Series: Science Essentials

Scientists in recent decades have made crucial discoveries about how our cosmos evolved over the past 13.8 billion years. But we still know little about what happened in the first seconds after the Big Bang. At the Edge of Time focuses on what we have learned and are striving to understand about this mysterious period at the beginning of cosmic...

An insider account of how researchers unravelled the mystery of the thawing Arctic. In the 1990s, researchers in the Arctic noticed that floating summer sea ice had begun receding. This was accompanied by shifts in ocean circulation and unexpected changes in weather patterns throughout the world. The Arctic's perennially frozen ground, known as permafrost, was warming, and treeless tundra was...

We know that animals cross miles of water, land, and sky with pinpoint precision on a daily basis. But it is only in recent years that scientists have learned how these astounding feats of navigation are actually accomplished. With colourful and thorough detail, Nature's Compass explores the remarkable methods by which animals find their way both near home and around...

Dive into a mind-bending exploration of the physics of black holes Black holes, predicted by Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity more than a century ago, have long intrigued scientists and the public with their bizarre and fantastical properties. Although Einstein understood that black holes were mathematical solutions to his equations, he never accepted their physical reality—a viewpoint many shared....

The Little Book of String Theory offers a short, accessible, and entertaining introduction to one of the most talked-about areas of physics today. String theory has been called the 'theory of everything.' It seeks to describe all the fundamental forces of nature, encompassing gravity and quantum mechanics in one unifying theory. However, it remains unproven and fraught with controversy. After...