleIrresistible: Why We Can’t Stop Checking, Scrolling, Clicking and Watching –...
A fascinating study by Adam Alter explains why many of us find our smartphones and computers so addictiveThe school near the GP practice where I work held an internet safety evening recently, subtitled...
View ArticleThe Vaccine Race: How Scientists Used Human Cells to Combat Killer Viruses by...
The extraordinary story of the man who risked his career to create vaccines against our worst diseasesIn March 1968, biologist Leonard Hayflick visited the basement of the Wistar Institute of Anatomy...
View ArticleThe World-Ending Fire: The Essential Wendell Berry review – how America’s...
These prescient essays are drawn from a 50-year campaign on behalf of old-style US agrarianismThe writer who maintains that “progress” is a sham can always be fairly sure of a hearing. After all,...
View ArticleCold War Freud and Freud: An Intellectual Biography review – the politics of...
A pair of rich, illuminating studies epitomise a new wave of thinking about the Freud wars and the history of analysisIf Freud, as Auden wrote in his 1939 elegy, is “a whole climate of opinion / under...
View ArticleWonderland: How Play Made the Modern World by Steven Johnson review – the...
This technophile’s optimism for the future appears well founded if the past is any guideGeoff Dyer has complained that much current non-fiction is reducible to a snappy thesis that can be summed up...
View ArticleBell Curve author Charles Murray speaks out after speech cut short by protests
Author of widely discredited study of intelligence says opponents of his lecture looked like they had come from ‘casting for a film of brownshirt rallies’The controversial author of The Bell Curve,...
View ArticleDaniel Dennett on consciousness and 100 years of Anthony Burgess – books podcast
The influential thinker talks about From Bacteria to Bach and Back, and we discuss the Clockwork Orange author’s legacy Subscribe and review: iTunes, Soundcloud, Audioboom, Mixcloud& Acast and join...
View ArticleBuilt on Bones by Brenna Hassett review – have cities been good for humans?
A bioarchaeologist looks at skeletons to find out how people have lived and died, and reveals the paleo diet is all wrong“If cities are so great, why are they full of things that kill us?”,...
View ArticleWellcome prize shortlist announced: books that 'will change lives'
Six books are in contention for the annual award for excellence in science and health writing, including a trainee neurosurgeon’s posthumous memoir and books about the NHS, HIV/Aids and organ...
View ArticleOther Minds by Peter Godfrey-Smith review – the octopus as intelligent alien
A scuba-diving philosopher of science explores the wonder of cephalopods, smart and playful creatures who live outside the brain-body divide‘Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs / Upon the slimy sea.”...
View ArticleBrexit, gun control and feminist science fiction on 2017 Orwell prize longlist
Naomi Alderman’s science fiction story The Power is the sole novel on a 14-book longlist for the political writing award, with accounts of recent and historical developments in Britain dominatingNaomi...
View ArticleYuval Noah Harari: ‘Homo sapiens as we know them will disappear in a century...
The visionary historian, author of two dazzling bestsellers on the state of mankind, takes questions from Lucy Prebble, Arianna Huffington, Esther Rantzen and a selection of our readersLast week, on...
View ArticleTo Be a Machine by Mark O’Connell review – solving the problem of death
A captivating exploration of transhumanism features cryonics, cyborgs, immortality and the hubris of Silicon ValleyMax More runs Alcor, an American company which, in exchange for $200,000, will store...
View ArticleGastrophysics: The New Science of Eating by Charles Spence – review
Does the size of your plate matter, or how loud your crisps crunch? A psychologist explores our multisensory experience of foodOne of the lesser enigmas of life is why so many people order tomato juice...
View ArticleBlack Hole Blues by Janna Levin review – songs from outer space
When scientists recorded the collision of two black holes in 2015 it was the biggest event since the big bang. Janner charts the story from Einstein to LigoThe Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave...
View ArticleAuthor Will Ashon: ‘There’s a real value to being lost’
The former record label boss and novelist on why he decided to write a book about Epping Forest and all of the misfits it harboursWill Ashon, like Dante, found himself lost in a wood in middle age....
View ArticleThe 100 best nonfiction books: No 60 – On the Origin of Species by Charles...
Darwin’s revolutionary, humane and highly readable introduction to his theory of evolution is arguably the most important book of the Victorian eraWhen Charles Darwin first saw On the Origin of Species...
View ArticleRobots v experts: are any human professions safe from automation?
Technology already outperforms humans in many areas, but surely we would never accept machines as teachers, doctors or judges? Don’t be so sureThe main themes of our book, The Future of the...
View ArticlePlot 29: A Memoir by Allan Jenkins review – childhood trauma and the solace...
As he cultivates his London allotment, the journalist also digs into his troubled past – a brilliant grafting of haunting recollections on to a gardener’s diary“We must cultivate our garden,” was the...
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