The Elegant Universe by heretical theorist Brian Greene (Vintage, £7.99, $15, pbk) has won this year's Aventis Prizes General Prize — often called the scientific community's Booker Prize. The prizes were set up in 1988 by the Science Museum and COPUS, the Committee On the Public Understanding of Science, to encourage the writing, publishing and sale of popular science books for non-specialist readers. This year's general prize, worth £10,000 ($15,000), attracted a record 117 entries. Other books on the shortlist are shown below. (See overleaf for coverage of the junior prize.)

The White Death: A History of Tuberculosis by Thomas Dormandy Hambledon/New York University Press, £25, $29.95

A Brief History of the Future: The Origins of the Internet by John Naughton Weidenfeld & Nicholson/Overlook, £18.99/$27.95

Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters by Matt Ridley Fourth Estate/HarperCollins, £9.99 (pbk)/$26 (hbk)

Time, Love, Memory: A Great Biologist and his Quest for the Origins of Behaviour by Jonathan Weiner Faber & Faber/Knopf, £20/$27.50

Children of Prometheus: The Accelerating Pace of Human Evolution by Christopher Wills Allen Lane/Perseus, £20 (hbk)/$15 (pbk)