Lucky Planet (Paperback)

Why Earth is Exceptional – and What that Means for Life in the Universe

David Waltham

Science tells us that life elsewhere in the Universe is increasingly likely to be discovered. But in fact the Earth may be a very unusual planet – perhaps the only one like it in the entire visible Universe. In Lucky Planet David Waltham asks why, and comes up with some surprising and unconventional answers.

Recent geological, biological, and astronomical discoveries are bringing us closer to understanding whether we might be alone in the Universe, and this book uses these to question the conventional wisdom and suggest, instead, that the Earth may have had ‘four billion years of good weather’ purely by chance.

If Earth-like worlds don’t have natural stabilising mechanisms, then intelligent observers such as ourselves will only ever look out onto those rare planets where, like the Earth, all the bad things that could have happened to the climate have fortunately cancelled each other out.

So before you prepare to meet the aliens, consider that we are probably alone …

David Waltham obtained a first-class degree and a PhD in Physics before moving into the oil industry in the early 1980s. This industrial experience led to his appointment, in 1986, as a lecturer at Royal Holloway, University of London, where he became Head of Earth Sciences from 2008–2012.

Junk DNA (Hardback)

A Journey Through the Dark Matter of the Genome

Nessa Carey

From the author of the acclaimed The Epigenetics Revolution (‘A book that would have had Darwin swooning’ – Guardian) comes another thrilling exploration of the cutting edge of human science.

For decades after the structure of DNA was identified, scientists focused purely on genes, the regions of the genome that contain codes for the production of proteins. Other regions – 98% of the human genome – were dismissed as ‘junk’. But in recent years researchers have discovered that variations in this ‘junk’ DNA underlie many previously intractable diseases, and they can now generate new approaches to tackling them.

Nessa Carey explores, for the first time for a general audience, the incredible story behind a controversy that has generated unusually vituperative public exchanges between scientists. She shows how junk DNA plays an important role in areas as diverse as genetic diseases, viral infections, sex determination in mammals, human biological complexity, disease treatments, even evolution itself – and reveals how we are only now truly unlocking its secrets, more than half a century after Crick and Watson won their Nobel prize for the discovery of the structure of DNA in 1962.

Nessa Carey has a PhD in virology from the University of Edinburgh and worked in the biotech and pharma industry for thirteen years. She is a Visiting Professor at Imperial College, London. Her previous book, The Epigenetics Revolution, was published by Icon Books in 2011. and described as a 'book that would have had Darwin swooning – anyone seriously interested in who we are and how we function should read this.'

30-Second Evolution (Hardback)

The 50 most significant ideas and events, each explained in half a minute

Mark Fellowes

Nicholas Battey

Adapt or die: it’s nature’s most famous imperative. But how does evolution actually happen? It’s too slow to see, but it’s going on all around you, all the time. Even if you’re on top of the key terms – variation? Natural selection? Parent-offspring conflict? – you still need some context to put them in. From populations to speciation and polymorphism to evolutionary psychology, here’s the one-stop source for all you need to know.

Evolution unlocks the laboratory of life, dissecting it into the 50 most significant topics that provide the missing links to understand the natural world’s four-billion-year ancestry and the process of natural selection in which species either adapt in myriad ways – mutation, ingenuity, and intelligence – to meet the challenges of a changing environment, or die. Unravel the development of living organisms, at micro and macro level – from genes to geniuses.

Mark Fellowes is Head of the School of Biological Sciences and Nicholas Battey is Head of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Reading, England. Together, their expertise spans the diversity of their subject: Professor Battey’s background is in cells, genes, and plants; Professor Fellowes’s is in ecology, evolution, animals, and the interactions between species.