Showing results by publisher "Audible Studios" in Science

Today, taxonomy is viewed by many as an outdated field, one nearly irrelevant to the rest of science and of even less interest to the rest of the world. Now, as Carol Kaesuk Yoon reminds us in Naming Nature, taxonomy is critically important, because it turns out to be much more than mere science. It is also the latest incarnation of a long-unrecognized human practice that has gone on across the globe, in every culture, in every language since before time: the deeply human act of ordering and naming the living world.

Whistleblowers pay with their lives to save ours. When insiders like former NSA analyst Edward Snowden, ex-FBI agent Coleen Rowley, or Big Tobacco truth-teller Jeffrey Wigand blow the whistle on high-level lying, lawbreaking or other wrongdoing - whether it's government spying, corporate murder, or scientific scandal - the public benefits enormously. Wars are ended, deadly products are taken off the market, white-collar criminals are sent to jail. The whistleblowers themselves, however, generally end up ruined.

Best-selling author Michael Crichton talks with Audible's Publisher Beth Anderson about his latest book, State of Fear. In this interview, Crichton explains how he came to rethink common wisdom about global warming. In the three year process of writing and researching the book, Crichton witnessed firsthand how difficult it can be to unearth scientific truth in a heavily politicized atmosphere. He warns against fanaticism and explains why a healthy skepticism is imperative in these fearful times.

This book will appeal to foodies and those who are deprived of cookbooks in audio format. Molecular Gastronomy documents the sensory phenomena of eating and uses basic physics to put to bed many culinary myths. This audiobook presents pieces of conventional wisdom - such as whether it is better to make a stock by placing meat in already boiling water, or water before it is boiled - and gives its history before making scientific pronouncements.

Here, for the first time, is a collection of short speeches by the charismatic doctor and social activist Paul Farmer. One of the most passionate and influential voices for global health equity and social justice, Farmer encourages young people to tackle the greatest challenges of our times. Engaging, often humorous, and always inspiring, these speeches bring to light the brilliance and force of Farmer's vision in a single, accessible volume.

A tiny mutation on the X chromosome can shape a family’s history. Passed down from a “carrier” parent to a child, fragile X syndrome is the most common inherited cause of intellectual disability and autism. Beyond that—and a rarity among genetic disorders—some fragile X carriers not only transmit the mutation, but also experience related conditions themselves.

This panoramic book tells the story of how revolutionary ideas from the Enlightenment about freedom, equality, evolution, and democracy have reverberated through modern history and shaped the world as we know it today.

With 30 years of backcountry patrol experience in Florida, Bob Lee has lived through incidents of legend, including one of the biggest environmental busts in Florida history. His fascinating memoir reveals the danger and the humor in the unsung exploits of game wardens.

The first insider account of the work at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, the discovery of the Higgs particle - and what it all means for our understanding of the laws of nature. The discovery of the Higgs boson made headlines around the world. Two scientists, Peter Higgs and François Englert, whose theories predicted its existence, shared a Nobel Prize. The discovery was the culmination of the largest experiment ever run, the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN's Large Hadron Collider.

There is no denying that the emotional bond between horses and the humans who love them can reach mystical proportions, and nowhere is that relationship more evident than in these 24 true-life accounts of horses rescuing people. Many of the stories recount incidents where death or physical injury was imminent, and only because a horse intervened are the narrators alive to tell the tale.

In this fascinating collection of articles and speeches, Albert Einstein reflects not only on the scientific method at work in his own theoretical discoveries, but eloquently expresses a great appreciation for his scientific contemporaries and forefathers, including Johannes Kepler, Isaac Newton, James Clerk Maxwell, Max Planck, and Niels Bohr. While Einstein is renowned as one of the foremost innovators of modern science, his discoveries uniquely his own, through his own words it becomes clear that Einstein viewed himself as only the most recent in a long line of scientists driven to create new ways of understanding the world and to prove their scientific theories.

Einstein and the Quantum reveals for the first time the full significance of Albert Einstein's contributions to quantum theory. Einstein famously rejected quantum mechanics, observing that God does not play dice. But, in fact, he thought more about the nature of atoms, molecules, and the emission and absorption of light - the core of what we now know as quantum theory - than he did about relativity.

生き物たちは、驚くほど人間に似ている。ネズミは冷たい雨に濡れた仲間を助けるためにわざわざ出かけるし、アリは女王のためには自爆だっていとわない。カケスは雛を育てるために集団で保育園を運営しているし、ゾウは亡くなった家族のために葬儀を行う。

While hiking on a solo vacation in a remote, uninhabitable region of Arizona, Zachary Anderegg happened upon Riley, an emaciated puppy clinging to life, at the bottom of a 350-foot canyon. In a daring act of humanity that trumped the deliberate savagery behind Riley’s presence in such a place, Zak single-handedly orchestrated a rescue. What didn’t come out in the initial burst of publicity this story received is that Zak and Riley’s destinies were intertwined long before they improbably found each other.

The history of the Great Warming of a half millennium ago suggests that we may yet be underestimating the power of climate change to disrupt our lives todayand our vulnerability to drought, writes Fagan, is the silent elephant in the room.

Presenting scientific evidence from diverse fields, including anthropology, biology, and psychology, Fuentes devises a myth-busting toolkit to dismantle persistent fallacies about the validity of biological races, the innateness of aggression and violence, and the nature of monogamy, sex, and gender. This revised and expanded edition provides up-to-date references, data, and analyses, and addresses new topics, including the popularity of home DNA testing kits and the lies behind ‘"incel" culture.

For the past 50 years, popular culture has led us to believe in the left brain vs. right brain theory of personality types. It would be an illuminating theory if it did not have one major drawback: It is simply not supported by science. In contrast, the Top Brain, Bottom Brain theory is based on solid research that has stayed within the confines of labs all over the world—until now.

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.

Nathan Runkle would have been a fifth-generation farmer in his small Midwestern town. Instead, he founded our nation's leading nonprofit organization for protecting factory farmed animals. In Mercy for Animals, Nathan brings us into the trenches of his organization's work; from MFA's early days in grassroots activism, to dangerous and dramatic experiences doing undercover investigations, to the organization's current large-scale efforts at making sweeping legislative change to protect factory farmed animals and encourage compassionate food choices.

A Brief History of the Philosophy of Time covers subjects such as time and change, the experience of time, physical and metaphysical approaches to the nature of time, the direction of time, time travel, time and freedom of the will, and scientific and philosophical approaches to eternity and the beginning of time. Bardon keeps technical language to a minimum in bringing the resources of over 2500 years of philosophy and science to bear on some of humanity's most fundamental and enduring questions.