Allen Lane Allergic. How Our Immune System Reacts to a Changing World MacPhail Theresa

From the author of Crashed comes a gripping short history of how Covid-19 ravaged the global economy, and where it leaves us now • When the news first began to trickle out of China about a new virus in December 2019, risk-averse financial markets were alert to its potential for disruption. Yet they could never have predicted the total economic collapse that would follow in COVID-19's wake, as stock markets fell faster and harder than at any time since 1929, currencies across the world plunged, investors panicked, and even gold was sold • In a matter of weeks, the world's economy was brought to an abrupt halt by governments trying to contain a spiralling public health catastrophe. Flights were grounded; supply chains broken; industries from tourism to oil to hospitality collapsed overnight, leaving hundreds of millions of people unemployed

An inspiring and practical guide to achieving bold ambitions • Michael Barber has spent many years advising governments, businesses and major sporting teams around the world on how to achieve ambitious goals on time. In this book he applies the wisdom he has gained from dealing with large, complex organizations and elite athletes to help anyone tackle their most challenging goals • Drawing on the stories of historic visionaries and modern heroes - from Galileo to Rosa Parks, Harold Macmillan to Paula Radcliffe - Barber uses personal anecdote and proven strategy to map the route to success and navigate the difficulties that arise along the way • Whatever it is that you aspire to do - run a marathon, transform a school or provide a business of public service to millions - this book will inspire you to get going and to bridge the gap between hope and reality

The story of the Higgs boson - the so-called 'God particle' - and the man who thought of it • In the summer of 1964, a reclusive young professor at the University of Edinburgh wrote two scientific papers which have come to change our understanding of the most fundamental building blocks of matter and the nature of the universe. Peter Higgs posited the existence an almost infinitely tiny particle - today known as the Higgs boson - which is the key to understanding why particles have mass, and but for which atoms and molecules could not exist • For nearly 50 years afterwards, some of the largest projects in experimental physics sought to demonstrate the physical existence of the boson which Higgs had proposed. Sensationally, confirmation came in July 2012 at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva

Best-selling historian Serhii Plokhy returns with an illuminating exploration of the atomic age through the history of six nuclear disasters • In 2011, a 43-foot-high tsunami crashed into a nuclear power plant in Fukushima, Japan. In the following days, explosions would rip buildings apart, three reactors would go into nuclear meltdown, and the surrounding area would be swamped in radioactive water. It is now considered one of the costliest nuclear disasters ever. But Fukushima was not the first, and it was not the worst • In Atoms and Ashes, acclaimed historian Serhii Plokhy tells the tale of the six nuclear disasters that shook the world: Bikini Atoll, Kyshtym, Windscale, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima. Based on wide-ranging research and witness testimony, Plokhy traces the arc of each crisis, exploring in depth the confused decision-making on the ground and the panicked responses of governments to contain the crises and often cover up the scale of the catastrophe

Доктор Джефф Редигер, ведущий мировой психиатр из Гарварда, провел последние пятнадцать лет, изучая тысячи людей со всего мира, их истории, стоящие за экстраординарными случаями выздоровления от неизлечимой болезни • Наблюдая за общими чертами людей, которые преодолели все трудности, доктор Редигер раскрывает огромную силу нашей иммунной системы и раскрывает секреты связи разума и тела. В книге "Вылеченный. Сила нашей иммунной системы и связь разума и тела" он объясняет жизненно важную роль, которую играет питание в повышении нашего иммунитета и борьбе с болезнями, а также описывает, как стресс, травмы и идентичность влияют на наше физическое здоровье • Анализируя замечательную науку о восстановлении, доктор Редигер раскрывает силу нашего разума исцелять наше тело и показывает нам ключи к хорошему здоровью

A grand new vision of cognitive science that explains how our minds build our worlds • For as long as we've studied the mind, we've believed that information flowing from our senses determines what our mind perceives. But as our understanding has advanced in the last few decades, a hugely powerful new view has flipped this assumption on its head. The brain is not a passive receiver, but an ever-active predictor • At the forefront of this cognitive revolution is widely acclaimed philosopher and cognitive scientist Andy Clark, who has synthesized his ground-breaking work on the predictive brain to explore its fascinating mechanics and implications. Among the most stunning of these is the realization that experience itself, because it is guided by prior expectation, is a kind of controlled hallucination

A mind-bending exploration of non-human intelligence, and how it holds the keys to our continuing life on earth • What does it mean to be intelligent? Is it something unique to humans - or do we share it with other beings? • Recent years have seen rapid advances in 'artificial' intelligence, which increasingly appears to be something stranger than we ever imagined. At the same time, we are becoming more aware of the other intelligences which have been with us all along, unrecognized. These other beings are the animals, plants, and natural systems that surround us, and are slowly revealing their complexity and knowledge - just as the new technologies we've built are threatening to cause their extinction, and ours • In Ways of Being, writer and artist James Bridle considers the fascinating, uncanny and multiple ways of existing on earth

An essential guide to navigating our data-driven world, from the renowned psychologist and author of Risk Savvy • Is more data always a good thing? • Do algorithms really make better decisions than humans? • Can we stay in control in an increasingly automated world? • Drawing on decades of research into decision-making under uncertainty, Gerd Gigerenzer makes a compelling case for the enduring importance of human discernment in an automated world that we are told can - and will - replace our efforts • From dating apps and self-driving cars to facial recognition and the justice system, the increasing presence of AI has been widely championed - but there are limitations and risks too. Humans are the greatest source of uncertainty in these situations and Gigerenzer shows how, when people are involved, trust in complex algorithms can lead to illusions of certainty that become a recipe for disaster

We've been told we need to master our emotions and think rationally to succeed. But cutting-edge science shows that feelings are every bit as important to our success as thinking • You make hundreds of decisions every day, from what to eat for breakfast to how to influence people, and not one of them could be made without the essential component of emotion. It has long been held that thinking and feeling are separate and opposing forces in our behaviour. But as best-selling author Leonard Mlodinow tells us, extraordinary advances in psychology and neuroscience have proven that emotions are as critical to our well being as thinking • How can you connect better with others? How can you improve your relationship to frustration, fear, and anxiety? What can you do to live a happier life? The answers lie in understanding emotions

The COVID-19 pandemic isn't over, but even as governments around the world strive to put it behind us, they're also starting to talk about what happens next. How can we prevent a new pandemic from killing millions of people and devastating the global economy? Can we even hope to accomplish this? • Bill Gates believes the answer is yes, and in this book he lays out clearly and convincingly what the world should have learned from COVID-19 and what all of us can do to ward off another disaster like it. Relying on the shared knowledge of the world's foremost experts and on his own experience of combating fatal diseases through the Gates Foundation, he first makes us understand the science of corona diseases. Then he helps us understand how the nations of the world, working in conjunction with one another and with the private sector, can not only ward off another COVID-like catastrophe but also go far to eliminate all respiratory diseases, including the flu

The International Bestseller • 'With clarity and compassion, DiAngelo allows us to understand racism as a practice not restricted to "bad people." In doing so, she moves our national discussions forward. This is a necessary book for all people invested in societal change' Claudia Rankine • Anger. Fear. Guilt. Denial. Silence. These are the ways in which ordinary white people react when it is pointed out to them that they have done or said something that has - unintentionally - caused racial offence or hurt. After, all, a racist is the worst thing a person can be, right? But these reactions only serve to silence people of colour, who cannot give honest feedback to 'liberal' white people lest they provoke a dangerous emotional reaction • Robin DiAngelo coined the term 'White Fragility' in 2011 to describe this process and is here to show us how it serves to uphold the system of white supremacy

Meritocracy: the idea that people should be advanced according to their talents rather than their status at birth. For much of history this was a revolutionary thought, but by the end of the twentieth century it had become the world's ruling ideology. How did this happen, and why is meritocracy now under attack from both right and left? • Adrian Wooldridge traces the history of meritocracy forged by the politicians and officials who introduced the revolutionary principle of open competition, the psychologists who devised methods for measuring natural mental abilities and the educationalists who built ladders of educational opportunity. He looks outside western cultures and shows what transformative effects it has had everywhere it has been adopted, especially once women were brought into the meritocractic system