History

Based on the newly released personal letters of Albert Einstein, Walter Isaacson explores how an imaginative, impertinent patent clerk became the mind reader of the creator of the cosmos....

Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells - taken without her knowledge - became one of the most important tools in medicine....

The dramatic inside story of the first four historic flights that launched SpaceX - and Elon Musk - from a shaky startup into the world's leading-edge rocket company....

Here for the first time, in rich human, political, and scientific detail, is the complete story of how the bomb was developed....

Award-winning author of Imperfection Telmo Pievani returns to weave a compelling story about the unexpected in science and its fascinating role in our understanding of the world.

Here, for the first time, in a brilliant, panoramic portrait by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb, is the definitive, often shocking story of the politics and the science behind the development of the hydrogen bomb and the birth of the Cold War.

The acclaimed Pulitzer Prize finalist and #1 New York Times bestselling author of Galileo’s Daughter crafts a luminous chronicle of the life and work of the most famous woman in the history of science.

An exciting scientific adventure from the days of wooden ships and iron men, Longitude is full of heroism and chicanery, brilliance and the absurd....

John Green, the #1 bestselling author of The Anthropocene Reviewed and a passionate advocate for global healthcare reform, tells a deeply human story illuminating the fight against the world’s deadliest disease.

An oddly compelling, often hilarious exploration of the strange lives of our bodies postmortem....

Acclaimed journalist Rebecca Boyle takes listeners on a dazzling tour to reveal the intimate role that our 4.51-billion-year-old companion has played in our biological and cultural evolution.

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is essential listening for understanding the history, philosophy, and evolution of science....

In a rarified world of scientific research, a revolution has been brewing. Its activists are not anarchists, but rather Nobel Laureates in physics and economics and pony-tailed graduates, mathematicians, and computer scientists from all over the world. They have formed an iconoclastic think-tank....

An eye-opening investigation into the history of diabetes research and treatment by the award-winning journalist and best-selling author of Why We Get Fat....

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....

More than 200 million years ago, geological forces split apart the continents. Isolated from each other, the two halves of the world developed radically different suites of plants and animals....

An engaging and far-reaching exploration of refrigeration, tracing its evolution from scientific mystery to globe-spanning infrastructure, and an essential investigation into how it has remade our entire relationship with food—for better and for worse....

In the winter of 1918, at the height of World War I, history's most lethal influenza virus erupted in an army camp in Kansas, moved east with American troops, then exploded, killing as many as 100 million people worldwide....

From the New York Times-bestselling author comes a new volume on the history of human ingenuity—and its attendant breakthroughs and busts....

The Pleasure of Finding Things Out is a magnificent treasury of the best short works of Richard P. Feynman....

Every one of us contains a billion times more atoms than all the grains of sand in the earth’s deserts. If you weigh 150 pounds, you’ve got enough carbon to make 25 pounds of charcoal....

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, and much more....

This book conveys every aspect of the Apollo missions with breathtaking immediacy and stunning detail....

James Gleick, the author of the best sellers Chaos and Genius, now brings us a work just as astonishing and masterly: A revelatory chronicle and meditation that shows how information has become the modern era’s defining quality....

With clear explanations of some of the most complex scientific endeavors in history, Mahaffey's book looks back at the atom's wild, secretive past and then toward its potentially bright future....

Here, for the first time, in a brilliant, panoramic portrait by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb, is the definitive, often shocking story of the politics and the science behind the development of the hydrogen bomb and the birth of the Cold War. Based on secret files in the United States and the former Soviet Union, this monumental work of history discloses how and why the United States decided to create the bomb that would dominate world politics for more than forty years.

Have you ever wondered why you exist? What had to happen for you to be alive and conscious? Scientists have come a long way in answering this question, and this book describes what they have found out. It also examines whether our existence was inevitable at the universe's birth 13.77 billion years ago—or whether we are just incredibly lucky. The book is aimed at those who are interested in science but are not experts.

Hoof Beats transforms our understanding of both horses and humanity's ancient past and asks us to consider what our relationship with horses means for the future of humanity and the world around us.

In Charged, James Morton Turner unpacks the history of batteries to explore why solving "the battery problem" is critical to a clean energy transition. As climate activists focus on what a clean energy future will create the history of batteries offers a sharp reminder of what building that future will consume. With new insight on the consequences for people and communities on the front lines, Turner draws on the past for crucial lessons that will help us build a just and clean energy future, from the ground up.

19 aprile 1943. Albert Hofmann, chimico in forze all'azienda farmaceutica Sandoz di Basilea, inforca la bicicletta e si avvia verso casa. Sembra un giorno come un altro, se non fosse che ha appena assunto 250 microgrammi di dietilammide-25 dell'acido lisergico, un composto da lui stesso sintetizzato nella ricerca di uno stimolante della circolazione sanguigna. Ciò che accade durante il tragitto sconvolge la sua nozione del reale: visioni coloratissime, meravigliose e mostruose, percezioni di realtà parallele, terrori, euforie. È nato l'Lsd.