Showing results by publisher "----RM Alexander" in Biology

Alice Roberts uses the latest research to uncover the evolutionary history hidden in all of us, from the secrets found only in our embryos and genes - including why as embryos we have what look like gills - to those visible in your anatomy. This is a tale of discovery, exploring why and how we have developed as we have. This is your story, told as never before.

In this fascinating and thought-provoking book, author Nick Lane brings together the latest research findings in the exciting field of mitochondria research to reveal how our growing understanding of mitochondria is shedding light on how complex life evolved, why sex arose (why don't we just bud?), and why we age and die. This understanding is of fundamental importance, both in understanding how we and all other complex life came to be, but also in order to be able to control our own illnesses, and delay our degeneration and death.

In the late 1600s, a distinguished English polymath, Robert Hooke, and an eccentric Dutch cloth-merchant, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, look down their hand-made microscopes. What they see introduces a radical concept that sweeps through biology and medicine, touching virtually every aspect of the two sciences and altering both forever. It is the fact that complex living organisms are assemblages of tiny self-contained, self-regulating units. Our organs, our physiology, our selves—hearts, blood, brains—are built from these compartments. Hooke christens them "cells".

Have you ever wondered what your dogs are thinking? What they're feeling? Now you finally can! The answers will surprise and delight you as scientist and dog-owner Alexandra Horowitz explains how our four-legged friends perceive their daily worlds, each other, and that other quirky animal, the human.

Living at the limits of our ordinary perception, mosses are a common but largely unnoticed element of the natural world. Gathering Moss is a beautifully written mix of science and personal reflection that invites listeners to explore and learn from the elegantly simple lives of mosses.

Challenging what you know and think about your own body and how it defends you against all sorts of maladies and how it might also eventually be your own downfall, Immune is a vital and remarkably fun crash course in what is arguably, and increasingly, the most important system in the body.

An Immense World will take us on an insider's tour of the natural world by describing the biology, physics and chemistry animals use to perceive it. We may lack some of their senses, but our own super-sense lies in our ability to understand theirs. And in the face of the largest extinction event since the meteor that killed the dinosaurs, our only hope of saving other species is bound up with our ability to see what they see, and feel what they feel.

Whether it's in a cockpit at takeoff or the planning of an offensive war, a romantic relationship or a dispute at the office, there are many opportunities to lie and self-deceive - but deceit and self-deception carry the costs of being alienated from reality and can lead to disaster. So why does deception play such a prominent role in our everyday lives? In short, why do we deceive?

I hate every wave of the ocean', the seasick Charles Darwin wrote to his family during his five-year voyage on the H.M.S. Beagle. It was this world-wide journey, however, that launched the scientists career.

The key to living a happier, healthier life is inside us. Our gut is almost as important to us as our brain or our heart, yet we know very little about how it works. In Gut, Giulia Enders shows that rather than the utilitarian and - let's be honest - somewhat embarrassing body part we imagine it to be, it is one of the most complex, important, and even miraculous parts of our anatomy.

Naming Darwin's Black Box to the National Review's list of the 100 most important nonfiction works of the 20th century, George Gilder wrote that it "overthrows Darwin at the end of the 20th century in the same way that quantum theory overthrew Newton at the beginning". Discussing the book in the New Yorker in May 2005, H. Allen Orr said of Behe, "He is the most prominent of the small circle of scientists working on intelligent design, and his arguments are by far the best known."

Over the past 20 years, Evolutionary Biologist Herman Pontzer has conducted ground-breaking studies across a range of settings, including pioneering fieldwork with Hadza hunter-gatherers in northern Tanzania. This book draws on his eye-opening research to show how, contrary to received wisdom, exercise does not increase our metabolism. Instead, we burn calories within a very narrow range: nearly 3,000 calories per day, no matter our activity level.

The Blind Watchmaker, knowledgably narrated by author Richard Dawkins, is as prescient and timely a book as ever. The watchmaker belongs to the 18th-century theologian William Paley, who argued that just as a watch is too complicated and functional to have sprung into existence by accident, so too must all living things, with their far greater complexity, be purposefully designed. Charles Darwin's brilliant discovery challenged the creationist arguments; but only Richard Dawkins could have written this elegant riposte.

In the best-selling, prize-winning A Short History of Nearly Everything Bill Bryson achieved the seemingly impossible by making the science of our world both understandable and entertaining to millions of people around the globe. Now he turns his attention inwards to explore the human body, how it functions and its remarkable ability to heal itself. Full of extraordinary facts and astonishing stories, The Body: A Guide for Occupants is a brilliant, often very funny attempt to understand the miracle of our physical and neurological makeup.

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?

Midlife doesn't have to mean crisis, chaos or confusion. In fact, research shows that women become happier with every decade of their lives. Discover the incredible possibilities of the female brain during the second half of life, redefine the perimenopause and menopause, and access your most vital, confident phase yet. Bestselling author and clinical professor of psychiatry Dr Louann Brizendine dives deep into how the female brain changes for the better during midlife and debunks myths and misinformation to create a revolutionary new framework for this life stage.

In Mitochondria and the Future of Medicine, naturopathic doctor Lee Know tells the epic story of mitochondria - the widely misunderstood and often-overlooked powerhouses of our cells. The legendary saga began over two billion years ago, when one bacterium entered another without being digested, which would evolve to create the first mitochondrion. Since then, for life to exist beyond single-celled bacteria, it's the mitochondria that have been responsible for this life-giving energy.

Through riveting personal stories and the latest research, Harvard evolutionary biologist Carole Hooven shows how testosterone drives the behaviour of the sexes apart and how understanding the science behind this hormone is empowering for all.

Ageing - not cancer, not heart disease - is the world’s leading cause of death and suffering. We accept as inevitable that as we get older our bodies and minds begin to deteriorate, and we are increasingly likely to be struck by dementia or disease. Ageing is so deeply ingrained in human experience that we never think to ask: is it necessary?

Do you ever find yourself wondering how we came to exist? Or how humans came to call planet Earth our home? Oxford Professor Tim Coulson uncovers the history of the entire universe from the Big Bang to human existence taking listeners of all backgrounds on a journey that covers physics, chemistry, biology, the evolution of consciousness, through to the rise of humanity. A 13.77-billion-year epic in the making, A Universal History of Me encapsulates for the general listener everything that he as a scientist has wanted to find out about life, the universe and everything in between.