The Sweet Spot by Paul Bloom review – the pleasure of pain
An intriguing scientific investigation into why suffering, from mountaineering to BDSM, so often leads to satisfactionThere are more than 200 dead bodies on Mount Everest. Some of these frozen corpses–...
View ArticleThe big idea: how much do we really want to know about our genes?
Genetic data will soon be accessible like never before. The implications for our health are hugeWhile at the till in a clothes shop, Ruby received a call. She recognised the woman’s voice as the...
View ArticleThe best science books of 2021
Quarantine, the climate crisis, genetics and mysterious illnesses come under the microscope in this year’s highlightsEarly in the pandemic it was the blunt tools of past centuries that saved the most...
View ArticleTrust No One: Inside the World of Deepfakes by Michael Grothaus review –...
Deepfakes are the latest moral danger from the fast-moving world of tech. But haven’t we seen it all before? On the night of Thursday 3 September 1998, a middle-aged community college professor with a...
View ArticleWhen the Sahara Was Green by Martin Williams review – the sands of time
The fascinating story of a unique landscape surveys the climatic changes that made this desert dry – and explains why it will one day be green againFor Paul Bowles, the Sahara was “one of the last...
View Article2022 in books: highlights for the year ahead
New writing from Ali Smith, Marlon James, Elena Ferrante and Jarvis Cocker – a taste of good things to comeContinue reading...
View ArticleBritain got it wrong on Covid: long lockdown did more harm than good, says...
A new book outlines the mistakes and missteps that made UK pandemic worseThere was a distinctive moment, at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, that neatly encapsulated the mistakes and confusion of...
View ArticleIn brief: Five Tuesdays in Winter; The Treeline; Islands of Abandonment – review
A short story collection full of emotional epiphanies, an investigation into trees on the move, and an exploration of abandoned placesLily KingPicador, £14.99, pp240Continue reading...
View ArticleThe Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows by John Koenig review – fifty shades of sad
Ever felt something but struggled to express it? A new book might help you put a name to your ‘proluctance’In 1983, Douglas Adams and John Lloyd published the classic satirical dictionary The Meaning...
View ArticleThe Expectation Effect by David Robson review – mind-changing science
From exercise to old age, the latest research shows that what we believe can have some very concrete consequencesWhen dozens of apparently healthy young men who had emigrated from Laos started dying in...
View ArticleThe Oracle of Night by Sidarta Ribeiro review – the secrets of sleep
A neuroscientist attempts to reconcile psychoanalysis with modern science in a fantastical romp through the history of dreamingIn 1953, scientists at the University of Chicago observed that people...
View ArticleHow to Do Things With Emotions by Owen Flanagan review – don’t shout, don’t...
A philosopher contends that we should value shame and reject rage in a valuable study of the role that emotions play in societyTherapists dwell in the land of emotions. It is our job to receive the...
View ArticleThe Insect Crisis by Oliver Milman review – strange and fragile beauty
Insects may resemble ‘aliens on earth’ – but life as we know it couldn’t function without them, as this lucid homage showsIn Ray Bradbury’s 1952 short story A Sound of Thunder, a private safari group...
View ArticleEmotional by Leonard Mlodinow review – the new thinking about feelings
Far from being stumbling blocks to reason, our emotions are important and adaptive, argues this summary of the latest scienceEmotions are as messy as they are fascinating, not just personally but...
View ArticleThe Social Lives of Animals by Ashley Ward review – be more bat
From to self-isolating bees to bonding baboons, lessons on cooperation from the animal worldVampire bats “have each other’s backs”, according to one of the extraordinary stories in this fascinating...
View ArticleControl: The Dark History and Troubling Present of Eugenics by Adam...
The geneticist offers a short, sharp, illuminating overview of the science, politics, uses and abuses of human gene editingAdam Rutherford begins this sharp and timely study of the science that dare...
View ArticleIn brief: We Are the Brennans; Hurricane Lizards and Plastic Squid; Boys...
An Irish-American family’s secrets laid bare; a personal exploration of climate change; and a vivid debut about brotherly loveTracey LangePan Macmillan, £16.99, pp289Continue reading...
View ArticleControl by Adam Rutherford review – a warning from history about eugenics
To know the story of this dark science is to inoculate ourselves against its being repeated, argues the science writer and broadcasterThis is a short book about a big subject, with a thorny history...
View ArticleHurricane Lizards and Plastic Squid by Thor Hanson review – how nature is...
Global heating has spurred some peculiar changes in plants and animals from the Caribbean to the RockiesIn June 1802, the German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt ascended the inactive volcano Mount...
View ArticleI left the wilds of Orkney for a new life in Berlin. Could I find a lover –...
In an extract from her new memoir, The Instant, nature writer Amy Liptrot tries to cure her heartbreak with online dating and a hunt for the capital’s elusive creatures• Read an interview with...
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