The British cosmologist Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) was probably the most recognizable scientist of the last 50 years. Many of his greatest contributions were in the study of black holes. In particular, he discovered in 1974 that black holes emit what came to be known as Hawking radiation — which shows that black holes are not truly black and appears to contradict quantum mechanics. Read more
Ankita Anirban interviews Nell Freudenberger about her book `Lost and Wanted’ whose protagonist is a theoretical physicist. Read more
And the winner is….. Read more
I feel I must start with a confession. I love science. It’s dominated my working life and I get to enjoy finding out about new research every day at Nature. But when I’m at home, well, I often reach for a great novel over non-fiction. So I was amazed to find myself eschewing the joys of the latest from the New York Times bestseller list in favour of Gulp and racing through the chapters with the greatest of relish. Read more
There is a lot of stuff in Mark Miodownik’s fascinating book Stuff Matters, an account of the materials science underlying everyday objects, and little room for nonsense. Miodownik illustrates his efforts with the aid of a photograph of himself on the roof of his London home. Each chapter delves into the surprising properties of one of the ten materials featured in the photograph, from a steel table to a porcelain tea cup. Read more
Over the coming month, the Nature Press Office will be reading and reviewing the books shortlisted for the 2014 Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books, cramming in a book or two a week until the winner is announced on the 10th November 2014. Read more