Broken down into short, easy-to-digest sections it covers everything from evolution and cell biology to star formation and plate tectonics. Including sections on what technology may allow us to do in the future, and even looking at when science has gone bad, Understand Science will change the way you see the world around you.

Table of Contents

• Introducing Homo scientificus
• Acknowledgements
• Part one How we got here
• 1 Bang, we're off
• 2 Molecules in space
• 3 Recipe for a solar system
• 4 Life begins
• 5 Evolution and extinction
• Part two Way of all flesh
• 6 Life in sequence
• 7 From the bottom up
• 8 Getting it on
• 9 Man the defences
• 10 Attack of the nerves
• Part three Earth, wind and fire
• 11 Ground beneath our feet
• 12 Shake, rattle and roll
• 13 Earth rocks
• 14 Wet and windy
• 15 Stormy weather
• Part four We have the technology
• 16 Full of energy
• 17 Coming in waves
• 18 Information overload
• 19 Pedal to the metal
• 20 It's alive
• Part five When science goes bad
• 21 Fraud, fakery and fantasy
• 22 Shocks and scares
• 23 Hot enough for you?
• 24 Apocalypse now
• 25 Know your limits
• Part Six Science of the future
• 26 Back to the future
• 27 A.I.
• 28 Innerspace
• 29 A space odyssey
• 30 Things to come