One of the world’s greatest scientists of human behaviour, the bestselling author of Behave, shows that free will does not exist - and sets out the disturbing yet liberating implications of accepting this fact.

‘One of the best scientist-writers of our time’ OLIVER SACKS

What if free will is an illusion? As Robert Sapolsky shows in this masterful account of the science of human behaviour, everything we think and do is caused by the luck of our biology and the influence of our environmen...

The Fontana History of Chemistry, which draws extensively on both the author’s own original research and that of other scholars world wide, is conceived as a work of synthesis. Nothing like it has been attempted in decades. Beginning with the first tentative chemical explorations where primitive technology and techniques were deployed, Dr Brock proceeds via the alchemists’ futile, but frequently profitable, efforts to turn lead into gold to recount the emergence of the modern discipline o...

An Introduction to Drug Synthesis explores the central role played by organic synthesis in the process of drug design and development. Written by an experienced and talented author to complement his existing An Introduction to Medicinal Chemistry, the book illustrates how organic synthesis makes important contributions throughout the drug design and discovery process - from the generation of novel drug structures to the improved efficiency of large scale synthesis. Avoiding excessively detail...

Dreamscapes of Modernity offers the first book-length treatment of sociotechnical imaginaries, a concept originated by Sheila Jasanoff and developed in close collaboration with Sang-Hyun Kim to describe how visions of scientific and technological progress carry with them implicit ideas about public purposes, collective futures, and the common good. The book presents a mix of case studies-including nuclear power in Austria, Chinese rice biotechnology, Korean stem cell research, the Indonesian ...

A revisionist, completely accessible and radically inclusive history of maths

Mathematics shapes almost everything we do. But despite its reputation as the study of fundamental truths, the stories we have been told about it are wrong. In The Secret Lives of Numbers, historian Kate Kitagawa and journalist Timothy Revell introduce readers to the mathematical boundary-smashers who have been erased by history because of their race, gender or nationality.

From the brilliant Arabic scholars of the ...

An epic, fate-fighting adventure like no other. A stunningly imagined new series. The Nightsilver Promise is a future classic, stunningly imagined. A Game of Thrones for middle-grade that is perfect for fans of Nevermoor, Philip Pullman, and Neil Gaiman.

Marvin Minsky -- one of the fathers of computer science and cofounder of the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at MIT -- gives a revolutionary answer to the age-old question: "How does the mind work?"
Minsky brilliantly portrays the mind as a "society" of tiny components that are themselves mindless. Mirroring his theory, Minsky boldly casts The Society of Mind as an intellectual puzzle whose pieces are assembled along the way. Each chapter -- on a self-contained page -- corresponds to ...

A completely revised edition of a comprehensive and popular introduction to the fast moving area of forensic genetics. The text begins with key concepts needed to fully appreciate the subject and moves on to examine the latest developments in the field. Illustrated in full colour throughout, this accessible textbook includes numerous references to relevant casework. With information on the full process of DNA evidence from collection at the scene of a crime to presentation in a legal context ...

Arts, Ecologies, Transitions provides indepth insights into how aesthetic relations and current artistic practices are fundamentally ecological and intrinsically connected to the world. As art is created in a given historic temporality, it presents specific modalities of productive and sensory relations to the world.

The starting point of the research is the need to refurbish existing residential building stock, in order to reduce its energy demand, which accounts for over one fourth of the energy consumption in the European Union. Refurbishment is a necessary step to reach the ambitious energy and decarbonisation targets for 2020 and 2050 that require an eventual reduction up to 90% in CO2 emissions. In this context, the rate and depth of refurbishment need to grow. The number of building to be renovated...