Popular Science

Few things in life are more satisfying than beating a rival. We love to win and hate to lose, whether it's on the playing field or at the ballot box, in the office or in the classroom. In this bold new look at human behavior, award-winning journalist and Olympian Matthew Syed explores the truth about our competitive nature: why we win, why we don't, and how we really play the game of life.

Historians have long studied how civilizations rise and fall. But today it isn't just social collapse that makes thoughtful people fret but a potential end to everything. From nuclear war to ecological disaster to rocks from the sky all the way to luring unfriendly interest from "others" out there, science has shed light on myriad ways to fail. To tumble back down into entropy. So, want to have some fun listing and weighing all the ways (that we know) the universe could have it in for us?

What was it about a small, humble folk instrument that allowed it to become an American icon? The guitar represents freedom, the open road, protest and rebellion, the blues, youth, lost love, and sexuality. Tim Brookes explores with adoration these ideas and how they became entwined with the history of America.

In his groundbreaking book Predictably Irrational, social scientist Dan Ariely revealed the multiple biases that lead us into making unwise decisions. Now, in The Upside of Irrationality, he exposes the surprising negative and positive effects irrationality can have on our lives. Focusing on our behaviors at work and in relationships, he offers new insights and eye-opening truths about what really motivates us on the job.

When Bronwen Dickey brought her new dog home, she saw no traces of the infamous viciousness in her affectionate, timid pit bull. Which made her wonder: How had the breed - beloved by Teddy Roosevelt, Helen Keller, and TV's Little Rascals - come to be known as a brutal fighter? Her search for answers takes her from 19th-century New York City dogfighting pits - the cruelty of which drew the attention of the recently formed ASPCA - to early 20th-century movie sets where pit bulls cavorted with Fatty Arbuckle and Buster Keaton.

“As I sat in the front row that day, I was 80% faking it with a 100% real Gucci bag.” Samhita Mukhopadhyay had finally made it: she had her dream job, dream clothes—dream life. But time and time again, she found herself sacrificing time with family and friends, paying too much for lattes, and limping home after working for twelve hours a day. Success didn't come without costs, right? Or so she kept telling herself. The Myth of Making It is a field guide and manifesto for all of us who are tired, searching for justice, and longing to be liberated from the oppressive grip of hustle culture.

In this fascinating pop culture history of the game and its impact, acclaimed Chess.com journalist Peter Doggers (also their news and events director), reveals how computers and the Internet have further strengthened the timeless magic of chess in the digital era, leading to a new peak in popularity and cultural relevance. Doggers explores chess as a cultural phenomenon: from its earliest beginnings in ancient India to its biggest stars and most dramatic moments to the impact of the internet and AI.

Before the league’s founding, East Coast basketball had crowned just three national champions in 40 years, and none since 1954. But in the Big East’s first 10 years, five of its teams played for a national championship. The league didn’t merely inherit good teams; it created them. But how did this unlikely group of schools come to dominate college basketball so quickly and completely?

Long before the era of the news anchor, the pundit, and the mini-cam, one man blazed a trail that thousands would follow. Reporting live from the streets and rooftops of London as Nazi war planes rained terror from the skies during the Battle of Britain, Edward R. Murrow brought the stark horror of war and the shock of breaking news events directly into American living rooms for the first time, and that was just the beginning.

Through the stories of gaming's greatest innovations and most-beloved creations, journalist Harold Goldberg captures the creativity, controversy - and passion - behind the videogame's meteoric rise to the top of the pop-culture pantheon. Over the last 50 years, video games have grown from curiosities to fads to trends to one of the world's most popular forms of mass entertainment.

Birds are highly intelligent animals, yet their intelligence is dramatically different from our own and has been little understood. As we learn more about the secrets of bird life, we are unlocking fascinating insights into memory, relationships, game theory, and the nature of intelligence itself. The Thing with Feathers explores the astonishing homing abilities of pigeons, the good deeds of fairy-wrens, the influential flocking abilities of starlings, the deft artistry of bowerbirds, the extraordinary memories of nutcrackers, and other mysteries.

Along with Batman, Spider-Man, and Superman, the Joker stands out as one of the most recognizable comics characters in popular culture. While there has been a great deal of scholarly attention on superheroes, very little has been done to understand supervillains. This is the first academic work to provide a comprehensive study of this villain, illustrating why the Joker appears so relevant to audiences today.

The charismatic radio personality from The Howard Stern Show celebrates what we love about American fast food, covering chains both national and regional and offering an opinionated view on restaurant history, secret menu items, and even drive-thru strategy.

In a powerful and gripping debut, Rachel Aviv raises fundamental questions about how we understand ourselves in periods of crisis and distress. Drawing on deep, original reporting as well as unpublished journals and memoirs, Aviv writes about people who have come up against the limits of psychiatric explanations for who they are. Animated by a profound sense of empathy, Aviv’s exploration is refracted through her own account of living in a hospital ward at the age of six and meeting a fellow patient with whom her life runs parallel—until it no longer does.

Embracing the revival of psychedelic research and the discovery of new therapeutic uses, clinical psychologist Dr. Richard Louis Miller discusses what is happening today in psychedelic medicine - and what will happen in the future - with top researchers and thinkers in this field. Dr. Miller and his contributors cover the tumultuous history of early psychedelic research brought to a halt 50 years ago by the US government as well as offering non-technical summaries of the most recent studies with MDMA, psilocybin, LSD, and ayahuasca.

Enjoy this explosive science fiction series by USA Today Bestselling author Steve P. Vincent… Sergeant Talon Stiler thought he’d been through hell. Then he got sent to Baker V. Stiler thought he was out - discharged from the Terran Union Marines with all four limbs and a gold watch - until a devastating attack by the hated alien Dioscuri drags him right back in again. In a flash, a war fought on the frontier of human-controlled space comes close to home, pushing humanity to the brink. Now responsible for the development of the Union’s most secretive weapon system, Stiler and his ...

Lee Eisenberg's The Number hit the New York Times best-seller list and became an instant classic with those wanting to learn more about retiring comfortably. Here he investigates the forces that compel Americans to shop till they drop. A timely exploration, Shoptimism takes a critical look at an often downplayed aspect of American economic prosperity.

Generation П - роман Виктора Пелевина о поколении россиян, которое взрослело и формировалось во времена политических и экономических реформ 1990-х годов. Когда главной мечтой молодежи было, чтобы свободный и поэтому запрещённый мир с той стороны океана вошел в их жизнь. Через 10 лет мечта сбылась.

Iggy Pop's legendary career has been tumultuous, reaching great heights with mega-hits and then hitting rock-bottom lows in jail and mental institutions. Along the way, he's become a cult-rock hero, an inspiration for dozens of other famous rockers, and has had a pretty good time of it, too. But the image of Iggy Pop versus the man behind that image, James Newell Osterberg, Jr., is surprisingly contradictory.

The culture wars are over and the idiots have won. This is a veteran journalist’s caustically funny, righteously angry lament about the glorification of ignorance in the United States. The three Great Premises of Idiot America: · Any theory is valid if it sells books, soaks up ratings, or otherwise moves units; anything can be true if someone says it loudly enough; "fact" is that which enough people believe. And "truth" is determined by how fervently they believe it.