Brand new submarine HMS Thetis is the pride of the British Navy. In 1939, she sets out for a test dive with 103 men on board. But a tiny flaw in her construction has gone unnoticed, and the crew ...

Almost 51 years ago — when I was still a toddler — a gaming and science-fiction enthusiast named Lee Gold put together the first edition of an unusual collaborative role-playing-games magazine, ...

In Tudor England, the line between mathematics and the mystic arts is vanishingly thin. Straddling both worlds is John Dee, a brilliant scholar and astrologer whose intellect grants him access to ...

It was one of the most astonishing displays of persuasion I have ever seen. In the audience, a group of Midwestern agribusiness types, who by profession should have been well attuned to climate ...

Harford is smart. Scary smart. So smart he can illuminate, in clear, entertaining English, ideas and forces of mind-boggling complexity The Undercover Economist is a rare specimen: a book on economics ...

We all seem to be worried about the robots taking over these days — and they don’t need to take all the jobs to be horrendously disruptive. A situation where 30 to 40 per cent of the working age ...

Mike Lynch was often lauded as Britain’s answer to Bill Gates. Born into a working-class family, Lynch’s incredible intellect and passion for computers led him to become a billionaire ...

“Thanks to Tim Harford’s characteristic wit and magnetic storytelling, you may not realize you’re getting an advanced course in how to understand the kinds of statistics we’re all faced with every day ...

Thomas Midgley’s inventions caused his own death, hastened the deaths of millions of people around the world, and very nearly extinguished all life on land. Midgley and his employers didn’t set out to ...

Panic has erupted in the cockpit of AirFrance Flight 447. The pilots are convinced they’ve lost control of the plane. It’s lurching violently. Then, it begins plummeting from the sky at breakneck ...

Did you know that a toy spaceship can teach you about inflation? Or that a pooping cow can show you how to invest your pocket money? And that even the greatest detectives have been fooled by fake news ...

In the final days of the Sixties, The Rolling Stones join forces with other rock legends to plan a free concert at Altamont that will rival Woodstock.The “bad boys of rock” don’t have the best ...