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1. The Road to Reality by Roger Penrose, Jonathan Cape/Random House

2. The Ancestor’s Tale by Richard Dawkins, Weidenfeld & Nicolson

3. Tomorrow’s People by Susan Greenfield, Allen Lane/Penguin

4. Not on the Label by Felicity Lawrence, Penguin

5. The Fabric of the Cosmos by Brian Greene, Allen Lane/Penguin

6. The Third Man of the Double Helix by Maurice Wilkins, Oxford University Press

7. The Mould in Dr Florey’s Coat by Eric Lax, Little, Brown

8. The Cable by Gillian Cookson, Tempus

9. Soul Made Flesh by Carl Zimmer, William Heinemann/Random House

10. Backroom Boys by Francis Spufford, Faber

Information supplied by Blackwell’s, Oxford (fax 01865 794143), for bestsellers in popular science first published in hardback or paperback in the UK within the past year.

In New ÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ earlier this year, Roger Penrose introduced string theory’s new rival, twistor theory, which does away with all those bothersome extra spatial dimensions (31 July, p 26). A bargain at £18, copies of his 1000-page, comprehensive guide to the physical universe and the mathematical principles that underlie our understanding of it are now selling like huge steaming hot cakes in Oxford. The publishers assure us that one only requires a basic grasp of maths to read it. If so, brain food has never been so cheap and nutritious.