Books in the World of science series

How do our bodies make sense of the world through the senses of sight, smell, taste and touch? Why do we have bones? What is the importance of eating well? From the secrets of the largest organ our skin, to the good and the bad about cholesterol, to what can go wrong with the tiny appendix, get ready for a journey of discovery into one of the most mysterious and fascinating realms known to science!

Covering more than seven-tenths of Earth's surface, the planet's freshwater bodies and oceans together host a diversity of aquatic life. What kind of stars inhabit the seas? What makes whales lose their way? Get ready to meet an ocean 'unicorn', swim with dugongs and investigate some of the weirdest looking residents of the deep. From the serpent-like oarfish to the giant Pacific octopus, here is our sampling of creatures that captivate scientists and storytellers alike!

Birds come in a dazzling array of sizes, shapes and colours, with abilities and behaviour worth making a song and dance about! Do you know how hornbills make a home? Or why sparrows hop? Get ready to admire the peacock's stunning plumage, glide with the wandering albatross and dive with penguins! From the everyday to the exotic, here are just some awesome representatives from this animal group that comprises more than 10,000 species worldwide.

How do our bodies make sense of the world through the senses of sight, smell, taste and touch? Why do we have bones? What is the importance of eating well? From the secrets of the largest organ our skin, to the good and the bad about cholesterol, to what can go wrong with the tiny appendix, get ready for a journey of discovery into one of the most mysterious and fascinating realms known to science!

Our close relationship with plants goes back hundreds of thousands of years -- plants give us food, in addition to countless materials useful for building, decorating, curing illnesses and keeping us clothed and protected. Which plants have tasty, edible leaves? Why do some plants adopt 'disguises'? And which ones set 'traps' for tiny animals? From the 'bearded' banyan to the African baobab, get ready to branch out into our eye-opening world of plants!

Our close relationship with plants goes back hundreds of thousands of years -- plants give us food, in addition to countless materials useful for building, decorating, curing illnesses and keeping us clothed and protected. Which plants have tasty, edible leaves? Why do some plants adopt 'disguises'? And which ones set 'traps' for tiny animals? From the 'bearded' banyan to the African baobab, get ready to branch out into our eye-opening world of plants!

What Arieh Warshel and fellow 2013 Nobel laureates Michael Levitt and Martin Karplus achieved -- beginning in the late 1960s and early 1970s when computers were still very primitive -- was the creation of methods and programs that describe the action of biological molecules by multiscale models. In this book, Warshel describes this fascinating, half-century journey to the apex of science. From Kibbutz Fish Ponds to Nobel Prize is as much an autobiography as an advocacy for the emerging field of computational science. We follow Warshel through pivotal moments of his life, from his formative years in war-torn Israel in an idealistic kibbutz that did not encourage academic education; to his time in the army and his move to the Technion where he started in his obsession of understanding the catalytic power of enzymes; to his eventual scientific career which took him to the Weizmann Institute, Harvard University, Medical Research Council, and finally University of Southern California. We read about his unique contributions to the elucidation of the molecular basis of biological functions, which are combined with instructive stories about his persistence in advancing ideas that contradict the current dogma, and the nature of his scientific struggle for recognition, both personal and for the field to which he devoted his life. This is, in so many ways, more than just a memoir: it is a profoundly inspirational tale of one man's odyssey from a kibbutz that did not allow him to go to a university to the pinnacle of the scientific world, highlighting that the correct mixture of persistence, talent and luck can lead to a Nobel Prize.