Popular Science

From a New York Times bestselling nature writer comes a celebration of what goes on outside in the dark, from blooming moon gardens to nocturnal salamanders, from glowing foxfire and synchronous fireflies that blink in unison like an orchestra of light. In this glorious celebration of the night...

Science is how we understand the world. Yet failures in peer review and mistakes in statistics have rendered a shocking number of scientific studies useless—or, worse, badly misleading. Such errors have distorted our knowledge in fields as wide-ranging as medicine, physics, nutrition, education, genetics, economics, and the search for extraterrestrial life. As Science Fictions makes clear, the current system of research funding and publication not only fails to safeguard us from blunders but actively encourages bad science—with sometimes deadly consequences.

In this book, author and independent researcher Isaac Weishaupt presents conspiracy theories and analysis from Stanley Kubrick's most popular films - 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, and Eyes Wide Shut. Learn all about the conspiracy theory of the secret message Kubrick tried to convey about the occult and the Illuminati before his untimely passing.

This classic work on the rules of sex -- updated for a new generation -- is still as provocative as the day it was published, providing simple explanations for any and all questions about what happens in the bedroom. Sex isn't as complicated as we make it. In Sperm Wars, evolutionary biologist...

A different kind of politics for a new kind of society - beyond work, scarcity, and capitalism.

John Ortved's oral history is the first-ever look behind the scenes at the creation and day-to-day running of the television phenomenon known as The Simpsons, as told by many of the people who produce it.

Unlikeable Female Characters traces the evolution of highly memorable female characters, examining what exactly makes them popular, how audiences have reacted to them, and the ways in which pop culture is finally allowing us to celebrate the complexities of being a woman. Anna Bogutskaya, film programmer, broadcaster, and cofounder of the horror film collective and podcast The Final Girls takes us on a journey through popular film, TV, and music, looking at the nuances of womanhood on and off-screen to reveal whether pop culture—and society—is finally ready to embrace complicated women.

This program includes an introduction and epilogue read by the author. Blending evidence across science and design, Subtract: The Untapped Science of Less offers a revolution in problem-solving: proving why we overlook subtraction, and how we can access its true potential We pile on “to-dos”...

Behind every Summer Olympic scoring soccer kick, tennis-ball bounce, and hard-hitting volleyball serve, science is at work. The type of kick used on a soccer ball affects its path. An equestrian leans forward during a jump to help the horse balance. Cyclists wear tight clothing to reduce drag. Find out how science is involved in several popular Summer Olympic events and how athletes take science into account in their quest for the gold medal.

Ghosted follows the journey of paranormal investigations from the Victorian era to the modern day, examining how our fascination with ghost hunting has changed alongside technology and culture. Where we once gathered around tables, observing and recording every movement of the medium, we now take electronic equipment and app-laden phones around haunted locations to catch ghosts digitally.

Basketball is the second-most popular sport in the world - an insanely complicated game built on a combination of athleticism, craftiness, rules, intangibles, and superstardom. However, while it's enjoyable to watch, the real reason it works is because it's a game of culture, art, and all the things that make us human. How to Watch Basketball Like a Genius deconstructs the sport from top to bottom and then puts it back together again, detailing its intricacies through reporting and dozens of interviews with experts.

It was a pretty radical idea - a channel for teenagers, showing nothing but music videos. It was such a radical idea that almost no one thought it would actually succeed, much less become a force in the worlds of music, television, film, fashion, sports, and even politics. But it did work. MTV became more than anyone had ever imagined. I Want My MTV tells the story of the first decade of MTV, the golden era when MTV's programming was all videos, all the time, and kids watched religiously to see their favorite bands, learn about new music, and have something to talk about at parties.

Once considered an outdated embarrassment, demands for exorcism have increased since the mid-twentieth century, becoming a popular product in our therapeutic marketplace and a weapon against groups that resist state, corporate, and ecclesiastical powers. Are the 'possessed' suffering from mental health problems? Is the world falling victim to the devil and demons? Charting the history of exorcism in an allegedly secular age, Purging the Devil is an inquiry into the nature of belief and a meditation on our fascination with evil.

In his first memoir, Josh Widdicombe tells the story of a strange rural childhood, the kind of childhood he only realised was weird when he left home and started telling people about it. From only having four people in his year at school, to living in a family home where they didn't just not bother to lock the front door, they didn't even have a key. Using a different television show of the time as its starting point for each chapter, Watching Neighbours Twice a Day... is part-childhood memoir, part-comic history of '90s television and culture.

The founder of the international Transition Towns movement asks why true creative, positive thinking is in decline, asserts that it's more important now than ever, and suggests ways our communities can revive and reclaim it.

In 12 Bytes, the New York Times best-selling author of Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal? Jeanette Winterson draws on her years of thinking and reading about artificial intelligence in all its bewildering manifestations. In her brilliant, laser focused, uniquely pointed, and witty style of storytelling, Winterson looks to history, religion, myth, literature, the politics of race and gender, and computer science, to help us understand the radical changes to the way we live and love that are happening now.

Comedians Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld never thought anyone would watch their silly little sitcom about a New York comedian sitting around talking to his friends. NBC executives didn't think anyone would watch either, but they bought it anyway, hiding it away in the TV dead zone of summer. But against all odds, viewers began to watch, first a few and then many, until nine years later nearly 40 million Americans were tuning in weekly.

The Queer Art of Failure is about finding alternatives - to conventional understandings of success in a heteronormative, capitalist society; to academic disciplines that confirm what is already known according to approved methods of knowing; and to cultural criticism that claims to break new ground but cleaves to conventional archives.

In the 1950s, Confidential magazine, America's first celebrity scandal magazine, revealed Hollywood stars' secrets, misdeeds, and transgressions in gritty, unvarnished detail. Deploying a vast network of tipsters to root out stars' sexual affairs, drug use, and sexuality, publisher Robert Harrison destroyed celebrities' carefully constructed images and built a media empire. Confidential became the best-selling magazine on American newsstands in the 1950s, surpassing Time, Life, and the Saturday Evening Post. Confidential's spectacular rise was followed by an equally spectacular fall.

It’s everywhere, from commercials to New York Times best-sellers to college (and even younger) classrooms. In fact, pornography has become such a part of normal life in 21st century America that many teens and twenty-somethings have had no more important influence. They are the porn generation, where life’s expectations come from Mouseketeer pop tarts, Victoria’s Secret, internet titillation, and condom-flogging sex education.