Showing titles in Biology

We’re constantly seeking answers to these fundamental human questions, and now, science has the answers. The foods we enjoy, the people we love, the emotions we feel, and the beliefs we hold can all be traced back to our DNA, germs, and environment. This witty, colloquial book is popular science at its best, describing in everyday language how genetics, epigenetics, microbiology, and psychology work together to influence our personality and actions.

As recently as 11,000 years ago - "near time" to geologists - mammoths, mastodons, gomphotheres, ground sloths, giant armadillos, native camels and horses, the dire wolf, and many other large mammals roamed North America. In what has become one of science's greatest riddles, these large animals vanished in North and South America around the time humans arrived at the end of the last great ice age.

Every part of your body affects every other part of your body, and if any one area is not functioning properly, other systems will feel it, too. There is a fundamental connection between the brain, the gut, the microbiome and the thyroid - which Dr Raphael Kellman calls 'the whole brain'.

Acclaimed nature writer Susan Hand Shetterly opens a window into the world of this fascinating organism by providing an elegant, often poetic, look at life on the rugged shore of the Gulf of Maine. Shetterly offers a close look at the life cycle of seaweed and introduces us to the men and women who farm and harvest it - and their increasingly difficult task of protecting this critical natural resource against forces both natural and man-made.    

How four tools enabled humanity to control its destiny What enabled us to go from simple stone tools to smartphones? How did bands of hunter-gatherers evolve into multinational empires? Listeners of Sapiens will say a cognitive revolution - a dramatic evolutionary change that altered our brains, turning primitive humans into modern ones - caused a cultural explosion. In Transcendence, Gaia Vince argues instead that modern humans are the product of a nuanced coevolution of our genes, environment, and culture that goes back into deep time.

Barron's EZ-101 Study Keys give you a valuable overview of your college-level course. Classroom-style notes emphasize important facts, remind you what you need to remember for term papers and exams, and help guide you through the complexities of lectures and textbooks. Biology covers key topics, including the chemical basis of life, cells and tissues, bioenergetics, genetics, structure and function of body systems, ecology, evolution, and organic diversity.

In Strange Bedfellows, David P. Barash and Judith Eve Lipton look at how biology actually promotes monogamy in some species and how these lessons apply to human beings. An accessible work of science that is relevant to our intimate daily life, Strange Bedfellows will reassure some people, surprise others, and engage everyone.

If you have an appetite for digestible science, you will find plenty of tasty morsels here. Discover why some people see red over red food dyes, why Sherlock Holmes was interested in jellyfish, why King George III was plagued with purple urine, and why phrenology is a pseudoscience.

Brought to you by Penguin. An awe-inspiring and mind-altering exploration of how symbiosis can change the way we understand our world, ourselves and our future From evolution to capitalism, ‘survival of the fittest’ has shaped our view of the world. But we got it wrong – and our mistake...

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.

Humans and fungi share nearly 50 percent of the same DNA. Because we're related, designing drugs to combat the varieties that attack us is a challenge. Meanwhile, in an ever hotter, wetter world, fungi may be finding new ways to thrive, queueing up global outbreak potentials for which no vaccine and woefully few medications exist; some fungi are already beginning to resist treatment. Among other lifeforms, bats, amphibians, and essential crops are also increasingly threatened by these pathogens.

A comprehensive guide to everything one needs to know about the male reproductive system.

Jean-Henri Casimir Fabre (1823-1915) was a French naturalist, entomologist, and author known for the engaging style of his popular books on the lives of insects. In The Life of the Spider, Fabre’s careful observations of the species tarantula, the banded epeira, the Narbonne lycosa, the crab spider and the labyrinth spider are presented in lively descriptions. He also compares the various species, all of which are industrious predators and highly talented weavers.

Nano Comes to Life opens a window onto the nanoscale - the infinitesimal realm of proteins and DNA where physics and cellular and molecular biology meet - and introduces listeners to the rapidly evolving nanotechnologies that are allowing us to manipulate the very building blocks of life. Sonia Contera gives an insider's perspective on this new frontier, revealing how nanotechnology enables a new kind of multidisciplinary science that is poised to give us control over our own biology, our health, and our lives.

The acclaimed author of Pandora’s Lunchbox and former New York Times reporter delivers an “entertaining and highly useful book that gives you the tools to understand how alternative medicine works, so you can confidently make up your own mind” (The Washington Post). We all know someone who...

Award-winning Boston University educator and researcher Muhammad H. Zaman provides a chilling look at the rise of antibiotic-resistant superbugs, explaining how we got here and what we must do to address this growing global health crisis. In September 2016, a woman in Nevada became the first...

Our human brain is both unique and similar to that of other species. The only way we can trace its evolution is by comparing it to the brains of animals alive today. In this book, leading neuroscientist Rogier Mars offers an engaging account of the evolution of the brain by exploring the brains and cognitive capacities of animals from the humble sea squirt to the socially minded fox and the tiny shrew.

Honey bees get all the press, but the fascinating story of North America's native bees - an endangered species essential to our ecosystems and food supplies - is just as crucial. Our Native Bees is the result of Paige Embry's yearlong quest to learn more about these forgotten, yet fundamental, creatures. Through interviews with farmers, gardeners, scientists, and bee experts, Embry explores the importance of native bees and focuses on why they play a key role in gardening and agriculture.

An Outside Magazine 2021 Science book pick One of Smithsonian's 10 Best Science Books of 2021 A taboo-busting romp through the shame, stink, and strange science of sweating. Sweating may be one of our weirdest biological functions, but it’s also one of our most vital and least understood. In...

'Thrilling and delightful' - George Monbiot 'Vital, brilliant, wholly absorbing... A masterpiece of science writing' - Isabella tree To appreciate the wonders of the world around us, we're often told to look up. But what if we need to look down instead? Everything that happens below ground...