Showing results for "What the" in Anthropology

Brought to you by Penguin. A fresh and exciting approach to one of the most controversial subjects of our time ‘Free Speech!’ is a clarion call all over the world, yet what it means today is more contested than ever. Many cultures regard it as dangerous: in China, India, and across the...

Our ancestors crossed deserts, mountains, and oceans without even a whisper of what anyone today might consider modern technology. Those feats of endurance now seem impossible in an age where we take comfort for granted. But what if we could regain some of our lost evolutionary strength by simulating the environmental conditions of our forbears? Investigative journalist and anthropologist Scott Carney takes up the challenge to find out: Can we hack our bodies and use the environment to stimulate our inner biology?

From the creator of Your Fat Friend and co-host of the Maintenance Phase podcast, an explosive indictment of the systemic and cultural bias facing plus-size people. Anti-fatness is everywhere. In What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat, Aubrey Gordon unearths the cultural attitudes and...

Our predictions of the future are a wild fantasy, inextricably linked to our present hopes and fears, biases and ignorance. Whether they be the outlandish leaps predicted in the 1920s, like multi-purpose utility belts with climate control capabilities and planes the size of luxury cruise ships, or the forecasts of the '60s, which didn't anticipate the sexual revolution or women's liberation, the path to the present is littered with failed predictions and incorrect estimations. The best we can do is try to absorb from futurism's checkered past, perhaps learning to do a little better.

We are unprepared for the greatest discovery of modern science. Scientists are confident that there is alien life across the universe yet we have not moved beyond our perception of 'aliens' as Hollywood stereotypes. The time has come to abandon our fixation on alien monsters and place our expectations on solid scientific footing. Using his own expert understanding of life on earth and Darwin's theory of evolution - which applies throughout the universe - Cambridge zoologist Dr Arik Kershenbaum explains what alien life must be like.

We live in the age of the individual. We are supposed to be slim, prosperous, happy, extroverted and popular. This is our culture's image of the perfect self. We see this person everywhere: in advertising, in the press, all over social media. We're told that to be this person, you just have to follow your dreams, that our potential is limitless, that we are the source of our own success. But this model of the perfect self can be extremely dangerous. People are suffering under the torture of this impossible fantasy.

What a Mushroom Lives For pushes today's mushroom renaissance in compelling new directions. For centuries, Western science has promoted a human- and animal-centric framework of what counts as action, agency, movement, and behavior. But, as Michael Hathaway shows, the world-making capacities of mushrooms radically challenge this orthodoxy by revealing the lively dynamism of all forms of life. The book tells the fascinating story of one particularly prized species, the matsutake, and the astonishing ways it is silently yet powerfully shaping worlds.

Brought to you by Penguin. A ground-breaking look at the science of love and connection – and an urgent corrective to some of our most fundamental assumptions about attraction. We’re told that what men and women desire from relationship is different and at odds – he’s looking for novelty...

In the 60,000 years since people began colonising the continents, a recurring feature of human civilisation has been mobility - the constant search for resources and stability. Seismic global events - wars and genocides, revolutions and pandemics - have only accelerated the process. The map of humanity isn't settled, not now, not ever. As climate change tips toward full-blown crisis, economies collapse, governments destabilise and technology disrupts, we're entering a new age of mass migrations - one that will scatter not just the dispossessed but all of us. 

Read by the author, Jenny Kleeman. 'Like Louis Theroux channelling Margaret Atwood' - New Statesman 'Writing, thinking and storytelling at its best' - Ben Judah, author of This Is Europe __________ * $2-3,000 to save the life of a child in Africa * £15,180 to hire a hitman * $368,901 to pay the...

In Holy Disunity: How What Separates Us Can Save Us, Layton E. Williams proposes that our primary calling as humans is not to create unity but rather to seek authentic relationship with God, ourselves, one another, and the world around us. And that means actively engaging those with whom we disagree. Our religious, political, social, and cultural differences can create doubt and tension, but disunity also provides surprising gifts of perspective and grace.

How to Be Animal writes a remarkable story of what it means to be human and argues that at the heart of our psychology is a profound struggle with being animal. As well as piecing together the mystery of how this psychology evolved, the book examines the wide-reaching ways in which it affects our lives, from our politics to the ways we distance ourselves from other species.

It happens everywhere: offices, schools, even your own backyard. And, seemingly, anything can trigger it: cell phones, sirens, bad music, constant distractions, your boss, or even your spouse. We all know certain things get under our skin. Can science explain why? NPR's Joe Palca and Flora Lichtman take you on a scientific quest through psychology, evolutionary biology, anthropology, and other disciplines to uncover the truth about being annoyed.