This extraordinary work takes the reader on a long and fascinating journey--from the dual invention of numbers and language, through the major realms of arithmetic, algebra, …
The Latin term for the female genitalia, pudendum, means “parts for which you should be ashamed”. Until 1651, ovaries were called female testicles. The fallopian tubes are named …
Carbon is everywhere: in the paper of this book and the blood of our bodies. It's with us from beginning to end, present in our baby clothes and coffin alike. We live on a carbon …
By 1930, no place in the world was less well explored than Greenland. The native Inuit had occupied the relatively accessible west coast for centuries. The east coast, however, was …
Beginning with Linnaeus, a colorful band of explorers made it their mission to travel to the most perilous corners of the planet and bring back astonishing new life forms. They …
Computers are everywhere today--at work, in the bank, in artist's studios, sometimes even in our pockets--yet they remain to many of us objects of irreducible mystery. How can …
When Columbus first returned to Spain from the Caribbean, he dazzled King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella with exotic parrots, tropical flowers, and bits of gold. Inspired by the …
Biologist James Watson and physicist Francis Crick’s 1953 revelation about the double helix structure of DNA is the foundation of virtually every advance in our modern …
Charles Darwin's ideas resonate deeply in Western culture today, and his theory still lies at the heart of modern scientific evolutionary research. As other nineteenth-century …
It began with plutonium, the first element ever manufactured in quantity by humans. Fearing that the Germans would be the first to weaponise the atom, the United States marshalled …
