Showing titles in Biology

Fruit flies, silverfish, dandelions, and crabgrass are the bane of many people and the target of numerous chemical and physical eradication efforts. In this compelling reassessment of the relationship between humans and the natural world, John Hainze - an entomologist and former pesticide developer - considers the fascinating and bizarre history of how these so-called invasive or unwanted pests and weeds have co-evolved with humanity and highlights the benefits of a greater respect and moral consideration toward these organisms.

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 two-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. But with the good reason for our corrupted condition now finally found, our species’ original state of innocence can at last be admitted.

Popular among naturopaths, George Carey's The Chemistry and Wonders of the Human Body combines astrology, physiology, anatomy, chemistry, and a mineral theory of disease into a overarching view of the human organism.

This audiobook by Eugène Marais is a passionate, insightful account into the world of termites. It is a meticulously researched expose of their complex, highly structured community life.

Dolphins have fascinated humans for millennia, giving rise to an abundance of stories and myths about them, yet the actual details of their lives in the sea have remained elusive. In this enthralling book, Kathleen M. Dudzinski and Toni Frohoff take us into the dolphins' aquatic world to witness firsthand how they live their lives, communicate, and interact with one another and with other species, including people.

In order to bring its origin to light, Rebecca Skloot weaves together several narrative threads. One is primarily focused on Henrietta Lacks, the woman who, without her knowledge, became central to 20th century biomedical research. Another is the birth of modern biomedical research itself, and its roots in the American eugenics movement. Finally, there is the impact of this research, both of the Lacks Family and on society at large. Skloot divides the book into 3 parts: Life, Death, and Immortality.

The dean of Columbia University's medical school explains why our bodies are out of sync with today's environment and how we can correct this to save our health. Over the past 200 years, human life-expectancy has approximately doubled. Yet we face soaring worldwide rates of obesity, diabetes...

Are birds monogamous? Why do kookaburras laugh? Is the ivory-billed woodpecker really extinct? These fascinating stories feature the delightful and exotic sounds of birds, plus astute and informative commentary from bird lovers, bird experts, and sometimes birds themselves. Learn how naturalist F. Schuyler Matthews translated bird song into musical notes. Discover how the city of Chicago has drawn purple martins back to Lake Michigan, their historic habitat.

From the cup of coffee that jump-starts the day to dangerously addictive drugs, the recreational use of plants with psychoactive properties has a long history among humans. But, as with many things, it turns out that other animals got there first. From parrots to primates, consuming medicinal chemicals is an instinctive behavior that helps countless organisms fight infection and treat disease. But the similarities don't end there: Like us, many creatures also consume substances that have no apparent benefit...except for inducing intoxication.

In Light to Life, biologist Raffael Jovine takes us on a journey of discovery into the intricate, beautiful and often surprising processes that convert energy from the sun into life and how all-important these are to our survival. Despite the unprecedented challenges the Earth faces from global warming, habitat loss, air pollution and population growth; Jovine shows us that there is hope to be found. Photosynthesis is the very source of life: it has the power not just to produce food, but to reshape continents, drive biogeochemical cycles, stabilise the climate and regulate weather.

The Revolutionary Phenotype is a science book that brings us four billion years into the past, when the first living molecules showed up on Planet Earth. Unlike what was previously thought, we learn that DNA-based life did not emerge from random events in a primordial soup. Indeed, the first molecules of DNA were fabricated by a previous life form.

Antibiotics are powerful drugs that can prevent and treat infections, but they are becoming less effective as a result of drug resistance. Resistance develops because the bacteria that antibiotics target can evolve ways to defend themselves against these drugs. When antibiotics fail, there is very little else to prevent an infection from spreading. Unnecessary use of antibiotics in both humans and animals accelerates the evolution of drug-resistant bacteria, with potentially catastrophic personal and global consequences.

In recent years, malaria has emerged as a cause célèbre for voguish philanthropists. Bill Gates, Bono, and Laura Bush are only a few of the personalities who have lent their names - and opened their pocketbooks - in hopes of curing the disease. Still, in a time when every emergent disease inspires waves of panic, why aren’t we doing more to eradicate one of our oldest foes? And how does a parasitic disease that we’ve known how to prevent for more than a century still infect 500 million people every year, killing nearly 1 million of them?

In What's Eating You? Eugene Kaplan recounts the true and harrowing tales of his adventures with parasites, and in the process introduces readers to the intimately interwoven lives of host and parasite.

More than anything else, this is a book about love. In this deeply moving account, you will hear about Rambo, a sheep who informs the staff when another animal is in trouble; and Paulie, a former cockfighting rooster who eats lunch with humans; Dino, an old toothless pony who survived a fire; and many more. Alongside these horses, roosters, pigs, sheep, rabbits, cows, and other animals is a staff of loving humans for whom every animal life, even that of a frog rushed to the vet for emergency surgery, has merit.

A “beautifully written” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) memoir-manifesto from the first female director of the National Science Foundation about the entrenched sexism in science, the elaborate detours women have take to bypass the problem, and how to fix the system. If you think sexism...

A natural history of the wilderness in our homes, from the microbes in our showers to the crickets in our basements Even when the floors are sparkling clean and the house seems silent, our domestic domain is wild beyond imagination. In Never Home Alone, biologist Rob Dunn introduces us to the...

In this witty, fact-packed A-Z, Newman takes the listener on a whirlwind tour from caring, sharing vampire bats to intelligent slime mould; from pacifist baboons to Richard Dawkins wrestling naked with his postman; from the invisibility cloak of the Hawaiian bobtail squid to Francis "DNA" Crick's belief that life on Earth began with alien spaceships.

When his missionary brother renounced faith in favor of atheism, Perry Marshall was plunged into crisis and doubt. He decided: “I”m going to let science make this decision for me.” He asked: “Is the hand at the end of my arm purposeful? Or is it purposeless?” He leapt into the void of evolution and the origin of life. He could not have begun to anticipate what he was about to discover. Living things were far more sophisticated than textbooks were saying.

An urgent case for how we could have stopped the Covid-19 pandemic—and how to make sure it never happens again "MacKenzie's fascinating book gives us the scope and scale to be able to put this pandemic in perspective and, it begs the question, will we learn from this in time to prevent to next...