Human Genetics

In Unfit for Purpose, biologist and broadcaster Adam Hart explores the mismatch between our fundamental biology and the modern world we have created. In each chapter Adam reveals the many ways in which biological adaptations that evolved to help us survive and thrive now work against us. For example, in the modern world stress is a killer, but how did 'fight or flight' instincts turn from life-savers to life-takers? Obesity might be a disease now, but is it really just a troublesome side-effect of our complex evolutionary past?

After seeing his own cells used to grow clumps of new neurons - essentially mini-brains - Philip Ball begins to examine the concepts of identity and consciousness. Delving into humanity's deep evolutionary past to look at how complex creatures like us emerged from single-celled life, he offers a new perspective on how humans think about ourselves.

Shawn Shaw is a Pulitzer prize winning reporter and columnist for The Chronicle who's on the hunt for his next great story. He thinks he may have found it when he's approached by billionaire tech entrepreneur James Berk. Berk is a trustee of The Destiny Foundation, a secretive society supposedly facilitating the work of the world's greatest scientific minds. Berk convinces Shaw to help him find Chuti Tiu, a prostitute who is allegedly the smartest person ever to exist. If her intelligence lives up to its promise, there is a 50-million dollar prize waiting for her. Berk uses strong arm ...

As biologist Jeremy Griffith explains in The Interview (which psychiatrist Professor Harry Prosen described as the most important interview of all time), while we humans lacked the explanation for our 2-million-year corrupted human condition we had no choice but to deny that our distant ape ancestors lived in a state of cooperative and loving innocence.

Shawnie is the most sought after criminal in the known universe. Jerod is the law and he's coming for her. It's not to arrest her, but they want her help. When it's all said and done, can she do what they want and remain alive? If he gets a chance to spend a night with her, will he still be the same? Can love overcome lies and alibis?

In the sultry, shadow-drenched streets of New Orleans, a fertility clinic whispers promises of miracles. But beneath its guise of hope, two vampire doctors play a sinister game. Their dark secret? Impregnating clients with a bloodline never meant to see the light of day. A bloodline blending human and vampire, birthing children with terrifying, untamed powers. But secrets in the vampire world don't stay hidden for long. The overlord, a figure of nightmarish authority, uncovers their treachery. His verdict is swift and brutal – extermination. Yet, the deed is done. The city now blessed ...

In Eve, Cat Bohannon answers questions scientists should have been addressing for decades. With boundless curiosity and sharp wit, she covers the past 200 million years to explain the specific science behind the development of the female sex. Eve is not only a sweeping revision of human history, it’s an urgent and necessary corrective for a world that has focused primarily on the male body for far too long.

They once thought dark energy was the ultimate power in the universe. They were mistaken. And now a desperate race is underway to be the first to discover how The Formation helped create life in the universe. But with the power to create life also comes the power to destroy it. This was power even the wise and ancient Aris knew was too great for them to possess. Now imagine what it could do in the hands of a mere mortal...such as Adam Cain.

What if the myths told by ancient peoples are not figments of imaginations, but records of events that had actually taken place? What if the biblical Book of Genesis is not a Creation Myth, but a condensed rendering of an accurate cosmogony and sophisticated knowledge of evolution? What if the gods of ancient times were astronauts who "came down" from another planet? What if we are not alone? Zecharia Sitchin and others raise these important questions in this book. These are the transcripts from the first and only gathering of the best Sitchin researchers of the time, including two Ph.D.s ...

For all that science knows about the living world, notes David P. Barash, there are even more things we don't know, genuine evolutionary mysteries that perplex the best minds in biology. Paradoxically, many of these mysteries are very close to home, involving some of the most personal aspects of being human. Homo Mysterious examines a number of these evolutionary mysteries, exploring things we don't yet know about ourselves, laying out the best current hypotheses, and pointing toward insights that scientists are just beginning to glimpse.

Abe was blond with blue eyes and a winning smile. His wings were blue instead of the lavender that Lu sported. His tail looked similar, but Abe was just a bit shorter, and his build was heavier. Gloria was a pretty blonde Amazon. The female was easily six feet tall and had the palest blue eyes he’d ever seen. She was lovely and good, but she didn’t want a male in her life. She knew everyone thought they were dating, but they were just friends, really. Can these two work things out or will Abe be forever alone and heartbroken?

Lia Johansen was created for only one purpose: to slip onto the strategically placed New Sol Space Station and explode. But her mission goes to hell when her clock malfunctions, freezing her countdown with just two minutes to go. With no Plan B, no memories of her past, and no identity besides a name stolen from a dead POW, Lia has no idea what to do next. Her life gets even more complicated when she meets Michael Sorenson, the real Lia's childhood best friend.

In How We Do It, primatologist Robert Martin draws on 40 years of research to locate the roots of everything from our sex cells to the way we care for newborns. He examines the procreative history of humans as well as that of our primate kin to reveal what's really natural when it comes to making and raising babies, and distinguish which behaviors we ought to continue - and which we should not. Although it's not realistic to raise our children like our ancestors did, Martin’s investigation reveals surprising consequences of - and suggests ways to improve upon - the way we do things now.

Darwin considered humans one part of the web of life, not the apex of a natural hierarchy. Yet today many maintain that we are the most intelligent, virtuous, successful species that ever lived. This flawed thinking enables us to exploit the earth towards our own exclusive ends, throwing us into a perilous planetary imbalance. But is this view and way of life inevitable? The Arrogant Ape shows that human exceptionalism is an ideology that relies more on human culture than our biology, more on delusion and faith than on evidence.

A fascinating, bite-sized insight into how human sexuality came to be the way it is now - Jared Diamond explains why we are different from the animal kingdom. Why are humans one of the few species to have sex in private? Why do humans have sex any day of the month or year, including when the female is pregnant, beyond her reproductive years, or between her fertile cycles? Why are human females one of the few mammals to go through menopause?

If we are, in part, a product of our genes, can free will exist? Incisive and engaging, this indispensable tour of evolutionary biology runs the gamut of contemporary debates, from science and religion to our place in the universe.

Parents and parents-to-be are bombarded with information, from what to expect to what to do (and not to do) when it happens. But what they may not realize is that from the chemistry of pregnancy tests to the vacuum physics of breastfeeding, there is fascinating science at the heart of every aspect of creating and raising a new human.

In this fresh and provocative view of a seven-million-year evolutionary journey, Finlayson demonstrates the radical implications for the interpretation of fossils and technologies and shows that understanding humans within an ecological context provides insights into the emergence and spread of Homo sapiens worldwide.

How did life begin? Why are we here? These are some of the most profound questions we can ask. For almost a century, a small band of eccentric scientists has struggled to answer these questions and explain one of the greatest mysteries of all: how and why life began on Earth. There are many different proposals and each idea has attracted passionate believers who promote it with an almost religious fervour, as well as detractors who reject it with equal passion.

Over the last three million years or so, our lineage has diverged sharply from those of our great ape relatives. Change has been rapid (in evolutionary terms) and pervasive. In The Evolved Apprentice, Kim Sterelny argues that the divergence stems from the fact humans gradually came to enrich the learning environment of the next generation. He develops a new theory of the evolution of human cognition and human social life that emphasizes the gradual evolution of information-sharing practices across generations and how these practices transformed human minds and social lives.