Genetic History

In Monarchs and Milkweed, Anurag Agrawal presents a vivid investigation into how the monarch butterfly has evolved closely alongside the milkweed - a toxic plant named for the sticky white substance emitted when its leaves are damaged - and how this inextricable and intimate relationship has been like an arms race over the millennia, a battle of exploitation and defense between two fascinating species.

The latest and most bitterly contested battle in the culture war is the controversy over Darwin and intelligent design. But much of what you've heard about it is wrong. Jonathan Wells, a battle-hardened veteran with doctorates in biology and theology, sets the record straight.

From the Author: Don’t read this book if you don’t like super niched sci-fi, genetically engineered humans and artificial intelligence, or heavy science fiction based on today’s real science; it’s just taken a step (or several steps) further. BUT If you do, Jamieish is unique, using technology to terraform rural Arkansas and manipulate the solar system, and the science is well-researched. (Being a nerd is kind of what I do…) Synopsis: The world went to hell in Thomish. Gestas was finally put to rest in Andyish. Now, the biggest threat to humanity surfaces: a pair of deities that ...

From the Author: Don’t read this book if you don’t like super niched sci-fi, genetically engineered vampires and werewolves, or heavy science fiction based on today’s real science; it’s just taken a step (or several steps) further. BUT If you do, Andyish is unique, turning people into the supernatural through genetic engineering, and the science is well-researched. (Being a nerd is kind of what I do…) Synopsis: The world went to hell in Thomish. They did what they could to rebuild, but now a new threat emerges, and he knows how to alter genes to make monsters. Andy wakes up in a ...

Why are conditions like autism, asthma, obesity, and allergies exploding at unprecedented rates? Why are we living longer, getting smarter, having far fewer kids? If Darwin were alive today, how would he explain this new world?

Are the ways we look at menopause all wrong? Historian Susan Mattern says yes, and The Slow Moon Climbs reveals just how wrong we have been. Taking listeners from the rainforests of Paraguay to the streets of Tokyo, Mattern draws on historical, scientific, and cultural research to reveal how our perceptions of menopause developed from prehistory to today. For most of human history, people had no word for menopause and did not view it as a medical condition. Rather, in traditional foraging and agrarian societies, it was a transition to another important life stage.

For over a century we saw Neanderthals as inferior to Homo Sapiens. After new discoveries, the pendulum swung the other way and they are generally seen as our relatives: not quite human, but similar enough, and still not equal. Now, thanks to an ongoing revolution in palaeoanthropology in which he has played a key part, Ludovic Slimak shows us that they are something altogether different - and they should be understood on their own terms rather than by comparing them to ourselves. As he reveals in this stunning book, the Neanderthals had their own history, their own rituals, their own customs.

James T. Costa takes listeners on a journey from Darwin's youth and travels on the HMS Beagle to Down House, his bustling home of 40 years. We accompany Darwin in his myriad pursuits against the backdrop of his enduring marriage, chronic illness, grief at the loss of three children, and joy in scientific revelation. At each chapter's end, Costa shows how we, too, can investigate the wonders of nature at work, with directions on how to re-create Darwin's experiments.

Survival of the fittest or survival of the nicest? Since the dawn of time man has contemplated the mystery of altruism, but it was Darwin who posed the question most starkly. From the selfless ant to the stinging bee to the man laying down his life for a stranger, evolution has yielded a goodness that in theory should never be. Set against the sweeping tale of 150 years of scientific attempts to explain kindness, The Price of Altruism tells for the first time the moving story of the eccentric American genius George Price (1922-1975), as he strives to answer evolution's greatest riddle.

In the Rutherford and Fry's comprehensive guidebook, they tell the complete story of the universe and absolutely everything in it - skipping over some of the boring parts. It's a celebration of the weirdness of the cosmos, the strangeness of humans and the very fact that amid all the mess, we can somehow make sense of life.

For an era in which Darwin is more talked about than read, Daniel Duzdevich offers a clear, modern English rendering of Darwin's first edition. Neither an abridgement nor a summary, this version might best be described as a "translation" for contemporary English listeners. A monument to reasoned insight, the Origin illustrates the value of extensive reflection, carefully gathered evidence, and sound scientific reasoning.

Discover how Galileo worked out his scientific theories of motion and inertia, why Isaac Newton gets the credit for them, and what the discovery of DNA meant. All the big scientific ideas are brought to life with pithy quotes and step-by-step 'mind maps' - from evolution and continental drift to black holes and genetic engineering, showing how the ideas of famous scientists have affected our understanding of the world.

Are humans unwitting partners in evolution with psychedelic plants? Darwin’s Pharmacy shows they are by weaving the evolutionary theory of sexual selection and the study of rhetoric together with the science and literature of psychedelic drugs. Long suppressed as components of the human tool kit, psychedelic plants can be usefully modeled as “eloquence adjuncts” that intensify a crucial component of sexual selection in humans: discourse.

Darwin gathers his large ape family to tell them a tale, the ascent of man is retold once more in the eyes of the apes, he teaches them many tricks which they can use to outwit man and remove him from his current place of dominion, "they can't do anything without their witchcraft," he tells them, he even gives them secret plans to cause mayhem in the peoples households."

A biography of J. B. S. Haldane, the brilliant and eccentric British scientist whose innovative predictions inspired Aldous Huxley's Brave New World.

A near-future murder-mystery-drama morphs over 10 days into an action-packed sci-fi conspiracy-thriller as a historical Southern rural river community is suddenly overwhelmed by a series of accidents and deaths. Are all these events somehow tied to a dam break, the murder of an old riverman, and a fish? Can Sheriff Coleman of Charles County solve this puzzling case with the reluctant help of Jason Dickson, an autistic convicted-hacker/ engineering student? What discovery is so great they risk their lives, and everyone they love, to reveal to the world? Can you decipher the Master Code with ...

From that first foray to the spread of early hominids who later became Homo sapiens, life has persisted, undaunted. A (Very) Short History of Life is an enlightening story of survival, of persistence, illuminating the delicate balance within which life has always existed, and continues to exist today. It is our planet like you’ve never seen it before. Life teems through Henry Gee’s lyrical prose - colossal supercontinents drift, collide and coalesce, fashioning the face of the planet as we know it today.

On May 10, 1998, biologist Craig Venter, director of the Institute for Genomic Research, announced that he was forming a private company that within three years would unravel the complete genetic code of human life, seven years before the projected finish of the U.S. government's Human Genome Project. Venter hoped that by decoding the genome ahead of schedule, he would speed up the pace of biomedical research and save the lives of thousands of people. He also hoped to become very famous and very rich.

Wars with aliens make for strange bedfellows. Five hundred years ago I died. In most cases that would have been the end of it. The thing is, I didn't stay dead. Well, actually I did, but more to the point my mind woke up in brand spanking new, state-of-the-art cloned body custom built by the Imperium to fight the B'dar. This is my story. This is the future history of me.

It was the most radical human-breeding experiment in American history, and no one knew how it turned out. The Repository for Germinal Choice, nicknamed the Nobel Prize sperm bank, opened to notorious fanfare in 1980, and for two decades, women flocked to it from all over the country to choose a sperm donor from its roster of Nobel-laureate scientists, mathematical prodigies, successful businessmen, and star athletes.