Genetic World

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.

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?

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.

Mark is a student of robotics with a budding career track. Still in high school, he has a fellowship with the local university working with the renowned Professor David. But just before the end of the school year, Mark becomes a quadriplegic, closing the doors to his future. But Professor David is contacted by his best friend, Tyler Davis, who was recently promoted to the project lead for a new company called Synaptergy. This company is working on a new brain-to-robotic interface that promises to restore the lives of those who have lost the use of their limbs.

The president arrives at High Meadow with his entourage of bureaucrats and faux-military. Tillie and Angus don’t have time for any distractions as a massive wildfire bears down on their settlement. It will take more than hard work and good intentions to get them through this catastrophe. Martin is leery about sending all of his men to aid those in the path of the fire, thereby leaving their borders unprotected.

The Big Ratchet is the story of the ratchets: the technologies and innovations, big and small, that propelled our species from hunters and gatherers on the savannahs of Africa to shoppers in the aisles of the supermarket. Our species long lived on the edge of starvation. Now we produce enough food for all 7 billion of us to eat nearly 3,000 calories every day. This is such an astonishing thing in the history of life as to verge on the miraculous. The Big Ratchet is the story of how it happened.

From the cup of coffee that jump-starts the day to dangerously addictive drugs, the recreational use of plants with psychoactive properties has a long history among humans. But, as with many things, it turns out that other animals got there first. From parrots to primates, consuming medicinal chemicals is an instinctive behavior that helps countless organisms fight infection and treat disease. But the similarities don't end there: Like us, many creatures also consume substances that have no apparent benefit...except for inducing intoxication.

It's the 22nd century, and human cloning has become a reality. In three days, the first replicant will be made at Phoenvartis, a Swiss pharma-tech company. As the head of the development team, Rollie must decide which genetic samples to use to produce the replicant. He has been directed by his boss to use the samples provided by the World Council, which governs Earth and colony planets.

Hatcher and his band of survivors want more than to simply survive. They abandon their industrial shelter and set out to begin rebuilding their lives in an attempt to salvage their humanity. The Marauders have been broken, but Simon refuses to surrender. Gathering a handful of his enforcers, he sets about getting his revenge...and he doesn’t care who gets hurt in the turmoil. The Ragers are starving...and evolving. They don’t care who wins the war between the Survivors and the Marauders, they just want to pick their teeth with the bones of the losers.

Just 150 years ago, most of our world was an unexplored wilderness. Our sense of its age was vastly off the mark. And what we believed to be the history of our own species consisted of fantastic myths and fairy tales; fossils, known for millennia, were seen as the bones of dragons and other imagined creatures. How did we learn so much so quickly? Remarkable Creatures celebrates the pioneers who replaced our fancies with the even more remarkable real story of how our world evolved.

In The Synthetic Age, Christopher Preston argues that what is most startling about this coming epoch is not only how much impact humans have had but, more important, how much deliberate shaping they will start to do. Emerging technologies promise to give us the power to take over some of Nature's most basic operations. It is not just that we are exiting the Holocene and entering the Anthropocene; it is that we are leaving behind the time in which planetary change is just the unintended consequence of unbridled industrialism.

On May 10, 1998, biologist Craig Venter, director of the Institute for Genomic Research, announced that he was forming a private company that within three years would unravel the complete genetic code of human life, seven years before the projected finish of the U.S. government's Human Genome Project. Venter hoped that by decoding the genome ahead of schedule, he would speed up the pace of biomedical research and save the lives of thousands of people. He also hoped to become very famous and very rich.

Living in the idyllic seaside town of Palmetto Beach is a dream come true for Mitch Sanders, an aspiring marine biologist who studies from home while his wife, Ashley, scores the perfect job at the Bioengineering Clinical Research Institute of Medicine, which is about to make an astounding medical breakthrough.