Georgina Ferry – författare

The eccentric story of one of the most bizarre marriages in the history of British business: the invention of the world's first office computer and the Lyons Teashop.The Lyons teashops were one of the great British institutions, providing a cup of tea and a penny bun through the depression and the war, though to the 1970s. Yet Lyons also has a more surprising claim to history.In the 1930s John Simmons, a young maths graduate in charge of the clerks' offices, had a dream: to build a machine that would automate the millions of tedious transactions and process them in as little time as possible. Simmons' quest for the first office computer – the Lyons Electronic Office – would take 20 years and involve some of the most brilliant young minds in Britain.Interwoven with the story of creating LEO is the story of early computing, from the Difference Engine of Charles Babbage to the codecracking computers at Bletchley Park and the instantly obsolescent ENIAC in the US. It is also the story of post war British computer business: why did it lose the initiative? Why did the US succeed while British design was often superior?

This book tells the remarkable lives of the pioneers of science – from Galileo and Newton, Faraday and Darwin, Pasteur and Marie Curie, to Einstein, Freud, Turing, and Crick and Watson. A series of seventy articles, written by an international team of distinguished scientists, historians of science and science writers, provides an unrivalled account of the lives and personalities behind the greatest scientific breakthroughs of all time. Organized thematically, starting at the ‘Universe’, and moving smaller through the ‘Earth’ and ‘Molecules and Matter’ to ‘Inside the Atom’, with the final two sections looking at ‘Life’ and ‘Body and Mind’, it covers all the major scientific disciplines, including astronomy, biology, biochemistry, chemistry, computing, ecology, geology, medicine, neurology, physics and psychology, as well as mathematics. The Scientists will intrigue budding scientists, those fascinated by the lives of great individuals, and anyone curious to know how over the centuries we came to understand the physical world around us and inside us.

John Sulston was director of the Sanger Centre in Cambridge from 1993 to 2000. There he led the British arm of the international team selected to map the entire human DNA sequence, a feat that was pulled off in record time by an extraordinary collaboration of scientists. Despite innumerable setbacks and challenges from outside competitors the ultimate success of the project can be attributed in large part to John Sulston's own determination, passion and scientific excellence.In this personal account he takes us behind the scenes of one of the largest international scientific operations ever undertaken. He is frank about the competition with Craig Venter and Celera Genomics, which threatened to undermine the international community's attempts to make the sequence freely available to everyone. He shares with us his excitement as the project unfolded. And as a pragmatist he reveals his hopes and concerns as to how the information unlocked by the Human Genome Project will affect people's lives in the future.The Common Thread is at once a compelling history of this most exciting of scientific breakthroughs and also an impassioned call for ethical responsibility in scientific research. As the boundaries between science and big business increasingly blur, and researchers race to patent medical discoveries, the international community needs to find a common protocol for the protection of the wider human interest. The Common Thread tells a story of our shared human heritage, offering hope for future research and a fresh outlook on our scientific understanding of ourselves.

John Sulston was director of the Sanger Centre in Cambridge from 1993 to 2000. There he led the British arm of the international team selected to map the entire human DNA sequence, a feat that was pulled off in record time by an extraordinary collaboration of scientists. Despite innumerable setbacks and challenges from outside competitors the ultimate success of the project can be attributed in large part to John Sulston's own determination, passion and scientific excellence.In this personal account he takes us behind the scenes of one of the largest international scientific operations ever undertaken. He is frank about the competition with Craig Venter and Celera Genomics, which threatened to undermine the international community's attempts to make the sequence freely available to everyone. He shares with us his excitement as the project unfolded. And as a pragmatist he reveals his hopes and concerns as to how the information unlocked by the Human Genome Project will affect people's lives in the future.The Common Thread is at once a compelling history of this most exciting of scientific breakthroughs and also an impassioned call for ethical responsibility in scientific research. As the boundaries between science and big business increasingly blur, and researchers race to patent medical discoveries, the international community needs to find a common protocol for the protection of the wider human interest. The Common Thread tells a story of our shared human heritage, offering hope for future research and a fresh outlook on our scientific understanding of ourselves.

Few scientists have thought more deeply about their calling and its impact on humanity than Max Perutz (1914-2002). Born in Vienna, Jewish by descent, lapsed Catholic by religion, Max came to Cambridge in 1936, to join the lab of the legendary Communist thinker J.D. Bernal. In 1940 he was interned and deported to Canada as an enemy alien, only to be brought back and set to work on a bizarre top secret war project. Seven years later he founded the small research group in which Francis Crick and James Watson discovered the structure of DNA. Max Perutz himself explored the protein haemoglobin and his work, which won him a shared Nobel Prize in 1962, launched a new era of medicine, heralding today's astonishing advances in the genetic basis of disease.Max Perutz's story, wonderfully told by Georgina Ferry, brims with life; it has the zest of an adventure novel and is full of extraordinary characters. Max was demanding, passionate and driven but also humorous, compassionate and loving. Georgina Ferry's absorbing biography is a marvellous tribute to a great scientist.

*Shortlisted for the Duff Cooper Prize and the Marsh Biography Award*The definitive biography of chemist Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin, the only British woman to win a Nobel prize in the sciences to date. Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin (1910–1994) was passionate in her quest to understand the molecules of the living body. She won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1964 for her work on penicillin and Vitamin B12, and her study of insulin made her a pioneer in protein crystallography. Fully engaged with the political and social currents of her time, Hodgkin experienced radical change in women''s education, the globalisation of science, relationships between East and West, and international initiatives for peace. Georgina Ferry''s definitive biography of Britain''s first female Nobel prizewinning scientist was shortlisted for the Duff Cooper Prize and the Marsh Biography Award. This revised and updated edition includes a new preface from the author.

*Shortlisted for the Duff Cooper Prize and the Marsh Biography Award*The definitive biography of chemist Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin, the only British woman to win a Nobel prize in the sciences to date. Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin (1910–1994) was passionate in her quest to understand the molecules of the living body. She won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1964 for her work on penicillin and Vitamin B12, and her study of insulin made her a pioneer in protein crystallography. Fully engaged with the political and social currents of her time, Hodgkin experienced radical change in women’s education, the globalisation of science, relationships between East and West, and international initiatives for peace. Georgina Ferry's definitive biography of Britain’s first female Nobel prizewinning scientist was shortlisted for the Duff Cooper Prize and the Marsh Biography Award. This revised and updated edition includes a new preface from the author.

On 17 March 1967, the 26-year-old David Sainsbury wrote out a cheque for £5 and established the trust which would become the Gatsby Charitable Foundation. Gatsby''s purpose was ambitious: to make the world a better place by taking on some of the social, economic and scientific challenges that face humanity. In recent years, Gatsby has spent around £50m annually on charitable activities, and by its 50th anniversary in 2017 it will have spent over £1bn on programmes that range from reducing poverty in Africa to raising the standard of technical education, investigating how plants fight disease, and finding out how the brain works. But despite Gatsby''s wide reach and the level of its donations, it has always functioned discreetly and out of the public eye. Georgina Ferry''s in-depth account reveals its achievements and invites us to question how the super-rich - and even the moderately affluent - might spend their money more wisely and for the common good.

The eccentric story of one of the most bizarre marriages in the history of British business: the invention of the world's first office computer and the Lyons Teashop.The Lyons teashops were one of the great British institutions, providing a cup of tea and a penny bun through the depression and the war, though to the 1970s. Yet Lyons also has a more surprising claim to history.In the 1930s John Simmons, a young maths graduate in charge of the clerks' offices, had a dream: to build a machine that would automate the millions of tedious transactions and process them in as little time as possible. Simmons' quest for the first office computer – the Lyons Electronic Office – would take 20 years and involve some of the most brilliant young minds in Britain.Interwoven with the story of creating LEO is the story of early computing, from the Difference Engine of Charles Babbage to the codecracking computers at Bletchley Park and the instantly obsolescent ENIAC in the US. It is also the story of post war British computer business: why did it lose the initiative? Why did the US succeed while British design was often superior?

Women have fought their way to the top in fields that have been male dominated for years. Yet, they still face challenges. 50 Women in Technology sheds light on the work of forgotten pioneers who defied expectations and includes 25 exclusive interviews with women at the forefront today. 50 Women in Technology is a full-colour book celebrating female pioneers and trailblazers in STEM. It features 25 extraordinary women scientists from Ada Lovelace to Emmanuelle Charpentier, as well as 25 exclusive interviews with incredible women who are leading the way in the fast-paced world of technology today including 2023 Nobel prize winner Katalin Kariko. Includes: Amalia Ballarino (Nuclear Engineer), Ana Oliveira (Crop Genetics), Anais Engelmann and Megan Hale (Design Engineering), Anda Waluyo Sapardan (Medical Tech/Healthcare), Anna Lukasson-Herzig (Computing/AI), Brenda Romero (Video Games), Clarice Phelps (Nuclear Chemist), Claudia Brind -Woody (IT), Coty Craven (videogames/IT), Emily Holmes (Neuroscientist), Gretchen Andrew (NFT Artist), Ida Tin (FemTech), Katalin Kariko (Biochemistry), Kasia Gora (Food Tech), Maria Carolina Fujihara (Environmental Tech), Marita Cheng (Robotics), Mary Agbesanwa (FinTech), Mary Lou Jepsen (Imaging/Healthcare), Morenike Fajemisin (FemTech), Odunayo Eweniyi (Financial Tech), Rumman Chowdhury (Internet Algorithms/Data Science), Sheri Graner Ray (Videogames), Stephanie Willerth, (Bioengineering), Tan Le (Medical Tech) and Yewande Akinola (Sustainability).

Nur wenige Wissenschaftler haben so intensiv über die Natur ihrer Berufung und deren Auswirkungen auf die Menschheit nachgedacht wie Max Perutz. 1914 wurde er als Sohn einer wohlhabenden Wiener Textilfabrikantenfamilie jüdischer Herkunft geboren, jedoch in der römisch-katholischen Konfession erzogen. Nach seinem Chemiestudium an der Universität Wien ging er 1936 nach Cambridge an das Labor des legendären kommunistischen Denkers J. D. Bernal, um die Strukturen jener Moleküle zu erforschen, die das Geheimnis des Lebens bergen. 1940 wurde er interniert und nach Kanada deportiert (Displaced Person). Für ein streng geheimes Kriegsprojekt holte man ihn nach England zurück. Sieben Jahre später gründete er eine kleine Forschungsgruppe, in der Francis Crick und James Watson die Struktur der DNA entdeckten. Unter seiner Leitung wuchs sie zum weltberühmten Laboratorium für Molekularbiologie (LMB) heran. Max Perutz selbst erforschte den roten Blutfarbstoff Hämoglobin und entwickelte eine neue Methode, um Proteinstrukturen zu entschlüsseln. Seine Arbeit, für die er 1962 den Nobelpreis erhielt, läutete die heutigen erstaunlichen Fortschritte bei der Erforschung der genetischen Grundlagen von Krankheiten ein. Aus seiner eigenen Erfahrung als Flüchtling schöpfend, setzte er sich furchtlos für die Menschenrechte ein und war ein engagierter Verfechter der Wissenschaft. Georgina Ferrys fesselnde Biografie ist eine wunderbare Hommage an einen großen Wissenschaftler.