Biological Sciences

Dawkins' brilliant reformulation of the theory of natural selection has the distinction of having provoked as much excitement and interest outside the scientific community as within it....

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Guns, Germs and Steel examines the rise of civilization and the issues its development has raised throughout history....

Why is addiction “perfectly logical” to an addict? The answer is found in a single chemical in your brain: dopamine. Dopamine ensured the survival of early man. Thousands of years later, it is the source of our most basic behaviors and cultural ideas - and progress itself....

Cosmos is one of the bestselling science books of all time. In clear-eyed prose, Sagan reveals a jewel-like blue world inhabited by a life form that is just beginning to discover its own identity and to venture into the vast ocean of space....

Few places have been as influential as the Indian subcontinent in shaping the course of life on Earth. Yet its evolution has remained largely unchronicled. Indica: A Deep Natural History of the Indian Subcontinent fills this gap....

Neurobiology is a notoriously difficult subject, but Neurobiology For Dummies explains the essentials in terms anyone can understand. In this updated edition, fresh examples highlight the latest research, so you'll be prepared with a current understanding of the science.

What’s the single most important thing you can do during pregnancy? What does watching TV do to a child’s brain? What’s the best way to handle temper tantrums? Scientists know....

In 1637, one Dutchman paid as much for a single tulip bulb as the going price of a town house in Amsterdam. Three and a half centuries later, Amsterdam is once again the mecca for people who care passionately about one particular plant....

An oddly compelling, often hilarious exploration of the strange lives of our bodies postmortem....

Why is there such a gap between what you want to do and what you actually do? The host of Ask Science Mike explains why our desires and our real lives are so wildly different - and what you can do to close the gap....

The authors of the best-selling Bold and The Rise of Superman explore altered states of consciousness and how they can ignite passion, fuel creativity, and accelerate problem solving....

Jared Diamond explores how the extraordinary human animal, in a remarkably short time, developed the capacity to rule the world...and the means to irrevocably destroy it....

Why did humans abandon hunting and gathering for sedentary communities dependent on livestock and cereal grains and governed by precursors of today's states? Find out....

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 Darwinian Trap explores how humans are wired to seek short-term success at the expense of long-term survival—an evolutionary “glitch” that explains everything from toxic workplaces to climate change.

In The Suggestible Brain, world-renowned expert on the science of suggestion Amir Raz, PhD, brings together cognitive aspects of psychology, sociology, and anthropology with issues in our contemporary culture and media.

For over three decades, Ray Kurzweil has been one of the most respected and provocative advocates of the role of technology in our future. In his classic The Age of Spiritual Machines, he argued that computers would soon rival the full range of human intelligence at its best....

In this landmark book of popular science, Daniel E. Lieberman gives us a lucid and engaging account of how the human body evolved over millions of years....

From Pulitzer Prize-winning and #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Emperor of All Maladies and The Gene, The Song of The Cell is the third book in this extraordinary writer's exploration of what it means to be human....

The science of emotion is in the midst of a revolution on par with the discovery of relativity in physics and natural selection in biology....

A best-selling author, neuroscientist, and computer engineer unveils a theory of intelligence that will revolutionize our understanding of the brain and the future of AI....

From a renowned historian comes a ground-breaking narrative of humanity’s creation and evolution, a number one international best seller that explores the ways in which biology and history have defined us and enhanced our understanding of what it means to be “human”....

In this groundbreaking work, world-renowned Buddhist teacher Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche invites us to join him in unlocking the secrets behind the practice of meditation....

The Buddha and other great teachers were born with brains built essentially like anyone else’s - and then they changed their brains in ways that changed the world....

From the time she was a girl, Jane Goodall dreamed of a life spent working with animals. Finally she had her wish. When she was 26 years old, she ventured into the forests of Africa to observe chimpanzees in the wild....

Neurobiology is a notoriously difficult subject, but Neurobiology For Dummies explains the essentials in terms anyone can understand. This fun and accessible book covers the fundamentals, covering the anatomy, physiology, and pathology of the nervous system. Students in fields like neuroscience and pharmacology will get a complete overview of the molecular and cellular mechanisms of the nervous system, making it easier to complete coursework and pass exams. In this updated edition, fresh examples highlight the latest research, so you'll be prepared with a current understanding of the science.

In The Suggestible Brain, world-renowned expert on the science of suggestion Amir Raz, PhD, brings together cognitive aspects of psychology, sociology, and anthropology with issues in our contemporary culture and media alongside a series of case studies of patients with disorders ranging from Tourette’s syndrome to false pregnancies, lactose intolerance, and asthma to show exactly how suggestions can cut deep into our brains, shake our fundamental knowledge, and override our core human values.

Humans, it turns out, are intrinsically wired to seek short-term success at the expense of long-term prosperity. Kristian Rönn, an entrepreneur formerly affiliated with the University of Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute, calls these deeply rooted impulses “Darwinian demons.” These forces, a by-product of natural selection, can lead us to act in shortsighted ways that harm others—and even imperil our survival as a species. If this evolutionary glitch is left unchecked, the consequences will grow in magnitude as the power of technology accelerates.

Insects surround us. They fuel life on Earth through their roles as pollinators, predators, and prey, but rarely do we consider the outsize influence they have had on our culture and civilization. Their anatomy and habits inform how we live, work, create art, and innovate. From ancient etchings to avant-garde art, from bug-based meals to haute couture, The Insect Epiphany proves that our world would look very different without insects, not just because they are crucial to our ecosystems, but because they have shaped and inspired so many aspects of what makes us human.

The open ocean, far from the shore and miles above the seafloor, is a vast and formidable habitat that is home to the most abundant life on our planet, from giant squid and jellyfish to anglerfish with bioluminescent lures that draw prey into their toothy mouths. Into the Great Wide Ocean takes listeners inside the peculiar world of the seagoing scientists who are providing tantalizing new insights into how the animals of the open ocean solve the problems of their existence.

The Woman Who Couldn't Wake Up tells Anna's story-and the broader story of her diagnosis, idiopathic hypersomnia (IH), a shadowy sibling of narcolepsy that has emerged as a focus of sleep research and patient advocacy. Quinn Eastman explores the science around sleepiness, recounting how researchers have been searching for more than a century for the substances that tip the brain into slumber.

What can we learn about sustaining love from the behavior of seahorses? How can the webs of flying spiders help us channel our creativity? What guidance do the hunting patterns of red-tailed hawks offer us about deepening our insight? In Earthly Bodies, Vanessa Chakour shares pivotal encounters with creatures that connect her to the rhythms and demands of the primal, showing how to effectively rely on the intelligence of gut instinct; the magnetic pull of attraction; the body’s mandate for restorative rest; and the sacred bonds of love.

In a tradition that runs from John Muir to Bear Grylls, Searles finds a fellowship with nature and a deeper meaning in the world of bears. Do bears understand things we don't? Are they dialed in to some greater natural force? Unlike us, bears waste little time on unreasonable fears. Bears are fully in the moment. They have an inner peace that seems to offset their power and strength. That may explain why no other animal on the planet is as revered as the bear.

With a shrinking wilderness and global warming, the future of the wolverine is uncertain. The Wolverine Way reveals the natural history of this species and the forces that threaten its future, engagingly told by Douglas Chadwick, who volunteered with the Glacier Wolverine Project. This five-year study in Glacier National Park—which involved dealing with blizzards, grizzlies, sheer mountain walls, and other daily challenges to survival—uncovered key missing information about the wolverine's habitat, social structure, and reproduction habits.

Human life, and how we came to be, is one of the greatest scientific and philosophical questions of our time. This compact and accessible book presents a modern view of human evolution. Written by a leading authority, it lucidly and engagingly explains not only the evolutionary process, but the technologies currently used to unravel the evolutionary past and emergence of Homo sapiens.