Genetic Science

We are living through the most prosperous age in all of human history, yet we are listless, divided, and miserable. Wealth and comfort are unparalleled, but our political landscape is unmoored, and rates of suicide, lone­liness, and chronic illness continue to skyrocket. How do we explain the gap between these truths? And how should we respond? For evolutionary biologists Heather Heying and Bret Weinstein, the cause of our troubles is clear: The accelerat­ing rate of change in the modern world has outstripped the capacity of our brains and bodies to adapt.

Persephone Station, a seemingly backwater planet that has largely been ignored by the United Republic of Worlds, becomes the focus for the Serrao-Orlov Corporation as the planet has a few secrets the corporation wants to exploit. Rosie, owner of Monk's Bar, serves members of a rather exclusive criminal class and those who seek to employ them. Angel, ex-marine and head of a semi-organized band of beneficent criminals, wayward assassins, and washed-up mercenaries with a penchant for doing the honorable thing, is asked to perform a job for Rosie.

Equal parts Sapiens, Behave, and Superintelligence, but wholly original in scope, A Brief History of Intelligence offers a paradigm shift for how we understand neuroscience and AI. Artificial intelligence entrepreneur Max Bennett chronicles the five “breakthroughs” in the evolution of human intelligence and reveals what brains of the past can tell us about the AI of tomorrow.

In the middle of the night, in a house on a quiet street in suburban Minneapolis, intruders silently murder Luke Ellis' parents and load him into a black SUV. The operation takes less than two minutes. Luke will wake up at The Institute, in a room that looks just like his own, except there's no window. And outside his door are other doors, behind which are other kids with special talents - telekinesis and telepathy - who got to this place the same way Luke did: Kalisha, Nick, George, Iris, and 10-year-old Avery Dixon.

The wonder of flight. The science of evolution. From both, Richard Dawkins weaves a fascinating account of how nature and humans have learned to overcome the pull of gravity and take to the skies. Have you ever dreamt you could fly? Or imagined what it would be like to glide and swoop through the sky like a bird? Do you let your mind soar to unknown, magical spaces?

George Galen is a brilliant scientist, a pioneer in gene therapy. But Galen is dangerously insane. He has created a method to alter human DNA, not just to heal diseases, but also to "improve" people - make them stronger, make them able to heal more quickly...and make them compliant to his will.

The Genevians are at war with Nietzschea...and they’re losing. In a last-ditch hope, the Genevian mech program was founded. Its goal to augment humans into cyborg fighting machines; mechanized warriors sent to hold the front lines against an enemy that was storming a hundred worlds. Yet few wished to undergo the brutal process, and so criminals were used, their minds enslaved by control chips and obedience enforced through discipline.

In the mysterious city of Queen Mab, the forces of light and darkness are locked in a murderous struggle for truth. The dedicated agents of the Holy Inquisition battle with their shadowy counterparts, the infamous Cognitae, to discover the encrypted identity of the enigmatic, all-powerful King in Yellow. Caught at the heart of this struggle is the pariah Alizebeth Bequin. Bequin must withstand an onslaught of angels, daemons, and even the monstrous warriors of the Traitor Legions, to unpick the greatest riddle of her life.

Earth...Population: 1 Her name is Eve14. She is the result of a 1000-year project by the robots of Earth to restore the planet after all life was wiped out in 2065. 27 robotic minds, copied from Earth's great scientists, carried on after the species died. They mixed and matched those minds in endless combinations, producing a whole race of machines with human personalities. Immortal, but with memories of sensations they can no longer experience, some renegade robots now have a daring agenda. They want human bodies.

On his thirty-sixth birthday, Travis Cornell hikes into the foothills of the Santa Ana Mountains. But his path is soon blocked by a bedraggled Golden Retriever who will let him go no further into the dark woods. That morning, Travis had been desperate to find some happiness in his lonely, seemingly cursed life. What he finds is a dog of alarming intelligence that soon leads him into a relentless storm of mankind’s darkest creation....

One of the most famous and influential books of its (or any) time, The Origin of Species is, surprisingly, little read. True enough, most people know what it says, or think they do, at any rate. The first comprehensive statement of the theory of natural selection, it does, indeed, provide the basic argument and demonstration of what we think of as Darwinism.

A simple DNA test is all it takes. Just a quick mouth swab, and soon, you'll be matched with your perfect partner - the one you're genetically made for. That's the promise made by Match Your DNA. A decade ago, the company announced that they had found the gene that pairs each of us with our soul mate. Since then, millions of people around the world have been matched. But the discovery has its downsides: Test results have led to the breakup of countless relationships and upended the traditional ideas of dating, romance, and love.

Having done field work in New Guinea for more than 30 years, Jared Diamond presents the geographical and ecological factors that have shaped the modern world. From the viewpoint of an evolutionary biologist, he highlights the broadest movements both literal and conceptual on every continent since the Ice Age, and examines societal advances such as writing, religion, government, and technology.

When Lenina and Bernard visit a savage reservation, we experience how Utopia can destroy humanity. Cloning, feel-good drugs, anti-aging programs, and total social control through politics, programming, and media: has Aldous Huxley accurately predicted our future? With a storyteller's genius, he weaves these ethical controversies in a compelling narrative that dawns in the year 632 A.F. (After Ford, the deity). When Lenina and Bernard visit a savage reservation, we experience how Utopia can destroy humanity.

The sun is bloated, diseased, dying perhaps. Beneath its baneful light, Shadrapar, last of all cities, harbours fewer than 100,000 human souls. Built on the ruins of countless civilisations, Shadrapar is a museum, a midden, an asylum, a prison on a world that is ever more alien to humanity. Bearing witness to the desperate struggle for existence between life old and new is Stefan Advani: rebel, outlaw, prisoner, survivor.

After one great battle, the Architects disappeared. Yet humanity’s fragile peace is brief. For, 40 years later, the galaxy’s greatest alien enemy has returned. This time, the artefacts that preserved entire worlds from destruction are ineffective. And no planet is safe. The Human Colony worlds are in turmoil as they face extinction. Some believe alliances with other species can save them. Others insist humanity must fight alone. But no one has the firepower or technology to ensure victory, as the Architects loom ever closer.

Sixteen-year-old Nate is a Gem - a Genetically Engineered Medical Surrogate - created by Gathos City scientists as a cure for the elite from the fatal lung-rot ravaging the population. As a child, Nate was smuggled out of the laboratory where he was held captive and taken into the Withers - a quarantined, lawless region. He manages to survive by becoming a Tinkerer, fixing broken tech in exchange for food or a safe place to sleep. When he meets Reed, a kind and fiercely protective boy who makes his heart race, Nate finds the family he's always longed for.

In a forest wilderness, a dungeon reappears after surviving a nation ending war. The magical shock has devastated both the dungeon and its occupants, in more ways than one. Doc find himself alone in this new place, surrounded with unknown dangers. Claire, Doc's partner and guide, finds herself at facing the nightmares she wrought using Doc, having freed herself from her mother's control. The pressure mounts on both as the damage is made clear. Even then, the wilderness surrounding them is filled with all manner of danger and traps, everything ruled by the law of the strong.

After losing his job and family, Flint Reed finds himself in the middle of a terrorist attack. With nothing but his wits and experience as a former Union police officer, he must do everything he can to stay alive. As he soon discovers, however, there are also hostages, and no one is coming to save them. All hope falls to Flint. But as he fights to navigate the building, the real answers begin to unravel. What are the terrorists really after, and why are they so intent on getting into the vault?

Après avoir quitté une Terre mourante du fait des erreurs de nos sociétés, l'Arche, premier vaisseau à coloniser une exoplanète, arrive au bout d'un long voyage de 80 ans. Les colons sortent de leurs caissons cryogéniques et découvrent ce qui doit devenir un nouveau commencement pour l'humanité. Une nouvelle planète, un monde principalement végétal baptisé Eden.