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Royal Society Prizes For Science Books
The Royal Society Science Books Prize is an annual £25,000 prize awarded by the Royal Society to celebrate outstanding popular science books from around the world. It is open to authors of science books written for a non-specialist audience, and since it was established in 1988 has championed writers such as Stephen Hawking, Jared Diamond, Stephen Jay Gould and Bill Bryson. In 2015 ''The Guardian'' described the prize as "the most prestigious science book prize in Britain". History The Royal Society established the Science Books Prize in 1988 with the aim of encouraging the writing, publishing and reading of good and accessible popular science books. Its name has varied according to sponsorship agreements. Judging process A panel of judges decides the shortlist and the winner of the Prize each year. The panel is chaired by a fellow of the Royal Society and includes authors, scientists and media personalities. The judges for the 2016 prize included author Bill Bryson, theoreti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal Society
The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, recognising excellence in science, supporting outstanding science, providing scientific advice for policy, education and public engagement and fostering international and global co-operation. Founded on 28 November 1660, it was granted a royal charter by King Charles II as The Royal Society and is the oldest continuously existing scientific academy in the world. The society is governed by its Council, which is chaired by the Society's President, according to a set of statutes and standing orders. The members of Council and the President are elected from and by its Fellows, the basic members of the society, who are themselves elected by existing Fellows. , there are about 1,700 fellows, allowed to use the postnominal title FRS (Fellow of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stephen McGann
Stephen Vincent McGann (born 2 February 1963) is a British actor, best known for portraying Dr Patrick Turner in the BBC One medical period drama series ''Call the Midwife''. He is one of a family of acting brothers, the others being Joe, Paul, and Mark. McGann was born in Kensington, Liverpool, and began his professional acting career in 1982, starring in the West End musical ''Yakety Yak''. He has since worked extensively in British theatre and on screen. Early life Stephen's father Joe was a Royal Naval Commando who died in 1984, and his mother Clare was a teacher. Along with his acting brothers Paul, Mark, and Joe who's named after his father, he also has a younger sister named Clare after their mother. Career Acting In 1989, he starred as Mickey in the West End hit musical '' Blood Brothers''. In 1990, he played Johann Strauss in the international mini-series, ''The Strauss Dynasty''. In 1993, he created, co-produced and starred in the award-winning BBC drama ''The H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stumbling On Happiness
''Stumbling on Happiness'' is a nonfiction book by Daniel Gilbert, published in the United States and Canada in 2006 by Knopf. It has been translated into more than thirty languages and is a ''New York Times'' bestseller. Theme Gilbert's central thesis is that, through perception and cognitive biases, people imagine the future poorly, in particular what will make them happy. He argues that imagination fails in three ways: # Imagination tends to add and remove details, but people do not realize that key details may be fabricated or missing from the imagined scenario. # Imagined futures (and pasts) are more like the present than they actually will be (or were). # Imagination fails to realize that things will feel different once they actually happen—most notably, the psychological immune system will make bad things feel not so bad as they are imagined to feel. Also, Gilbert covers the topic of 'filling in' or the frequent use of patterns, by the mind, to connect events which ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mitochondria And The Meaning Of Life
A mitochondrion (; ) is an organelle found in the cells of most Eukaryotes, such as animals, plants and fungi. Mitochondria have a double membrane structure and use aerobic respiration to generate adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which is used throughout the cell as a source of chemical energy. They were discovered by Albert von Kölliker in 1857 in the voluntary muscles of insects. The term ''mitochondrion'' was coined by Carl Benda in 1898. The mitochondrion is popularly nicknamed the "powerhouse of the cell", a phrase coined by Philip Siekevitz in a 1957 article of the same name. Some cells in some multicellular organisms lack mitochondria (for example, mature mammalian red blood cells). A large number of unicellular organisms, such as microsporidia, parabasalids and diplomonads, have reduced or transformed their mitochondria into other structures. One eukaryote, ''Monocercomonoides'', is known to have completely lost its mitochondria, and one multicellular organism, '' Henneg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
