Showing titles in Biological Sciences

“Inspiring, refreshing and practical - a delightfully lucid guide to healing yourself.” –Bessel van der Kolk, MD., New York Times bestselling author of The Body Keeps the Score From two mind-body practitioners comes the new essential self-healing bible—a revolutionary body-first guide to...

In a quiet forest in Sweden, a cluster of Amanita muscaria mushrooms, with their iconic red caps dotted with white spots, push through a bed of soft reindeer moss. These crimson fungi interact with all manner of species in the forest—including a squirrel, who takes a nibble and wanders away in an altered state. These enchanted mushrooms also form partnerships with the trees, trading nutrients under the soil.

Capybaras possess such a calm and gentle nature that many other animal species treat them as friends—including the birds who ride on their backs. In this episode, we follow a capybara as she lounges in the lagoon and covers herself in mud to repel bugs. And we’ll listen as she collectively parents her pups with the others in her herd, communicating through a complex language of whistles, clicks, and purrs.

The study of human evolution is advancing rapidly. Newly discovered fossil evidence is adding ever more pieces to the puzzle of our past, while revolutionary technological advances in the study of ancient DNA are completely reshaping theories of early human populations and migrations. In this Very Short Introduction, Bernard Wood traces the history of paleoanthropology from its beginnings in the 18th century to the very latest fossil finds.

Neuroscientist Camilla Nord reveals how the small things we do to lift our mood during the course of a day - a piece of chocolate, a coffee, chatting to a friend - often work on the same pathways in our brain as the latest pharmacological treatments for mental health disorders. Whether they help us to manage pain, learn from experience or expend energy on the things that are important for our survival, these conscious actions are part of a complex self-regulating process that is unique to each individual and the constant backdrop to our everyday lives.

What do we really know of the intimate-and intense-moments of care, kinship, violence, politics, indifference and desire that occur between human and non-human animals? Built on extensive ethnographic fieldwork in the mountain villages of India's Central Himalayas, Radhika Govindrajan's book...

What would happen to dogs if humans simply disappeared? Would dogs be able to survive on their own without us? A Dog's World imagines a posthuman future for dogs, revealing how dogs would survive - and possibly even thrive - and explaining how this new and revolutionary perspective can guide how we interact with dogs now. 

In 1985, The Observer magazine sent Douglas Adams to Madagascar to look for the exotic and potentially extinct aye-aye lemur. There he met zoologist Mark Carwardine, and together they made a radio pilot about their travels, In Search of the Aye-Aye. This led to a hugely popular radio series, Last Chance to See, later adapted as a best-selling book. Douglas Adams died in 2001, but his friend Stephen Fry took his place for a follow-up 20th anniversary television series, broadcast on BBC Two in 2009.

Brought to you by Penguin. A much-loved classic of nature writing from environmentalist and the author of Waterlog, Roger Deakin, Wildwood is an exploration of the element wood in nature, our culture and our lives. From the walnut tree at his Suffolk home, he embarks upon a quest that takes him...

Brought to you by Penguin. Why do some people become radicalized? Who is most susceptible to ideological thinking? Can we unchain our minds from toxic dogmas? Regardless of your political stance, this book will challenge you to reassess your convictions – and what they are doing to your brain...

In the fall of 1980, Genentech, Inc., a little-known California genetic engineering company, became the overnight darling of Wall Street, raising over $38 million in its initial public stock offering. Lacking marketed products or substantial profit, the firm nonetheless saw its share price escalate from $35 to $89 in the first few minutes of trading. Coming at a time of economic recession and declining technological competitiveness in the United States, the event ignited a period of speculative frenzy over biotechnology.

First heard every weekday morning at 5.58am on BBC Radio 4, Tweet of the Day captured the imagination of early risers and bird lovers, proving so popular that it was named Radio Programme of the Year 2014. Each episode begins with a bird call or song, followed by fascinating ornithological detail about its owner. This collection contains every edition from the first series, British Birds.

Weaving decades of field observations with exciting new discoveries about the brain, Carl Safina's landmark book offers an intimate view of animal behavior to challenge the fixed boundary between humans and nonhuman animals.

Our insatiable demand for animals - for jewelry, pets, medicine, meat, trophies, and fur - is driving a worldwide poaching epidemic, threatening the continued existence of countless species. Rachel Nuwer, an award-winning science journalist with a background in ecology, takes listeners on a narrative journey to the front lines of the trade: to killing fields in Africa, traditional medicine black markets in China, and wild meat restaurants in Vietnam. Through exhaustive first-hand reporting that took her to 10 countries, Nuwer explores the forces currently driving the demand.

In this startling study of human emotion, Dacher Keltner investigates an unanswered question of human evolution: If humans are hardwired to lead lives that are "nasty, brutish, and short," why have we evolved with positive emotions like gratitude, amusement, awe, and compassion that promote ethical action and cooperative societies? Born to Be Good takes us on a journey through scientific discovery, personal narrative, and Eastern philosophy.

Elephants are the largest land animals in the world. They are also intensely social and have advanced long-term memories. In this episode, a parade of Asian elephants makes its way through the Sri Lankan forest to a lake for drinks and mud baths, stopping periodically for group naps. The female leading the parade uses infrasonic rumbles—inaudible to humans, but traveling as far as two miles along the surface of the Earth as seismic waves—to invite friends and family around the forest to join her at the reservoir.

A Pioneering Neuroscientist’s Essential Secrets for a Life of Greater Happiness and Freedom When he was a troubled 12-year-old boy, Jim Doty entered a magic shop looking for an entertaining illusion. Instead, he met an extraordinary woman named Ruth who taught him real magic—not illusions...

A leading expert in epigenetics—how genes switch on and off—provides a revolutionary, holistic, and personalized approach to better health by improving how your genes behave to prevent and reverse common ailments, chronic illnesses, and life-threatening diseases, including cardiovascular...

We avoid boredom at all costs. It makes us feel restless and agitated. Desperate for something to do, we play games on our phones, retie our shoes, or even count ceiling tiles. And if we escape it this time, eventually it will strike again. But what if we listened to boredom instead of banishing it? Psychologists James Danckert and John Eastwood contend that boredom isn't bad for us. It's just that we do a bad job of heeding its guidance. 

Bloomsbury presents The Cuckoo's Lea: The Forgotten History of Birds and Place by Michael J. Warren, read by John Sackville Birds have long inspired our emotional and imaginative connections to physical environments, but where did it all begin? Hidden in the names of English towns and villages...