Books

Is intelligent life on our pale blue dot a one-off freak of nature, or is the cosmos teeming with it? Theoretical physicist Paul Davies' cosmic search aims to find out - and it won't cost the earth. Matthew Reisz reports

Hester Vaizey is fascinated by the revelations of diaries from a wartime Mass-Observation project

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Personal testimony and anecdote enliven a text on a vital subject, writes Michael Farthing

Jon Turney on a microbiologist's ambitious project to captivate us with minuscule wonders

Gerald Pillay applauds an argument against the increasing commercialisation of higher education

Jeremy MacClancy is impressed by a study of the way performance can unite disparate groups

Could there be life on another heavenly body? A study of the possibilities fascinates Lewis Dartnell

Reactions to 'evil' primate behaviour cast light on the politicisation of science, says Phyllis C. Lee

A sprawling system needs more democracy and opportunities for graduates, Nayanjot Lahiri writes

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Are US universities as good as they seem? Simon Baatz lauds an insightful analysis of their pros and cons

A paean to teaching's role in the good society wins Fred Inglis' heart

The dismantling of Iraqi intellectual life may have been a deliberate strategy, Roger Matthews learns

Simple analogies put a complex subject well within the layman's reach, discovers Elias Kiritsis

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Surgery allows no room for error. Surgeon and researcher Atul Gawande prescribes the use of checklists to get it right. Matthew Reisz reports

André Laliberté ponders the party's clampdown on an organisation that seems to pose little threat

Willy Maley salutes a live-wire intellect, part terrier, part trickster

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Basing politics on what makes people happy is a good thing, isn't it? Maybe, says Paul Stenner

Jules Pretty explores our changing relationship with the wild through a look at a canine trickster

Do a 'protean' nature and selflessness assure us a life after the end? Christopher Belshaw is unsure

A fresh interpretation has breathed new life into a seminal feminist text, discovers Mary Evans

Piotr A. Cieplak understands the outrage but takes exception to the author's neglect of the evidence

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Lucia Gurioli feels the heat in these eyewitness accounts of Italy's famous volcano

A weekly look over the shoulders of our scholar-reviewers

Katrina Schlunke finds exotic tales of Pacific island encounters to be most revealing

An attempt to solve the mystery of a lost Aztec treasure doesn't crack it, says Alan Sandstrom