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Why sci-fi novelist Iain M. Banks was an ‘astounding’ world-builder

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Why sci-fi novelist Iain M. Banks was an ‘astounding’ world-builder

The 51�� Book Club is currently reading the late Iain M. Banks’s Culture novel The Player of Games. Fellow science fiction author Bethany Jacobs reveals how his work inspired her

Culture

Astronaut sits in a window frame inside a space ship and reads a book about science. Concept of exploring space.

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The 12 best science fiction books of 2025

Culture

Young woman, wearing a orange jacket, is reading a book on an ebook reader during sunset over Himalayas. She is sitting on the top of a mountain and holding the e-reader.The afternoon sun on the background. Mount Everest National Park. This is the highest national park in the world, with the entire park located above 3,000 m ( 9,700 ft). This park includes three peaks higher than 8,000 m, including Mt Everest. Therefore, most of the park area is very rugged and steep, with its terrain cut by deep rivers and glaciers. Unlike other parks in the plain areas, this park can be divided into four climate zones because of the rising altitude. The climatic zones include a forested lower zone, a zone of alpine scrub, the upper alpine zone which includes upper limit of vegetation growth, and the Arctic zone where no plants can grow.

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The 13 best popular science books of 2025

Culture

Grace Chan and debut novel Every Version of You

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Grace Chan: 'How to stay in love after uploading into virtual reality'

Video

Adult mice using their paws and mouths to remove pups stuck in a pregnant animal's birth canal

Life

Mouse 'midwives' help their pregnant companions give birth

51��

Quantum computer core. Light rays passing through the nanoscale crystal core of a quantum computer. Quantum computers, which are under development, are based on quantum mechanics and the principle of representing information in quantum bits (qubits) using quantum properties. This could involve optical properties of chemically doped crystals, like the one shown here. Quantum computing has the potential to massively increase computing power.

Physics

An ambitious look at quantum physics is fun – but overdoes it a little

Culture

LONDON, ENGLAND - MAY 15: 3D printed organ scaffolds by Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine is displayed as part of the 'AI: More than Human' exhibition at the Barbican Curve Gallery on May 15, 2019 in London, England. (Photo by Tristan Fewings/Getty Images for Barbican Centre)

Health

A fascinatingly grisly guide to replacing and repairing body parts

Culture

Artist: Dean Patman 229 - Red Underwing Moth Medium: Found object sculpture Size: 47x67x14cm

Life

51�� recommends the Society of Wildlife Artists' annual expo

Culture

The 19 best Christmas gifts for science lovers (and nerds)

Technology

The 19 best Christmas gifts for science lovers (and nerds)

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A caretaker feeds chimpanzees inside their playground area at the Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary in Freetown, on April 24, 2025. The sanctuary, which rehabilitates orphaned Western chimpanzees, is a leading site for wildlife research and conservation education programs. Extremely popular with tourists, its keepers have defiantly kept it closed since late May. The protest is meant to spur the government into action over the rapid environmental degradation taking place in the national park where it is located. The deterioration does not just affect the chimps, experts say, but also inhabitants of the wider region including the nearby capital of Freetown, home to some two million people. (Photo by PATRICK MEINHARDT / AFP) (Photo by PATRICK MEINHARDT/AFP via Getty Images)

Life

Smart new book takes an axe to the myth of human exceptionalism

Christine Webb's provocative and moving book The Arrogant Ape explores our unjustifiable sense of superiority in the living world, laying out the evidence against it, says Elle Hunt

Culture

Life

Surprising new biography of Francis Crick unravels the story of DNA

Culture

Environment

New book tells compelling tale of the fight to save the Siberian tiger

Culture

Space

Deep-space sci-fi novel is delightful, profound and not to be missed

Culture

Life

This book is a great insight into the new science of microchimerism

Culture