"From a renowned historian comes a groundbreaking narrative of humanity's creation and evolution--a #1 international bestseller--that explores the ways in which biology and history have defined us and enhanced our understanding of what it means to be "human." One hundred thousand years ago, at least six different species of humans inhabited Earth. Yet today there is only one--homo sapiens. What happened to the others? And what may happen to us? Most books about the history of humanity pursue either a historical or a biological approach, but Dr. Yuval Noah Harari breaks the mold with this highly original book that begins about 70,000 years ago with the appearance of modern cognition. From examining the role evolving humans have played in the global ecosystem to charting the rise of empires, Sapiens integrates history and science to reconsider accepted narratives, connect past developments with contemporary concerns, and examine specific events within the context of larger ideas .Dr. Harari also compels us to look ahead, because over the last few decades humans have begun to bend laws of natural selection that have governed life for the past four billion years. We are acquiring the ability to design not only the world around us, but also ourselves. Where is this leading us, and what do we want to become? Featuring 27 photographs, 6 maps, and 25 illustrations/diagrams, this provocative and insightful work is sure to spark debate and is essential reading for aficionados of Jared Diamond, James Gleick, Matt Ridley, Robert Wright, and Sharon Moalem"--

Why do we do the things we do? Over a decade in the making, this game-changing book is Robert Sapolsky's genre-shattering attempt to answer that question as fully as perhaps only he could, looking at it from every angle. Sapolsky's storytelling concept is delightful but it also has a powerful intrinsic logic: he starts by looking at the factors that bear on a person's reaction in the precise moment a behavior occurs, and then hops back in time from there, in stages, ultimately ending up at the deep history of our species and its evolutionary legacy. And so the first category of explanation is the neurobiological one. A behavior occurs--whether an example of humans at our best, worst, or somewhere in between. What went on in a person's brain a second before the behavior happened? Then Sapolsky pulls out to a slightly larger field of vision, a little earlier in time: What sight, sound, or smell caused the nervous system to produce that behavior? And then, what hormones acted hours to days earlier to change how responsive that individual is to the stimuli that triggered the nervous system? By now he has increased our field of vision so that we are thinking about neurobiology and the sensory world of our environment and endocrinology in trying to explain what happened. Sapolsky keeps going: How was that behavior influenced by structural changes in the nervous system over the preceding months, by that person's adolescence, childhood, fetal life, and then back to his or her genetic makeup? Finally, he expands the view to encompass factors larger than one individual. How did culture shape that individual's group, what ecological factors millennia old formed that culture? And on and on, back to evolutionary factors millions of years old. The result is one of the most dazzling tours d'horizon of the science of human behavior ever attempted, a majestic synthesisthat harvests cutting-edge research across a range of disciplines to provide a subtle and nuanced perspective on why we ultimately do the things we do...for good and for ill. Sapolsky builds on this understanding to wrestle with some of our deepest and thorniest questions relating to tribalism and xenophobia, hierarchy and competition, morality and free will, and war and peace. Wise, humane, often very funny, Behave is a towering achievement, powerfully humanizing, and downright heroic in its own right"

Over the last half billion years, there have been five major mass extinctions, when the diversity of life on Earth suddenly and dramatically contracted. Scientists are currently monitoring the sixth extinction, predicted to be the most devastating since the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs. This time around the cataclysm is us. In this book the author tells us why and how human beings have altered life on the planet in a way no species has before. She provides a moving account of the disappearances of various species occurring all around us and traces the evolution of extinction as concept, from its first articulation by Georges Cuvier in revolutionary Paris up to Lyell and Darwin, and through the present day. The sixth extinction is likely to be mankind's most lasting legacy, compelling us to rethink the fundamental question of what it means to be human. -- Publisher description.

How Singular? How singular is the Singularity? Will it happen in an instant? Lets consider again the derivation of the word. In mathematics a singularity is a value that is beyond any limit - in essence, infinity. The Singularity as we have discussed it in this book, does not achieve infinite levels of computation, memory, as any other other measurable attribute. But it certainly achieves vast levels of all these qualities, including intelligence. With the reverse engineering of the human brain we will be able to apply the parallel, self-organizing, chaotic, algorithms of human intelligence to enormously powerful computational substrates. This intelligence will then be in a position to improve its own design, both hardware and software, in a rapidly accelerating iterative process.

"This successor volume to The Singularity Is Near explores how technology will refashion the human race in the decades to come. In this entirely new book, Ray Kurzweil brings a fresh perspective to advances in the singularity-assessing the progress of many of his predictions and examining the novel advancements that, in the near future, will bring a revolution in knowledge and an expansion of human potential. Among the topics he discusses are rebuilding the world atom by atom with devices like nanobots; radical life extension beyond the current age limit of 120; reinventing intelligence by expanding biological capacity with nonbiological intelligence in the cloud; how life is improving with declines in poverty and violence; and the growth of technologies that can be applied to everything from clothes to building materials to growing human organs. He also considers the potential perils of biotechnology, nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence, including such topics as how AI will impact unemployment and the safety of autonomous cars, and "After Life" technology, which will reanimate people who have passed away through a combination of data and DNA"--

This book explodes the myth of attention deficit disorder as genetically based - and offers real hope and advice for children and adults who live with the condition. Gabor Mate is a revered physician who specializes in neurology, psychiatry and psychology - and himself has ADD. With wisdom gained through years of medical practice and research, Scattered Minds is a must-read for parents - and for anyone interested how experiences in infancy shape the biology and psychology of the human brain. This book: Demonstrates that ADD is not an inherited illness, but a reversible impairment and developmental delay ; Explains that in ADD, circuits in the brain whose job is emotional self-regulation and attention control fail to develop in infancy - and why ; Shows how ̀distractibility' is the psychological product of life experience ; Allows parents to understand what makes their ADD children tick, and adults with ADD to gain insights into their emotions and behaviours ; Expresses optimism about neurological development even in adulthood ; Presents a programme of how to promote this development in both children and adults.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the acclaimed author of Signal Fires and host of the hit podcast Family Secrets : a memoir about the staggering family secret uncovered by a genealogy test, an exploration of the urgent ethical questions surrounding fertility treatments and DNA testing, and a profound inquiry of paternity, identity, and love. “Memoir gold: a profound and exquisitely rendered exploration of identity and the true meaning of family.” — People In the spring of 2016, through a genealogy website to which she had casually submitted her DNA for analysis, Dani Shapiro received the stunning news that her beloved deceased father was not her biological father. Over the course of a single day, her entire history—the life she had lived—crumbled beneath her. Inheritance is a book about secrets. It is the story of a woman's urgent quest to unlock the story of her own identity, a story that had been scrupulously hidden from her for more than fifty years. It is a book about the extraordinary moment we live in, a moment in which science and technology have outpaced not only medical ethics but also the capacities of the human heart to contend with the consequences of what we discover. Dani Shapiro’s memoir unfolds at a breakneck pace—part mystery, part real-time investigation, part rumination on the ineffable combination of memory, history, biology, and experience that makes us who we are. Inheritance is a devastating and haunting interrogation of the meaning of kinship and identity, written with stunning intensity and precision.

The olden days were pretty fun if you liked wearing chainmail or chopping people's heads off but there was one TINY LITTLE problem back then . . . doctors didn't have the slightest clue about how our bodies worked. It's time to find out why Ancient Egyptians thought the brain was just a useless load of old stuffing that might as well be chucked in the bin, why teachers forced their pupils to smoke cigarettes, why hairdressers would cut off their customers' legs, and why people used to get paid for farting. (Unfortunately that's no longer a thing - sorry.) You'll get answers to questions like- Why did patients gargle with wee? How did a doctor save people's lives using a washing machine, a can of beans and some old sausages? What was the great stink? (No, it's not what doctors call your bum.) If you're sure you're ready, then pop a peg on your nose (there was a lot of stinky pus back then), pull on your wellies (there was a lot of poo there too), wash your hands (because they certainly didn't) and explore the gross and gruesome history of the human body in . . . KAY'S MARVELLOUS MEDICINE - the brand-new, hilarious book from bestselling, record-breaking author, Adam Kay. Praise for Kay's Anatomy- 'An enjoyably gross look at the human body. Hours of gruesome fun guaranteed' i 'Like listening to a teacher who makes pupils fall about' Sunday Times 'Totally brilliant!' Jacqueline Wilson 'Fun and informative' Malorie Blackman 'Very funny - this exciting book is bound to inspire the next generation of medics' Sunday Express

Neurogeneticist Moalem takes us on a trip from prehistory to the forefront of cutting-edge medical research, and through a bedroom or two, to tell the story of how human sexuality has developed over time. This book challenges common perceptions about our bodies and presents astonishing discoveries from the frontiers of science as it traces the transformation of sex across species and through time to its current role in human societies. Find out the answers to such provocative questions as: Can the birth control pill influence the type of men women are attracted to? What do men and honeybees have in common when it comes to sex? When are women most likely to cheat? From the composition and function of human sex organs to the fascinating biochemistry behind sexual attraction, How Sex Works presents captivating new ideas and surprising answers to questions about contraception, fertility, circumcision, menopause, STDs, homosexuality, orgasms, and more.--From publisher description.

Do you ever wonder where the stuff around you all came from? No, not from eBay. I mean, who had the amazing idea of making a mobile phone or the annoying idea of building a school? For example, did you know that Velcro was invented by a dog and WiFi by a movie star? (Spoiler alert - it wasn't Zendaya.) In the fourth laugh-out-loud book from Adam Kay and Henry Paker, you'll learn all about the coolest, grossest and most ridiculous inventions in the world. You'll meet the queen who used the first ever toilet, learn why margarine used to be full of maggots and find out why Ancient Greeks wiped their bums on dinner plates. Oh, and hopefully some slightly more useful facts as well... An A to Kay to Z of the random, ridiculous and revolutionary inventions that changed our lives. (And some that definitely didn't . . .) Praise for Kay's Anatomy- 'An enjoyably gross look at the human body. Hours of gruesome fun guaranteed' i 'Like listening to a teacher who makes pupils fall about' Sunday Times 'Totally brilliant!' Jacqueline Wilson 'Fun and informative' Malorie Blackman 'Very funny - this exciting book is bound to inspire the next generation of medics' Sunday Express Praise for Kay's Marvellous Medicine- 'A ridiculously funny read that will delight, gross out and educate all at the same time' Independent 'Educational and entertaining. It should be on the national curriculum!' Harry Hill 'Completely marvellous and very funny' BookTrust

An inspiring and profoundly enlightening exploration of one doctor’s discovery of how hope can change the course of illness Since the time of the ancient Greeks, human beings have believed that hope is essential to life. Now, in this groundbreaking book, Harvard Medical School professor and New Yorker staff writer Jerome Groopman shows us why. The search for hope is most urgent at the patient’s bedside. The Anatomy of Hope takes us there, bringing us into the lives of people at pivotal moments when they reach for and find hope--or when it eludes their grasp. Through these intimate portraits, we learn how to distinguish true hope from false, why some people feel they are undeserving of it, and whether we should ever abandon our search. Can hope contribute to recovery by changing physical well-being? To answer this hotly debated question, Groopman embarked on an investigative journey to cutting-edge laboratories where researchers are unraveling an authentic biology of hope. There he finds a scientific basis for understanding the role of this vital emotion in the outcome of illness. Here is a book that offers a new way of thinking about hope, with a message for all readers, not only patients and their families. "We are just beginning to appreciate hope’s reach," Groopman writes, "and have not defined its limits. I see hope as the very heart of healing." From the Hardcover edition.

"From Daniel H. Pink, the #1 New York Times-bestselling author of When and Drive, a new book about the transforming power of that crucial and misunderstood emotion, regret. "Regret is not dangerous or abnormal, it is healthy and universal, an integral part of being human," Daniel H. Pink writes in his provocative and eye-opening new book. "Done right, it needn't bring us down; it can lift us up." Drawing from new research in social psychology, neuroscience, biology, and more, as well as from more than ten thousand people in thirty-five countries around the world who responded to his World Regret Survey-the largest of its kind ever conducted-Pink challenges the idea of regret being a drag on our self-esteem and outlook. In fact, understanding how regret actually works and using those insights to reframe our perspective of it will help us reclaim regret as an indispensable emotion that can help us make smarter decisions, perform better at work and school, and bring greater meaning to our lives. As he did in his other paradigm-changing books When, Drive, and A Whole New Mind, Pink sets down a dynamic new way of thinking about regret and frames his ideas in ways that are clear, accessible, and pragmatic. Packed with true stories of people's regrets as well as practical takeaways for reimagining regret as a positive force in your own life, this book shows how we can live richer, more engaged lives-with no regrets"--

"Titillating and provocative essays from one of the freshest voices in science today -- Why do testicles hang the way they do? Is there an adaptive function to the female orgasm? What does it feel like to want to kill yourself? Does "free will" really exist? And why is the penis shaped like that anyway? In Why Is the Penis Shaped Like That?, the research psychologist and award-winning columnist Jesse Bering features more than thirty of his most popular essays from Scientific American and Slate, as well as two new pieces, that take readers on a bold and captivating journey through some of the most taboo issues related to evolution and human behavior. Exploring the history of cannibalism, the neurology of people who are sexually attracted to animals, the evolution of human body fluids, the science of homosexuality, and serious questions about life and death, Bering astutely covers a generous expanse of our kaleidoscope of quirks and origins. With his characteristic irreverence and trademark cheekiness, Bering leaves no topic unturned or curiosity unexamined, and he does it all with an audaciously original voice. Whether you are interested in the psychological history behind the many facets of sexual desire or the evolutionary patterns that have dictated our current mystique and phallic physique, Why Is the Penis Shaped Like That? is bound to create lively discussion and debate for years to come"--

Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize From the man who Oliver Sacks hailed as “one of the best scientist/writers of our time,” a collection of sharply observed, uproariously funny essays on the biology of human culture and behavior. In the tradition of Stephen Jay Gould and Oliver Sacks, Robert Sapolsky offers a sparkling and erudite collection of essays about science, the world, and our relation to both. “The Trouble with Testosterone” explores the influence of that notorious hormone on male aggression. “Curious George’s Pharmacy” reexamines recent exciting claims that wild primates know how to medicate themselves with forest plants. “Junk Food Monkeys” relates the adventures of a troop of baboons who stumble upon a tourist garbage dump. And “Circling the Blanket for God” examines the neurobiological roots underlying religious belief. Drawing on his career as an evolutionary biologist and neurobiologist, Robert Sapolsky writes about the natural world vividly and insightfully. With candor, humor, and rich observations, these essays marry cutting-edge science with humanity, illuminating the interconnectedness of the world’s inhabitants with skill and flair.

In this book, the author, a physician and writer employs his wide-ranging and interdisciplinary approach to science and medicine, explaining how art, history, superheroes, sex workers, and sports stars all help us understand the impact of our lives on our genes, and our genes on our lives. He explains new concepts in human genetics and health that indicate that the fundamental nature of the human genome is much more fluid and flexible than originally thought. He reveals how genetic breakthroughs are completely transforming our understanding of both the world and our lives. Conventional wisdom dictates that our genetic destiny is fixed at conception. But this book shows us that the human genome is far more fluid and fascinating than your ninth grade biology teacher ever imagined. By bringing us to the bedside of his unique and complex patients, he demonstrates what rare genetic conditions can teach us all about our own health and well-being. In the brave new world we are rapidly rocketing into, genetic knowledge has become absolutely crucial. This book provides a roadmap for this journey by teaching: Why you may have recovered from the psychological trauma caused by childhood bullying, but your genes may remain scarred for life ; How fructose is the sugar that makes fruits sweet, but if you have certain genes, consuming it can buy you a one-way trip to the coroner's office ; Why ingesting common painkillers is like dosing yourself repeatedly with morphine, if you have a certain set of genes ; How insurance companies legally use your genetic data to predict the risk of disability for you and your children, and how that impacts the coverage decisions they make for your family ; How to have the single most important conversation with your doctor, one that can save your life ; And finally, Why people with rare genetic conditions hold the keys to medical problems affecting millions. This book will alter how you view your genes, your health, and your life.

What does it really mean to be human? How do we actually differ from apes? All your questions answered in this definitive visual guide to being Human. From biology to beliefs, evolution to our future, a team of expert writers and consultants - led by author and broadcaster Robert Winston - tell the complete story of our remarkable species. People watching - it's only human nature.

Filled with gripping medical histories that explore the body's mysterious capacity to marshal disparate organs and processes in the interests of survival to highlight the miraculous resiliency of human life.

In this collection of erudite essays on science, the world and our relation to both, behavioural biologist Robert Sapolsky interprets the peculiar drives and intrinsic needs of that most exotic species - homo sapiens.

Sum is a stunning exploration of funny and unexpected afterlives that have never been considered--each presented as a vignette that offers a lens through which to see ourselves here and now. In one afterlife you may find that God is the size of a microbe and is unaware of your existence. In another, you work as a background character in other people's dreams. Or you may find that the afterlife contains only those people whom you remember. The stories in Sum are rooted in romance, science, and awe: a mixture of death, hope, computers, immortality, love, biology, and desire that cuts through human nature at new and exciting angles.

Beauty is not a myth. According to scientist and psychologist Nancy Etcoff, the pursuit of beauty is neither a cultural construction, an invention of Madison Avenue, nor a backlash against feminism. Survival of the Prettiest, the first in-depth scientific inquiry into the nature of human beauty, posits that beauty is an essential and ineradicable part of human nature, from what makes a face beautiful to the deepest questions about the human condition. Every human civilization has revered beauty, pursued it at enormous costs, and endured both the tragic and the comic consequences of that pursuit. Provocative, witty, and insightful, Etcoff sheds light on every aspect of human beauty, including why we devour fashion magazines, check our waistlines, and gaze longingly at objects of desire. Informed by state-of-the-art theories of the human mind from cognitive science and evolutionary biology, Survival of the Prettiest tells us why gentlemen prefer blondes, why high heels have never gone out of style, why eyebrows are plucked and hair is coiffed. Etcoff also explains how sexual preference is guided by ancient rules that make us most attracted to those with whom we are most likely to reproduce. Research on why we find infant features irresistibly attractive, as well as controversial new work that suggests parents show more affection to attractive newborns, is part of a broad investigation that includes insights into how beauty influences our perceptions, attitudes, and behavior toward others. When the attainment of beauty is viewed in the context of a Darwinian struggle for survival, many of the most extreme practices surrounding our looks, such as body piercing and serial plastic surgeries, suddenly seem less outlandish. In fact, those very practices may ensure the survival of our genes. Agree or disagree, you will never think about human beauty the same way again.