A Life on Our Planet: My Witness Statement and a Vision for the Future by David Attenborough

$39.99 AUD

Category: Science

See the world. Then make it better. 'I am 93. I've had an extraordinary life. It's only now that I appreciate how extraordinary. As a young man, I felt I was out there in the wild, experiencing the untouched natural world - but it was an illusion. The tragedy of our time has been happening all around us , barely noticeable from day to day - the loss of our planet's wild places, its biodiversity. I have been witness to this decline. A Life on Our Planet is my witness statement, and my vision for the future. It is the story of how we came to make this, our greatest mistake - and how, if we act now, we can yet put it right. We have one final chance to create the perfect home for ourselves and restore the wonderful world we inherited.' All we need is the will do so.     ...Show more

Remember by Lisa Genova

$32.99 AUD

Category: Science

A fascinating exploration of the intricacies of how we remember, why we forget, and what we can do to protect our memories, from the Harvard-trained neuroscientist and bestselling author of Still Alice. Have you ever felt a crushing wave of panic when you can't for the life of you remember the name of that actor in the movie you saw last week, or you walk into a room only to forget why you went there in the first place? If you're over forty, you're probably not laughing. You might even be worried that these lapses in memory could be an early sign of Alzheimers or dementia. In reality, for the vast majority of us, these examples of forgetting are completely normal. Why? Because while memory is amazing, it is far from perfect. Our brains aren't designed to remember every name we hear, plan we make, or day we experience. Just because your memory sometimes fails doesn't mean it's broken or succumbing to disease. Forgetting is actually part of being human. In Remember, neuroscientist and acclaimed novelist Lisa Genova delves into how memories are made and how we retrieve them. You'll learn whether forgotten memories are temporarily inaccessible or erased forever and why some memories are built to exist for only a few seconds (like a passcode) while others can last a lifetime (your wedding day). You'll come to appreciate the clear distinction between normal forgetting (where you parked your car) and forgetting due to Alzheimers (that you own a car). And you'll see how memory is profoundly impacted by meaning, emotion, sleep, stress, and context. Once you understand the language of memory and how it functions, its incredible strengths and maddening weaknesses, its natural vulnerabilities and potential superpowers, you can both vastly improve your ability to remember and feel less rattled when you inevitably forget. You can set educated expectations for your memory, and in doing so, create a better relationship with it. You don't have to fear it anymore. And that can be life-changing. Using her expertise as a neuroscientist and her gifts as a storyteller, Genova explains the nuances of human memory. As with her previous books, this is an engaging and edifying read.- Steven Pinker, Johnstone Professor of Psychology, Harvard University, author of How the Mind Works. 'No one writes more brilliantly about the connections between the brain, the mind, and the heart. Remember is a beautiful, fascinating, and important book about the mysteries of human memory, what it is, how it works, and what happens when it is stolen from us. A scientific and literary treat that you will not soon forget.' - Daniel Gilbert, Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology, Harvard University, New York Times bestselling author of Stumbling on Happiness 'In Remember, Lisa Genova provides easy-to-follow, no nonsense advice on how to maximize one of the greatest outputs of your brain, memory. But, more important, she also lets us know that while memory is a tremendous gift, the real you is much more than just what you can remember! -  Rudolph E. Tanzi, PhD, professor of neurology, Harvard Medical School, coauthor of The Healing Self ...Show more

Flesh Made New: The Unnatural History and Broken Promises of Stem Cell Research by Carl Power; John Rasko

$34.99 AUD

Category: Science

The dazzling promise of stem-cell treatment: does it work and will it save us? Two experts look at the hype For decades, we've been anticipating the dawn of regenerative medicine. Again and again, we've been promised that stem cells will soon cure just about every ill imaginable. If not tomorrow, then t he next day, or the day after that, and so on. We're still waiting.This book is an antidote to hype and a salve to sooth the itch for stem-cell salvation. In it, Professor John Rasko, a leading physician-scientist, and writer-historian Carl Power take us on a wild historical tour of this scandal-prone field. They expose all the dirty little secrets that the hype merchants prefer to ignore - the blunders and setbacks, confusions and delusions, tricks and lies. It's a history rife with colourful characters. You'll meet Alexis Carroll, who discovered how to cultivate cells in a test tube: celebrity surgeon, scientific genius and Nazi sympathiser, he opened the field of modern cell science with an experiment so bogus it blocked the way forward for the next 50 years. You'll meet Don Thomas, who developed bone marrow transplantation - the first successful stem-cell therapy - but only after a miserable decade in which all of his patients died. Alongside true stem-cell pioneers, you'll meet charlatans who cooked their data and claimed fake cures - sometimes with fatal consequences.Is there any good news? Which of the many promises of stem-cell research have been kept? And what of the future? Rasko and Power insist that we can only know where we're going if we have a sense of where we've been. Their study tears down the hype surrounding stem cells in order to reveal what's still worth hoping for. ...Show more

Fight for Planet A by Craig Reucassel

$34.99 AUD

Category: Science

What we can do when there's no planet B. Based on the hit ABC series - don't leave earth without it Most Australians accept that climate change is real, but many don't know what to do about it and feel powerless to make a difference. In Fight for Planet A, Craig Reucassel shows that it isn't as scary as we think, and we can make a difference to help protect the world for future generations. The Chaser comedian and presenter of War on Waste sets out solutions and practical day-to-day changes we can make to reduce our carbon footprint, as well changes our governments need to make without further delay.  ...Show more

Beyond Climate Grief: A journey of love, snow, fire and an enchanted beer can by Jonica Newby

$29.99 AUD

Category: Science

How do we find courage when climate change overwhelms us emotionally?In this magical, often funny and deeply moving personal story, award-winning science reporter Jonica Newby explores how to navigate the emotional turmoil of climate change.After researching what global warming will do to the snow count ry she loves, Newby plummeted into a state of profound climate grief. And if she was struggling, she wondered, how was everyone else coping? What should parents tell their anxious kids? How might we all live our best lives under the weight of this fearsome knowledge? Then reality outstripped imagination as her family was swept up in the apocalyptic 2020 fires.Featuring illuminating conversations with singer–songwriter Missy Higgins, comedians Charlie Pickering and Craig Reucassel and business leader Mike Cannon-Brookes, practical advice from psychological and scientific experts, incredible accounts from everyday heroes, plus inspiring stories from the climate strike kids,Beyond Climate Grief provides guidance and emotional sustenance to help shore up courage for the uncertainties ahead.It reminds us of the love, beauty and wonder in the world, even amidst disaster. And how we all have a touch of epic hero in us. ...Show more

What Is to Be Done: Political Engagement and Saving the Planet by Barry Jones

$35.00 AUD

Category: Science

A sequel to the prescient bestseller, first published in 1982, that alerted the public to the likely impacts of information technologies and the emergence of a post-industrial society. When Sleepers, Wake!was first released in Australia, it immediately became influential around the world: it was read by Deng Xiaoping and Bill Gates; was published in China, Japan, South Korea, and Sweden; and led to the author being the first Australian minister invited to address a G-7 summit meeting, held in Canada in 1985. Now its author, the polymath and former politician Barry Jones, turns his attention to what has happened since -- especially to work, class, social relationships, and climate in the digital age -- and to the challenges faced by increasingly fragile democracies and public institutions. Jones sees climate change as the greatest problem of our time, especially because political leaders are incapable of dealing with complex, long-term issues of such magnitude. Meanwhile, technologies such as the smartphone and the ubiquity of social media have reinforced the realm of the personal. This has weakened our sense of, or empathy with, 'the other', the remote, the unfamiliar, and all but destroyed our sense of community, of being members of broad, inclusive groups. In the post-truth era, politicians invent 'facts' and ignore or deny the obvious, while business and the media are obsessed with marketing and consumption for the short term. What Is to Be Done is a long-awaited update on such challenges of modernity.     ...Show more

How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need by Bill Gates

$39.99 AUD

Category: Science

Bill Gates shares what he's learned in more than a decade of studying climate change and investing in innovations to address the problems, and sets out a vision for how the world can build the tools it needs to get to zero greenhouse gas emissions.   Bill Gates explains why he cares so deeply about cli mate change and what makes him optimistic that the world can prevent the worst impacts of the climate crisis. Gates says, "we can work on a local, national, and global level to build the technologies, businesses, and industries to avoid the worst impacts of climate change." His interest in climate change is a natural outgrowth of the efforts by his foundation to reduce poverty and disease. Climate change, according to Gates, will have the biggest impact on the people who have done the least to cause it. As a technologist, he has seen first-hand how innovation can change the world. By investing in research, inventing new technologies, and by deploying them quickly at large scale, Gates believes climate change can be addressed in meaningful ways. According to Gates, "to prevent the worst effects of climate change, we have to get to net-zero emissions of greenhouse gases. This problem is urgent, and the debate is complex, but I believe we can come together to invent new carbon-zero technologies, deploy the ones we have, and ultimately avoid a climate catastrophe." ...Show more

Dragons' Teeth and Thunderstones - The Quest for the Meaning of Fossils by Kenneth J. Mcnamara

$39.99 AUD

Category: Science

For at least half a million years, people have been doing some very strange things with fossils. Long before a few seventeenth-century minds started to decipher their true, organic nature, fossils had been eaten, dropped in goblets of wine, buried with the dead, and adorned bodies. What triggered such c urious behavior was the belief that some fossils could cure illness, protect against being poisoned, ease the passage into the afterlife, ward off evil spirits, and even kill those who were just plain annoying. But above all, to our early prehistoric ancestors, fossils were the very stuff of artistic inspiration. Drawing on archaeology, mythology, and folklore, Ken McNamara takes us on a journey through prehistory with these curious stones, and he explores humankind's unending quest for the meaning of fossils. ...Show more

Evolution:the Triumph Of An Idea by Carl Zimmer

$5.99 AUD

Category: Science

In this remarkable book, a companion volume to the PBS series, a rich and up-to-date view of evolution is presented that explores the far reaching implications of Darwin's theory. Photos & illustrations.

Ageless: The New Science of Getting Older Without Getting Old by Andrew Steele

$29.99 AUD

Category: Science

Ageing is the biggest cause of disease in our society. Cancer, heart disease, dementia, flu: the risk of all increase staggeringly rapidly as we near the end of life. What if we could slow down the process - or even stop it? Ageless introduces us to the cutting-edge research that is paving the way for a revolution in medicine. We currently focus on treating individual diseases as we grow older, but there might soon be a way of treating the ailment that underpins them all: the ageing process itself. Computational biologist Andrew Steele explains what is happening as we age, and how understanding its scientific implications could lead to the greatest discovery in the history of medicine - one that has the potential to improve billions of lives, save trillions of dollars, and transform the human condition.   ...Show more

Dr Karl's Little Book of Climate Change Science by Karl Kruszelnicki

$14.99 AUD

Category: Science

Life: Selected Writings by Tim Flannery

$39.99 AUD

Category: Science

Tim Flannery is one of the world's great thinkers, environmental scientists and writers. Sir David Attenborough once described him as being 'in the league of the all-time great explorers like Dr David Livingstone.' This definitive collection of his work brings together thirty years of essays, speeches a nd occasional writing on palaeontology, mammology, environmental science and history, including the science of climate change and the challenges and opportunities we face in addressing this issue, so critical for all of us.   ...Show more