Showing results for "History of Engineering and Technology" in Biological Sciences

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.

A true scientific pause-resister that traces a remarkable scientific breakthrough (the isolation of endorphins in the brain) as dedicated scientists race - not only with their fellow scientists - but against time and the profit hungry giant pharmaceutical companies. This audiobook chronicles the fascinating discovery of endorphins, the body's natural painkiller.

G. Wayne Miller has dramatically and meticulously reconstructed an amazing true story: how a group of renegade Minnesota surgeons, led by Dr. Walt Lillehei, made medical history by becoming the first doctors to operate deep inside the human heart.

The discovery of DNA’s structure is the story of five towering minds in pursuit of the advancement of science, and for almost all of them, the prospect of fame and immortality: Watson, Crick, Rosalind Franklin, Maurice Wilkins, and Linus Pauling. Howard Markel skillfully recreates the intense intellectual journey, and fraught personal relationships, that ultimately led to a spectacular breakthrough. But it is Rosalind Franklin - fiercely determined, relentless, and an outsider at Cambridge and the University of London in the 1950s - who becomes a focal point for Markel.

Humanity has reached a critical moment. Our world is unsettled and rapidly changing, and we face existential risks over the next century. Various outcomes - good and bad - are possible. Yet our approach to the future is characterized by short-term thinking, polarizing debates, alarmist rhetoric, and pessimism. In this short, exhilarating book, renowned scientist and best-selling author Martin Rees argues that humanity’s prospects depend on our taking a very different approach to planning for tomorrow.

Charles Darwin's foremost biographer, Janet Browne, delivers a vivid and accessible introduction to the book that permanently altered our understanding of what it is to be human. A sensation on its publication in 1859, The Origin of the Species profoundly shocked Victorian readers by calling into question the belief in a Creator with its description of evolution through natural selection. And Darwin's seminal work is nearly as controversial today.

Scientists often challenge conventional wisdom and spark debates that last for generations. But no scientist has fuelled more debate than Charles Darwin. To some he is the revolutionary 'father' of evolution. To others he is the perverse 'originator' of modern eugenics. In The Darwin Myth: The Life and Lies of Charles Darwin, author Benjamin Wiker brings these conflicting identities to light.

James T. Costa takes listeners on a journey from Darwin's youth and travels on the HMS Beagle to Down House, his bustling home of 40 years. We accompany Darwin in his myriad pursuits against the backdrop of his enduring marriage, chronic illness, grief at the loss of three children, and joy in scientific revelation. At each chapter's end, Costa shows how we, too, can investigate the wonders of nature at work, with directions on how to re-create Darwin's experiments.

John C. Kendrew (1917-1997) was a pioneer in structural biology and a catalyst for the emergence of molecular biology in the second half of the 20th century. He was the first person to determine the three-dimensional structure of a protein at atomic resolution and, for this, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1962. Kendrew ultimately became an international organizer, administrator, and advocate for science, and his expansive legacy lives on today.

The latest and most bitterly contested battle in the culture war is the controversy over Darwin and intelligent design. But much of what you've heard about it is wrong. Jonathan Wells, a battle-hardened veteran with doctorates in biology and theology, sets the record straight.

The Voyage of the Beagle - or, to give it its full title, Journal of researches into the Natural History and Geology of the Countries visited during the Voyage round the World of H.M.S. Beagle under command of Captain FitzRoy, R.N. - is much more than merely an account of Darwin's scientific observations in his 1831 - 36 travels across the globe: it is fine travel writing in its own right.

The Age of Living Machines describes some of the most exciting new developments and the scientists and engineers who helped create them. Virus-built batteries. Protein-based water filters. Cancer-detecting nanoparticles. Mind-reading bionic limbs. Computer-engineered crops. Together they highlight the promise of the technology revolution of the 21st century to overcome some of the greatest humanitarian, medical, and environmental challenges of our time.