The Fossil Detectives

Sep 19, 2024 10:33 PM

Author:Douglas Palmer,Hermione Cockburn

Fossils provide us with a tantalizing glimpse of Britain's prehistoric past and hold the key to unlocking the secrets of life's history and evolution. Since the appearance of primitive organisms in Britain more than a billion years ago, oceans, deserts, swamps and vast mountains have come and gone in our corner of western Europe; forests of long-extinct trees, flowers and grasses have covered the land, and dinosaurs and other strange creatures have roamed across it. How do we know? The evidence is all around us - in the rocks and fossils that lie beneath the landscape.

In this highly informative and practical book, which accompanies the BBC series, presenter Hermione Cockburn and renowned palaeontologist Douglas Palmer take an in-depth look at the most exciting fossil stories from around the country. When and why were dinosaur fossils first discovered in Britain? How was the biggest fish ever to have swum in the sea unearthed near Peterborough? What do modern medical techniques have to offer fossil hunters?

Packed with colour photographs and illustrations, Fossils Detectives is full of surprising facts and features. And for those who want to try their hand at some fossil detecting of their own, the book includes an extensive regional gazetteer of fossil-hunting sites and places to visit, and guidance on identifying your fossil finds.

Get ready for some time travel around Britain, with the Fossil Detectives!

Reviews

Philip Ball, like Levi, displays a polymath’s enthusiasm for knowledge of all kinds, and writes of science with humility and intelligent generosity.

—— Ian Thomson , Telegraph

Ball's fascinating book revels not just in the experiments of these early scientists, but also in their humanity, foibles and passions

—— Ian Critchley , Sunday Times

A wonderfully nuanced and wise study of the scientific revolution

—— Guardian

Fascinating

—— Daily Telegraph

Philip Ball’s scintillating history of curiosity brims with treats

—— Nature Magazine

Cogent and intellectual… Ball has produced a great read, and there are few finer books on curiosity and mankind’s virtuous vice

—— Good Book Guide

The plague-ridden future imagined by this authoritative, measured, yet gripping book is extremely alarming

—— Sunday Times

A good place to start preparing for what might come

—— New Humanist

The Magic of Reality provides a beautiful, accessible and wide ranging volume that addresses the questions that all of us have about the universe...written with the masterful and eloquently literate style of perhaps the best popular expositor of science, Richard Dawkins, and delightfully illustrated by Dave McKean. What more could anyone ask for?

—— Lawrence Krauss, author of Quantum Man, and A Universe from Nothing

This book may be exactly what's needed to increase science literacy for readers of all ages

—— Publishers Weekly

This book is primarily aimed at teenagers, but plenty of adults will get a kick out of it too...McKean's drawings bring the text to life brilliantly ... Dawkins writes convincingly about everything from chemistry to statistics

—— Independent on Sunday

Dawkins uses a simple, brilliant technique highly appealing to young and old

—— The Washington Post

Few scientists manage to reach a huge popular audience. Even among them Richard Dawkins is distinctive for the clarity and elegance of his prose. The Magic of Reality... will be appreciated by inquisitive children while illuminating much for the adult general reader.

—— The Times

At once funny, prosaic, sinister and wise, Blum's tale is a beautifully written account of the true human cost of all our remote connectivity

—— Bella Bathurst, author of The Lighthouse Stevensons

With infectious wonder, Andrew Blum introduces us to the Internet's geeky wizards and takes us on an amiably guided tour of the world they've created ... the Internet that Blum's beautifully lucid prose makes real turns out to be if anything a more marvelous place than the cloudy dreamland we'd imagined

—— Donovan Hohn, author of Moby Duck

An illuminating journey of discovery

—— Sunday Express

Total immersive reading

—— The Wharf

A wonderful idea ... a hugely enjoyable and thought-provoking book

—— Scotsman

Fascinating, absorbing

—— Good Book Guide

A quick, absorbing read - a summer beach book with brains

—— Bloomberg

If you can stomach only one end-of-the world-as-we-know it story this summer, none is more audacious or interesting than Alan Weisman's The World Without Us

—— The Boston Globe

His is an extraordinary story laced with tragedy

—— Mail on Sunday

[Root's] life story, vividly related here, is crammed with incident and adventure. Curious, creative and fearless, he has diced with death on numerous occasions and been mauled several times in his efforts to capture the daily lives of everything from silver-back gorillas to leopards in the wild on film. A gripping account of a life well lived

—— Good Book Guide

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