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The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness
Montgomery, Sy
(Paperback)
List Price: $16.00 Sale: $6.53
In pursuit of the wild, solitary, predatory octopus, popular naturalist Sy Montgomery has practiced true immersion journalism. From New England aquarium tanks to the reefs of French Polynesia and the Gulf of Mexico, she has befriended octopuses with strikingly different personalities—gentle Athena, assertive Octavia, curious Kali, and joyful Karma. Each creature shows her cleverness in myriad ways: escaping enclosures like an orangutan; jetting water to bounce balls; and endlessly tricking companions with multiple “sleights of hand” to get food.Scientists have only recently accepted the intelligence of dogs, birds, and chimpanzees but now are watching octopuses solve problems and are trying to decipher the meaning of the animal’s color-changing techniques. With her “joyful passion for these intelligent and fascinating creatures” (Library Journal Editors’ Spring Pick), Montgomery chronicles the growing appreciation of this mollusk as she tells a unique love story. By turns funny, entertaining, touching, and profound, The Soul of an Octopus reveals what octopuses can teach us about the meeting of two very different minds.
Blue Mind: The Surprising Science That Shows How Being Near, In, On, or Under Water Can Make You Happier, Healthier, More Connected and Better at What
Nichols, Wallace J.
(Paperback)
List Price: $17.00 Sale: $6.33
A landmark book by marine biologist Wallace J. Nichols on the remarkable effects of water on our health and well-being.Why are we drawn to the ocean each summer? Why does being near water set our minds and bodies at ease? In BLUE MIND, Wallace J. Nichols revolutionizes how we think about these questions, revealing the remarkable truth about the benefits of being in, on, under, or simply near water. Combining cutting-edge neuroscience with compelling personal stories from top athletes, leading scientists, military veterans, and gifted artists, he shows how proximity to water can improve performance, increase calm, diminish anxiety, and increase professional success.BLUE MIND not only illustrates the crucial importance of our connection to water - it provides a paradigm shifting "blueprint" for a better life on this Blue Marble we call home.
The Human Brain Coloring Book
Diamond, Marian C.
(Softcover)
List Price: $22.00 Sale: $9.25
Developed by internationally renowned neurosurgeons, this unique book is designed for students of psychology and the biological sciences, and medical, dental, and nursing students.
The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA
Watson, James D.
(Paperback)
List Price: $15.95 Sale: $6.33
By identifying the structure of DNA, the molecule of life, Francis Crick and James Watson revolutionized biochemistry and won themselves a Nobel Prize. At the time, Watson was only twenty-four, a young scientist hungry to make his mark. His uncompromisingly honest account of the heady days of their thrilling sprint against other world-class researchers to solve one of science's greatest mysteries gives a dazzlingly clear picture of a world of brilliant scientists with great gifts, very human ambitions, and bitter rivalries. With humility unspoiled by false modesty, Watson relates his and Crick's desperate efforts to beat Linus Pauling to the Holy Grail of life sciences, the identification of the basic building block of life. Never has a scientist been so truthful in capturing in words the flavor of his work.
The Book of Eels: Our Enduring Fascination with the Most Mysterious Creature in the Natural World
Svensson, Patrik
(Hardcover)
List Price: $28.99 Sale: $9.76
The Book of Eels is both a meditation on the world’s most elusive fish - the eel - and a reflection on the human conditionRemarkably little is known about the European eel, Anguilla anguilla. So little, in fact, that scientists and philosophers have, for centuries, been obsessed with what has become known as the “eel question”: Where do eels come from? What are they? Are they fish or some other kind of creature altogether? Even today, in an age of advanced science, no one has ever seen eels mating or giving birth, and we still don’t understand what drives them, after living for decades in freshwater, to swim great distances back to the ocean at the end of their lives. They remain a mystery.Drawing on a breadth of research about eels in literature, history, and modern marine biology, as well as his own experience fishing for eels with his father, Patrik Svensson crafts a mesmerizing portrait of an unusual, utterly misunderstood, and completely captivating animal. In The Book of Eels, we meet renowned historical thinkers, from Aristotle to Sigmund Freud to Rachel Carson, for whom the eel was a singular obsession. And we meet the scientists who spearheaded the search for the eel’s point of origin, including Danish marine biologist Johannes Schmidt, who led research efforts in the early twentieth century, catching thousands upon thousands of eels, in the hopes of proving their birthing grounds in the Sargasso Sea.Blending memoir and nature writing at its best, Svensson’s journey to understand the eel becomes an exploration of the human condition that delves into overarching issues about our roots and destiny, both as humans and as animals, and, ultimately, how to handle the biggest question of all: death. The result is a gripping and slippery narrative that will surprise and enchant.
The Good Gut: Taking Control of Your Weight, Your Mood, and Your Long-term Health
Sonnenburg, Erica
(Paperback)
List Price: $17.00 Sale: $6.33
The groundbreaking science behind the surprising source of good health Stanford University's Justin and Erica Sonnenburg are pioneers in the most exciting and potentially transformative field of human health and wellness, the study of the relationship between our bodies and the trillions of organisms representing thousands of species to which our bodies play host, the microbes we call the microbiota. The Sonnenburgs argue that the microbiota determines in no small part whether we're sick or healthy, fit or obese, sunny or moody--and that the microbiota has always been with us, coevolving with humans and entwining its functions with ours. They show us that humans are really composite organisms with microbial and human parts. But now, because of changes to diet, antibiotic over-use, and over-sterilization, our gut microbiota is facing a "mass extinction event," which may explain the mysterious spike in some of our most troubling modern afflictions, from food allergies to autism, cancer to depression. It doesn't have to be this way. The Good Gut is a groundbreaking work that offers a new plan for health that focuses on how to nourish your microbiota, including recipes and a menu plan. The Sonnenburgs show how we can keep our microbiota off the endangered species list and strengthen the community that inhabits our gut and thereby improve our own health. In this important and timely investigation, they look at safe alternatives to antibiotics; dietary and lifestyle choices to encourage microbial health; the management of the aging microbΙ and the nourishment of your own individual microbiome. Caring for our gut microbes may be the most important health choice we can make.
The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and Our Quest to Understand Earth's Past Mass Extinctions
Brannen, Peter
(Paperback)
List Price: $16.00 Sale: $5.17
As new groundbreaking research suggests that climate change played a major role in the most extreme catastrophes in the planet's history, award-winning science journalist Peter Brannen takes us on a wild ride through the planet's five mass extinctions and, in the process, offers us a glimpse of our increasingly dangerous future.Our world has ended five times: it has been broiled, frozen, poison-gassed, smothered, and pelted by asteroids. In The Ends of the World, Peter Brannen dives into deep time, exploring Earth’s past dead ends, and in the process, offers us a glimpse of our possible future.Many scientists now believe that the climate shifts of the twenty-first century have analogs in these five extinctions. Using the visible clues these devastations have left behind in the fossil record, The Ends of the World takes us inside “scenes of the crime,” from South Africa to the New York Palisades, to tell the story of each extinction. Brannen examines the fossil record—which is rife with creatures like dragonflies the size of sea gulls and guillotine-mouthed fish—and introduces us to the researchers on the front lines who, using the forensic tools of modern science, are piecing together what really happened at the crime scenes of the Earth’s biggest whodunits.Part road trip, part history, and part cautionary tale, The Ends of the World takes us on a tour of the ways that our planet has clawed itself back from the grave, and casts our future in a completely new light.
The Genius Life: Heal Your Mind, Strengthen Your Body, and Become Extraordinary
Lugavere, Max
(Hardcover)
List Price: $28.99 Sale: $9.76
The human body was honed under conditions that no longer exist. The modern world has changed dramatically since our days as hunter gatherers, and it has caused widespread anxiety, stress, and disease, leaving our brains in despair. But science proves that the body and brain can be healed with the intervention of lifestyle protocols that help us to regain our cognitive birthright.In The Genius Life, Lugavere expands the Genius Foods plan, which focused on nutrition and how it affects brain health, and expands it to encompass a full lifestyle protocol. We know now that the health of our brains - including our cognitive function and emotional wellness - depend on the health of our gut, endocrine, cardiac and nervous systems as there is a constant feedback loop between all systems. Drawing on globe-spanning research into circadian biology, psychology, dementia prevention, cognitive optimization, and exercise physiology, The Genius Life shows how to integrate healthy choices in all aspects of our daily routines: eating, exercising, sleeping, detoxing, and more to create a healthy foundation for optimal cognitive health and performance. Among Max’s groundbreaking findings, you will discover:• A trick that gives you the equivalent of a “marathon” workout, in 10 minutes• How to get the benefits of an extra 1-2 servings of veggies daily without eating them• The hidden chemicals in your home that could be making you fat and sick• How to boost melatonin levels by up to 58% for deeper sleep without supplementsThe book features an achievable prescriptive 21-day plan for Genius Living that includes daily workouts, meal plans, and meal prep tips, and accompanied with helpful suggestions for healthy swaps and snacks
The Botany Coloring Book
Young, Paul
(Softcover)
List Price: $21.95 Sale: $9.25
The Botany Coloring Book is an exciting, new approach to learning botany. The structure and function of plants, a survey of the plant Kingdom, and associated botanical terminology are all learned through the coloring process.
Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society
Christakis, Nicholas A.
(Hardcover)
List Price: $30.00 Sale: $9.25
For too long, scientists have focused on the dark side of our biological heritage: our capacity for aggression, cruelty, prejudice, and self-interest. But natural selection has given us a suite of beneficial social features, including our capacity for love, friendship, cooperation, and learning. Beneath all our inventions -- our tools, farms, machines, cities, nations -- we carry with us innate proclivities to make a good society.In Blueprint, Nicholas A. Christakis introduces the compelling idea that our genes affect not only our bodies and behaviors, but also the ways in which we make societies, ones that are surprisingly similar worldwide.With many vivid examples -- including diverse historical and contemporary cultures, communities formed in the wake of shipwrecks, commune dwellers seeking utopia, online groups thrown together by design or involving artificially intelligent bots, and even the tender and complex social arrangements of elephants and dolphins that so resemble our own -- Christakis shows that, despite a human history replete with violence, we cannot escape our social blueprint for goodness.In a world of increasing political and economic polarization, it's tempting to ignore the positive role of our evolutionary past. But by exploring the ancient roots of goodness in civilization, Blueprint shows that our genes have shaped societies for our welfare and that, in a feedback loop stretching back many thousands of years, societies have shaped, and are still shaping, our genes today.
Vaccinated: One Man's Quest to Defeat the World's Deadliest Diseases
Offit, Paul A.
(Paperback)
List Price: $14.95 Sale: $5.60
Maurice Hilleman is the father of modern vaccines. Chief among his accomplishments are nine vaccines that practically every child gets, rendering formerly deadly diseases - including mumps, rubella, and measles - nearly forgotten. Author Paul A. Offit's rich and lively narrative details Hilleman's research and experiences as the basis for a larger exploration of the development of vaccines, covering two hundred years of medical history and traveling across the globe in the process. The history of vaccines necessarily brings with it a cautionary message, as they have come under assault from those insisting they do more harm than good. Paul Offit clearly and compellingly rebuts these arguments, and, by demonstrating how much the work of Hilleman and others has gained for humanity, shows us how much we have to lose.
The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language
Pinker, Steven
(Softcover)
List Price: $15.99 Sale: $6.84
In this classic, the world's expert on language and mind lucidly explains everything you always wanted to know about language: how it works, how children learn it, how it changes, how the brain computes it, and how it evolved. With deft use of examples of humor and wordplay, Steven Pinker weaves our vast knowledge of language into a compelling story: language is a human instinct, wired into our brains by evolution. The Language Instinct received the William James Book Prize from the American Psychological Association and the Public Interest Award from the Linguistics Society of America. This edition includes an update on advances in the science of language since The Language Instinct was first published.
I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life
Yong, Ed
(Paperback)
List Price: $15.99 Sale: $5.85
Joining the ranks of popular science classics like The Botany of Desire and The Selfish Gene, a groundbreaking, wondrously informative, and vastly entertaining examination of the most significant revolution in biology since Darwin - a “microbe’s-eye view” of the world that reveals a marvelous, radically reconceived picture of life on earth.Every animal, whether human, squid, or wasp, is home to millions of bacteria and other microbes. Ed Yong, whose humor is as evident as his erudition, prompts us to look at ourselves and our animal companions in a new light - less as individuals and more as the interconnected, interdependent multitudes we assuredly are.The microbes in our bodies are part of our immune systems and protect us from disease. In the deep oceans, mysterious creatures without mouths or guts depend on microbes for all their energy. Bacteria provide squid with invisibility cloaks, help beetles to bring down forests, and allow worms to cause diseases that afflict millions of people.Many people think of microbes as germs to be eradicated, but those that live with us - the microbiome - build our bodies, protect our health, shape our identities, and grant us incredible abilities. In this astonishing book, Ed Yong takes us on a grand tour through our microbial partners, and introduces us to the scientists on the front lines of discovery. It will change both our view of nature and our sense of where we belong in it.
Becoming Wild: How Animal Cultures Raise Families, Create Beauty, and Achieve Peace
Safina, Carl
(Hardcover)
List Price: $29.99 Sale: $9.76
Some people insist that culture is strictly a human feat. What are they afraid of? This book looks into three cultures of other-than-human beings in some of Earth’s remaining wild places. It shows how if you’re a sperm whale, a scarlet macaw, or a chimpanzee, you too experience your life with the understanding that you are an individual in a particular community. You too are who you are not by genes alone; your culture is a second form of inheritance. You receive it from thousands of individuals, from pools of knowledge passing through generations like an eternal torch. You too may raise young, know beauty, or struggle to negotiate a peace. And your culture, too, changes and evolves. The light of knowledge needs adjusting as situations change, so a capacity for learning, especially social learning, allows behaviors to adjust, to change much faster than genes alone could adapt.Becoming Wild offers a glimpse into cultures among non-human animals through looks at the lives of individuals in different present-day animal societies. By showing how others teach and learn, Safina offers a fresh understanding of what is constantly going on beyond humanity. With reporting from deep in nature, alongside individual creatures in their free-living communities, this book offers a very privileged glimpse behind the curtain of life on Earth, and helps inform the answer to that most urgent of questions: Who are we here with?
Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain
Wolf, Maryanne
(Softcover)
List Price: $14.99 Sale: $6.33
“Human beings were never born to read,” writes Tufts University cognitive neuroscientist and child development expert Maryanne Wolf. Reading is a human invention that reflects how the brain rearranges itself to learn something new. In this ambitious, provocative book, Wolf chronicles the remarkable journey of the reading brain not only over the past five thousand years, since writing began, but also over the course of a single child’s life, showing in the process why children with dyslexia have reading difficulties and singular gifts. Lively, erudite, and rich with examples, Proust and the Squid asserts that the brain that examined the tiny clay tablets of the Sumerians was a very different brain from the one this is immersed in today’s technology-driven literacy. The potential transformations in this changed reading brain, Wolf argues, have profound implications for every child and for the intellectual development of our species.
Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution (10th Anniversary Edition)
Behe, Michael J.
(Paperback)
List Price: $15.00 Sale: $6.33
In 1996, Darwin's Black Box helped to launch the intelligent design movement: the argument that nature exhibits evidence of design, beyond Darwinian randomness. It sparked a national debate on evolution, which continues to intensify across the country. From one end of the spectrum to the other, Darwin's Black Box has established itself as the key intelligent design text - the one argument that must be addressed in order to determine whether Darwinian evolution is sufficient to explain life as we know it. In a major new Afterword for this edition, Behe explains that the complexity discovered by microbiologists has dramatically increased since the book was first published. That complexity is a continuing challenge to Darwinism, and evolutionists have had no success at explaining it. Darwin's Black Box is more important today than ever.
Phantoms in the Brain
Ramachandran, V.S.
(Softcover)
List Price: $16.00 Sale: $6.84
What would you say about a woman who, despite stroke-induced paralysis crippling the entire left side of her body, insists that she is whole and strong - who even sees her left hand reach out to grasp objects? Freud called it "denial"; neurologists call it "anosognosia." However it may be labeled, this phenomenon and others like it allow us peeks into other mental worlds and afford us considerable insight into our own. Whether you're curious about the workings of the brain, interested in alternatives to expensive, high-tech science (much of Ramachandran's research is done with materials found around the home), or simply want a fresh perspective on the nature of human consciousness, you'll find satisfaction with Phantoms in the Brain.
The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons: The History of the Human Brain as Revealed by True Stories of Trauma, Madness, and Recovery
Kean, Sam
(Paperback)
List Price: $17.00 Sale: $5.17
From the author of the bestsellers The Disappearing Spoon and The Violinist's Thumb, fascinating tales of the brain and the history of neuroscience.Early studies of the functions of the human brain used a simple method: wait for misfortune to strike - strokes, seizures, infectious diseases, lobotomies, horrendous accidents - and see how the victim coped. In many cases survival was miraculous, and observers could only marvel at the transformations that took place afterward, altering victims' personalities. An injury to one section can leave a person unable to recognize loved ones; some brain trauma can even make you a pathological gambler, pedophile, or liar. But a few scientists realized that these injuries were an opportunity for studying brain function at its extremes. With lucid explanations and incisive wit, Sam Kean explains the brain's secret passageways while recounting forgotten stories of common people whose struggles, resiliency, and deep humanity made modern neuroscience possible.
The Violinist's Thumb
Kean, Sam
(Paperback)
List Price: $17.00 Sale: $4.24
From New York Times bestselling author Sam Kean comes more incredible stories of science, history, language, and music, as told by our own DNA. In The Disappearing Spoon, bestselling author Sam Kean unlocked the mysteries of the periodic table. In THE VIOLINIST'S THUMB, he explores the wonders of the magical building block of life: DNA. There are genes to explain crazy cat ladies, why other people have no fingerprints, and why some people survive nuclear bombs. Genes illuminate everything from JFK's bronze skin (it wasn't a tan) to Einstein's genius. They prove that Neanderthals and humans bred thousands of years more recently than any of us would feel comfortable thinking. They can even allow some people, because of the exceptional flexibility of their thumbs and fingers, to become truly singular violinists. Kean's vibrant storytelling once again makes science entertaining, explaining human history and whimsy while showing how DNA will influence our species' future.
The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal
Diamond, Jared M.
(Paperback)
List Price: $15.99 Sale: $6.84
We human beings share 98 percent of our genes with chimpanzees. Yet humans are the dominant species on the planet - having founded civilizations and religions, developed intricate and diverse forms of communication, learned science, built cities, and created breathtaking works of art - while chimps remain animals concerned primarily with the basic necessities of survival. What is it about that two percent difference in DNA that has created such a divergence between evolutionary cousins? In this fascinating, provocative, passionate, funny, endlessly entertaining work, renowned Pulitzer Prize-winning author and scientist Jared Diamond explores how the extraordinary human animal, in a remarkably short time, developed the capacity to rule the world . . . and the means to irrevocably destroy it.
The Coming Plague
Garrett, Laurie
(Paperback)
List Price: $20.00 Sale: $6.53
After decades spent assuming that the conquest of infectious disease was imminent, people on all continents now find themselves besieged by AIDS, drug-resistant tuberculosis, cholera that defies chlorine water treatment, and exotic viruses that can kill in a matter of hours.Relying on extensive interviews with leading experts in virology, molecular biology, disease ecology, and medicine, as well as field research in Sub-Saharan Africa, Western Europe, Central America, and the United States. Laurie Garrett's The Coming Plague takes readers from the savannas of eastern Bolivia to the rain forests of the northern Democratic Republic of the Congo on a harrowing fifty-year journey through the history of our battles with microbes. This book is a work of investigative reportage like no other and a wake-up call to a world that has become complacent in the face of infectious disease - one that offers a prescient warning about the dangers of ignoring the coming plague.
The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution
Dawkins, Richard
(Paperback)
List Price: $17.99 Sale: $7.64
Richard Dawkins transformed our view of God in his blockbuster, The God Delusion, which sold more than 2 million copies in English alone. He revolutionized the way we see natural selection in the seminal bestseller The Selfish Gene. Now, he launches a fierce counterattack against proponents of "Intelligent Design" in his latest New York Times bestseller, The Greatest Show on Earth. "Intelligent Design" is being taught in our schools; educators are being asked to "teach the controversy" behind evolutionary theory. There is no controversy. Dawkins sifts through rich layers of scientific evidence - from living examples of natural selection to clues in the fossil record; from natural clocks that mark the vast epochs wherein evolution ran its course to the intricacies of developing embryos; from plate tectonics to molecular genetics - to make the airtight case that "we find ourselves perched on one tiny twig in the midst of a blossoming and flourishing tree of life and it is no accident, but the direct consequence of evolution by non-random selection." His unjaded passion for the natural world turns what might have been a negative argument, exposing the absurdities of the creationist position, into a positive offering to the reader: nothing less than a master's vision of life, in all its splendor.
The Telomere Effect: A Revolutionary Approach to Living Younger, Healthier, Longer
Blackburn, Elizabeth
(Hardcover)
List Price: $28.00 Sale: $9.51
A groundbreaking book coauthored by the Nobel Prize winner who discovered telomerase and telomeres' role in the aging process and the health psychologist who has done original research into how specific lifestyle and psychological habits can protect telomeres, slowing disease and improving life.
Darwin's Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Case for Intelligent Design
Meyer, Stephen C.
(Paperback)
List Price: $19.99 Sale: $7.47
The Evidence That Darwin Could Not Explain Charles Darwin knew there was a significant event in the history of life that his theory did not explain. In what is known today as the "Cambrian explosion," many animals suddenly appeared in the fossil record 530 million years ago without apparent ancestors in earlier layers of rock. In Darwin's Doubt, Stephen C. Meyer tells the story of the mystery surrounding this explosion of animal life and makes a compelling case for the theory of intelligent design as the best explanation for the origin of the Cambrian animals and the biological information necessary to produce them. With a new epilogue responding to critics
The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life
Quammen, David
(Paperback)
List Price: $18.00 Sale: $6.96
In this New York Times bestseller and longlist nominee for the National Book Award, “our greatest living chronicler of the natural world” (The New York Times), David Quammen explains how recent discoveries in molecular biology affect our understanding of evolution and life’s history.In the mid-1970s, scientists began using DNA sequences to reexamine the history of all life. Perhaps the most startling discovery to come out of this new field—the study of life’s diversity and relatedness at the molecular level—is horizontal gene transfer (HGT), or the movement of genes across species lines. It turns out that HGT has been widespread and important; we now know that roughly eight percent of the human genome arrived sideways by viral infection—a type of HGT.In The Tangled Tree, “the grandest tale in biology….David Quammen presents the science—and the scientists involved—with patience, candor, and flair” (Nature). We learn about the major players, such as Carl Woese, the most important little-known biologist of the twentieth century; Lynn Margulis, the notorious maverick whose wild ideas about “mosaic” creatures proved to be true; and Tsutomu Wantanabe, who discovered that the scourge of antibiotic-resistant bacteria is a direct result of horizontal gene transfer, bringing the deep study of genome histories to bear on a global crisis in public health.“David Quammen proves to be an immensely well-informed guide to a complex story” (The Wall Street Journal). In The Tangled Tree, he explains how molecular studies of evolution have brought startling recognitions about the tangled tree of life—including where we humans fit upon it. Thanks to new technologies, we now have the ability to alter even our genetic composition—through sideways insertions, as nature has long been doing. “The Tangled Tree is a source of wonder….Quammen has written a deep and daring intellectual adventure” (The Boston Globe).
The Math of Life and Death: 7 Mathematical Principles That Shape Our Lives
Yates, Kit
(Hardcover)
List Price: $26.00 Sale: $8.83
From birthdays to birth rates to how we perceive the passing of time, mathematical patterns shape our lives. But for those of us who left math behind in high school, the numbers and figures hurled at us as we go about our days can sometimes leave us scratching our heads and feeling as if we’re fumbling through a mathematical minefield. In this eye-opening and extraordinarily accessible book, mathematician Kit Yates illuminates hidden principles that can help us understand and navigate the chaotic and often opaque surfaces of our world.In The Math of Life and Death, Yates takes us on a fascinating tour of everyday situations and grand-scale applications of mathematical concepts, including exponential growth and decay, optimization, statistics and probability, and number systems. Along the way he reveals the mathematical undersides of controversies over DNA testing, medical screening results, and historical events such as the Chernobyl disaster and the Amanda Knox trial. Readers will finish this book with an enlightened perspective on the news, the law, medicine, and history, and will be better equipped to make personal decisions and solve problems with math in mind, whether it’s choosing the shortest checkout line at the grocery store or halting the spread of a deadly disease.
The Beak Of The Finch
Weiner, Jonathan
(Paperback)
List Price: $14.00 Sale: $5.85
On a desert island in the heart of the Galapagos archipelago, where Darwin received his first inklings of the theory of evolution, two scientists, Peter and Rosemary Grant, have spent twenty years proving that Darwin did not know the strength of his own theory. For among the finches of Daphne Major, natural selection is neither rare nor slow: it is taking place by the hour, and we can watch.In this dramatic story of groundbreaking scientific research, Jonathan Weiner follows these scientists as they watch Darwin's finches and come up with a new understanding of life itself. The Beak of the Finch is an elegantly written and compelling masterpiece of theory and explication in the tradition of Stephen Jay Gould.
Head Strong: The Bulletproof Plan to Activate Untapped Brain Energy to Work Smarter and Think Faster-In Just Two Weeks
Asprey, Dave
(Hardcover)
List Price: $27.99 Sale: $10.19
For the last decade, Silicon Valley entrepreneur Dave Asprey has worked with world-renowned doctors and scientists to uncover the latest, most innovative methods for making humans perform better - a process known as "biohacking." In his first book, The Bulletproof Diet, he shared his biohacking tips for taking control of your own biology. Now, in Head Strong, Asprey shows readers how to biohack their way to a sharper, smarter, faster, more resilient brain.Imagine feeling like your mind is operating at its clearest and sharpest, and being able - possibly for the first time in your life - to do more in less time? What if it suddenly became easier to do the very hardest things you do? Or if you could feel 100% confident about your intellect, and never again fear being the person in the room who just isn’t smart enough, or can’t remember something important? How would you treat people if the mood swings, short temper, and food cravings that disrupt your day could simply disappear?In Head Strong, Asprey shows us that all of this is possible - and more. Using his simple lifestyle modifications (or "hacks") to take advantage of how the structure of your brain works, readers will learn how to take their mental performance to the next level. Combining the latest findings in neuroscience and neurobiology with a hacker-inspired "get it done now" perspective, Asprey offers a program structured around key areas of brain performance that will help you:• Power the brain with exactly what it needs to perform at its best all day long• Eliminate the sources of "kryptonite," both nutritional and environmental, that make the brain slower.• Supercharge the cellular powerhouses of our brains, the mitochondria, to eliminate cravings and turn up mental focus.• Reverse inflammation to perform better right now, then stay sharp and energized well into your golden years.• Promote neuron growth to enhance processing speed and reinforce new learning - hotwiring your brain for success.Asprey’s easy to follow, two-week program offers a detailed plan to supercharge brain performance, including: which foods to eat and which ones to avoid, how to incorporate the right kinds of physical activity into your day, a detox protocol for your home and body; meditation and breathing for performance, recommended brain-boosting supplements; and how to adjust the lighting in your home and work space to give your brain the quality light it thrives on.A better brain - and a happier, easier, more productive life - is within reach. You just need to get Head Strong.
The Cartoon Guide to Biology
Gonick, Larry
(Paperback)
List Price: $19.99 Sale: $6.53
From New York Times bestselling author Larry Gonick and Davidson College biology professor David Wessner comes this comprehensive and humorous cartoon guide to topics in biologyDid you faint when your middle school science teacher asked you to dissect a frog? Do you think DNA stands for “Don’t Know the Answer”? Do you still cling to the belief that osmosis was the name of Ozzy Osbourne’s last tour? If you said yes to any of these questions—or even if you didn’t—then you need The Cartoon Guide to Biology.The latest from New York Times bestselling author Larry Gonick—writing with Davidson College biology professor David Wessner—is a hilarious and informative handbook to the science of life. From the inner workings of the cell, to the magic of gene expression, to the Krebs and Calvin cycles, to sexual and asexual reproduction, The Cartoon Guide to Biology uses simple, clear, humorous illustrations to make biology’s most complex concepts understandable and entertaining. Whether you’re peering into the microscope for the first time or brushing up after decades of de-evolution, this book has you covered.
Darwin Comes to Town: How the Urban Jungle Drives Evolution
Schilthuizen, Menno
(Paperback)
List Price: $18.00 Sale: $5.85
Menno Schilthuizen is one of a growing number of "urban ecologists" studying how our man made environments are accelerating and changing the evolution of the animals and plants around us. In Darwin Comes to Town, he takes us around the world for an up-close look at just how stunningly flexible and swift-moving natural selection can be.With human populations growing, we’re having an increasing impact on global ecosystems, and nowhere do these impacts overlap as much as they do in cities. The urban environment is about as extreme as it gets, and the wild animals and plants that live side-by-side with us need to adapt to a whole suite of challenging conditions: they must manage in the city’s hotter climate (the “urban heat island”); they need to be able to live either in the semi desert of the tall, rocky, and cavernous structures we call buildings or in the pocket-like oases of city parks (which pose their own dangers, including smog and free-ranging dogs and cats); traffic causes continuous noise, a mist of fine dust particles, and barriers to movement for any animal that cannot fly or burrow; food sources are mainly human-derived. And yet, as Schilthuizen shows, the wildlife sharing these spaces with us is not just surviving, but evolving ways of thriving.Darwin Comes to Town draws on eye-popping examples of adaptation to share a stunning vision of urban evolution in which humans and wildlife co-exist in a unique harmony. It reveals that evolution can happen far more rapidly than Darwin dreamed, while providing a glimmer of hope that our race toward over population might not take the rest of nature down with us.
The Hacking of the American Mind: The Science Behind the Corporate Takeover of Our Bodies and Brains
Lustig, Robert H.
(Paperback)
List Price: $17.00 Sale: $6.53
The New York Times–bestselling author of Fat Chance reveals the corporate scheme to sell pleasure, driving the international epidemic of addiction, depression, and chronic disease.While researching the toxic and addictive properties of sugar for his New York Times bestseller Fat Chance, Robert Lustig made an alarming discovery—our pursuit of happiness is being subverted by a culture of addiction and depression from which we may never recover.Dopamine is the “reward” neurotransmitter that tells our brains we want more; yet every substance or behavior that releases dopamine in the extreme leads to addiction. Serotonin is the “contentment” neurotransmitter that tells our brains we don’t need any more; yet its deficiency leads to depression. Ideally, both are in optimal supply. Yet dopamine evolved to overwhelm serotonin—because our ancestors were more likely to survive if they were constantly motivated—with the result that constant desire can chemically destroy our ability to feel happiness, while sending us down the slippery slope to addiction. In the last forty years, government legislation and subsidies have promoted ever-available temptation (sugar, drugs, social media, porn) combined with constant stress (work, home, money, Internet), with the end result of an unprecedented epidemic of addiction, anxiety, depression, and chronic disease. And with the advent of neuromarketing, corporate America has successfully imprisoned us in an endless loop of desire and consumption from which there is no obvious escape.With his customary wit and incisiveness, Lustig not only reveals the science that drives these states of mind, he points his finger directly at the corporations that helped create this mess, and the government actors who facilitated it, and he offers solutions we can all use in the pursuit of happiness, even in the face of overwhelming opposition. Always fearless and provocative, Lustig marshals a call to action, with seminal implications for our health, our well-being, and our culture.
The Perfect Predator: A Scientist's Race to Save Her Husband from a Deadly Superbug
Patterson, Thomas
(Hardcover)
List Price: $28.00 Sale: $8.83
A "fascinating and terrifying" (Scientific American) memoir of one woman's extraordinary effort to save her husband's life-and the discovery of a forgotten cure that has the potential to save millions more.Epidemiologist Steffanie Strathdee and her husband, psychologist Tom Patterson, were vacationing in Egypt when Tom came down with a stomach bug. What at first seemed like a case of food poisoning quickly turned critical, and by the time Tom had been transferred via emergency medevac to the world-class medical center at UC San Diego, where both he and Steffanie worked, blood work revealed why modern medicine was failing: Tom was fighting one of the most dangerous, antibiotic- resistant bacteria in the world.Frantic, Steffanie combed through research old and new and came across phage therapy: the idea that the right virus, aka "the perfect predator," can kill even the most lethal bacteria. Phage treatment had fallen out of favor almost 100 years ago, after antibiotic use went mainstream. Now, with time running out, Steffanie appealed to phage researchers all over the world for help. She found allies at the FDA, researchers from Texas A&M, and a clandestine Navy biomedical center-and together they resurrected a forgotten cure.A nail-biting medical mystery, The Perfect Predator is a story of love and survival against all odds, and the (re)discovery of a powerful new weapon in the global superbug crisis.
Wesley the Owl:The Remarkable Love Story of an Owl and His Girl
O'Brien, Stacey
(Paperback)
List Price: $16.00 Sale: $5.85
A book of unforgettable emotional resonance, Wesley the Owl took the book world by storm, with a 4-star review in "People" and a starred review in Publishers Weekly. Stacey O'Brien's pioneering work about the emotional lives of owls is nothing less than enthralling. When adopted, Wesley could not have survived in the wild. O'Brien watches him turn into a voracious carnivore (eating up to six mice a day), an avid communicator with whom she develops a language all their own, and eventually, a robust adult who preens in the mirror and objects to visits by any other males to "his" house. She makes important discoveries along the way, and tells how the playful, reasoning, and loving creature she set out to save ended up saving her. Charting a unique partnership, Wesley the Owl is for animal lovers everywhere.
The Marine Biology Coloring Book (2nd Edition, Revised and Expanded)
Niesen, Thomas M.
(Softcover)
List Price: $21.95 Sale: $9.25
Enjoy the process of creating your own beautiful, full-color reference while you explore a fascinating hidden world. Both the serious student of marine biology and the weekend beachcomber will gain a better understanding of ocean life by coloring The Marine Biology Coloring Book.
Parasite Rex: Inside the Bizarre World of Nature's Most Dangerous Creatures
Zimmer, Carl
(Paperback)
List Price: $15.99 Sale: $5.17
Many books provoke a visceral reaction, but few really make you itch. Science writer Carl Zimmer's Parasite Rex does just that, provoking a deliciously creepy sense of paranoia in the reader as it explores a long-misunderstood realm of science. While entomologists love to announce that there are more species of insects than all other animals combined, few parasitologists choose to trump that by reminding us that "parasites may outnumber free-living species four to one." That figure is based on the multicellular chauvinism of the 19th century, which excludes bacteria and fungi from consideration (athlete's foot, anyone?), but Zimmer looks at the E. coli in our guts as well as the worms, flukes, mites, and other critters that earn a healthy living at our expense--and the expense of our domesticated plants and animals.
Goat Song
Kessler, Brad
(Paperback)
List Price: $16.00 Sale: $5.85
Novelist Brad Kessler's beautiful account of how he abandoned his life in New York to raise goats and make cheese in Vermont.
I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life
Yong, Ed
(Hardcover)
List Price: $27.99 Sale: $8.40
Every animal, whether human, squid, or wasp, is home to millions of bacteria and other microbes. Ed Yong, whose humor is as evident as his erudition, prompts us to look at ourselves and our animal companions in a new light - less as individuals and more as the interconnected, interdependent multitudes we assuredly are.The microbes in our bodies are part of our immune systems and protect us from disease. In the deep oceans, mysterious creatures without mouths or guts depend on microbes for all their energy. Bacteria provide squid with invisibility cloaks, help beetles to bring down forests, and allow worms to cause diseases that afflict millions of people.Many people think of microbes as germs to be eradicated, but those that live with us - the microbiome - build our bodies, protect our health, shape our identities, and grant us incredible abilities. In this astonishing book, Ed Yong takes us on a grand tour through our microbial partners, and introduces us to the scientists on the front lines of discovery. It will change both our view of nature and our sense of where we belong in it.
Becoming a Marine Biologist (Masters at Work)
Morell, Virginia
(Hardcover)
List Price: $18.00 Sale: $2.88
A fascinating guide to a career in marine biology written by bestselling journalist Virginia Morell and based on the real-life experiences of an expert in the field - essential reading for someone considering a path to this profession.For the last two decades, Dr. Robin Baird has spent two months out of each year aboard a twenty-four-foot Zodiac boat in the waters off the big island of Hawaii, researching the twenty-five species of whales and dolphins that live in the Pacific Ocean. His life may seem an impossible dream - but his career path from being the first person in his family to graduate college to becoming the leading expert on some of Hawaii's marine mammals was full of twists and turns.Join Baird aboard his Zodiac for a candid look at the realities of life as a research scientist, from the ever-present struggles to secure grants and publish new data, to the joys of helping to protect the ocean and its inhabitants. You’ll also learn pro tips, like the unexpected upsides to not majoring in marine biology and the usefulness of hobbies like sailing, birdwatching, photography, and archery. (You’ll need good aim to tag animals with the tiny recording devices that track their movements.)Becoming a Marine Biologist is an essential guide for anyone looking to turn a passion for the natural world into a career. This is the most valuable informational interview you’ll have - required reading for anyone considering this challenging yet rewarding path.
Darwin Devolves; The New Science About DNA That Challenges Evolution
Behe, Michael J.
(Hardcover)
List Price: $28.99 Sale: $10.19
The scientist who has been dubbed the "Father of Intelligent Design" and author of the groundbreaking book Darwin’s Black Box contends that recent scientific discoveries further disprove Darwinism and strengthen the case for an intelligent creator.In his controversial bestseller Darwin’s Black Box, biochemist Michael Behe challenged Darwin’s theory of evolution, arguing that science itself has proven that intelligent design is a better explanation for the origin of life. In Darwin Devolves, Behe advances his argument, presenting new research that offers a startling reconsideration of how Darwin’s mechanism works, weakening the theory’s validity even more.A system of natural selection acting on random mutation, evolution can help make something look and act differently. But evolution never creates something organically. Behe contends that Darwinism actually works by a process of devolution - damaging cells in DNA in order to create something new at the lowest biological levels. This is important, he makes clear, because it shows the Darwinian process cannot explain the creation of life itself. "A process that so easily tears down sophisticated machinery is not one which will build complex, functional systems," he writes.In addition to disputing the methodology of Darwinism and how it conflicts with the concept of creation, Behe reveals that what makes Intelligent Design unique - and right - is that it acknowledges causation. Evolution proposes that organisms living today are descended with modification from organisms that lived in the distant past. But Intelligent Design goes a step further asking, what caused such astounding changes to take place? What is the reason or mechanism for evolution? For Behe, this is what makes Intelligent Design so important.
The Geoghraphy of Nowhere
Kunstler, James Howard
(Paperback)
List Price: $15.00 Sale: $6.33
The Geography of Nowhere traces America's evolution from a nation of Main Streets and coherent communities to a land where every place is like no place in particular, where the cities are dead zones and the countryside is a wasteland of cartoon architecture and parking lots. In elegant and often hilarious prose, Kunstler depicts our nation's evolution from the Pilgrim settlements to the modern auto suburb in all its ghastliness. The Geography of Nowhere tallies up the huge economic, social, and spiritual costs that America is paying for its car-crazed lifestyle. It is also a wake-up call for citizens to reinvent the places where we live and work, to build communities that are once again worthy of our affection. Kunstler proposes that by reviving civic art and civic life, we will rediscover public virtue and a new vision of the common good. "The future will require us to build better places," Kunstler says, "or the future will belong to other people in other societies."
Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution
Miller, Kenneth R.
(Paperback)
List Price: $14.99 Sale: $6.33
Written with sharp wit and in pungent prose, this book redefines the entire debate by showing the true meaning of the science represented by the name of Darwin.
The Nocturnal Brain: Nightmares, Neuroscience, and the Secret World of Sleep
Leschziner, Guy
(Hardcover)
List Price: $28.99 Sale: $8.40
For Dr. Guy Leschziner’s patients, there is no rest for the weary in mind and body. Insomnia, narcolepsy, night terrors, apnea, and sleepwalking are just a sampling of conditions afflicting sufferers who cannot sleep - and their experiences in trying are the stuff of nightmares. Demoniac hallucinations frighten people into paralysis. Restless legs rock both the sleepless and their sleeping partners with unpredictable and uncontrollable kicking. Out-of-sync circadian rhythms confuse the natural body clock’s days and nights.Then there are the extreme cases. A woman in a state of deep sleep who gets dressed, unlocks her car, and drives for several miles before returning to bed. The man who has spent decades cleaning out kitchens while “sleep-eating.” The teenager prone to the serious, yet unfortunately nicknamed Sleeping Beauty Syndrome stuck in a cycle of excessive unconsciousness, binge eating, and uncharacteristic displays of aggression and hypersexuality while awake.With compassionate stories of his patients and their conditions, Dr. Leschziner illustrates the neuroscience behind our sleeping minds, revealing the many biological and psychological factors necessary in getting the rest that will not only maintain our physical and mental health, but improve our cognitive abilities and overall happiness.
Missing Microbes
Blaser, Martin J.
(Paperback)
List Price: $16.00 Sale: $5.85
In Missing Microbes, Dr. Martin J. Blaser invites us into the wilds of the human microbiome, where for hundreds of thousands of years bacterial and human cells have existed in a peaceful symbiosis that is responsible for the equilibrium and health of our bodies. Now this invisible Eden is under assault from our over reliance on medical advances including antibiotics and caesarian sections, threatening the extinction of our irreplaceable microbes and leading to severe health consequences. Taking us into the lab to recount his groundbreaking studies, Blaser not only provides elegant support for his theory, he guides us to what we can do to avoid even more catastrophic health problems in the future.
The Zoology Coloring Book
Elson, Lawrence M.
(Softcover)
List Price: $21.95 Sale: $9.25
Yes, a coloring book for learning the structure and function of animals! All kinds of animals, from shark to sea anemone, from flagellate to frog. Organized into major animal groups, from simple to complex, this book emphasizes representative and well-known members of each group. SC, 107 pages.
A Short Philosophy of Birds
Dubois, Philippe J.
(Hardcover)
List Price: $19.99 Sale: $6.53
Twenty-two short lessons from the secret lives of birds on living harmoniously and reconnecting with nature.This charming volume on bird behavior invites us to take a step back from our busy lives and to listen to the tiny philosophers of the sky. From the delicate sparrow to the majestic eagle, birds are among the most fascinating species on earth, and there is much to be learned from these paragons of beauty and grace that can be applied to our lives, including:• Independence: what it means to be “pushed out of the nest.”• Vulnerability: what the mallard teaches us about giving up our old feathers for new ones in order to fly.• Gender equality: what happens when a papa Turtledove sits on the nest.• Hierarchy and power: what the raven and the vulture know about the pecking order.Filled with elegant illustrations of bird species, this gem of a book celebrates of our friends in the sky, and what they can teach us about the rhythms of life.
Deadliest Enemy: Our War Against Killer Germs
Olshaker, Mark
(Hardcover)
List Price: $28.00 Sale: $6.96
We are facing an overwhelming army of deadly, invisible enemies. We need a plan -- before it's too late.Unlike natural disasters, whose destruction is concentrated in a limited area over a period of days, and illnesses, which have devastating effects but are limited to individuals and their families, infectious disease has the terrifying power to disrupt everyday life on a global scale, overwhelming public and private resources and bringing trade and transportation to a grinding halt.In today's world, it's easier than ever to move people, animals, and materials around the planet, but the same advances that make modern infrastructure so efficient have made epidemics and even pandemics nearly inevitable. And as outbreaks of Ebola, MERS, yellow fever, and Zika have demonstrated, we are woefully underprepared to deal with the fallout. So what can -- and must -- we do in order to protect ourselves from mankind's deadliest enemy?Drawing on the latest medical science, case studies, policy research, and hard-earned epidemiological lessons, Deadliest Enemy explores the resources and programs we need to develop if we are to keep ourselves safe from infectious disease. The authors show how we could wake up to a reality in which many antibiotics no longer cure, bioterror is a certainty, and the threat of a disastrous influenza pandemic looms ever larger. Only by understanding the challenges we face can we prevent the unthinkable from becoming the inevitable.Deadliest Enemy is high scientific drama, a chronicle of medical mystery and discovery, a reality check, and a practical plan of action.
Moral Tribes: Emotion, Reason, and the Gap Between Us and Them
Greene, Joshua
(Paperback)
List Price: $18.00 Sale: $7.64
Our brains were designed for tribal life, for getting along with a select group of others (Us) and for fighting off everyone else (Them). But modern times have forced the world’s tribes into a shared space, resulting in epic clashes of values along with unprecedented opportunities. As the world shrinks, the moral lines that divide us become more salient and more puzzling. We fight over everything from tax codes to gay marriage to global warming, and we wonder where, if at all, we can find our common ground. A grand synthesis of neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy, Moral Tribes reveals the underlying causes of modern conflict and lights the way forward. Greene compares the human brain to a dual-mode camera, with point-and-shoot automatic settings (“portrait,” “landscape”) as well as a manual mode. Our point-and-shoot settings are our emotions—efficient, automated programs honed by evolution, culture, and personal experience. The brain’s manual mode is its capacity for deliberate reasoning, which makes our thinking flexible. Point-and-shoot emotions make us social animals, turning Me into Us. But they also make us tribal animals, turning Us against Them. Our tribal emotions make us fight—sometimes with bombs, sometimes with words—often with life-and-death stakes. An award-winning teacher and scientist, Greene directs Harvard University’s Moral Cognition Lab, which uses cutting-edge neuroscience and cognitive techniques to understand how people really make moral decisions. Combining insights from the lab with lessons from decades of social science and centuries of philosophy, the great question of Moral Tribes is this: How can we get along with Them when what they want feels so wrong to Us? Ultimately, Greene offers a set of maxims for navigating the modern moral terrain, a practical road map for solving problems and living better lives. Moral Tribes shows us when to trust our instincts, when to reason, and how the right kind of reasoning can move us forward. A major achievement from a rising star in a new scientific field, Moral Tribes will refashion your deepest beliefs about how moral thinking works and how it can work better.
Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA
Maddox, Brenda
(Softcover)
List Price: $15.95 Sale: $6.70
In March 1953 Maurice Wilkins of King's College London announced the departure of his obstructive colleague, Rosalind Franklin to rival Cavendish Laboratory scientist, Francis Crick. But it was too late. Franklin's unpublished data and crucial photograph of DNA had already been seen by her competitors at the Cambridge University lab. With the aid of these, plus their own knowledge, Watson and Crick discovered the structure of the molecule that genes are composed of - DNA, the secret of life. Five years later, after more brilliant research under Bernal at Birkbeck College, at the age of thirty-seven, Rosalind died of ovarian cancer. In 1962 Wilkins, Crick and Watson were awarded the Nobel prize for their elucidation of DNA's structure. Franklin's part was forgotten until she was caricatured in Watson's book The Double Helix. In this biography Brenda Maddox has been given unique access to Rosalind's personal correspondence and has interviewed all the principal scientists involved, including Crick, Watson and Wilkins.
Tropical Nature
Forsyyh, Adrian
(Paperback)
List Price: $16.00 Sale: $3.81
A look at the natural history of tropical rain forests in South America, covering insects, birds, animals, and plants.
Spineless: The Science of Jellyfish and the Art of Growing a Backbone
Berwald, Juli
(Hardcover)
List Price: $27.00 Sale: $3.81
"Witty, insightful. . . .The story of jellyfish. . . is a significant part of the environmental story. Berwald's engaging account of these delicate, often ignored creatures shows how much they matter to our oceans' future." —New York Time Book Review Jellyfish have been swimming in our oceans for well over half a billion years, longer than any other animal that lives on the planet. They make a venom so toxic it can kill a human in three minutes. Their sting—microscopic spears that pierce with five million times the acceleration of gravity—is the fastest known motion in the animal kingdom. Made of roughly 95 percent water, some jellies are barely perceptible virtuosos of disguise, while others glow with a luminescence that has revolutionized biotechnology. Yet until recently, jellyfish were largely ignored by science, and they remain among the most poorly understood of ocean dwellers.More than a decade ago, Juli Berwald left a career in ocean science to raise a family in landlocked Austin, Texas, but jellyfish drew her back to the sea. Recent, massive blooms of billions of jellyfish have clogged power plants, decimated fisheries, and caused millions of dollars of damage. Driven by questions about how overfishing, coastal development, and climate change were contributing to a jellyfish population explosion, Juli embarked on a scientific odyssey. She traveled the globe to meet the biologists who devote their careers to jellies, hitched rides on Japanese fishing boats to see giant jellyfish in the wild, raised jellyfish in her dining room, and throughout it all marveled at the complexity of these alluring and ominous biological wonders. Gracefully blending personal memoir with crystal-clear distillations of science, Spineless is the story of how Juli learned to navigate and ultimately embrace her ambition, her curiosity, and her passion for the natural world. She discovers that jellyfish science is more than just a quest for answers. It’s a call to realize our collective responsibility for the planet we share.
COVID-19: The Pandemic that Never Should Have Happened and How to Stop the Next One
MacKenzie, Debora
(Hardcover)
List Price: $27.00 Sale: $7.81
In a gripping, accessible narrative, a veteran science journalist lays out the shocking story of how the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic happened and how to make sure this never happens againOver the last 30 years of epidemics and pandemics, we learned nearly every lesson needed to stop this coronavirus outbreak in its tracks. We heeded almost none of them. The result is a pandemic on a scale never before seen in our lifetimes. In this captivating, authoritative, and eye-opening book, science journalist Debora MacKenzie lays out the full story of how and why it happened: the previous viruses that should have prepared us, the shocking public health failures that paved the way, the failure to contain the outbreak, and most importantly, what we must do to prevent future pandemics.
The Red Queen
Ridley, Matt
(Softcover)
List Price: $14.99 Sale: $6.33
Referring to Lewis Carroll's Red Queen from Through the Looking-Glass, a character who has to keep running to stay in the same place, Matt Ridley demonstrates why sex is humanity's best strategy for outwitting its constantly mutating internal predators. The Red Queen answers dozens of other riddles of human nature and culture - including why men propose marriage, the method behind our maddening notions of beauty, and the disquieting fact that a woman is more likely to conceive a child by an adulterous lover than by her husband. Brilliantly written, The Red Queen offers an extraordinary new way of interpreting the human condition and how it has evolved.
Pleased to Meet Me: Genes, Germs, and the Curious Forces That Make Us Who We Are
Sullivan, Bill
(Hardcover)
List Price: $26.00 Sale: $9.76
Why are you attracted to a certain "type?" Why are you a morning person? Why do you vote the way you do? From a witty new voice in popular science comes a clever, life-changing look at what makes you you."I can't believe I just said that." "What possessed me to do that?" "What's wrong with me?" We're constantly seeking answers to these fundamental human questions, and now, science has the answers. The foods we enjoy, the people we love, the emotions we feel, and the beliefs we hold can all be traced back to our DNA, germs, and environment. This witty, colloquial book is popular science at its best, describing in everyday language how genetics, epigenetics, microbiology, and psychology work together to influence our personality and actions. Mixing cutting-edge research and relatable humor, Pleased to Meet Me is filled with fascinating insights that shine a light on who we really are--and how we might become our best selves.
The Hacking of the American Mind: The Science Behind the Corporate Takeover of Our Bodies and Brains
Lustig, Robert H
(Hardcover)
List Price: $27.00 Sale: $9.98
The New York Times–bestselling author of Fat Chance reveals the corporate scheme to sell pleasure, driving the international epidemic of addiction, depression, and chronic disease.While researching the toxic and addictive properties of sugar for his New York Times bestseller Fat Chance, Robert Lustig made an alarming discovery - our pursuit of happiness is being subverted by a culture of addiction and depression from which we may never recover.Dopamine is the "reward" neurotransmitter that tells our brains we want more; yet every substance or behavior that releases dopamine in the extreme leads to addiction. Serotonin is the "contentment" neurotransmitter that tells our brains we don’t need any more; yet its deficiency leads to depression. Ideally, both are in optimal supply. Yet dopamine evolved to overwhelm serotonin - because our ancestors were more likely to survive if they were constantly motivated - with the result that constant desire can chemically destroy our ability to feel happiness, while sending us down the slippery slope to addiction. In the last forty years, government legislation and subsidies have promoted ever-available temptation (sugar, drugs, social media, porn) combined with constant stress (work, home, money, Internet), with the end result of an unprecedented epidemic of addiction, anxiety, depression, and chronic disease. And with the advent of neuromarketing, corporate America has successfully imprisoned us in an endless loop of desire and consumption from which there is no obvious escape.With his customary wit and incisiveness, Lustig not only reveals the science that drives these states of mind, he points his finger directly at the corporations that helped create this mess, and the government actors who facilitated it, and he offers solutions we can all use in the pursuit of happiness, even in the face of overwhelming opposition. Always fearless and provocative, Lustig marshals a call to action, with seminal implications for our health, our well-being, and our culture.
Darwin Comes to Town: How the Urban Jungle Drives Evolution
Schilthuizen, Menno
(Hardcover)
List Price: $27.00 Sale: $4.75
Carrion crows in the Japanese city of Sendai have learned to use passing traffic to crack nuts.Lizards in Puerto Rico are evolving feet that better grip surfaces like concrete.Europe’s urban blackbirds sing at a higher pitch than their rural cousins, to be hear dover the din of traffic.How is this happening?Menno Schilthuizen is one of a growing number of "urban ecologists" studying how our manmade environments are accelerating and changing the evolution of the animals and plants around us. In Darwin Comes to Town, he takes us around the world for an up-close look at just how stunningly flexible and swift-moving natural selection can be.With human populations growing, we’re having an increasing impact on global ecosystems, and nowhere do these impacts overlap as much as they do in cities. The urban environment is about as extreme as it gets, and the wild animals and plants that live side-by-side with us need to adapt to a whole suite of challenging conditions: they must manage in the city’s hotter climate (the "urban heat island"); they need to be able to live either in the semi desert of the tall, rocky, and cavernous structures we call buildings or in the pocket-like oases of city parks (which pose their own dangers, including smog and free-rangingdogs and cats); traffic causes continuous noise, a mist of fine dust particles, and barriers to movement for any animal that cannot fly or burrow; food sources are mainly human-derived. And yet, as Schilthuizen shows, the wildlife sharing these spaces with us is not just surviving, but evolving ways of thriving.Darwin Comes to Town draws on eye-popping examples of adaptation to share a stunning vision of urban evolution in which humans and wildlife co-exist in a unique harmony. It reveals that evolution can happen far more rapidly than Darwin dreamed, while providing a glimmer of hope that our race toward over population might not take the rest of nature down with us.
The Trouble With Testosterone
Sapolsky, Robert M.
(Paperback)
List Price: $16.00 Sale: $6.84
Drawing on his career as an evolutionary biologist and neurobiologist, Robert Sapolsky writes about the natural world vividly and insightfully. With candor, humor, and rich observations, these essays marry cutting-edge science with humanity, illuminating the interconnectedness of the world's inhabitants with skill and flair.
The Cartoon Guide to Genetics (Updated Edition)
Gonick, Larry
(Softcover)
List Price: $17.95 Sale: $7.64
Illustrates, simplifies, and humor-coats the important principles of classical and modern genetics and their experimental bases, with amusing anecdotes about how the ancients tried to explain inheritance and sex determination.
The Balance Within
Sternberg, Esther M.
(Paperback)
List Price: $18.99 Sale: $7.64
Since ancient times humans have felt intuitively that emotions and health are linked. But without compelling evidence, it has been impossible to say for sure that such a connection really exists and especially how it works. Now that evidence has been discovered. A thrilling scientific detective story, The Balance Within tells how researchers finally uncovered the elusive mind-body connection. In this beautifully written book, author Esther Sternberg - a scientist whose discoveries were pivotal in helping to solve this mystery - provides first hand accounts of the breakthrough experiments that revealed the physical mechanisms - the nerves, cells, and hormones - used by the brain and immune system to communicate with each other. She describes just how the immune system can alter our moods, and how stress can make us more susceptible to all types of illnesses. Finally, she explains why understanding these connections in scientific terms can help answer such crucial questions as "Does stress make you sick?" "Does believing make you well?" and "How do our personal relationships affect our health?"
Wildhood: The Epic Journey from Adolescence to Adulthood in Humans and Other Animals
Natterson-Horowitz, Barbara
(Hardcover)
List Price: $28.00 Sale: $7.81
A revelatory investigation of human and animal adolescence and young adulthood from the New York Times bestselling authors of Zoobiquity.With Wildhood, Harvard evolutionary biologist Barbara Natterson-Horowitz and award-winning science writer Kathryn Bowers have created an entirely new way of thinking about the crucial, vulnerable, and exhilarating phase of life between childhood and adulthood across the animal kingdom.In their critically acclaimed bestseller, Zoobiquity, the authors revealed the essential connection between human and animal health. In Wildhood, they turn the same eye-opening, species-spanning lens to adolescent young adult life. Traveling around the world and drawing from their latest research, they find that the same four universal challenges are faced by every adolescent human and animal on earth: how to be safe, how to navigate hierarchy; how to court potential mates; and how to feed oneself. Safety. Status. Sex. Self-reliance. How human and animal adolescents and young adults confront the challenges of wildhood shapes their adult destinies.Natterson-Horowitz and Bowers illuminate these core challenges through the lives of four animals in the wild: Ursula, a young king penguin; Shrink, a charismatic hyena; Salt, a matriarchal humpback whale; and Slavc, a roaming European wolf. Through their riveting stories—and those of countless others, from adventurous eagles and rambunctious high schooler to inexperienced orcas and naive young soldiers—readers get a vivid and game-changing portrait of adolescent young adults as a horizontal tribe, sharing behaviors and challenges, setbacks and triumphs.Upending our understanding of everything from risk-taking and anxiety to the origins of privilege and the nature of sexual coercion and consent, Wildhood is a profound and necessary guide to the perilous, thrilling, and universal journey to adulthood on planet earth.
Remember It!
Dellis, Nelson
(Paperback)
List Price: $19.99 Sale: $6.96
In this whimsical, vibrantly illustrated tour of memory theory, memory champion Nelson Dellis offers an unforgettable manual to sharpening the mind and unlocking your memory. He explores how our brains work by teaching strategies for remembering the everyday, practical things that can be all too easy to forget such as:• where you left your keys and parked your car• the phone number of someone you met at the bar• the eleventh president of the United States (and all the others)• what you needed to buy at the grocery store• what your partner asked you to do this morning• the names of the people you just met• new vocabulary, in foreign languages or otherwise• every password you've ever created• and much more!
The Truth About Animals: Stoned Sloths, Lovelorn Hippos, and Other Tales from the Wild Side of Wildlife
Cooke, Lucy
(Paperback)
List Price: $16.99 Sale: $3.81
Mary Roach meets Bill Bryson in this "surefire summer winner" (Janet Maslin, New York Times), an uproarious tour of the basest instincts and biggest mysteries of the animal world Humans have gone to the Moon and discovered the Higgs boson, but when it comes to understanding animals, we've still got a long way to go. Whether we're seeing a viral video of romping baby pandas or a picture of penguins "holding hands," it's hard for us not to project our own values - innocence, fidelity, temperance, hard work - onto animals. So you've probably never considered if moose get drunk, penguins cheat on their mates, or worker ants lay about. They do - and that's just for starters. In The Truth About Animals, Lucy Cooke takes us on a worldwide journey to meet everyone from a Colombian hippo castrator to a Chinese panda porn peddler, all to lay bare the secret - and often hilarious - habits of the animal kingdom. Charming and at times downright weird, this modern bestiary is perfect for anyone who has ever suspected that virtue might be unnatural.
Lost Anatomies: The Evolution of the Human Form
Gurche, John
(Hardcover)
List Price: $40.00 Sale: $14.61
Renowned paleoartist John Gurche brings the traditional techniques of figure drawing and anatomical art to the portrayal of our hominin ancestors. The result is a visual record of the evolving human form that feels alive in a way no scientific illustration could match. While science provides an underpinning to Gurche’s art, his work’s primary purpose is to forge an aesthetic connection to the hominins that preceded us on Earth, capturing their humanity. With essays by leading authorities, Lost Anatomies carries the story of human evolution from apes and early hominins; to Australopithecus; to archaic Homo sapiens, including Homo erectus; to derived Homo sapiens, including Neanderthals and other species that are our most recent ancestors.
Inheritance: How Our Genes Change Our Lives--and Our Lives Change Our Genes
Moalem, Sharon
(Paperback)
List Price: $15.99 Sale: $6.53
Award-winning physician and New York Times bestselling author Sharon Moalem, MD, PhD, reveals how genetic breakthroughs are completely transforming our understanding of both the world and our lives. Conventional wisdom dictates that our genetic destiny is fixed at conception. But Dr. Moalem's groundbreaking book shows us that the human genome is far more fluid and fascinating than your ninth grade biology teacher ever imagined. By bringing us to the bedside of his unique and complex patients, he masterfully demonstrates what rare genetic conditions can teach us all about our own health and well-being. In the brave new world we're rapidly rocketing into, genetic knowledge has become absolutely crucial. INHERITANCE provides an indispensable roadmap for this journey by teaching you: - Why you may have recovered from the psychological trauma caused by childhood bullying - but your genes may remain scarred for life. - How fructose is the sugar that makes fruits sweet - but if you have certain genes, consuming it can buy you a one-way trip to the coroner's office. - Why ingesting common painkillers is like dosing yourself repeatedly with morphine - if you have a certain set of genes. - How insurance companies legally use your genetic data to predict the risk of disability for you and your children - and how that impacts the coverage decisions they make for your family. - How to have the single most important conversation with your doctor - one that can save your life. And finally: -Why people with rare genetic conditions hold the keys to medical problems affecting millions. In this trailblazing book, Dr. Moalem employs his wide-ranging and entertaining interdisciplinary approach to science and medicine - explaining how art, history, superheroes, sex workers, and sports stars all help us understand the impact of our lives on our genes, and our genes on our lives. INHERITANCE will profoundly alter how you view your genes, your health - and your life.
Stress-Proof: The Scientific Solution to Protect Your Brain and Body--and Be More Resilient Every Day
Storoni, Mithu
(Hardcover)
List Price: $26.00 Sale: $4.24
Discover simple, science-based strategies for beating stress at its own game.•When’s the best time to exercise – and how much is too much?• Which foods fortify the brain, and which do the opposite?• How can we use music, movement, and motivation to boost our rational brain and keep our cool no matter what life throws our way?Short bursts of stress are an inevitable part of modern life. But how much is too much? Research is uncovering the delicate balance that can turn a brief stressful episode into systemic overload, eventually leading to inflammation, anxiety, depression, and other chronic health issues.This practical and groundbreaking guide reveals seven paths to fighting the effects of stress--to strengthen our natural defenses so that our minds remain sharp, and our bodies resilient, no matter what life throws at us.Each chapter examines a common stress agent--including inflammation, an out-of-sync body clock, cortisol levels, and emotional triggers--and presents simple ways to minimize its harmful effects with changes in diet, exercise, and other daily habits--including surprising hacks involving music, eye movements, body temperature, daily routine, and more.Translating cutting-edge scientific findings into clear and simple advice, Stress-Proof is the ultimate user’s guide for body, mind and well-being.
Woolly: The True Story of the Quest to Revive History's Most Iconic Extinct Creature
Mezrich, Ben
(Paperback)
List Price: $16.00 Sale: $5.17
Ben Mezrich takes us on an exhilarating and true adventure story from the icy terrain of Siberia to the cutting-edge genetic labs of Harvard University. A group of scientists work to make fantasy reality by splicing DNA from frozen woolly mammoth into the DNA of a modern elephant. Will they be able to turn the hybrid cells into a functional embryo and potentially bring the extinct creatures to our modern world?Along with this team of brilliant scientists, a millionaire plans to build the world’s first Pleistocene Park and populate a huge tract of the Siberian tundra with ancient herbivores as a hedge against an environmental ticking time bomb that is hidden deep within the permafrost. More than a story of genetics, this is a thriller illuminating the real-life race against global warming, of the incredible power of modern technology, of the brave fossil hunters who battle polar bears and extreme weather conditions, and the ethical quandary of cloning extinct animals. This “rollercoaster quest for the past and future” (Christian Science Monitor) asks us if we can right the wrongs of our ancestors who hunted the woolly mammoth to extinction and at what cost?
First Bite: How We Learn to Eat
Wilson, Bee
(Paperback)
List Price: $16.99 Sale: $3.39
In First Bite, award-winning food writer Bee Wilson draws on the latest research from food psychologists and neuroscientists to reveal that our food habits are shaped by a host of factors: family and culture, memory and gender, hunger and love. Taking the reader on a journey across the globe, Wilson introduces us to people who can only eat foods of a certain color, an anosmia sufferer who has no memory of the flavor of her mother's cooking, and researchers who have pioneered new ways to persuade children to try new vegetables. An exploration of the surprising origins of our tastes, First Bite shows us how we can change our palates to lead healthier, happier lives.
Nine Pints
George, Rose
(Paperback)
List Price: $18.00 Sale: $6.53
An eye-opening exploration of blood, the life giving substance with the power of taboo, the value of diamonds and the promise of breakthrough scienceBlood carries life, yet the sight of it makes people faint. It is a waste product and a commodity pricier than oil. It can save lives and transmit deadly infections. Each one of us has roughly nine pints of it, yet many don’t even know their own blood type. And for all its ubiquitousness, the few tablespoons of blood discharged by 800 million women are still regarded as taboo: menstruation is perhaps the single most demonized biological event.Rose George, author of The Big Necessity, is renowned for her intrepid work on topics that are invisible but vitally important. In Nine Pints, she takes us from ancient practices of bloodletting to the breakthrough of the "liquid biopsy," which promises to diagnose cancer and other diseases with a simple blood test. She introduces Janet Vaughan, who set up the world’s first system of mass blood donation during the Blitz, and Arunachalam Muruganantham, known as “Menstrual Man” for his work on sanitary pads for developing countries. She probes the lucrative business of plasma transfusions, in which the US is known as the “OPEC of plasma.” And she looks to the future, as researchers seek to bring synthetic blood to a hospital near you.Spanning science and politics, stories and global epidemics, Nine Pints reveals our life's blood in an entirely new light.
Wayfinding: The Science and Mystery of How Humans Navigate the World
O'Connor, M. R.
(Hardcover)
List Price: $29.99 Sale: $8.40
In this compelling narrative, O'Connor seeks out neuroscientists, anthropologists and master navigators to understand how navigation ultimately gave us our humanity. Biologists have been trying to solve the mystery of how organisms have the ability to migrate and orient with such precision - especially since our own adventurous ancestors spread across the world without maps or instruments. O'Connor goes to the Arctic, the Australian bush and the South Pacific to talk to masters of their environment who seek to preserve their traditions at a time when anyone can use a GPS to navigate.O’Connor explores the neurological basis of spatial orientation within the hippocampus. Without it, people inhabit a dream state, becoming amnesiacs incapable of finding their way, recalling the past, or imagining the future. Studies have shown that the more we exercise our cognitive mapping skills, the greater the grey matter and health of our hippocampus. O'Connor talks to scientists studying how atrophy in the hippocampus is associated with afflictions such as impaired memory, dementia, Alzheimer’s Disease, depression and PTSD. Wayfinding is a captivating book that charts how our species' profound capacity for exploration, memory and storytelling results in topophilia, the love of place.
The Mind of God: Neuroscience, Faith, and a Search for the Soul
Lombard, Jay
(Hardcover)
List Price: $25.00 Sale: $7.47
For fans of Deepak Chopra, Rudy Tanzi, and Andrew Newberg. A renowned behavioral neurologist provides insights to some of the most curious spiritual questions we all face. Is there a God?It’s a question billions of people have asked since the dawn of time. You would think by now we’d have a satisfactory, universal answer. No such luck . . . Or maybe we do and we just need to look in the right place. For Dr. Jay Lombard that place is the brain, and more importantly the mind, that center of awareness and consciousness that creates reality.In The Mind of God, Dr. Lombard employs case studies from his own behavioral neurology practice to explore the spiritual conundrums that we all ask ourselves: What is the nature of God? Does my life have purpose? What's the meaning of our existence? Are we free? What happens to us when we die?For Lombard, these metaphysical questions are a jumping-off point for exploring the brain in search of the seat of the soul. It is neuroscience, the author contends, and how we and our brains interpret what’s going on around us that can lead us to a deeper and more fulfilling faith.Mixing his personal experiences in the medical field (including compelling cases such as the male patient who really thought he was pregnant and a woman who literally scared herself to death) along with his own visionary insight into spiritual experience, Lombard has much to tell us about the nature and power of belief - and what we can do to focus our beliefs in a positive direction. If you want to find more meaning in your life or are searching for a deeper understanding of why we believe what we believe, then this book can lead to an exciting transformation in the way you see and understand the world around you. With cutting-edge research and provocative case studies, renowned behavioral neurologist provides insights to some of the most curious spiritual questions of mortality.
The Magic Feather Effect: The Science of Alternative Medicine and the Surprising Power of Belief
Warner, Melanie
(Paperback)
List Price: $17.00 Sale: $2.03
We all know someone who has had a seemingly miraculous cure from an alternative form of medicine: a friend whose chronic back pain vanished after sessions with an acupuncturist or chiropractor; a relative with digestive issues who recovered with herbal remedies; a colleague whose autoimmune disorder went into sudden inexplicable remission thanks to an energy healer or healing retreat.The tales are far too common to be complete fabrications, yet too anecdotal and outside the medical mainstream to be taken seriously scientifically. How do we explain them and the growing popularity of alternative medicine more generally? In The Magic Feather Effect, author and journalist Melanie Warner takes us on a vivid, important journey through the world of alternative medicine. Visiting prestigious research clinics and ordinary people’s homes, she investigates the scientific underpinning for the purportedly magical results of these practices and reveals not only the medical power of beliefs and placebo effects, but also the range, limits, and uses of the surprising system of self-healing that resides inside us.Equal parts helpful, illuminating, and compelling, The Magic Feather Effect is a “well-written survey of alternative medicine…fair-minded, thorough, and focused on verifiable scientific research” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).Warner’s enlightening, engaging deep dive into the world of alternative medicine and the surprising science that explains why it may work is an essential read.
Unlikely Heroes
Holland, Jennifer
(Softcover)
List Price: $13.95 Sale: $5.85
In her heartwarming New York Times bestsellers Unlikely Friendships and Unlikely Loves, Jennifer Holland revealed the surprising emotional bonds that exist between animals of different species. In Unlikely Heroes, Ms. Holland uncovers and celebrates yet another side of animals that we often think belongs primarily to people - heroism, that indefinable quality of going above and beyond, often for altruistic reasons, often at great personal risk. These 37 inspiring true tales show animals whose quick acts have saved lives, like the pod of dolphins who protected swimmers in New Zealand from a great white shark by forming a screen around them. There are stories of animals who simply and unselfishly give, like Rojo the llama, who shines his very special light of loving kindness on the elderly patients in an Oregon rehab center. And there are compelling stories of heroic resilience: like Naki'o, the abandoned puppy who lost all four paws to frostbite but found the grit not only to overcome that terrible hardship but to reclaim the joy of life - that's him, smiling on the cover of the book.
Microbia: A Journey into the Unseen World Around You
Bone, Eugenia
(Hardcover)
List Price: $25.99 Sale: $8.40
From Eugenia Bone, the critically acclaimed author of Mycophilia, comes an approachable, highly personal look at our complex relationship with the microbial world. While researching her book about mushrooms, Eugenia Bone became fascinated with microbes - those life forms that are too small to see without a microscope. Specifically, she wanted to understand the microbes that lived inside other organisms like plants and people. But as she began reading books, scholarly articles, blogs, and even attending an online course in an attempt to grasp the microbiology, she quickly realized she couldn’t do it alone. That’s why she enrolled at Columbia University to study Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology. Her stories about being a middle-aged mom embedded in undergrad college life are spot-on and hilarious. But more profoundly, when Bone went back to school she learned that biology is a vast conspiracy of microbes. Microbes invented living and as a result they are part of every aspect of every living thing. This popular science book takes the layman on a broad survey of the role of microbes in nature and illustrates their importance to the existence of everything: atmosphere, soil, plants, and us.
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