I Think You'll Find it's a Bit More Complicated Than That

The Medusa and the Snail: More Notes of a Biology Watcher

Lewis Thomas · 175 pages

Includes material on warts, DNA, cloning, and medical economics.

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales

Oliver Sacks · 243 pages

In his most extraordinary book, “one of the great clinical writers of the twentieth century” (The New York Times) recounts the case histories of patients lost in the bizarre, apparently inescapable world of neurological disorders. Oliver Sacks’s The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat tells the stories of individuals afflicted with fantastic perceptual and intellectual aberrations: patients who

In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto

Michael Pollan · 244 pages

What to eat, what not to eat, and how to think about health: a manifesto for our times"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." These simple words go to the heart of Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food, the well-considered answers he provides to the que

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers

Mary Roach · 304 pages

A hilarious and witty look into the history of using cadavers for science, grave diggers, and options to consider about your burial plan. A dark and uncomfortable subject made more palatable and downright funny.

The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science

Norman Doidge · 448 pages

An astonishing new science called neuroplasticity is overthrowing the centuries-old notion that the human brain is immutable. Psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, Norman Doidge, M.D., traveled the country to meet both the brilliant scientists championing neuroplasticity and the people whose lives they've transformed—people whose mental limitations or brain damage were seen as unalterable. We see a woma

Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet, and Threatens Our Lives

Michael Specter · 294 pages

Pandemic: Tracking Contagions, from Cholera to Ebola and Beyond

Sonia Shah · 288 pages

Scientists agree that a pathogen is likely to cause a global pandemic in the near future. But which one? And how? Over the past fifty years, more than three hundred infectious diseases have either newly emerged or reemerged. Ninety percent of epidemiologists expect that one of them will cause a deadly pandemic sometime in the next two generations. It could be Ebola, avian flu, a drug-resistant sup

This Will Make You Smarter: New Scientific Concepts to Improve Your Thinking

John Brockman · 415 pages

This Will Make You Smarter presents brilliant but accessible ideas to expand every mind. What scientific concept would improve everybody's cognitive toolkit? This is the question John Brockman, publisher of Edge.org, posed to the world's most influential thinkers. Their visionary answers flow from the frontiers of psychology, philosophy, economics, physics, sociology, and more. Surprising and enli

The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York

Deborah Blum · 327 pages

The untold story of how poison rocked Jazz Age New York City. A pair of forensic scientists began their trailblazing chemical detective work, fighting to end an era when untraceable poisons offered an easy path to the perfect crime. Chief medical examiner Charles Norris and toxicologist Alexander Gettler investigate a family mysteriously stricken bald, factory workers with crumbling bones, a diner

The Panda's Thumb: More Reflections in Natural History

Stephen Jay Gould · 343 pages

For better science students, this is a collection of 31 essays on natural history.

A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through?

Kelly Weinersmith · 448 pages

Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It

Gary Taubes · 257 pages

This book is an eye-opening, myth-shattering examination of what makes us fat, from acclaimed science writer Gary Taubes. In his New York Times best seller, Good Calories, Bad Calories, Taubes argued that our diet's overemphasis on certain kinds of carbohydrates -- not fats and not simply excess calories -- has led directly to the obesity epidemic we face today. The result of thorough research, ke

The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race

Walter Isaacson · 560 pages

A scientific biography of Jennifer Doudna, a founder and co-developer of the CRISPR gene-editing mechanism, and an examination of what happened after CRISPR hit the marketplace.

The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan · 457 pages

A prescient warning of a future we now inhabit, where fake news stories and Internet conspiracy theories play to a disaffected American populace “A glorious book . . . A spirited defense of science . . . From the first page to the last, this book is a manifesto for clear thought.”—Los Angeles Times How can we make intelligent decisions about our increasingly technology-driven lives if we don

Cure: A Journey into the Science of Mind Over Body

Jo Marchant · 336 pages

"A rigorous, skeptical, deeply reported look at the new science behind the mind's extraordinary ability to heal the body ... While we accept that stress or anxiety can damage our health, the idea of "healing thoughts" was long ago hijacked by New Age gurus and spiritual healers. Recently, however, serious scientists from a range of fields have been uncovering evidence that our thoughts, emotions,

Richard Dawkins: How a Scientist Changed the Way We Think

Alan Grafen, Mark Ridley · 283 pages

Smoking Ears and Screaming Teeth

Trevor Norton · 288 pages

Virus X: Tracking the New Killer Plagues

Frank Ryan · 448 pages

Dr. Frank Ryan takes us into the "hot zones" of today's most dangerous outbreaks, then into the research laboratories and hospitals, where he spotlights the scientists and doctors who are risking their lives to contain them. In telling this global story, he uncovers a frightening pattern - and concludes that new, deadlier diseases are even now waiting to emerge. Why do such plagues arise? Where do

Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100

Michio Kaku · 389 pages

Free ebook link: brautech.co.za/info/FuturePhysics.pdf

The Hot Zone: The Terrifying True Story of the Origins of the Ebola Virus

Richard Preston · 384 pages

This interesting books talks about the author doing an investigation about several viruses in africa, including ebola. He explains the different strains and tells us their stories.

The Best American Science Writing 2011

Jesse Cohen, Floyd Skloot · 327 pages

This book collects into one volume the most crucial, thought-provoking, and engaging science writing of the year. Culled from a wide variety of publications, these selections cover the full spectrum of scientific inquiry. Provocative and engaging, The Best American Science Writing 2011 reveals just how far science has brought us — and where it is headed next.

Making the Monster: The Science Behind Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (Bloomsbury Sigma)

Kathryn Harkup · 305 pages

The Meaning of It All: Thoughts of a Citizen-Scientist

Richard Feynman · 133 pages

In April 1963, Richard P. Feynman gave a series of remarkable lectures at the University of Washington in Seattle. These three consecutive talks were classic Feynman - full of wit and wisdom - but their subject matter was wholly unexpected: Feynman spoke not as a physicist but as a concerned fellow citizen, revealing his uncommon insights into the religious, political, and social issues of the day

The Gene: An Intimate History

Siddhartha Mukherjee · 593 pages

The Gene is the story of one of the most powerful and dangerous ideas in our history, from bestselling, prize-winning author Siddhartha Mukherjee. Spanning the globe and several centuries, The Gene is the story of the quest to decipher the master-code that makes and defines humans, that governs our form and function. This is an epic, moving history of a scientific idea coming to life, by the aut