Science

Planet Earth is f**ked.

Decades of gas-guzzling and plastic parasites have brought the Earth to its knees. Entire species are disappearing, the icecaps are melting and forest fires are raging like never before. Basically, we've really messed the place up.

Packed full of easy-to-digest climate truths and IFLScience's trademark witty humour, How to F**king Save the Planet is your essential handbook to global warming and climate change. Learn how to successfully argue with climate-deniers, why micro-plastic pollution means that polar bears can no longer get boners and why the Paris Climate Agreement is really important.

Written by Jennifer Crouch with global go-to science site IFLScience, let this book guide, infuriate and inspire you into getting up off your arse and actually doing something to save the world!

The Witch's Garden describes over 50 of the world's most powerful, harmful, legendary and storied plants – from the screaming mandrake to calming St John's Wort, to predicting the weather with seaweed, the creation of salves for broken hearts, sore heads, protection from evil spirits and to even induce immortality.

Wise women, apothecaries, witches, herbalists: whatever you like to call them, those who cultivate plants for their apparent mystical properties have existed for thousands of years. The Witch's Garden tells the story of our folkloric fascination with these magical specimens, documenting the beliefs and rituals surrounding the natural world. Illustrated with pages from herbals held within the archives of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, along with botanical illustrations and archival images depicting magic and mayhem, The Witch's Garden beautifully evokes the bewitching nature of mysterious plants.

Where natural occurrences once controlled climate, geology and the genesis and demise of species, humankind now holds the reins.

The Human Age is an intrepid exploration of the new geological epoch in which we now find ourselves: the Anthropocene. Defined as the Age of Man, this is the epoch in which human beings have become the driving forces that mold, transform and destroy Earth.

Bringing together scientific theory, political argument, philosophical questioning and our deepest fears and hopes for the future, The Human Age explores this new age through informative and compelling text, and astounding photographs of the impact of human life on Earth. Powerful graphics depict the changing nature of the landscape and the very bedrock of our planet, and the destruction of ancient systems and environments that is resulting in global upheaval and climate breakdown. Creating a visual and written timeline of the age of human domination, The Human Age reveals how this era was born, the ways in which it is impacting us and our planet now, and the outlook for the future.

Meltdown investigates and recreates the dramatic events behind the most notorious nuclear accidents in history, as well as those shrouded in secrecy.

Combining human tragedy with intriguing science, each account reveals new aspects of humanity's complex relationship with nuclear power and the ongoing struggle to harness and control it. From the pioneers of Los Alamos who got up close and personal with the cores of atomic bombs, to the hapless engineers in Soviet fuel-processing plants who unwittingly mixed up a disaster in a bucket, and from the terrifying impact of a tsunami at Fukushima to the mystery of the recent Russian incident, Meltdown explores the past and future of this extraordinary and potentially lethal source of infinite power.

Expert science writer Giles Sparrow guides you through 21 stars you can see in the night sky and what they can teach us about our universe.

On a clear evening, if you look up you can see thousands of stars shining in the dark sky, each with a story of their own. Taking 21 stars (and three imposters, that cheekily aren’t technically stars), expert science writer Giles Sparrow offers a complete introduction to what is happening up in the night sky. Sparrow draws ‘star maps' to help you easily identify the celestial bodies and then explains (for anyone not an astronomer themselves) what this particular pinprick of light can tell us about the birth, life and death of our universe.

From red giants, quasars and supernovae to black holes, multiple stars and even our own Sun, this fascinating book tells the intriguing, inspiring and sometimes incredible story of how we came to unravel the mysteries of the cosmos, and what we learnt along the way. So look up at the sky and marvel at its wonders with this exciting new book.

Deep time is the timescale of the geological events that have shaped our planet. Whilst so immense as to challenge human understanding, its evidence is nonetheless visible all around us.

Through explanations of the latest research and over 200 fascinating images, Deep Time explores this evidence, from the visible layers in ancient rock to the hiss of static on the radio, and from fossilized shark’s teeth to underwater forests. These relics of ancient epochs, many of which we can see and touch today, connect our present to the distant past and answer broader questions about our place in the timeline of the Earth.

Charting 4.5 billion years of geological history, this is the story of our world, from its birth to the dawn of civilization.

In 2004 a rock star, a TV astronomer and a young research astronomer sat down to write the story of the Universe in the order in which it happened, from its birth at the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago, through to its ultimate demise in the infinitely far future.

The aim of this book is to explain the Big Bang and everything that followed in a way that made sense, in the strict order in which events occurred, and without using maths, so it would be understandable to everyone, regardless of educational background. The original edition of Bang! was a bestseller, and a go-to for anyone wanting to understand the story of the origins and evolution of our Universe that did not duck the science.

Since the first edition, thousands of planets have been discovered, the 'habitable zone' has expanded and a flotilla of new satellites has explored our own solar system, bringing back fresh images and new science. In this book all the latest findings about the evolution of stars and galaxies are included, and the current thinking about our ultimate origins. The latest ideas about Dark Matter and Dark Energy are explained, all illustrated with new images from the world's largest telescopes and space missions.

This is the new, updated, popular guide to 'Life, the Universe, and Everything' – The Complete History of the Universe.