Showing titles in Biological Sciences

As one of the world's leading scientists examining how our DNA shapes differences in temperament, temptation and behaviour, Harden has seen first-hand how we - in public and in our most private relationships - continue to struggle with the ancient tensions between nature and nurture, freedom and...

No other life form on the planet has generated a brain like ours. How did a bundle of cells weighing just 1.2 kg give rise to conscious, self-aware beings capable of understanding time, language, mathematics and music, of exploring outer space and sequencing their own DNA? The answer to such questions is a seven-million-year saga. How the Mind Changed is the definitive audiobook on human brain evolution: a sweeping natural history.

Imagine a jazz musician, improvising on a theme. Then imagine that he is able to play half a dozen instruments - not one after another, but almost simultaneously, switching effortlessly between instruments and musical styles with hardly a pause for breath. If you can countenance that, you are...

Finding herself in a new home in Brighton, Kate Bradbury sets about transforming her decked, barren backyard into a beautiful wildlife garden. She documents the unbuttoning of the earth and the rebirth of the garden, the rewilding of a tiny urban space. But while she's doing this Kate's neighbours continue to pave and deck their gardens locking them away, the wildlife she tries to save is further threatened, and she feels she's fighting an uphill battle.

For readers of Bill Bryson, Neil deGrasse Tyson and Siddhartha Mukherjee, a wondrous, wildly ambitious, and vastly entertaining work of popular science that tells the awe-inspiring story of the elements that make up the human body, and how these building blocks of life travelled billions of...

From veteran entertainment reporter Sam Kashner and biographer Nancy Schoenberger comes the definitive account of the greatest Hollywood love story ever told—the romance of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. Kashner has interviewed Elizabeth Taylor numerous times and is the only journalist...

In many ways, insects are just like us. Elaborate mating rituals, a variety of parenting styles, and a plethora of careers — from architects and engineers, to farmers and ranchers. Like us, they’re able to share complex information essential for survival, significantly impact their environment, and recycle. But insects outdo us in so many respects. They are terrestrial, but some can live underwater.

In the Rutherford and Fry's comprehensive guidebook, they tell the complete story of the universe and absolutely everything in it - skipping over some of the boring parts. It's a celebration of the weirdness of the cosmos, the strangeness of humans and the very fact that amid all the mess, we can somehow make sense of life.

With irresistibly persuasive vigor, David Shenk debunks the long-standing notion of genetic “giftedness,” and presents dazzling new scientific research showing how greatness is in the reach of every individual. DNA does not make us who we are. “Forget everything you think you know about...

Living at the limits of our ordinary perception, mosses are a common but largely unnoticed element of the natural world. Gathering Moss is a beautifully written mix of science and personal reflection that invites listeners to explore and learn from the elegantly simple lives of mosses.   

The enchanted island of Corfu was home to Gerald Durrell and his family for five years before the Second World War. For the passionate young zoologist, Corfu was a natural paradise, teeming with strange birds and beasts that he could collect watch and care for. But life was not without its problems - Gerald’s family often objected to his animal-collecting activities, especially when the beasts wound up in the family’s villa or even worse - the fridge.

Brought to you by Penguin. Delving into the recent discovery of the brain's immune system, Dr Monty Lyman reveals the extraordinary implications for our physical and mental health. Up until the last ten years, we have misunderstood a fundamental aspect of human health. Although the brain and the...

Susan S. Scott is an experienced psychotherapist who, due to a back injury, was forced to abandon her therapist's couch and walk for therapy. Through her extended strolls through nature, she discovered the ingenious ability of trees to grow around obstacles and, in essence, heal themselves. The result of Dr. Scott's musings is Healing with Nature. This collection of stories and photos describes a different aspect of the healing process.

In this lively and illuminating discussion of his landmark research, esteemed primatologist Frans de Waal argues that human morality is not imposed from above but instead comes from within. Moral behavior does not begin and end with religion but is in fact a product of evolution. For many years, de Waal has observed chimpanzees soothe distressed neighbors and bonobos share their food. Now he delivers fascinating fresh evidence for the seeds of ethical behavior in primate societies that further cements the case for the biological origins of human fairness.

From intelligence to emotion, for centuries science has told us that men and women are fundamentally different. But this is not the whole story. Shedding light on controversial research and investigating the ferocious gender wars in biology, psychology and anthropology, Angela Saini takes...

When Speaker Newt Gingrich greeted Dr. David Lewis in his office overlooking the National Mall, he looked at Dr. Lewis and said: "You know you’re going to be fired for this, don’t you?" "I know," Dr. Lewis replied, "I just hope to stay out of prison." Gingrich had just read Dr. Lewis' commentary in Nature, titled "EPA Science: Casualty of Election Politics".

Antibiotics are powerful drugs that can prevent and treat infections, but they are becoming less effective as a result of drug resistance. Resistance develops because the bacteria that antibiotics target can evolve ways to defend themselves against these drugs. When antibiotics fail, there is very little else to prevent an infection from spreading. Unnecessary use of antibiotics in both humans and animals accelerates the evolution of drug-resistant bacteria, with potentially catastrophic personal and global consequences. 

In this series of 24 fascinating lectures, an acclaimed teacher and psychologist gives you a bio-psychological perspective on both the way we humans navigate and react to the world around us and an understanding of the ways in which that process is ever-changing.

Among the estimated 100 billion solar systems in the known universe, evolving life is surely abundant. That evolution is a process of "becoming" in each case. Since Newton, we have turned to physics to assess reality. But physics alone cannot tell us where we came from, how we arrived, and why our world has evolved past the point of unicellular organisms to an extremely complex biosphere.

For over two centuries, as rulers have risen and fallen and wars have raged, one majestic oak tree has lived out an epic drama. From germination in 1780 to adapting to the changing climate of the modern age, its struggles and triumphs took place far from human eyes. That is, until one day a young man named Laurent Tillon came across it, and a decades-long relationship began ... In this dazzling book, biodiversity expert Tillon narrates the story of the tree he calls Quercus