A blend of history, science, philosophy, and environmentalism, The Tree is an engaging and elegant look at the life of the tree and what modern research tells us about their future.

There are redwoods in California that were ancient by the time Columbus first landed, and pines still alive that germinated around the time humans invented writing. There are Douglas firs as tall as skyscrapers, and a banyan tree in Calcutta as big as a football field.

From the tallest to the smallest, trees inspire wonder in all of us, and in The Tree, Colin Tudge travels around the...

This study details the various results that can be achieved from tampering with genetic material from ensuring the birth of a male rather than a female child, creating a cow with a vast milk yield, or creating mice that are programmed to die of cancer. The author indicates that already farmers release genetically re-shaped plants into the fields to produce nicer-looking apples, and that whole species of animals can be saved from extinction by genetic techniques. However, the book questions whether the geneticists actually know what they are doing, or are they just following their noses, as...

For more than a century, scientists have raced to unravel the human family tree and have grappled with its complications. Now, with an astonishing new discovery, everything we thought we knew about primate origins could change. Lying inside a high-security vault, deep within the heart of one of the world's leading natural history museums, is the scientific find of a lifetime - a perfectly fossilized early primate, older than the previously most famous primate fossil, Lucy, by forty-four million years.

How are birds so good at flying and navigating?
Why are birds so like mammals and yet so very different?
Did birds descend from dinosaurs, and if so, does that mean birds are dinosaurs?
How do they court each other and fend off rivals?
What' s being communicated in birdsong?
Can we ever know how birds think?
In this fascinating exploration of the avian class, Colin Tudge considers the creatures of the air. From their evolutionary roots to their flying, feeding, fighting, mating, nesting, and communicating, Tudge provocatively ponders what birds actually do as well as...