Genetic World

Darwin developed the theory of sexual selection to explain why the animal world abounds in stunning beauty, from the brilliant colors of butterflies and fishes to the songs of birds and frogs. He argued that animals have "a taste for the beautiful" that drives their potential mates to evolve features that make them more sexually attractive and reproductively successful. But if Darwin explained why sexual beauty evolved in animals, he struggled to understand how.

We humans have an extraordinary capacity for compassion—much of it in response to the atrocities we inflict on the planet, its animals, and each other. The popular explanation for this paradox is that we evolved as carnivorous “killer apes,” who gradually curbed our lust for violence (with frequent exceptions) by implementing humane social norms. This explanation is so well worn, especially in the American psyche, that it epitomizes cliché. So, we could be forgiven for believing it, when nearly every word is fiction.

Mary Anning was only 12 years old when, in 1811, she discovered the first dinosaur skeleton - of an ichthyosaur - while fossil hunting on the cliffs of Lyme Regis, England. Until Mary's incredible discovery, it was widely believed that animals did not become extinct.

Evolutions brings to life the latest scientific thinking on the birth of the universe and the solar system, the journey from a single cell all the way to our human minds. Reawakening our sense of wonder and terror at the world around us and within us, Oren Harman uses modern science to create new and original mythologies.

An end-of-times sci-fi thriller. The concluding novel in the Alt Truths duology. So, Richard and Sarah find themselves the unwitting "ingredients" in Perry’s latest attempts to create a melting pot of world happiness. But the boy isn’t the only savant, and when our hapless heroes discover an African war criminal is using a "super-savant" to impose his version of global order, it looks as if Utopia is going to have to wait.

In a near-future world dominated by The Directorate, a sinister regime, Alex and Mia find love amidst oppression. Alex, born with "Inferior Genes", possesses a secret that could change everything. Together, they join the underground resistance and uncover the regime's dark secrets. Their daring mission to expose The Directorate's tyranny takes them to the heart of its power. Betrayals and sacrifices test their love, but they emerge victorious, ushering in a new era where individuality and freedom reign.

If you think you are you, think again. Primate Change is a wide-ranging, polemical look at how and why the human body has changed since humankind first got up on two feet. Spanning the entirety of human history - from primate to transhuman - Vybarr Cregan-Reid's book investigates where we came from, who we are today and how modern technology will change us beyond recognition.

When a cryptic note sends former FBI agent turned wealth advisor David Blum on a journey to discover the truth behind his father’s recent death, all clues point to Otto Feldmann, a world-renowned professor of genetics, with secrets to hide. Further digging leads Blum to Kay Westfield, a bank executive who once witnessed a bizarre explosion on Feldmann’s experimental farm.

From the author of Seed of Israel: DNA Guide to Tracing Your Jewish Ancestry comes this great dive into the history of Ashkenazi Jews. While controversial debates spark disagreements on the crystallization of this Jewish Diaspora, modern genetic studies and personal DNA samples finally conclude the Levantine Middle Eastern and Mediterranean roots of Ashkenazi ancestry: Judean people from the Holy Land that journeyed across the Mediterranean to the bottleneck of Europe.

From the time G39, a marine rifleman in mankind’s distant future, is “born”, to the time he crash lands on an alien planet only a month later, his life is a dizzying onslaught of action and pain. Everything he does has to be in accordance with his superior’s wishes, or the control device implanted in the base of his skull will "correct" him…painfully.

After escaping the laboratory where he was imprisoned by the scientific mega-corporation GenTech, Kata wants just one thing: to go back to his homeworld of Trandellia with his friend Tau and forget all about what happened. Forget about being imprisoned and mutated, forget about GenTech's attempts to break and sell him as a piece of livestock, and above all, forget the tortures he suffered at the hands of some of the scientists.

Big History, the field that studies the entire known past of our universe to give context to human existence, has so far been the domain of historians. Geologist Walter Alvarez - best known for his Impact Theory explaining dinosaur extinction - makes a compelling case for a new, science-first approach to Big History.

Since the birth of civilization, human beings have manipulated other life-forms. We have selectively bred plants and animals for thousands of years to maximize agricultural production and cater to our tastes in pets. The observation of the creation of artificial animal and plant variants was a key stimulant for Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. The ability to directly engineer the genomes of organisms first became possible in the 1970s, when the gene for human insulin was introduced into bacteria.

Ashton Chayton was born with a powerful gift, a unique inhuman telepathic ability. Orphaned and raised by the hyper-intelligent Red Wolves of Opan, he is pursued by merciless and powerful enemies.

As starving, travel-weary people overrun High Meadow, Tillie and Angus must do a delicate dance to keep the doors open. Angus has set the boundaries for their new territory, and Martin is tasked with keeping it safe. Tillie struggles to get everyone fed while keeping an eye on the stores for winter. Wisp helps where he can, vetting the newcomers and finding stragglers, but not every person comes under his scrutiny.

The stability of the Survivor’s Alliance is still fragile. They made it through the winter, but now it’s flu season. Every year the virus changes just a little. Tillie and Angus are trying to prepare for every scenario, even the possibility that they will be the first to go. Nick is working to bridge the gap in supplies until the spring crops come in. Wisp and Bridget are preparing for the birth of their child. But there are changes coming that no one expected.

In this paradigm-shattering book, biologist Mark W. Moffett draws on findings in psychology, sociology, and anthropology to explain the social adaptations that bind societies. He explores how the tension between identity and anonymity defines how societies develop, function, and fail. Surpassing Guns, Germs, and Steel and Sapiens, The Human Swarm reveals how mankind created sprawling civilizations of unrivaled complexity - and what it will take to sustain them.

Kalin Taylor is on the path to success. He's just won a scholarship to the prestigious Sanderson College of Arts and Science to study medicine. He's also about to do something very, very stupid in the name of becoming one of the 'in' kids at college. It sounded simple at the time. Sneak into a branch of the top-secret, interstellar scientific company GenTech, take a photo of the genetically engineered creature Project Tau that's supposedly inside, and sneak back out again. Cue membership of the college frat house, cue popularity and an improved lifestyle, right?

Josh Ridley is an overworked, underappreciated accountant caught up in life’s grind. All that changes when he is offered an adventure vacation that allows him to be miniaturized and placed in an unforgiving terrain filled with demons and demon lords, or to laymen...killer insects. In Betaloome, an infested terrarium with a land area equivalent to hundreds of square miles, Josh’s new god-like abilities make him adored by women, admired by men, and able to slay monsters.

Set in the very near future, the plot evolves quickly, moving from a scientist who finds himself killing his coconspirator to a prison corporation CEO who devises the deaths of 13 inmates in order to cover up his larger crimes to a famous criminologist/mystery writer who becomes entangled with a beautiful, violet-eyed geneticist and tries to uncover why she is being targeted.