In recent years, outbreaks of Ebola and Zika have provided vivid examples of how difficult it is to contain an infection once it strikes, and the panic that a rapidly spreading epidemic can ignite. But while we chase the diseases we are already aware of, new ones are constantly emerging, like the coronavirus that spread across the world in 2020. At the same time, antimicrobial resistance is harnessing infections that we once knew how to control, enabling...

An investigation into the relationship between science and music – from Pythagoras to the Moog synthesizer. In this new title in Icon's Hot Science series, Andrew May traces how important science is in all aspects of music. After the basics of acoustic science and the history of sound waves, he explores how musicians have played with the scientific parameters of sound to apply algorithmic rules to create music. The role of science in music can be...

Nature conservation in the 21st century has taken a radical new turn. Instead of conserving particular species in nature reserves as 'museum pieces', frozen in time, the thinking now is that we should allow landscape-sized areas to 'rewild' according to their own self-determined processes. By fencing off large areas and introducing large herbivores, along with apex predators such as wolves, dynamic new habitats are already being created. These 'self-willed'...

Extraterrestrial life is a common theme in science fiction, but is it a serious prospect in the real world? Astrobiology is the emerging field of science that seeks to answer this question. The possibility of life elsewhere in the cosmos is one of the most profound subjects that human beings can ponder. Astrophysicist Andrew May gives an expert overview of our current state of knowledge, looking at how life started on Earth, the tell-tale signatures...