Showing results by publisher "Recorded Books" in Biological Sciences

With this fascinating audiobook, award-winning journalist Richard Conniff satisfies your cravings for the thrill and horror of formication - that chilling sensation of something crawling across your skin. Blending humor and sophistication, he introduces you to a host of spineless creatures, from moths to leeches, and the extraordinary enthusiasts who study them. For over 20 years, the author has trekked through jungles, oceans, and deserts in search of invertebrates.

In Mercies in Disguise, acclaimed New York Times reporter and best-selling author Gina Kolata tells the story of the Baxleys, an upstanding family in small-town South Carolina. Many of them were doctors, but still, they are struck down by an inscrutable illness. Finally they discover the cause of the disease after a remarkable sequence of providential events. Meanwhile science, progressing for 50 years along a parallel track, handed the Baxleys a question - not a cure but a blood test that would reveal who had the gene for the disease.

John Parrington draws on the latest research on the human brain to show how it differs strikingly from those of other animals in its structure and function at a molecular and cellular level. And he argues that this 'shift', enlarging the brain, giving it greater flexibility and enabling higher functions such as imagination, was driven by tool use, but especially by the development of one remarkable tool - language.

With Evolutionary Psychology I and II, Allen D. MacNeill of Cornell University led a thought-provoking series of lectures on why people do the things they do. In Evolutionary Biology I, MacNeill addresses a different side of the coin by examining the biological component, from Charles Darwin’s and Gregor Mendel’s “dangerous ideas” to contemporary thought leaders and the forming of the modern synthesis of this vital field of study.

Having worked on numerous high-profile genetic investigations, including one focused on the famed Iceman of the Italian Alps, Bryan Sykes has become a premier authority on human genetics. In DNA USA, Sykes examines the unique fabric of the population of the United States - one of the world’s most genetically variegated countries. His fascinating discoveries offer new insights into the biological profile of the great melting pot.

The Age of Living Machines describes some of the most exciting new developments and the scientists and engineers who helped create them. Virus-built batteries. Protein-based water filters. Cancer-detecting nanoparticles. Mind-reading bionic limbs. Computer-engineered crops. Together they highlight the promise of the technology revolution of the 21st century to overcome some of the greatest humanitarian, medical, and environmental challenges of our time.

In What Does It Feel Like to Die?, Jennie Dear combines the latest research and medical findings with her own experiences as a hospice volunteer and caregiver to answer the questions we all want to know. As a long-time hospice volunteer, Jennie Dear has helped countless patients, families, and caregivers cope with the many challenges of the dying process. Inspired by her own personal journey with her mother's long-term illness, Dear demystifies the experience of dying for everyone whose lives it touches.

What can beer teach us about biology, history, and the natural world? From ancient Mesopotamian fermentation practices to the resurgent American craft brewery, authors Rob DeSalle and Ian Tattersall peruse the historical record and traverse the globe for engaging and often surprising stories about beer. They explain how we came to drink beer, what ingredients combine to give beers their distinctive flavors, how beer's chemistry works at the molecular level, and how various societies have regulated the production and consumption of beer.

After 25 years on a farm in the Ozarks, award-winning writer and naturalist Sue Hubbell moved to a small town on the coast of Maine. There, in the pools, tides, and thickets, she found a vast array of creatures that aroused her considerable curiosity. Join Hubbell on a unique tour of the world of invertebrates. From humpbacked camel crickets to glow worms, from horseshoe crabs to elegantly-furred sea mice, Hubbell offers vivid descriptions and fascinating details about these superb examples of survival.

Most of us think of bugs as pesky creatures we squish under our shoes or bat away with our hands. Under the microscope of Sue Hubbell’s keen eye emerges an exciting world we rarely take the time to see. Author of A Country Year, Hubbell writes regularly for The New Yorker, Smithsonian, and Discover magazines, bringing to her delightful essays the practical veracity of a gentlewoman farmer, and the style and élan of an eccentric who has found her bliss.

Flying more than 8,000 miles from Alaska to eastern Australia without stopping to eat or rest, the Bar-tailed Godwit holds the record for the longest nonstop migration of any land bird in the world. Flight of the Godwit invites readers on ornithologist Bruce M. Beehler's awe-inspiring journey in search of North America's largest and farthest-flying shorebirds. Driving 35,000 miles between 2019 to 2023, Beehler sought birds he dubs the "Magnificent Seven."

A veritable tsunami of studies and assessment reports outlines a stark picture of humanity's detrimental impacts on our planet's life and environmental health. Climate change is at the heart of many of these impacts. We cannot continue to live in the same way; we're facing relentless population growth, paired with ever-expanding energy and resource consumption. Every day we dither exacerbates the issues we have to repair. What are our options, though?

‘What is it like to be a bat?’, the philosopher Thomas Nagel famously asked concerning consciousness. For biologist Martin Stevens, the question forms the starting point of an exploration of animal senses. In this enthralling account, we learn not only of the wonder of animal senses, but how they work and how scientists go about investigating them. And, throughout, we consider how these senses came to be.

Many are familiar with the commonly known senses - sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. But most do know realize that humans have other senses beyond these. This is not, however, a spooky "sixth sense" of extrasensory perception. But humans do have a different kind of sixth sense. We also have a seventh sense, and it can be debated that we have even more. These additional senses are in fact specialized systems to detect other aspects of the world that we rarely consider, though they are an important part of our everyday life.

In this course, we will discuss the moral aspects of human reproduction. We will discuss various influences on reproduction as well as the scientific advances in reproductive technology. At the end of this course we will not have arrived at answers to the various questions raised, but instead will have provided a base for us to consider the issues at hand and a desire to pursue more study in the important aspects of creating humans.

The history of Western civilization can be divided neatly into pre-Darwinian and post-Darwinian periods. Darwin's 1859 treatise, On the Origin of Species, was not the first work to propose that organisms had descended from other, earlier organisms and the mechanism of evolution it proposed remained controversial for years. Nevertheless, no biologist after 1859 could ignore Darwin's theories and few areas of thought and culture remained immune to their influence.

Rolf Nelson of Wheaton College has been widely published in the fields of psychology and visual perception. Seeing Eye to I examines the human visual system, from basic processes like perceiving color and shape to recognizing and categorizing objects to self-awareness. Professor Nelson also demonstrates how the human brain constructs a representation of the world replete with meaning, a task beyond the capability of any current computer.

Become a better birder with brief profiles of 200 top North American birds. This friendly, relatable audiobook is a celebration of the art, science, and delights of bird-watching. How to Know the Birds introduces a new, holistic approach to bird-watching, by noting how behaviors, settings, and seasonal cycles connect with shape, song, color, gender, age distinctions, and other features traditionally used to identify species. With short essays on 200 observable species, expert author Ted Floyd guides us through a year of becoming a better birder.

For budding apiarists, this introductory guide invites you into the amazing world of honeybees. Discover the inner workings of the beehive, the properties of honey, the basics of beekeeping, and the joys that come from this meditative hobby, including a thriving garden, environmental stewardship, and a supportive community (not to mention delicious honey!). A whole world awaits—and it’s just outside your door.