Genetic Science

Life innovates constantly, producing perfectly adapted species—but there's a catch. Many animals and plants eke out seemingly unremarkable lives. Passive, constrained, modest, threatened. Then, in a blink of evolutionary time, they flourish spectacularly. Once we start to look, these 'sleeping beauties' crop up everywhere. But why? Looking at the book of life, from apex predators to keystone crops, and informed by his own cutting-edge experiments, renowned scientist Andreas Wagner demonstrates that innovations can come frequently and cheaply to nature, well before they are needed.

Food is one of life's great joys. So why has eating become such a source of anxiety and confusion? Bee Wilson shows that in two generations the world has undergone a massive shift from traditional, limited diets to more globalized ways of eating, from bubble tea to quinoa, from Soylent to meal kits. Paradoxically, our diets are getting healthier and less healthy at the same time. For some, there has never been a happier food era than today: a time of unusual herbs, farmers' markets, and internet recipe swaps.

Synthetic woman Julia Walden was designed for one reason: to compete on The Proposal and claim the heart of bachelor Josh LaSala. Her casting is controversial, but Julia seems to get her fairy-tale ending when Josh gets down on one knee.

In Monarchs and Milkweed, Anurag Agrawal presents a vivid investigation into how the monarch butterfly has evolved closely alongside the milkweed - a toxic plant named for the sticky white substance emitted when its leaves are damaged - and how this inextricable and intimate relationship has been like an arms race over the millennia, a battle of exploitation and defense between two fascinating species.

For six years Anya Korbin worked with Del-Rey Delgato—the genetically altered rebel known as the Coyote Ghost—to free a group of coyote women kept in her father’s lab. As Anya matured into a woman, she and Del-Rey grew close…but then he broke his promise and killed her father. Now she must deal with her animalistic desire for the one who betrayed her.

For five long years, Richard Stavos has been spilling blood in the arena of the interstellar prison Xan. Within the impenetrable walls of the galaxy's most notorious prison complex, the former lieutenant of the Commonwealth Federation Forces had only his technomancy skills to rely on. Though Stavos has accepted that life outside Xan is nothing but a pipe dream, the forces shaping the galaxy call to him once more. Great changes wash over humankind, threatening to drown civilizations. Changes that push the Technomancer to question his role in the universe.

Once each year, on orbital space stations, nano-engineered young women compete on the backs of dinosaurs in races as brutal and bloody as any witnessed in the Roman circus 3,000 years before. Highly skilled and capable of superhuman feats, these gladiators live isolated lives - except for the resurrected beasts with whom they form their deepest bonds. Tonight, on the red sands of the arena and inside the hollow asteroid where the dinosaurs are grown, the secrets these gladiators discover will shake their entire world.

Derek Jenner, the Crypto-Hunter, is back! Something is terrorizing the inhabitants of the Garden State, leaving a trail of missing persons and mutilated bodies in its wake. All signs point to the Jersey Devil, a creature long considered a hoax even in the cryptozoological community. Desperate for answers, the authorities summon Derek and his team to investigate.

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.

Many Christians who claim to believe that the Bible is God's revealed truth seem willing to allow modern scientific theories to replace the Genesis account of creation. Such compromises present a conspicuous danger. Bible teacher and pastor John MacArthur believes that in Genesis 1-3 we find the foundation of every doctrine that is essential to the Christian faith - the vital underpinnings for everything we believe.

When the enemy discovers their hidden home, Mirikami is forced to lead 117 Kobani ships in a desperate attack against 3,000 Krall ships and uncounted warriors. Armed with a 22,000-year-old computer virus, and sheer courage, they must disable every enemy ship and weapon. The last time this tactic was tried against them, the Krall eradicated the entire Olt'kitapi civilization.

With warmth and compassion, Denworth weaves together past and present, field biology and cutting-edge neuroscience, to show how our bodies and minds are designed to make friends, the process by which social bonds develop, and how a drive for friendship underpins human (and nonhuman) society. With its refreshingly optimistic vision of the evolution of human nature, this book puts friendship at the center of our lives.

What if you could transfer your skills directly into the brain of someone who wanted to acquire them? A new technology can advance the human race farther and faster than ever imagined, but instead of being used for the betterment of mankind, it’s being used to turn a massive profit. Alden Heath had been part of this industry for most of his adult life, but when he accidentally finds out a hidden truth behind the technology, he’ll need to expose the conspiracy before the corporation and the world governments protecting it can kill him in order to keep their secret safe.

It is widely understood that Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution completely revolutionized the study of biology. Yet, according to David Sloan Wilson, the Darwinian revolution won’t be truly complete until it is applied more broadly - to everything associated with the words “human,” “culture,” and “policy.”

Dr. Hugh Meyer believed he had created the ultimate miracle. Using the DNA of ancient creatures preserved in the Arctic, he had genetically engineered one of the most remarkable species of sea creature to ever exist: the Serpent Eel. Believed to possess the cure for countless diseases, the creature holds great promise for the medical community. All goes awry when the beast escapes containment. With a rapid growth rate and remarkable physical evolution, the beast travels to the coastal town of Spiral Bay. There, the creature designed to save human life instead starts taking it.

In his provocative new book, evolutionary biologist Jerry A. Coyne lays out in clear, dispassionate detail why the toolkit of science, based on reason and empirical study, is reliable, while that of religion - including faith, dogma, and revelation - leads to incorrect, untestable, or conflicting conclusions.

Scientists have accidentally tapped into the deepest recesses of the human mind—and unleash a terrifying force. Now, with an infected creature loose in the Alaskan wilderness, the America military asks expert tracker Nathaniel Hunter to locate the beast before it destroys mankind. A top-secret project brings CIA hit man Roth Tiberius Cain back to life as the ultimate predator. But this killing machine has the soul of a devil. On an Icelandic island, a biological weapons experiment has transformed an innocent creature into the biblical Leviathan that once terrorized the world.

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 Origins, Frank H. T. Rhodes explores the origin and evolution of living things, the changing environments in which they have developed, and the challenges we now face on an increasingly crowded and polluted planet. Rhodes argues that the future well-being of our burgeoning population depends in no small part on our understanding of life's past, its long and slow development, and its intricate interdependencies.

Human! A name that strikes terror in the hearts of the galaxy. Well, maybe not terror. More like caution, actually. Since you know how hot-headed Humans can be. After the galaxy was attacked by invaders, the Milky Way was left but a shadow of its former self. In its wake, a savage, almost Wild West existence emerged, ruled by gun and muscle. And for anyone needing help in either the gun or muscle category—or both—everyone knows you . . . Hire a Human.