Three eminent scientists analyze the scientific, social, and political roots of biological determinism.

Brand new, still in the plastic.

This text is a metaphor for the way individuals and unpredictable events influence history. In response history, suggests the author, is the best model for evolution. The author explores the science of improbable outcomes in this wide ranging book written on the evolutionary theme.

Introduces concepts drawn from astronomy, biology, and geology to explain natural phenomena and to explore profound scientific questions about astrobiology. --From publisher description.

"Naturally occurring DMT may produce prophecy-like states of consciousness and thus represent a bridge between biology and religious experience"--

Like The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat , this is a fascinating voyage into a strange and wonderful land, a provocative meditation on communication, biology, adaptation, and culture. In Seeing Voices , Oliver Sacks turns his attention to the subject of deafness, and the result is a deeply felt portrait of a minority struggling for recognition and respect — a minority with its own rich, sometimes astonishing, culture and unique visual language, an extraordinary mode of communication that tells us much about the basis of language in hearing people as well. Seeing Voices is, as Studs Terkel has written, "an exquisite, as well as revelatory, work."

"Stephen Heywood was twenty-nine years old when he learned that he was dying of ALS - Lou Gehrig's disease. Almost overnight his older brother, Jamie, turned himself into a genetic engineer in a quixotic race to cure the incurable. His Brother's Keeper is a powerful account of their story, as they travel together to the edge of medicine." "The book brings home for all of us the hopes and fears of the new biology. In this narrative, Jonathan Weiner gives us a portrait of science and medicine today. We learn about gene therapy, stem cells, brain vaccines, and other novel treatments for such nerve-death diseases as ALS, Alzheimer's, and Parkinson's - diseases that afflict millions, and touch the lives of many more." It turns out that the author has a personal stake in the story as well. When he met the Heywood brothers, his own mother was dying of a rare nerve-death disease. The Heywoods' gene therapist offered to try to save her, too.

Now in resplendent color, the new edition continues to define the latest in the scientific understanding of the brain, the nervous system, and human behavior. Each chapter is thoroughly revised and includes the impact of molecular biology in the mechanisms underlying developmental processes and in the pathogenesis of disease. Important features to this edition include a new chapter - Genes and Behavior; a complete updating of development of the nervous system; the genetic basis of neurological and psychiatric disease; cognitive neuroscience of perception, planning, action, motivation and memory; ion channel mechanisms; and much more.

The Atlantic named this author as possibly Steve Bannon's contact in the White House (Rosie Gray, The Atlantic Feb 10 2017: " 'Think you should speak directly to my WH cutout / cell leader,' Yarvin said in an email. 'I've never met him and don't know his identity, we just DM on Twitter. He's said to be 'very close' to Bannon...Goal is to intimidate Congress with pure masculine show of youth, energy. Trump is said to know, will coordinate with powerful EOs..."); and a recent Vox article (Tara Isabella Burton, Vox June 1 2018) claimed that he is the "text" to Jordan Peterson's "subtext," and a "distilled" form of Peterson. Distilled means purer: yes, so why not read and understand the purer version? T. I. Burton also adds in this article that this author BAP is a kind of priest-king to thousands on Twitter and outside and is possibly leading a spiritual reawakening.Some say that this book, found in a safebox in the port area of Kowloon, was dictated, because Bronze Age Pervert refuses to learn what he calls "the low and plebeian art of writing." It isn't known how this book was transcribed. The contents are pure dynamite. He explains that you live in ant farm. That you are observed by the lords of lies, ritually probed. Ancient man had something you have lost: confidence in his instincts and strength, knowledge in his blood. BAP shows how the Bronze Age mindset can set you free from this Iron Prison and help you embark on the path of power. He talks about life, biology, hormones. He gives many examples from history, both ancient and modern. He shows the secrets of the detrimental robots, how they hide and fabricate. He helps you escape gynocracy and ascend to fresh mountain air.The pricing, he insisted on against all advice. It refers to the lucky 969 Movement of Burma, led by the noble monk Wirathu.Praise be to the Pervert. Praise be to his teaching of peace.Be careful.

Humanity has always been intrigued by the timeless question: Where did we come from? In 1974, the discovery of the fossilised bones of a three-million-year-old female dubbed 'Lucy' captured the world's attention. This nearly complete skeleton of an early human ancestor not only triggered widespread interest in our human origins but also prompted a thorough re-evaluation of established scientific doctrines. Today, hardly a month goes by without news of significant discoveries that are changing our understanding of human origins at what seems like the speed of lightning. But what does all this new knowledge about our species mean? That's exactly what acclaimed science writer Carl Zimmer tackles in this accessible, up-to-the-minute guide to human origins. Zimmer offers an entertaining and illuminating journey through our ancestry - beginning sixty-five million years ago with the first primates and ending today, as we enter a new phase of evolution. From ancient fossils unearthed in the Sahara Desert to the analysis of DNA by robots at the National Human Genome Research Institute in suburban Maryland, Zimmer weaves together the varied clues about our human ancestry in an entertaining, informative and highly readable volume that will appeal to expert and general reader alike.

The authors have correlated many experimental observations and theoretical discussions from the scientific literature on water. Topics covered include the water molecule and forces between water molecules; the thermodynamic properties of steam; the structures of the ices; the thermodynamic, electrical, spectroscopic, and transport properties of the ices and of liquid water; hydrogen bonding in ice and water; and models for liquid water. The main emphasis of the book is on relatingthe properties of ice and water to their structures. Some background material in physical chemistry has been included in order to ensure that the material is accessible to readers in fields such as biology, biochemistry, and geology, as well as to chemists and physicists.

From New York Times bestselling author Harry Turtledove, the modern master of alternate history, a novel of alien contact set in the tumultuous year of the Watergate scandal. It's 1974, and Jerry Stieglitz is a grad student in marine biology at UCLA with a side gig selling short stories to science fiction magazines, just weeks away from marrying his longtime fiancée. Then his life is upended by grim-faced men from three-letter agencies who want him to join a top-secret "Project Azorian" in the middle of the north Pacific Ocean—and they really don't take "no" for an answer. Further, they're offering enough money to solve all of his immediate problems. Joining up and swearing to secrecy, what he first learns is that Project Azorian is secretly trying to raise a sunken Russian submarine, while pretending to be harvesting undersea manganese nodules. But the dead Russian sub, while real, turns out to be a cover story as well. What's down on the ocean floor next to it is the thing that killed the sub: an alien spacecraft. Jerry's a scientist, a longhair, a storyteller, a dreamer. He stands out like a sore thumb on the Glomar Explorer , a ship full of CIA operatives, RAND Corporation eggheads, and roustabout divers. But it turns out that he's the one person in the North Pacific who's truly thought out all the ways that human-alien first contact might go. And meanwhile, it's still 1974 back on the mainland. Richard Nixon is drinking heavily and talking to the paintings on the White House walls. The USA is changing fast—and who knows what will happen when this story gets out? Three Miles Down is both a fresh and original take on First Contact, and a hugely enjoyable romp through the pop culture, political tumult, and conspiracies-within-conspiracies atmosphere that was 1974.

Following in the fashion of Stephen Jay Gould and Peter Medawar, one of the world's leading scientists examines how "pure science" is in fact shaped and guided by social and political needs and assumptions.

Scientists act within a social context and from a philosophical perspective that is inherently political. Whether they realize it or not, scientists always choose sides. The Dialectical Biologist explores this political nature of scientific inquiry, advancing its argument within the framework of Marxist dialectic. These essays stress the concepts of continual change and codetermination between organism and environment, part and whole, structure and process, science and politics. Throughout, this book questions our accepted definitions and biases, showing the self-reflective nature of scientific activity within society.

Conservation Biology for All provides cutting-edge but basic conservation science to a global readership. A series of authoritative chapters have been written by the top names in conservation biology with the principal aim of disseminating cutting-edge conservation knowledge as widely as possible. Important topics such as balancing conversion and human needs, climate change, conservation planning, designing and analyzing conservation research, ecosystem services, endangeredspecies management, extinctions, fire, habitat loss, and invasive species are covered. Numerous textboxes describing additions

Although Charles Darwin's theory of evolution laid the foundations of modern biology, it did not tell the whole story. Most remarkably, The Origin of Species said very little about, of all things, the origins of species. Darwin and his modern successors have shown very convincingly how inherited variations are naturally selected, but they leave unanswered how variant organisms come to be in the first place.In Symbiotic Planet, renowned scientist Lynn Margulis shows that symbiosis, which simply means members of different species living in physical contact with each other, is crucial to the origins of evolutionary novelty. Ranging from bacteria, the smallest kinds of life, to the largest—the living Earth itself—Margulis explains the symbiotic origins of many of evolution's most important innovations. The very cells we're made of started as symbiotic unions of different kinds of bacteria. Sex—and its inevitable corollary, death—arose when failed attempts at cannibalism resulted in seasonally repeated mergers of some of our tiniest ancestors. Dry land became forested only after symbioses of algae and fungi evolved into plants. Since all living things are bathed by the same waters and atmosphere, all the inhabitants of Earth belong to a symbiotic union. Gaia, the finely tuned largest ecosystem of the Earth's surface, is just symbiosis as seen from space. Along the way, Margulis describes her initiation into the world of science and the early steps in the present revolution in evolutionary biology; the importance of species classification for how we think about the living world; and the way “academic apartheid” can block scientific advancement. Written with enthusiasm and authority, this is a book that could change the way you view our living Earth.

"Nature is so wondrously complex and varied that almost anything possible does happen....I rejoice in its] multifariousness and leave the chimera of certainty to politicians and preachers." --from Ever Since Darwin Upon his death in 2002, Stephen Jay Gould stood at the pinnacle among observers of the natural world, recognized by Congress as a "living legend." His prodigious legacy--sixteen best-selling and prize-winning books, dozens of scientific papers, an unbroken series of three hundred essays in Natural History --combined to make Gould the most widely read science writer of our time. This indispensable collection of forty-eight pieces from his brilliant oeuvre includes selections from classics such as Ever Since Darwin and The Mismeasure of Man , plus articles and speeches never before published in book form. This volume, the last that will bear his name, spotlights his elegance, depth, and sheer pleasure in our world--a true celebration of an extraordinary mind.

The latest research and paintings prepared especially for this book highlight a new edition of the story of life on earth. "The Book of Life" explains how mammals, after surviving the impact of a massive comet, inherited the earth, and explains chains of animal survival, causes and consequences of adaptation, and more.

Whether or not we know it, our daily lives are shaped by powerful current of instinct. The conscious and unconscious decisions we make are deeply affected by an ancient and universal genetic programme. Our ambition and lust, our drives to compete and to co-operate are essential components of the human mind, forged among our ancestors on the African savannah. Instincts were instrumental in the evolutionary success of the species, and success meant a fondness for sex and violence, for status and wealth - and a will to survive. From ordering lunch to one night stands, human behaviour is still heavily influenced by this genetic agenda. But how well do instincts equip us for the 21st century? Do instincts help or hinder us as we deal with large anonymous cities, low-level stress, the battle of the sexes, and the fracturing of communal life?