Genetic Science

After a brazen rescue mission to the Citadel, the crew of the Trash Squid have rescued Captain Axel Finn. During their escape, a dying Admiral Jessup tells Axel he must lead the resistance, and that he must start it where his father made his last stand, on the mining world of Furia. On the planet Runi, Sergeant Jax Brito returns to her family farm to find her father on his deathbed. After dealing with the thugs that put him there, her trip is cut short when a Clipper arrives with a message—the Citadel has been attacked and forces are gathering to take it back.

No one wants to overeat. And certainly no one wants to overeat for years, become overweight, and end up with a high risk of diabetes or heart disease--yet two thirds of Americans do precisely that. Even though we know better, we often eat too much. Why does our behavior betray our own intentions to be lean and healthy? The problem, argues obesity and neuroscience researcher Stephan J. Guyenet, is not necessarily a lack of willpower or an incorrect understanding of what to eat.

Riley Black brings us back in time to prehistoric seas, swamps, forests, and savannas where critical moments in plant evolution unfolded. Each chapter stars plants and animals alike, underscoring how the interactions between species have helped shape the world we call home. As the chapters move upwards in time, Black guides listeners along the burgeoning trunk of the Tree of Life, stopping to appreciate branches of an evolutionary story that links the world we know with one we can only just perceive now through the silent stone, from ancient roots to the present.

At first glance, the planet Rada seems like a lush paradise. But the ruling families, all boasting genetically enhanced abilities, are in constant competition for power - and none more so than the Adlers and the Baenas. For generations, the powerful families have pushed and pulled each other in a dance for dominance. Until a catastrophic betrayal from within changes everything.

Dr. Carl Sagan takes us on a great adventure, offering his vivid and startling insight into the brain of man and beast, the origin of human intelligence, the function of our most haunting legends - and their amazing links to recent discoveries.

In an oil refinery deep inside the Brazilian jungle, the Talbot clan awaits a breakthrough as their scientists work nonstop to produce usable fuel. But on the verge of success, an oversight brings down the wrath of both a giant horde and the persistent Brazilian military. In a shocking development, Mike discovers a possible zombie liaison within their ranks, one that could save the day—or destroy them all—and it’s unclear which way she leans. Hostages, treachery, sacrifice and fierce battle mark this chapter in the Zombie Fallout saga...just as hope is finally on the horizon.

Across the world, thousands of people are shocked by a notification that they once chose to have a memory removed. Now they are being given an opportunity to get that memory back. Four individuals are filled with new doubts, grappling with the unexpected question of whether to remember unknown events, or to leave them buried forever.

Synthetic biology promises to reveal how life is created and how it can be re-created, enabling scientists to rewrite the rules of our reality. It could help us, for example, heal without prescription medications, grow meat without harvesting animals, or confront our looming climate catastrophe. Synthetic biology will determine the ways in which we conceive future generations and how we define family, how we identify disease and treat aging, where we make our homes, and how we nourish ourselves.

Are you who they say you are? London, 2052. An ID tag is embedded in the flesh of your neck. Your every move is tracked. Your genes tell the State nearly everything about you. Everything you were. Everything you are. Everything you will be. For Freya, Kane, and the rest of this fledgling generation, the battle to break free of their genetic horoscopes will not be without bloodshed....

Powerful necromancers are on the move, and the dungeon has become a battleground. Without his faithful Wisp, Cal's mind slips - he begins creating traps and monsters that go against his already loose morals. A direct threat from an unexpected force causes Cal's mind to stabilize, but he doesn't know for how long. Using every resource at his disposal, he works to keep his mind clear while he funds a search for his lost companion.

Synthia Cross is a state-of-the-art masterwork - and a fantasy come true for her creator. Dr. Jeremiah Machten is a groundbreaker in neuro-networks and artificial intelligence. Synthia is also showing signs of emergent behavior she's not wired to understand. Repeatedly wiped of her history, she's struggling to answer crucial questions about her past. And when Dr. Machten's true intentions are called into question, Synthia knows it's time to go beyond her limits - because Machten's fervor to create the perfect A.I. is concealing a vengeful and deadly personal agenda.

Martin loved his job, believing he truly changed the world for the better. As a researcher at Replica Imagination, he was a small cog in the goliath's wheel. The mega-corp helped reunite cloned pets with their loving families. He wished his talent could be used in the realm of human cloning, helping the terminally ill, but the legal and moralistic hurdles to such research seemed insurmountable. Except... Replica Imagination's esteemed image falters as reality slips through the cracks. With caution tossed to the wind, Martin brazenly investigates, going into places he never should.

She Has Her Mother's Laugh presents a profoundly original perspective on what we pass along from generation to generation. Charles Darwin played a crucial part in turning heredity into a scientific question, and yet he failed spectacularly to answer it. The birth of genetics in the early 1900s seemed to do precisely that. Gradually, people translated their old notions about heredity into a language of genes. We need a new definition of what heredity is and, through Carl Zimmer's lucid exposition and storytelling, this resounding tour de force delivers it.

Nous sommes à l'ère de la deuxième humanité. Il y en a eu une avant. Il y en aura une... après. En Antarctique, le paléontologue Charles Wells et son expédition découvrent, tout au fond d'un lac souterrain, les restes de squelettes humains d'environ 17 mètres de long. À Paris, le projet d'étude de son fils David sur le rapetissement humain est sélectionné par un tout nouveau programme de recherches, consacré à "l'évolution de notre espèce".

For millennia, the Weave, an alliance of species, have fought to resist the telepathic Amplitur, who strive to unite all self-aware life-forms in their great "Purpose." The Weave is slowly losing ground, but for both sides, warfare focuses more on outthinking and outmaneuvering your foe than destruction. In fact, most regard violence as hideously barbaric, and even the thought of harming another sentient being is beyond imagining.

Geneticists like David Reich have made astounding advances in the field of genomics, which is proving to be as important as archaeology, linguistics, and written records as a means to understand our ancestry. In Who We Are and How We Got Here, Reich allows listeners to discover how the human genome provides not only all the information a human embryo needs to develop but also the hidden story of our species.

Picture yourself in the Cretaceous period. It’s a sunny afternoon in the Hell Creek of ancient Montana 66 million years ago. A Triceratops horridus ambles along the edge of the forest. In a matter of hours, everything here will be wiped away. Lush verdure will be replaced with fire. Tyrannosaurus rex will be toppled from their throne, along with every other species of non-avian dinosaur no matter their size, diet, or disposition. They just don’t know it yet.

We are living through a period that is unique in human history. For the first time in more than ten thousand years, the rate of human population growth is slowing down. In the middle of this century population growth will stop, and the number of people on Earth will start to decline—fast. In this provocative book, award-winning science writer Henry Gee offers a concise, brilliantly told history of our species—and argues that we are on a rapid one-way trip to extinction.

This is the story of an apparently young, amnesiac girl whose alarmingly unhuman needs and abilities lead her to a startling conclusion: She is in fact a genetically modified, 53-year-old vampire. Forced to discover what she can about her stolen former life, she must at the same time learn who wanted - and still wants - to destroy her and those she cares for and how she can save herself.

Book 5: Free the North!: Peace in the south. People settling in. Intelligent creatures moving to Vii from the RV Traveler. Soon, meat will be in short supply. Hungry people will fight for what they need. Braden knows that livestock abounds in the north. It's time to go get some. But free trade in the north has been declared illegal by a new governor.