検索キーワード： 歴史

Com'è cominciata la vita? Come si è evoluta per arrivare fino a noi? Come e perché è stata ricreata in laboratorio? La si può rendere immortale? Sono domande che non possiamo non farci. E a cui la scienza continua a dare risposte nuove e sorprendenti. Nel giro di pochi anni è cambiato tutto; oggi non solo il Dna si può estrarre e sequenziare con risultati assai affidabili ma questi studi aprono prospettive inimmaginabili.

Vitamin C begins with scurvy, which afflicted Europe for four hundred years and killed millions. The reasons that a disease whose cure was known from the outset persisted over that time are at once baffling and familiar, and these trials eventually lead to invention of the science of epidemiology. Author Stephen M. Sagar MD then chronicles the discovery of vitamins at the beginning of the twentieth century, a story that encapsulates the rise of a scientific approach to nutrition but with surprising twists and turns.

“It is possible to invent a single machine which can be used to compute any computable sequence,” twenty-four-year-old Alan Turing announced in 1936. In Turing’s Cathedral, George Dyson focuses on a small group of men and women, led by John von Neumann at the Institute for Advanced Study...

Over the last 220 years, society has evolved a universal belief that electricity is "safe" for humanity and the planet. Scientist and journalist Arthur Firstenberg disrupts this conviction by telling the story of electricity in a way it has never been told before - from an environmental point of view - by detailing the effects that this fundamental societal building block has had on our health and our planet.

Beginning with opium, the “joy plant,” which has been used for 10,000 years, Thomas Hager tells a captivating story of medicine. His subjects include the largely forgotten female pioneer who introduced smallpox inoculation to Britain, the infamous knockout drops, the first antibiotic, which saved countless lives, the first antipsychotic, which helped empty public mental hospitals, Viagra, statins, and the new frontier of monoclonal antibodies. This is a deep, wide-ranging, and wildly entertaining book.

 Over the past 70 years, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM, has evolved from a virtually unknown and little-used pamphlet to an imposing and comprehensive compendium of mental disorder. Its nearly 300 conditions have become the touchstones for the diagnoses that patients receive, students are taught, researchers study, insurers reimburse, and drug companies promote. 

The first full-length biography of George Ingle Finch - maverick Australian mountaineer, scientist, concert pianist and father of actor Peter Finch. George Ingle Finch, mountaineer, soldier, scientist, rebellious spirit, boy from the bush, was in his day one of the most famous men in the world. In 1922 he stood at the highest point on Everest, a feat not bettered for 30 years. He invented the predecessor to the puffer jacket and pioneered the use of oxygen in climbing.

From the moment radiation was discovered in the late nineteenth century, nuclear science has had a rich history of innovative scientific exploration and discovery, coupled with mistakes, accidents, and downright disasters.

Author Jim Holt explores the greatest metaphysical mystery of all: why is there something rather than nothing? This runaway best seller, which has captured the imagination of critics and the public alike, traces our latest efforts to grasp the origins of the universe. Holt adopts the role of cosmological detective, traveling the globe to interview a host of celebrated scientists, philosophers, and writers.

La tarea de resumir más de tres milenios de investigaciones sobre el cielo parece imposible, más difícil aún parece presentarla de modo que pueda ser conocido por cualquier tipo de oyente, y de modo que se disfrute con el descubrimiento de los cuerpos que pueblan el espacio y con la historia de los grandes hombres que hicieron avanzar la astronomía hasta sacar al hombre y a la Tierra, del centro del universo y colocarlo en un lugar periférico en la orilla del cosmos. Breve historia de la astronomía emprende esta tarea y consigue desplegar ante nosotros el universo.

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Americans depended upon ice to stay cool and to keep their perishable foods fresh. Jonathan Rees tells the fascinating story of how people got ice before mechanical refrigeration came to the household. Drawing on newspapers, trade journals, and household advice books, Before the Refrigerator explains how Americans built a complex system to harvest, store, and transport ice to everyone who wanted it, even the very poor.

Nominated for the best popular science book of 2024 by Smart Book. 'Who said science was dry? Certainly not Tim James' New York Post 'James writes with infectious enthusiasm and optimism' Kirkus Reviews 'A science teacher by profession, Mr. James knows how to get his audience's attention' Wall...

The coal-mining town of Fushun in China’s Northeast is home to a monstrous open pit. First excavated in the early twentieth century, this pit grew like a widening maw over the ensuing decades, as various Chinese and Japanese states endeavored to unearth Fushun’s purportedly “inexhaustible” carbon resources. Today, the depleted mine that remains is a wondrous and terrifying monument to fantasies of a fossil-fueled future and the technologies mobilized in attempts to turn those developmentalist dreams into reality.

As a girl in New York City in the 1940s, Mildred "Millie" Dresselhaus was taught that there were only three career options open to women: secretary, nurse, or teacher. In Carbon Queen, science writer Maia Weinstock describes how, with curiosity and drive, Dresselhaus defied expectations and forged a career as a pioneering scientist and engineer. Dresselhaus made highly influential discoveries about the properties of carbon and other materials and helped reshape our world in countless ways—from electronics to aviation to medicine to energy.

“A terrific book, witty and lucid, and brimming with provocative conjectures.” (Wall Street Journal) from the author of the acclaimed New York Times bestseller Genome Brilliantly written, The Red Queen compels us to rethink everything from the persistence of sexism to the endurance of...

An all-encompassing guide to skeptical thinking from podcast host and academic neurologist at Yale University School of Medicine Steven Novella and his SGU co-hosts, which Richard Wiseman calls "the perfect primer for anyone who wants to separate fact from fiction." It is intimidating to realize...

One of our most brilliant, acclaimed novelists turns to nonfiction with a mind-expanding, slyly humorous personal exploration of the scientific imagination. In Lives of the Scientists: or, How to Predict the End of the World, Rivka Galchen offers a profound and playful exploration of the lives...

“A timely reminder that we are not just our brains. Arm yourself against the forces of misinformation by reading this book!”—Gina Rippon, author of The Gendered Brain Challenge everything you think you know about your brain. Expose the myths. Embrace the complexity. Transform your...

Illness is not simply a matter of biology. Our thoughts, conscious or otherwise, can make us feel pain or become unwell. If you experienced side effects from your Covid vaccine, the chances are that these were caused by your belief that you would experience them. When a nurse tells you 'this is...

A hilarious look at how the line between 'genius' and 'extremely lucky idiot' is finer than we'd like to admit. The more you delve into the stories behind history's greatest names, the more you realise they have something in common: a mystifying lack of common sense. Take Marie Curie, famous for...