Bill Bryson explains why he wrote A Short History of Nearly Everything – video
The author of Notes from a Small Island and The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid talks about writers' irrepressible urge to share 'amazing information'What possessed self-confessed "terrible science student" Bill Bryson to write a book about the s...
Favourite science writing: John Steinbeck’s Log from the Sea of Cortez | James Kingsland
The best science writing offers a subjective angle that is just as useful as the things that can be weighed and counted, says James KingslandEnter the Wellcome Trust Science Writing Prize in association with the Guardian and the ObserverIf you think yo...
The Rough Guide to the Future by Jon Turney – review | Royal Society science book prize
A meticulously researched book analysing not only distant future scenarios but also the grim environmental outlook in short termEnter our competition to win all six books shortlisted for this year's Royal Society Winton Prize for Science BooksIt's hard...
Review: Life Ascending: The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution by Nick Lane
James Kingsland enjoys a fascinating exploration of how evolution came up with 10 of its greatest inventionsThis is the fifth of our reviews of the six titles vying for the 2010 Royal Society Prize for Science Books. Win a complete set of the shortlist...
Dictionary definition of ‘siphon’ has been wrong for nearly a century
A schoolboy error in the Oxford English Dictionary's definition of 'siphon' has come to light after nearly 100 years in print
Perpetuated by dictionaries for nearly a century, it's surely the most persistent scientific howler in the history of the English language. Siphons – those ingenious plastic tubes we...
