Genetic Science

The renowned biologist Paul Nurse has spent his career revealing how living cells work. In What Is Life?, he takes up the challenge of describing what it means to be alive in a way that every listener can understand. It is a shared journey of discovery; step-by-step Nurse illuminates five great ideas that underpin biology - the Cell, the Gene, Evolution by Natural Selection, Life as Chemistry, and Life as Information.

Experimental psychologist Jim Marchuk has developed a flawless technique for identifying the previously undetected psychopaths lurking everywhere in society. But while being cross-examined about his breakthrough in court, Jim is shocked to discover that he has lost his memories of six months of his life from 20 years previously - a dark time during which he himself committed heinous acts.

Justin is excited to start his new job at an energy mine on a distant planet—until things begin to go wrong. Small things. Annoying glitches in the mining complex's tech. Enough to aggravate him. Enough to notice a connection. When the first miner dies from a tech-related accident, Justin can no longer turn a blind eye. But the mine's brass don't want him digging for answers even though something from the mine's past is lurking beneath the surface...and it wants blood.

Tribalism is one of the most complex and ancient evolutionary forces; it gave us the capacity for cooperation and competition, and allowed us to navigate increasingly complex social landscapes. It is so powerful that it can predict our behavior even better than race, class, gender, or religion. But in our vast modern world, has this blessing become a curse? Our Tribal Future explores a central paradox of our species: how altruism, community, kindness, and genocide are all driven by the same core adaptation.

The Cajun dive in the middle of the godforsaken swamps wasn't exactly Trap Dawkins' idea of fun. But the GhostWalker wasn't there for a good time. He was looking for her. Cayenne. It's where she found her victims. Poor suckers. Then again, who wouldn't want to leave a place like this with a woman like her? It's not Cayenne's fault. Locked up, experimented on, and never knowing kindness, she was bred this way - with a heart of pure venom. Trap understands her.

There is no one better qualified than Jared Diamond - renowned expert in the fields of physiology and evolutionary biology and award-winning author - to explain the evolutionary forces that operated on our ancestors to make us sexually different. With wit and a wealth of fascinating examples, he explains how our sexuality has been as crucial as our large brains and upright posture in our rise to human status.

Over billions of years, ancient fish evolved to walk on land, reptiles transformed into birds that fly, and apelike primates evolved into humans that walk on two legs, talk, and write. For more than a century, paleontologists have traveled the globe to find fossils that show how such changes have happened.

More than three decades ago, Dr. Herbert Benson of Harvard Medical School proposed a theory in his multimillion-copy best seller The Relaxation Response, which stated that by calming the mind, one could calm the body and alleviate stress, pain, and illness.

When Charles Darwin finished The Origin of Species, he thought that he had explained every clue but one. Though his theory could explain many facts, Darwin knew that there was a significant event in the history of life that his theory did not explain. During this event, the "Cambrian explosion", many animals suddenly appeared in the fossil record without apparent ancestors in earlier layers of rock. In Darwin's Doubt, Stephen C. Meyer tells the story of the mystery surrounding this explosion of animal life.

When radical terrorists take hostages in Indonesia, Captain Ezekiel Fortunes is called to lead the rescue team. Part of a classified government experiment, Zeke is a super soldier with enhanced abilities. He can see better, run faster, disappear when necessary, and hunt the enemy along any terrain. There are those in the world willing to do anything for power like that. A formidable spy genetically engineered to hide in plain sight, Bellisia rarely meets a man who doesn't want to control her or kill her. But Zeke's different.

In this innovative celebration of diversity and affirmation of individuality in animals and humans, Joan Roughgarden challenges accepted wisdom about gender identity and sexual orientation. A distinguished evolutionary biologist, Roughgarden takes on the medical establishment, the Bible, social science--and even Darwin himself. She leads the reader through a fascinating discussion of diversity in gender and sexuality among fish, reptiles, amphibians, birds, and mammals, including primates. Evolution's Rainbow explains how this diversity develops from the action of genes and hormones and how people come to differ from each other in all aspects of body and behavior. Roughgarden reconstructs primary science in light of feminist, gay, and transgender criticism and redefines our understanding of sex, gender, and sexuality. A new preface shows how this witty, playful, and daring book has revolutionized our understanding of sexuality.

Devilishly clever, Next blends fact and fiction into a breathless tale of a new world where nothing is what it seems, and a set of new possibilities can open at every turn. Next challenges our sense of reality and notions of morality. Balancing the comic and bizarre with the genuinely frightening and disturbing, Next shatters our assumptions and reveals shocking new choices where we least expect.

7 joueurs, 7 visions du futur. Chacun tente d'influencer l'avenir. Mais c'est sans compter sur le 8ème joueur, notre mère la Terre, qui n'a pas dit son dernier mot... Le plus scientifique de nos romanciers poursuit sa saga des micro-humains sur fond d'apocalypse. Alors qu'une 3ème guerre mondiale se profile à l'horizon, Gaïa, la Terre, semble vouloir se rebeller contre ses habitants. Humains et micro-humains prêteront-ils attention à sa voix ?

Il y a environ 4 000 millions d'années, la vie est apparue sur la Terre. Mais quelle est l'histoire de son évolution ? La vie était-elle inévitable ? La race humaine, telle que nous la connaissons, était-elle prévisible ? Quels autres êtres intelligents auraient pu la remplacer ? À partir de questionnements comme ceux-ci et des réponses scientifiques qui existent déjà, Juan Luis Arsuaga nous présente les découvertes-clés de la théorie de l'évolution et nous élève vers un questionnement plus vaste encore : pourquoi sommes-nous ici ?

Composée de chercheurs et de militaires, la société française Pygmée Prod commercialise les services d'une nouvelle race d'humains créée de toute pièce : les Emachs, des femmes et des hommes ne dépassant pas 17 cm. Ces êtres réduits servent sur la planète entière à diverses tâches : leur petite taille et la minutie de leurs gestes font des merveilles ; certains se sont même illustrés dans des actes héroïques. Tout pourrait continuer ainsi, si un fait divers sordide ne venait tout bouleverser.

In 1994, a team led by fossil-hunting legend Tim White—"the Steve Jobs of paleoanthropology"—uncovered the bones of a human ancestor in Ethiopia's Afar region. The findings challenged many assumptions about human evolution and repudiated a half-century of paleoanthropological orthodoxy. An intriguing tale of scientific discovery, obsession and rivalry that moves from the sun-baked desert of Africa to modern high-tech labs and academic lecture halls, Fossil Men is popular science at its best, and a must-listen for fans of Jared Diamond, Richard Dawkins, and Edward O. Wilson.

In an underground club, a high-ranking public official spends his secret nights indulging in fantasies as exciting as they are depraved. For a seductive employee of the Dungeon, it's her job to fulfill them. But she's playing a far more dangerous game - one of blackmail, politics, and murder that reaches into the shadow world of the Ghostwalkers, and the creation of a spectacular, one-of-a-kind new weapon of defense. But when a dictator makes his own catastrophic moves, the Ghostwalkers have no choice but to bring in two major players - a man and woman both driven by passion and revenge.

GhostWalker Wyatt Fontenot knows the price he paid for the secret military experiments that gave him his special catlike abilities. After all, he left his bayou home a healer and came back a killer. While Wyatt and his GhostWalker brother Gator may have known exactly the sort of game they were getting into, Wyatt never anticipated where it would lead - or to whom.

Just over 125,000 years ago, humanity was going extinct until a dramatic shift occurred—Homo sapiens started tracking the tides in order to eat the nearby oysters. Before long, they’d pulled themselves back from the brink of extinction. The human brain, and its evolutionary journey, is unlike anything else in history. In A History of the Human Brain, Bret Stetka takes listeners through that far-reaching journey. He also tackles the question of where the brain will take us next, exploring the burgeoning con­cepts of epigenetics and new technologies like CRISPR.

There is one thing every enemy of Bethany Anne finds out: They will be ground under her heels. Now, something is heating up between Bethany Anne and Michael, and it isn’t her anger over him leaving her behind. Well, much. Further, the Patriarch is learning there might be someone worth sticking around for in his future. If she would just stop being so hard-headed.