Google data editor Simon Rogers tells us What We Ask Google in his new book out this month Mijansk786/Shutterstock
This month鈥檚 most exciting popular science books are surprisingly eclectic, and big on invention, ambition 鈥揳nd hubris. We鈥檙e tackling topics including the wonder (and envy) of flight, how to eat so the planet doesn鈥檛 collapse, the human capacity to build colossal structures and a drugs industry worth trillions, that er, doesn鈥檛 work as planned. Get stuck in 鈥 there鈥檚 plenty to amuse, delight and terrify.
by Simon Rogers
How do I get rid of hiccups? Why is grief so lonely? Should I have a third child?聽 How can I help a bee? In What We Ask Google: A surprisingly hopeful picture of humankind, Google data editor Simon Rogers shares some of the intimate, touching, momentous and downright human questions that we鈥檝e been asking Google for over two decades now. There is plenty of opportunity for embarrassed winces reading Rogers鈥檚 exploration of the billions of anonymous data searches: we share more than we know, it seems. Rogers is also a lecturer in data journalism at Medill-Northwestern University, San Francisco, and wrote the well-regarded Facts are Sacred in 2013. Oh, and economist Tim Harford (presenter of BBC Radio鈥檚 More or Less and an FT columnist) says, 鈥淭his view from the other side of the search box is both charming and insightful.鈥
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by Courtney Conley and Milica McDowell
Hands up if you haven鈥檛 been pushing through the daily tyranny of notching up however many thousands of steps are in vogue that month. Well, you may change your mind after reading Walk: Your life depends on it by gait specialist Courtney Conley and physiotherapist Milica McDowell, which focuses on the multiple health benefits of walking and argues, say the publishers, that 鈥渋t is one of our most powerful and under-prescribed medicines鈥. The applications of that medicine span everything from preventing/treating obesity and falls to mitigating lower back pain 鈥 so that would be most of us caught up in those preventable conditions at some time in our lives. And, as ancient societies (not to mention Romantic poets like Wordworth and Coleridge) knew all too well, thinking, creating and walking do indeed go well together. Sounds like a win.
by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein
We鈥檙e looking forward to the wildest of political rides crashing into epic physics from New 女生小视频 columnist Chanda Prescod Weinstein in The Edge of Space-Time: Particles, poetry and the cosmic dream boogie. Her first book, The Disordered Cosmos, brought her many accolades, and this one is already off to a great start with praise from the likes of Ruha Benjamin, professor of African-American studies at Princeton University, who described it as a 鈥渓yrical exploration of the universe that dances at the intersection of physics, pop culture, and Black intellectual thought鈥. Then there鈥檚 theoretical physicist Sean Carroll, who reckons it is a 鈥済reat read for any human being who lives in the universe鈥. I can鈥檛 wait to get a finished copy and dig deep, not least to discover exactly what the section delivers with its tantalising title, 鈥淗ow to Live Safely in a Science Factual Universe鈥, where Virginia Hamilton鈥檚 short story collection The People Could Fly fits in and why Chanda stayed up late thinking about metaphors in science.
by Vincent Doumeizel (translated by Charlotte Coombe)
Just how much better placed do you need to be to write about plankton? Vincent Doumeizel, author of The Power of Plankton: How plankton made life on Earth possible and why it鈥檚 key to our future, is senior adviser on oceans to the U.N. Global Compact, the world’s largest corporate sustainability and corporate social responsibility initiative. Publisher The Book Social says his new book uncovers hidden connections between 鈥渢hese microscopic organisms and the survival of our planet鈥, shares 鈥渦nforgettable鈥 stories about a scientist who survived 65 days crossing the Atlantic eating only plankton and reveals the truth behind ancient myths of 鈥渂lood rain鈥, which apparently traces back to plankton blooms. New 女生小视频 readers will also remember his previous book, The Seaweed Revolution, which reviewer Chris Simms thought was excellent, as it made the case for the potential of seaweed to transform our world. So where does that leave plankton鈥檚 power, then? The clue is in the subtitle 鈥 as usual!
The remains of Richard III where they were discovered in 2012 University of Leicester
by Turi King
You may not know the name Turi King, but you will almost certainly have heard of her work: identifying the bones of Richard III in a car park in the UK city of Leicester and leading the project to sequence Adolf Hitler鈥檚 genome. So, we can definitely expect amazing stories in her new book, The Secrets of Our DNA: How genetics has changed the world. But underpinning those stories (think everything from O.J. Simpson to mistaken dinosaur DNA to Angelina Jolie鈥檚 BRCA1 gene) will be a deep account of how genetics has ended up entangled in the lives of us all. King 鈥渟hows how we are all interconnected and why we must all benefit from this exciting and rapidly evolving science鈥 and reminds us that DNA need not be destiny 鈥 nor is it the silver bullet some imagine.
by Helen Pilcher
Many of us 鈥 and that may well include some doctors 鈥 still have to get seriously acquainted with the nocebo effect, which can make us feel unwell or even experience pain. Science writer and former cell biologist Helen Pilcher is here to help, with her latest, This Book May Cause Side Effects: Why our minds are making us sick. Like placebo, the word nocebo has Latin roots, but while placebo is linked to someone鈥檚 positive expectations, nocebo is linked to negative expectations. In medicine, the placebo effect can mean that a patient expecting a particular treatment to have a good outcome gets that outcome 鈥 even when they receive an inert medicine or sugar pill. A nocebo is, sort of, the reverse. But it鈥檚 also a lot more complex than that, as we鈥檝e reported in New 女生小视频, so it will be fascinating to see what Pilcher makes of it 鈥 especially because of the possible implications of social media feeds for mass psychogenic illnesses, or even the controversial phenomenon known as 聽Havana syndrome.
by Dr Nick Barber
You might well wonder whether Nick Barber decided he had to have the 鈥淒r鈥 in front of his name on this book to keep everyone on the right page here, given its title. How to Take Drugs: A new approach to medication for better results and fewer side effects looks likely to be the kind of book we should all have chained to our wrists, given the sheer amount of prescription medicines we are likely to consume in a lifetime. That, and the fact that adverse drug reactions are a huge burden on health care systems 鈥 with the percentage of hospital admissions due to adverse drug reactions (ADR) to prescription medicines in the UK alone estimated to be as high as 6 to 7 per cent by some studies, to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. Barber is emeritus professor of pharmacy at University College London and recipient of the lifetime achievement award from the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, so he should know a thing or two about the state of his sector, what the real ADR figures may be 鈥 and how to address all the factors involved.
by Dave Goulson
How to eat well without harming the planet is one of the world鈥檚 knottiest problems, so it is tempting to welcome any book promising to guide us through the multidimensional issues. But Eat the Planet Well: How to fix our toxic food system 鈥 one meal at a time is by Dave Goulson, professor of biology at the University of Sussex, who wrote well-received books like The Garden Jungle and A Sting in the Tale, not to mention more than 300 scientific articles on the ecology and conservation of bumblebees and other insects. His publishers say Goulson shows that changing our damaging ways is possible through supporting less-intensive farming, wasting less and rethinking what we eat 鈥 that our everyday choices really do matter. I鈥檒l definitely be reading this one.
by Simon Barnes
What child hasn鈥檛 wanted to fly like a bird? And many an adult still yearns to soar like an eagle. So, Simon Barnes鈥檚 How to Fly: Taking wing with birds, bats, insects and humans sounds like it鈥檚 going to be fun. Its publishers say it鈥檚 鈥渁 unique and all-encompassing exploration of the wonders of flight and the way different species have evolved different solutions to the problem of defying gravity 鈥 including humans鈥, and it鈥檚 certainly stuffed full of facts. We meet bees that beat their wings 230 times per second, the extinct pterosaur Quetzalcoatlus, with its 10-metre wingspan, and Arctic terns that travel 75,000 kilometres every year.
The Three Gorges Dam is opened to release floodwater in 2024 Cynthia Lee / Alamy
by Fred Mills
At 185 metres high and 2300 metres long, the Three Gorges Dam, spanning the Yangtze river in Hubei province, China, is the biggest dam in the world. Among other claims, the dam, says NASA, shifted Earth’s axis by about 2 centimetres and slightly shortened the planet’s day by approximately 0.06 microseconds. But that would come as no surprise to Fred Mills, the author of Mega Builds: Ten colossal construction projects that will change our world. Mills looks set to take us on a tour designed to convince us that modern engineering is a truly revolutionary force. As founder of The B1M YouTube channel, specialising in construction and with over 4 million subscribers, this should be a breeze for him, as he goes on a quest round the world to explore everything from a 鈥170km-long smart city in Saudi Arabia, to Japan鈥檚 levitating railway鈥.
by David Shukman
A 鈥渂listering and whistleblowing account of how Britain has joined the frontline of the world鈥檚 climate emergency, an expos茅 of how dangerously unprepared we are, and a vital roadmap towards a better future鈥, say the hopeful publishers about The Response: A Story of Fire and Flood in Britain鈥檚 New World of Extremes by David Shukman. He鈥檚 a leading climate journalist and was a BBC climate correspondent for 20 years. This book sounds amazingly terrifying and has fans ranging from Tim Peake (鈥淲hile I saw the fragile beauty of our planet from space, David Shukman reveals how incredibly vulnerable we are on the ground鈥) to the redoubtable climate negotiator and UN veteran Christiana Figueres (“A vital wake-up call for a world already on the frontlines. This is climate change stripped of rhetoric and abstraction, delivered at the painful ground level”).
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