Showing titles in Biology

It has been remarked that if the brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn’t. Commencing with a brief history of neuroscience, from the ancient practice of drilling holes in the head to relieve headaches to the latest results from MRI and CT scans, this accessible guide sets out to explore exactly what we do know about the brain. Including the most up-to-date research on the cerebral processes, this entertaining introduction assumes no previous scientific knowledge.

Here is a scientific look at zombies - and the ultimate guide to how the other half lives (or not). How fast and far would a zombie infection spread? What would a nutritionist say about an all-brain diet? Why are the undead so pissed off? Here are the answers to all of your essential zombie questions (you know you've asked them), with a lively, science-based exploration of every aspect of the undead.

Human beings have astonishing genetic vulnerabilities. More than half of us will die from complex diseases that trace directly to those vulnerabilities, and the modern world we've created places us at unprecedented risk from them. In It Takes a Genome, Greg Gibson posits a revolutionary new hypothesis: Our genome is out of equilibrium, both with itself and its environment. Simply put, our genes aren't coping well with modern culture.

While we joke that men are from Mars and women are from Venus, our gender differences can't compare to those of other animals. For instance: the male garden spider spontaneously dies after mating with a female more than fifty times his size. Female cichlids must guard their eggs and larvae--even from the hungry appetites of their own partners. And male blanket octopuses employ a copulatory arm longer than their own bodies to mate with females that outweigh them by four orders of magnitude. Why do these gender gulfs exist?

Mark Moffett doesn't just study ants, he travels among them. Moffet holds a Harvard Ph.D. in entomology and is an accomplished scientist, an award-winning author and journalist, and one of the best nature photographers of his generation. Years ago, this free-spirited naturalist left academia behind to plunge into the deepest jungles and observe insect societies up close. Now author Nicholas Griffin takes us inside Moffett's own world, to explore his death-cheating quest for discovery.

John Tyler Bonner, one of our most distinguished and insightful biologists, here challenges a central tenet of evolutionary biology. In this concise, elegantly written book, he makes the bold and provocative claim that some biological diversity may be explained by something other than natural selection. With his customary wit and accessible style, Bonner makes an argument for the underappreciated role that randomness - or chance - plays in evolution.

In Best of the Brain, top neuroscientist Floyd E. Bloom has selected the most fascinating brain-related articles from Scientific American and Scientific American Mind since 1999. Bloom garnishes the impressive lineup with his own introduction. The articles are grouped in three sections: "Mind", "Matter", and "Tomorrow's Brain".

From rainforests to deserts, mountains to plains, the sea to the sky, animals raise their voices in an eclectic and thrilling chorus. This collection celebrates the unique calls of the keel-billed toucan, the morning roar of the Guatemalan howler monkey, the seriously social laughing of the spotted hyena Guatemalan coatimundi, the honk of the courtship-crazed hammerhead bat, sophisticated conversation from the Central African forest elephant, the subtle bellow of the great plains bison, and many more intriguing sounds.

For those who enjoyed Amazing Gracie or Merle’s Door, here is a completely new tale of a rescued dog who becomes the unlikely purveyor of a powerful gift. What if most people have it wrong, and miracles are not the exception but the norm? Flash’s Song is the true account of how one person discovered the secret of miracles. It is a story of the power of laughter, the power of family, and, ultimately, the power of love to get us through life.

Hear a day in the life of the Amazonian rainforest, a continuous sequence of beautiful and exotic sounds. From dawn to dusk the magic of the forest unfolds, with rare birds, monkeys, insects, frogs and toads. There is an afternoon equatorial rainstorm and the evening chorus of birds once the storm has passed. The recordings have no spoken announcements, so the download can be used for relaxation and background sounds at home.

Learn how to identify the voices of 50 coastal birds with this fascinating audio guide from the British Library. Species that are regularly found along the shores of the British Isles have been selected and include a range of seabirds, waders, wildfowl and even a couple of songbirds. Some species such as the Oystercatcher and Ringed Plover are permanent residents on the British coastline and can been seen throughout the year. Others only return to these shores for a limited time in order to breed.

The British countryside is renowned for its natural beauty and diverse wildlife and any walk, whether it be in woodland, wetland or open country, is always accompanied by the varied songs and calls of our birdlife.

A total of 175 species are heard on this download, ranging from the familiar tawny owl to the very rare call of the bittern. The authoritative guide to all British birds likely to be encountered by the average birdwatcher and the ideal gift for anyone wishing to learn the sounds of the great variety of birds that can be seen and heard throughout the seasons. A perennial best seller.

Experience a refreshing adrenaline rush on this NPR guided tour of the ultimate in outdoor fun: Whether whitewater rafting on the Hudson River, mountain climbing in the Himalayas, kayaking in Alaska, airboarding in Oregon's Cascade mountains, or bungee jumping in Australia, each story is an amazing sound adventure - and a great escape. The NPR Sound Treks series brings the outdoors to life with outstanding audio documentaries, stories, and commentary from the NPR archives.

Even as a very young child, Simon King was passionate about the natural world. Being savaged by a rabid cheetah, charged at by rhinos and elephants and defecated upon by a long list of birds and other animals may sound like hell to some. But these, along with countless other experiences alongside all things furry, scaly, slimy and feathery have provided him with an enormously rich bank of tales to relive and retell.

In this brilliant portrait of the oceans' unlikely hero, H. Bruce Franklin shows how menhaden have shaped America's national-and natural-history, and why reckless overfishing now threatens their place in both. Since Native Americans began using menhaden as fertilizer, this amazing fish has greased the wheels of U.S. agriculture and industry.

If we are, in part, a product of our genes, can free will exist? Incisive and engaging, this indispensable tour of evolutionary biology runs the gamut of contemporary debates, from science and religion to our place in the universe.

<>The Stokes Field Guide to Bird Songs: Eastern Region offers you the very best sound recordings available for the birds of eastern North America. It includes more species, more time per species, and more sounds per species than any other audio guide to Eastern bird songs. In addition, the recordings are accompanied by an informative pdf booklet that gives precise call and song descriptions of the 372 species included.

Survival of the Beautiful is a revolutionary new examination of the interplay of beauty, art, and culture in evolution. Taking inspiration from Darwin's observation that animals have a natural aesthetic sense, philosopher and musician David Rothenberg probes why animals, humans included, have innate appreciation for beauty - and why nature is, indeed, beautiful.

In recent years, scientists have hypothesized life-forms that can only be called "weird": organisms that live off acid rather than water, microbes that thrive at temperatures and pressure levels so extreme that their cellular structures should break down, perhaps even organisms that reproduce without DNA. Some of these strange life-forms, unrelated to all life we know, might be nearby: on rock surfaces in the American southwest, hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor, or even in our own bodies. Some, stranger still, might live in Martian permafrost, swim in the dark oceans of Jupiter's moons, or survive in the exotic ices on comets.