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Looking for love in all the wrong equations

In an extract from her new book, Dr Hannah Fry explains how mathematical modelling underpins everything from the possibility of finding a partner to the number of sexual partners we have in a...

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The Singular Universe and the Reality of Time by Roberto Mangabeira Unger and...

Is time, after all, real? Two mavericks take an axe to the established theory of cosmologyIn March 1955, about a month before his own death, Albert Einstein sent a letter to the family of his recently...

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Paul Muldoon and Nicholas Carr – books podcast

Pulitzer prize-winning poet Paul Muldoon on the ways in which modern life is intruding on to poetry, plus Nicholas Carr on the perils of automation Continue reading...

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The Birth of the Pill review – one giant leap for womankind

It liberated millions worldwide. Now the oral contraceptive gets its own life-affirming history in Jonathan Eig’s vivid account of the four Pill pioneersIn June 1957 something happened that was to...

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The Fish Ladder by Katharine Norbury review – wild and wonderful walks

A grief-stricken woman follows some of Britain’s most beautiful rivers in a journey into her own past but sometimes loses the flow• In search of the source of my family – extract from The Fish Ladder•...

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Curvology by David Bainbridge review – the female body, dissected and confused

A study that sets out to identify the factors that influence eating disorders, body image and clothing choices collapses in a welter of contradictions“Being fat isolates and invalidates a woman,” wrote...

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Five ways to improve your brainpower

It’s possible to radically improve mental agility. Norman Doige, psychiatrist and author of The Brain’s Way of Healing, suggests strategies to sharpen your mindIt used to be thought that the brain was...

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Oliver Rackham, tree writer, leaves behind big boots to fill

Botanist, academic and nature writer who wrote books on countryside, woodlands and trees Late in the summer of 2013 I took an unusual package to the post office in the village where I live. Inside the...

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New books party: books that arrived recently | @GrrlScientist

This week, I share my thoughts about four books that span a number of non-fiction genres; science and nature, atheism, philosophy and politicsIt’s been a long time since I’ve shared anything here...

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My hero: Oliver Rackham by Richard Mabey

A tribute to the botanist and nature writer who died last weekI first saw Oliver Rackham perform in 1973, at a cross-disciplinary conference on the British oak held that autumn in Sussex University. We...

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The Brain’s Way of Healing by Norman Doidge review – a book of miracles

An absorbing compendium of unlikely recoveries from physical and mental ailments offers evidence that the brain can heal the bodyDr Michael Moskowitz, an American psychiatrist specialising in treating...

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To Explain the World review – a dry study of history’s greatest scientists

Nobel prize-winner Steven Weinberg’s history of knowledge covers well trodden ground, barely straying from physics and astronomy“I confess that I find Aristotle frequently tedious, in a way Plato is...

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Bookseller offers rarity that inspired Charlotte Brontë – and her pseudonym

Thomas Bewick’s History of British Birds, mentioned in Jane Eyre, was owned by Yorkshire philanthropist believed to have supported Brontë familyA rare first edition of Thomas Bewick’s History of...

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Birth of a Theorem: A Mathematical Adventure by Cédric Villani – review

The compelling and uncompromising diary of a prizewinning French enthusiast and eccentricTo really appreciate mathematics, you have to see it evolve, to work through the twists and turns yourself; it’s...

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In the Beat of a Heart by John Whitfield – review

A book that beautifully explores the astonishing variety and complexity of life iterated across the species in an attempt to answer the biggest question of all: why is life the way it is?This is a book...

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The Fish Ladder by Katharine Norbury review – a memoir of grief and recovery

The author turns to the river for comfort in a book that unobtrusively merges emotion and descriptionShocked and grieving after a miscarriage, Katharine Norbury decides that she will walk from the...

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How do we know chilli is hot and mint cool?

Rubbed on the skin, chilli peppers feel hot and mint leaves cool. Why? The answers might surprise youHere’s the plan: I’m going to give you a backpack filled with plastic bags – some will be filled...

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From didders to hob-gobs: add to Robert Macfarlane's nature word-hoard

Even since notionally ‘closing’ my glossaries, hundreds more terms have reached me, old and new. I would love to learn more. If you have a place word or words you’d be happy to share, please send...

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The word-hoard: Robert Macfarlane on rewilding our language of landscape

For decades the leading nature writer has been collecting unusual words for landscapes and natural phenomena – from aquabob to zawn. It’s a lexicon we need to cherish in an age when a junior dictionary...

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New Books Party: Books that arrived recently

This week, I share my thoughts about two new books; one that argues for a radical new history of life on Earth, and the other is a newly revised field guide to diving in AntarcticaA New History of...

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