Originally published: 2012.

Includes index.

In the beginning -- Needles and numbers -- Atoms and the void -- The father of medicine: Hippocrates -- The master of those who know: Aristotle -- The emperor's doctor: Galen -- Science in Islam -- Out of darkness -- Searching for the philosopher's stone -- Uncovering the human body -- Where is the centre of the universe? -- Leaning towers and telescopes: Galileo -- Round and round: Harvey -- Knowledge is power: Bacon and Descartes -- The "new chemistry" -- What goes up...: Newton -- Bright sparks -- The clockwork universe -- Ordering the world -- Airs and gases -- Tiny pieces of matter -- Forces, fields and magnetism -- Digging up dinosaurs -- The history of our planet -- The greatest show on Earth -- Little boxes of life -- Coughs, sneezes and diseases -- Engines and energy -- Tabling the elements -- Into the atom -- Radioactivity -- The game-changer: Einstein -- Moving continents -- What do we inherit? -- Where did we come from? -- Wonder drugs -- Building blocks -- Reading "the book of life": theHuman Genome Project -- The big bang -- Science in our digital age.