Richard Dawkins’ first work has thrilled fans and frustrated critics for five decades. The science has moved on, but any writer looking to supplant its place must learn its lessons

Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene was not predicted to be a success. Its initial print run, published this week in 1976, was just 5,000. It went on to sell millions, and is perhaps the most influential work of pop-science ever. For 50 years, it has been the go-to resource for the layperson seeking to understand evolution.

What accounts for its enduring power? Prof Dawkins’ central claim, that “we are survival machines – robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes” was provocative, stripping the messy stuff of human and other life down to a simple law. And yet the book is primarily concerned with proving that complex, selfless behaviour such as altruism in animals can emerge from these basic “selfish” drives, satisfyingly resolving an apparent paradox. Prof Dawkins – a zoologist by training – also succeeded in conjuring entertaining, vividly drawn vignettes of the lives of animals, from lions and ants to hawks and honeybees, to make his points.

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© Photograph: Roger Askew/REX/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Roger Askew/REX/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Roger Askew/REX/Shutterstock

European countries are leading the way harvesting heat that would otherwise be wasted as green death practices become more common.

Democrats are using the high price of diesel, heating oil, and fertilizer to tie Republicans to President Donald Trump’s unpopular, costly war in Iran.

Oxford study shows Manx shearwaters get lost when their body clocks get out of sync

Seabirds returning from foraging trips can be thrown hundreds of miles off course by a form of jet lag that arises when their body clocks get out of sync with local time, researchers say.

Tracking data from Manx shearwaters on the west coast of the UK revealed that when the birds returned home to their colonies after trips over the Atlantic, their rapid eastward flights disrupted their sense of time and navigation.

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© Photograph: George Reszeter/Alamy

© Photograph: George Reszeter/Alamy

© Photograph: George Reszeter/Alamy

Loch Insh, Cairngorms: In my three decades in Scotland I’ve adjusted to the darkness of this time of year, and found glory in the quality of light

It is the one clear day in a fortnight of heavy cloud, wind and rain, so I am out by the loch, basking in the rays of light, breathing them in, hoarding for the weeks to come.

This time of year makes them all the more precious. Here in the Highlands, once we are past the autumnal equinox, we can almost feel the Earth tipping away from the sun as the light grows shorter each day and the night steals back. It’s a turn that is especially obvious when the clocks change and our evenings are suddenly dark.

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© Photograph: Merryn Glover

© Photograph: Merryn Glover

© Photograph: Merryn Glover

A tour of the three caves in southern Spain suggests that people in the area cannibalized one another as funerary practice over many generations.

Software known as STRmix was instrumental in identifying Mr. Bundy’s DNA in a decades-old sample.

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