Sub-titled 'Nature's Secrets to Longevity' molecular biologist Brendborg provides a hugely enjoyable whistle-stop tour of the science of ageing from far flung places to cutting-edge research labs. From the backwards-ageing jellyfish to the woman who successfully edited her own DNA, he follows the thread of every experiment, story and myth in search of immortality. With mind-bending discoveries and psychological gifts that feel closer to magic than reality, the book will make us marvel at the possibilities held by scientific discovery, and most of all at nature. We meet the fighting naked mole-rats who are much better than their close relatives mice at surviving stressors such as DNA-damaging chemicals, heavy metals or extreme heat. Chapters include The Secrets of Easter Island, Zombie Cells and How to Get Rid of Them, Winding the Biological Clock, Microbe Struggles and Immune Rejuvenation, Flossing for Longevity, Starving for Fun and Medieval Monks to Modern Science. Judicious and refreshingly clear, 270pp, paperback.

The compelling story of how the first transatlantic cable was laid, the people who dared, the people who lost, and the people who profited, the book tells the dramatic attempts to cross the Atlantic during the 1850s and 1860s, from the first failed attempts to the project that finally succeeded. An inconceivably audacious attempt to overcome the forces of nature in the name of human progress and technology, the laying of the cable was to change forever our means of communication. The speed with which information could now be transmitted was unprecedented and revolutionised the face of news and the global economy, revolutionised our understanding of electricity and created a new global trade. Gillian Cookson is an industrial historian specialising in the origins of engineering and is a research fellow at Durham University. Full of facts and easy to read, this is a fantastic journey with some excellent diagrams and photographs in the colour plate section. 160pp, paperback.

Tony Peake does not think that we survive the death of our bodies and instead argues that we do not die at all, that bodily death as we usually think of it is in fact not possible. Presenting insights into contemporary neuroscience and quantum physics as well as ancient cosmologies and mystical traditions, he presents a coherent picture of a universe that literally requires you to be immortal. As preposterous as this may seem, he finds persuasive evidence to support it from a variety of sources but most of all from our everyday experiences. How often have you had a sensation that you were reliving an event for a second time? How often have you had a correct 'hunch' about something that was about to happen? Is this a glimpse of a life already lived, perhaps many times? You will read about the common features of near-death experiences, the slowing of time, a review of your entire life, brain stimulation studies, evolution, Freudian slips and déjà vu, epilepsy and schizophrenia. Peake shows that the slowing of your sense of time dictated by chemical changes in your dying brain allows you to re-experience your life all over again - in seconds, in someone else's universe, but in another full life-time in yours. A most innovative and provocative argument about the afterlife. 416pp in new full price large softback.

Author Stephen Bayley considers the car as the greatest cultural and design phenomenon of the 20th century and the book includes 60 of his popular monthly articles for Octane - the leading classic car magazine. They include '62 Capri, Michelotti, Vulgarity Jag, Girls Paint and Speed, DeLorean, Exhaust Pipe, Loose lock nuts, Showrooms, Functionalism, Mini, Ugly Cars, Cinquecento, Snobbery, Stirling Moss and Car Shoes among them. The automobile is the ultimate analogue machine and mankind's most ingenious, seductive and damaging invention. For over a century, cars have provided reference points for our notions of style, status and desire. In design terms, the Age of Combustion was as rich and varied as architecture's Baroque - and far more popular. And now it is coming to an end, as the internal-combustion engine is superseded by the battery and cars become wheeled computers, running on AI not oil. Together with a wide-ranging introduction, this book reproduces 60 of Stephen Bayley's popular monthly columns for Octane, the outstanding classic car magazine where, for more than 10 years, he has provided the most consistent and insightful commentary on car culture, often based on privileged access to industry insiders. With amazing and daring speedway track racing archive photos, VW Beetle production line, glamorous car shows, pop and film stars and their cars, dusty road races with spectators on the roadside, early pioneers and more rare images in colour and mono. 228 pages.

One of the world's most important scientists in his personal and timely book assesses the precarious state of our environment, examining the mass extinctions occurring in our time in a literal even poetic recounting that is readily accessible to lay readers. He spells out a specific plan to save our world while there is still time in a vision which is economically sound. Our world is far richer than previously conceived, yet so ravaged by human activity that half its species could be gone by the end of the present century. These two contrasting themes - unexpected magnificence and underestimated peril - have originated during the past two decades of research. Destruction of natural habitats, the rampant spread of invasive species, pollution, uncontrolled population growth and overharvesting are the main threats to our natural world. Represented in artworks of endangered and extinct species and races include the hawksbill sea turtle, giant kangaroo rat, golden toad, dwarf wedge muscle, Indian knob mountainbalm, valley elderberry longhorn beetle, striped adobe lily, white sedge, and the San Francisco fork-tailed damselfly among them. The book is both a moving description of the world's astonishing animals and plants and a guidebook for the protection of all its species, including our own. Remainder mark 229 page paperback.

Camden town tube station escalator was built through a burial pit! "A fabulous boxed collection of maps and informative brochures in addition to the text I had expected to receive. A real surprise - packed full of interesting info on History of Medicine & much more. Makes me want to get down to London and seek out the Physick Garden and other sites." "The book is written in an engaging style, with glimpses into London's diseased past with themed chapters. The gazetteer is a handy guide to all of the medical institutions (apart from hospitals) such as fraternities, historic spots, museums, etc. The self-guided walks are beautifully printed and designed, but the walks only take you in the general area of the sites of interest, rather than pointing you directly to them, which had I known would have brought along the gazetteer." A unique, stunningly-presented guide to London's past and a treasure trove of information for historians, residents, medical professionals and tourists, Medical London charts the many roles that diseases, treatments and cures have played in the city's sprawling story and charts the rise of asylum and the care of the mentally ill. It also reveals how London, in turn, has shaped the professions and practices of modern medicine. The set comprises a 216 page illustrated history paperback. The hardback Anatomy of the City leads you to points of interest like the British Red Cross Museum and Archives in Moorfields, the British Optical Association Museum and Library, the Florence Nightingale Museum, the Alfred Dunhill Collection, Hogarth's house, the Galton collection, the Wellcome Library, the Ragged School Museum, Royal London Hospital archives and museum, to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. The six fold out walking guides to pop in your pocket begin with along the medieval Thames from Westminster (duration 3 hours and 3 miles), the East End and the city (5 miles) with Daniel Defoe immortalising the sufferings of the Great Plague, a day in the life of an 18th century medical student, the British Empire in Greenwich in a circular walk from the Cutty Sark, Soho by Night and the slums of St. Giles, a famous bone setter, the lodgings of a notorious Regency junkie and a Crimean nurse from the Caribbean among them; and the last walk bohemian medicine in Chelsea with the Royal Hospital, the houses of Oscar Wilde, hospitals for cancer, tuberculosis and women. Two books, line art and photo illus, burgundy blood red cloth bound slipcase.

Mars was once similar to Earth, but today there are no rivers, no lakes, no oceans. Coated in red dust, the terrain is bewilderingly empty. Mars has no plate tectonics, no magnetic field and little protective atmosphere. In its early days, Mars was black with igneous rock. Untold piles of lava built the planet's massive volcanic provinces which bulged with enough basalt to flex the crust. Its volcanoes lifted greenhouse gases into the air wrapping the surface with a blanket of atmosphere, and we know from geological records that the terrain was warm and wet at least periodically. Then between 3 and a half and 4 billion years ago our planetary paths diverged and Mars was laid bare. Almost all of the atmosphere disappeared and so did the water. Yet multiple spacecraft are circling Mars, sweeping over Terra Sabaea, Syrtis Major, the dunes of Elysium, and Mare Sirenum - on the brink, perhaps, of a staggering find, one that would inspire humankind as much as any discovery in the history of modern science. In this beautifully observed, deeply personal book, Georgetown scientist Sarah Stewart Johnson tells the story of how she and other researchers have scoured Mars for signs of life, transforming the planet from a distant point of light into a world of its own. Johnson's fascination with Mars began as a child, turning over rocks with her father and looking at planets in the night sky. She now conducts fieldwork in some of Earth's most hostile environments, such as the Dry Valleys of Antarctica and the salt flats of Western Australia, developing methods for detecting life on other worlds. Here, with poetic precision, she interlaces her own personal journey - as a female scientist and a mother - with tales of other seekers, from Percival Lowell, who was convinced that a utopian society existed on Mars, to Audouin Dollfus, who tried to carry out astronomical observations from a stratospheric balloon. In the process, she shows how the story of Mars is also a story about Earth - our mirror, our foil, a telltale reflection of our own anxieties and yearnings. 266 pages.

From the Information is Beautiful author and website is a stunning example of graphic designs pulling together complex information into beautiful graphics and something very uplifting. Which are the happiest countries in the world? According to a 2020 report the UAE, New Zealand, Canada, Germany, Denmark, Iceland, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Norway, Finland. Life expectancy has shot up 38% between 1960 and 2018. There are now 85% of countries covered with domestic violence laws, where there were no such laws in 1970. Leaf area, meat substitutes, same-sex unions (where legal), global literacy, hundreds of new vaccines in the pipeline, women in Parliament around the world, 100 towns and cities now getting most of their energy from renewables like Bogotá, Montreal, Porto and Auckland, some of the poorest nations which are the most generous and Yay Africa! The new African Union passport allows visa free travel between 55 countries. Drones have revolutionised medical deliveries in Rwanda, oil spills have decreased, suicide is at its lowest rate for 46 years in Japan, there are renewable energy superstars, routes for solving plastics, land preservation, unendangered animals, a new device to clean plastic from our seas, and can next-gen nuclear energy get us to carbon zero? Positive, beautiful, statistics and research and data cuts through gloomy news and dark nights. Big bold colourful pages and graphics throughout, 256pp, 19.5 x 25.2cm.
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'The Science of Fire, Ice and The Universe', Paul Sen gives thermodynamics the importance it deserves and along the way introduces us to some fascinating people and detail of their lives and work. From refrigeration and jet engines to calorie counting and global warming, the laws of thermodynamics govern everything from the behaviour of atoms to that of living cells, from the engines that power our world to the black hole at the centre of our galaxy. Not only that but thermodynamics explain why we must eat and breathe, how lights come on, and ultimately how the Universe will end. Non-scientists can now appreciate the physics and principals that have shaped the modern world in Sen's compelling narrative capturing the thrill of discovery and the power of revolutionary science. 305pp, paperback.

Sub-titled 'Defying Gravity by Design and Evolution', this big beautifully produced volume is illustrated by Jana Lenzova in rich colour full page plates including a dirigible fish balloon airship, a front view showing how planes and birds face the same rules of physics, a stunning blue flying fish, a four-winged dinosaur, a tiger beetle, and a giraffe meets a quetzalcoatlus, although separated by the perhaps 70 million years. The Oxford University zoology professor and bestselling author has always been a persuasive thinker. Here is a 'masterly investigation of all aspects of flight, human and animal' and how both have learned to overcome the pull of gravity and take to the skies. From the mythical Icarus to the sadly extinct but spectacular bird Argentavis magnificens, from the Wright Flyer and the 747 airplane, to the Tinkerbella Fairyfly and the Peregrine Falcon, Dawkins also explores flights of fantasy and escaping the everyday - through science, ideas and imagination. A superb combination of a leading scientist and talented artist, this is one fascinating and beautifully illustrated publication. 294pp, 16.5 x 24cm.