Covid-19: Everything You Need to Know About the Coronavirus and the Race for the Vaccine by Michael Mosley

$19.99 AUD

Category: Science - Popular

This book charts the trajectory of the COVID-19 virus, from its emergence in China at the end of 2019 to its rapid worldwide spread.   Based on the latest scientific discoveries, Dr Mosley gives you a detailed understanding of the secrets of this coronavirus, how it spreads, how it infects your body and how your immune system tries to fight back. Armed with the facts you'll be in a much better position to protect yourself and your family when the world begins to reopen.   Dr Mosley also follows the work of leading doctors and virus researchers as they battle to find treatments and a safe and effective vaccine (ultimately, the only way to defeat the virus).   Eating well, sleeping soundly, exercising and managing your stress are all critical for keeping your brain, body and immune system in the best possible shape over the coming months. These are areas where Dr Mosley is well known for his science-based and practical approach.       ...Show more

A Letter to Layla - Travels to Our Deep Past and near Future by Ramona Koval

$34.99 AUD

Category: Science - Popular

How might the origins of our species inform the way we think about our planet? At a point of unparalleled crisis, can human ingenuity save us from ourselves? Much-loved writer and broadcaster Ramona Koval travels the globe in a quest to answer these difficult questions and more. She speaks with an emin ent paleo-archaeologist in the Republic of Georgia, meets the next generation of robots in Berlin, attends a transhumanist conference in California, and explores a cave in southern France before talking with the world's leading authority on cave art. And throughout, she returns to her quick-witted, ever-engaging youngest granddaughter, Layla, whose development in infancy spurs Koval to find out what makes us human, what separates us from the other apes. Filled with insightful and unexpected discussions with scientists whose knowledge of the past could hold the key to our future, A Letter to Laylawill surprise and delight in equal measure. ...Show more

2021 Australasian Sky Guide by Nick Lomb

$16.95 AUD

Category: Science - Popular

Compact, easy to use and reliable, this popular guide by well-known astronomer and author Dr Nick Lomb has been providing stargazers with everything they need to know about the southern night sky for over 30 years. The 2021 guide contains the latest information and clear explanations on the solar system , a historical astronomy feature, monthly sky maps, viewing tips and highlights for city dwellers, and details of the year's exciting celestial events.Wherever you are in Australia or New Zealand, easy calculations allow you to estimate local rise and set times for the Sun, Moon and planets. The 2021 Australasian Sky Guide also provides information on the solar system, updated with the latest findings from space probes.Published annually, the Sky Guide continues to be a favourite with photographers, event planners, sports organisers, teachers, students — and anyone who looks up at the stars and wants to know more.Highlights for 2021:• Venus close to Saturn and Jupiter February• Supermoons in April and May• Moon covers Venus in May• Venus close to Mercury in May• Venus close to Mars in July• Partial eclipse of the Moon in November• Partial eclipse of the Sun in December ...Show more

Seeing Voices: A Journey into the World of the Deaf by Oliver Sacks

$15.00 AUD

Category: Science - Popular

The bestselling author and "one of the greatest clinical writers of the twentieth century" (New York Times) explores the world of deafness and ponders the nature of human communication.

The Secret Life of Stars: Astrophysics for Everyone by HARVEY-SMITH LISA

$34.99 AUD

Category: Science - Popular

Witness Tree Seasons of Change with a Century-Old Oak by Lynda V. Mapes

$15.00 AUD

Category: Science - Popular

When our "witness tree" first rooted beside a low stone wall in rural Massachusetts, cars were just appearing on the roads. In the life of this one grand oak, we can see for ourselves the results of one hundred years of rapid environmental change. It's leafing out earlier, and dropping its leaves later as the climate warms. Even the inner workings of individual leaves have changed to accommodate more CO2 in our atmosphere. Climate science can seem dense, remote, and abstract. But through the lens of this one tree, it becomes immediate and intimate. In Witness Tree, environmental reporter Lynda Mapes takes us through a year with the tree in the Harvard Forest. We learn about carbon cycles and leaf physiology, but we also experience seasons of change as people have for centuries, watching for each new bud, and listening for each new bird and frog call. Lynda takes us high into the oak's swaying boughs, cores deep into its heartwood, and digs into its roots and teeming soil. She brings us eye level with garter snakes and newts, and alongside the squirrels and jays devouring the oak's acorns. Though stark in its implications, Witness Tree is a beautiful and lyrical read, rich in detail, sweeps of weather, history, people, and animals. It's an inescapable document of climate change, but also an environmental story rooted in hope, beauty, wonder, and the possibility of renewal in people and the world around us. ...Show more

A Human's Guide to the Future by Jordan Nguyen

$34.99 AUD

Category: Science - Popular

TECHNOLOGY IS EVOLVING AT THE FASTEST RATE WE'VE EVER SEEN, BUT IT MAY BE THE SLOWEST RATE WE'LL EVER SEE AGAIN! What does this mean for the future of the human race? Do we resist these changes or embrace them?Australian biomedical engineer, inventor and visionary Dr Jordan Nguyen has lived a life of c uriosity and wonder - exploring positive opportunities in science and technology, including robotics, artificial intelligence, bionics, extended reality and avatars. He believes that technology is a powerful tool that we as humans can choose to harness to create a better tomorrow.In A Human's Guide to the Future, Dr Jordan takes us on a journey through the big innovations being developed around the world, along the fun and amazing rollercoaster of his own adventures, and to envisage where our collective future is headed.Written by one of this generation's most exciting voices, this is a book that will deepen your understanding of new and emerging technologies and fuel your imagination at the dawn of what will be the most transformative era in human history. ...Show more

Boneheads and Brainiacs - Heroes and Scoundrels of the Nobel Prize in Medicine by Moira Dolan

$29.99 AUD

Category: Science - Popular

Even the greatest minds in medicine have been terribly, terribly wrong. The inventor of the lobotomy won a Nobel prize in medicine for destroying his patients' brains. Another Nobel laureate thought malaria cured syphilis. The discoverer of anaphylactic shock also researched the spirit world and ESP. A pioneer of organ transplants was an ardent eugenicist, while the founder of sports physiology heroically spoke out against Nazism. Boneheads and Brainiacs profiles the winners of the Nobel Prize in Medicine from 1901 to 1950--a surprisingly diverse group of racists, cranks, and opportunists, as well as heroes, geniuses, and selfless benefactors of humanity. Forget all the ivory tower stereotypes of white-coated doctors finding miracle cures. Boneheads and Brainiacs reveals the messy human reality behind medical progress, in a highly entertaining book written for the ordinary reader. Some were bad scientists; others were great scientists and lousy human beings. But the majority of these researchers produced knowledge that now saves millions of lives--priceless discoveries like the role of vitamins in nutrition, the dangers of radiation, treatments for diabetes and deadly infectious diseases, and more. Boneheads and Brainiacs showcases the enthralling, all-too-human personal lives that made modern medicine possible. ...Show more

Eureka!: The Birth of Science by Andrew Gregory

$15.00 AUD

Category: Science - Popular | Series: Icon Science

Medicine, anatomy, astronomy, mathematics and cosmology, science began with the Greeks, and Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras, Archimedes and Hippocrates were amongst its stars. That man ever managed to develop a 'scientific' attitude to the natural world at all is one of the true wonders of human thought. E ureka! shows how, free from intellectual and religious dogma, these early thinkers rejected myths and capricious gods and, in distinguishing between the natural and supernatural, effectively discovered nature. Andrew Gregory, Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at University College London, unravels the genesis of science in this fascinating exploration of the origins of Western civilisation, and our desire for a rational, legitimating system of the world. ...Show more

How Are We Going to Explain This? by Jelmer Mommers

$22.99 AUD

Category: Science - Popular

An international bestseller, the first climate book that doesn't leave the reader depressed: realistic and hopeful, witty and clarifying.

The Secret Life Of The Mind by Mariano Sigman

$20.00 AUD

Category: Science - Popular

From a world-renowned leader in neuroscience, a provocative, enthralling journey into the depths of the human mind. Where do our thoughts come from? How do we make choices and trust our judgments? What is the role of the unconscious? Can we manipulate our dreams? In this mind-bending international best seller, award-winning neuroscientist Mariano Sigman explores the complex answers to these and many other age-old questions. Over the course of his 20-year career investigating the inner workings of the human brain, Dr. Sigman has cultivated a remarkable interdisciplinary vision. He draws on research in physics, linguistics, psychology, education, and beyond to explain why people who speak more than one language are less prone to dementia; how infants can recognize by sight objects they've previously only touched; how babies, even before they utter their first word, have an innate sense of right and wrong; and how we can "read" the thoughts of vegetative patients by decoding patterns in their brain activity. Building on the author's awe-inspiring TED talk, the cutting-edge research presented in The Secret Life of the Mind revolutionizes how we understand the role that neuroscience plays in our lives, unlocking the mysterious cerebral processes that control the ways in which we learn, reason, feel, think, and dream. ...Show more

Windfall: Unlocking a Fossil-Free Future by Ketan Joshi

$29.99 AUD

Category: Science - Popular

We've had a decade of distraction and inaction on climate change, but what made things go so very wrong in Australia? And what can the rest of the world learn from our mistakes – and opportunities? In Windfall, renewable energy expert Ketan Joshi examines how wind power inspired the creation of a weird, fabricated disease, and why the speed with which emissions could have been reduced — like putting a price on carbon — was hampered by a flurry of policy disasters. He then plots a way forward to a future where communities champion equitable new clean tech projects, where Australia grows past a reliance on toxic fuels, and where the power of people is used to rattle fossil fuel advocates from their complacency. Renewable energy can become a key player in the effort to upgrade our species from one on a path to self-destruction to a path of sustainability and fairness. With the knowledge of how the last decade was lost, the next decade can work the way it's meant to. 'In Windfall: Unlocking a fossil-free future, renewable energy industry insider Ketan Joshi gives a teeth-gnashing account of Australia's interminable climate debates. ...Show more