Genetic Science

Kaiden, a young security officer, flees the Clone Council in an effort to remain free and save what is left of his family. The world has been emptied of natural-born humans in a catastrophic plague planned and executed by his own mother. Billions now lie dead and moldering in silent megacities on a desiccating planet, and his mother still seeks to control him from beyond the grave.

Who will inherit the dying earth? The Ark Project is the epic story of a desperate attempt to redefine what it means to be human in a world perched on the edge of destruction with the technology to engineer humans capable of living in space. When one scientist takes it upon herself to make the hard decision of who gets to live and who must die, Kaiden, a courageous security officer plagued with memories from a past he did not live and a family he never had, sets out to stop her.

Can there be freedom and free will in a deterministic world? Renowned philosopher Daniel Dennett emphatically answers "yes!" Using an array of provocative formulations, Dennett sets out to show how we alone among the animals have evolved minds that give us free will and morality. Weaving a richly detailed narrative, Dennett explains in a series of strikingly original arguments - drawing upon evolutionary biology, cognitive neuroscience, economics, and philosophy - that far from being an enemy of traditional explorations of freedom, morality, and meaning, the evolutionary perspective can be an indispensable ally.

For most of us, the story of mammal evolution starts after the asteroid impact that killed the dinosaurs, but over the last 20 years, scientists have uncovered new fossils and used new technologies that have upended this story. In Beasts Before Us, paleontologist Elsa Panciroli charts the emergence of the mammal lineage, Synapsida, beginning at their murky split from the reptiles in the Carboniferous period, over 300 million years ago. They made the world theirs long before the rise of dinosaurs.

We are now on the doorstep of a fourth change brought about by two technologies: AI and robotics. The Fourth Age provides extraordinary background information on how we got to this point, and how - rather than what - we should think about the topics we’ll soon all be facing: machine consciousness, automation, employment, creative computers, radical life extension, artificial life, AI ethics, the future of warfare, superintelligence, and the implications of extreme prosperity.

As physicists work toward completing a theory of the universe and biologists unravel the molecular complexity of life, a glaring incompleteness in this scientific vision becomes apparent. The "theory of everything" that appears to be emerging includes everything but us: the feelings, meanings, consciousness, and purposes that make us (and many of our animal cousins) what we are.

This book uses evolutionary psychology as a lens to explain religious violence and oppression. The author, a clinical psychologist, examines religious scriptures, rituals, and canon law, highlighting the many ways in which our evolutionary legacy has shaped the development of religion and continues to profoundly influence its expression.

In this sequel to Pulse, a genetic disease known as Brugada Syndrome kills its victims without warning, without symptom. When the president of the United States falls victim to a weaponized and contagious strain of the disease, the Chess Team - King, Queen, Rook, Knight, and Bishop - are assigned to protect Sara Fogg, a CDC detective, as she journeys to the source of the new strain: the Annamite Mountains in Vietnam.

Who are we, and how did we get here? These are two of the most fundamental and far-reaching questions facing scientists and cosmologists alike and have rested at the center of human intellectual endeavor since its beginning. They are questions that stretch across numerous disciplines. Philosophy, theology, evolutionary biology, and mathematics are just some of the fields looking to explain the emergence of human life.

More than 12,000 years ago, in one of the greatest triumphs of prehistory, humans colonized North America, a continent that was then truly a new world. Just when and how they did so has been one of the most perplexing and controversial questions in archaeology.

In this classic volume, Peter Matthiessen exquisitely combines nature and travel writing to bring East Africa to vivid life. He skillfully and magically portrays the sights, scenes, and people he observed firsthand in several trips over the course of a dozen years: the daily lives of herdsmen and hunter-gatherers; the drama of the predator kills; the hundreds of exotic animals; the breathtaking landscapes; the area's turbulent natural, political, and social histories; and more.

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....

A medical miracle is reshaping the world. The artificial womb ensures the perfect health and flawless development of every unborn child. Natural pregnancy is now an unnecessary risk - and quickly criminalized as a danger to both mother and fetus. As a reporter, Jessica Brantley makes new enemies on a daily basis covering both sides of the controversial new law. Now her search for the truth behind this world-changing technology will lead to an unimaginable discovery - the existence of children with terrifying telepathic powers.

In this epochal book, Immanuel Velikovsky, one of the great scientists of modern times, puts the complete histories of our Earth and of humanity on a new basis. He presents the results of his 10-year-long interdisciplinary research in an easily understandable, even entertaining manner. In spite - or even because - of the disgraceful hostility provoked by his theories, this book keeps being of ardent topicality, which in the light of recent scientific research is even growing.

From New York Times best-selling author Sam Kean come more incredible stories of science, history, language, and music, as told by our own DNA. There are genes to explain crazy cat ladies, why other people have no fingerprints, and why some people survive nuclear bombs. Genes illuminate everything from JFK's bronze skin (it wasn't a tan) to Einstein's genius. They prove that Neanderthals and humans bred thousands of years more recently than any of us would feel comfortable thinking.

The heroes Terry Fairway once idolized have turned against him, hunting him down at every turn. His grandfather, the ruthless S-ranked necromancer who rules the city, watches from his throne as the people starve and suffer. Vampires stalk the streets unchecked, feeding on the innocent without fear of reprisal. Terry always believed his family were the good guys, but Wichita isn't a city of heroes or villains—it's a city of power. And if power is all that matters, then power is what Terry will seize.

The seemingly endless war with the Grutex has caused many inconveniences for Amanda, but none of those have been as bad as losing the funding for the project she is working on, which is supposed to help save humanity. When she foolishly risks her life to continue her research, Amanda is thrown into the path of an alien, the likes of which she has never seen, who claims she is his mate. The problem is, he isn’t the only one making that claim.

The Hygrometric Dehabitation Region, or the "Zone," is a growing band of rainforest on the equator, where the heat and humidity make it impossible for warm-blooded animals to survive. A human being without protection in the Zone is dead in minutes. Twenty years ago, Marks went into the rainforest with a group of researchers led by Doctor Elaine Fell, to study the extraordinary climate and see if it could be used in agriculture. The only thing she learned was that the Zone was no place for people. There were deaths, and the program was cut short. Now, they're sending her back in.

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.

Twenty years ago, Jacob lost everything. Just as he was starting to figure out life as a college freshman, his world was suddenly shattered when a devastating illness destroyed the world he once knew and claimed the lives of everyone that mattered to him. Jacob and the other survivors of the pandemic were transported to the Palace Program. As the years go by and Jacob's relationships in the Palace become more complex, he slowly begins to see that the man-made utopian society is nothing close to a perfect tomorrow.