*A New York Times Editors' Choice Pick* An "ambitious work" ( Washington Post ) tracing the links between autism and ingenuity Is the ability to invent things unique to humans? In The Pattern Seekers , Cambridge University psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen argues that it is, and proposes that autistic people have played a key role in human progress for seventy to one hundred thousand years, from the first complex tools like the bow and arrow and the first musical instrument to the digital revolution. He presents the science that the same genes that contribute to autism enable a special kind of pattern seeking that is essential to our species' inventiveness. However, these abilities come at a cost for autistic people, including social and neurological challenges. Baron-Cohen calls on us to support and celebrate autistic people in both their disabilities and their talents. Ultimately, The Pattern Seekers isn't just a new theory of human evolution, but a call to reconsider how society treats those who think differently.

With its acclaimed author team, cutting-edge content, emphasis on medical relevance, and coverage based on landmark experiments, "Molecular Cell Biology" has justly earned an impeccable reputation as an authoritative and exciting text. The new Sixth Edition features two new coauthors, expanded coverage of immunology and development, and new media tools for students and instructors.

Joining the ranks of modern myth busters, Dr. Sharon Moalem turns our current understanding of illness on its head and challenges us to fundamentally change the way we think about our bodies, our health, and our relationship to just about every other living thing on earth, from plants and animals to insects and bacteria. So why does disease exist? Moalem proposes that most common ailments--diabetes, hemochromatosis, cystic fibrosis, sickle cell anemia--came into existence for very good reasons. At some point they helped our ancestors survive some grand challenge to their existence. Examining the evolution of man, Moalem reveals the role genetic and cultural differences have played in the health and well-being of various races, including their susceptibility to disease. With mesmerizing insight, Moalem offers groundbreaking insight into: - How diabetes may be a biproduct of a mechanism that helped humans survive the Ice Age - Why African Americans living in the north might suffer from vitamin D deficiencies, - Why Asians can't drink as much alcohol as Europeans Revelatory, utterly engaging, and timely--Moalem ponders strongN1, the emerging Avian Flu virus--Why Redheads Feel More Pain and Asians Can't Drink will irrevocably change the way we think about our bodies and ourselves.

Here are some facts: Women live longer than men. They have stronger immune systems. They're better at fighting cancer and surviving famine, and even see the world in a wider variety of colours. They are simply stronger than men at every stage of life. Why is this? And why are we taught the opposite? To find out, Dr. Sharon Moalem drew on his own medical experiences - treating premature babies in the neonatal intensive care unit; recruiting the elderly for neurogenetic studies; tending to HIV-positive orphans in Thailand - and tried to understand why in every instance men were consistently less likely to thrive. The answer, he discovered, lies in our genetics: two X chromosomes offer a powerful survival advantage. With clear, captivating prose that weaves together eye-opening research, case studies, diverse examples ranging from the behaviour of honeybees to American pioneers, as well as experiences from his personal life and his own patients, Moalem explains why genetic females triumph over males when it comes to resiliency, intellect, stamina, immunity and much more. He also calls for a reconsideration of our male-centric, one-size-fits-all view of medical studies and even how we prescribe medications - a view that still sees women through the lens of men. Revolutionary and yet utterly convincing, The Better Half will make you see humanity and the survival of our species anew.[Bokinfo]

"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"--

The exclusive, first-hand, behind-the-scenes story of how Pfizer raced to create the first Covid-19 vaccine, told by Pfizer's CEO Dr. Albert Bourla A riveting, fast-paced, inside look at one of the most incredible private sector achievements in history, Moonshot recounts the intensive nine months in 2020 when the scientists at Pfizer, under the visionary leadership of Dr. Albert Bourla, made "the impossible possible"--creating, testing, and manufacturing a safe and effective Covid-19 vaccine that previously would have taken years to develop. Dr. Bourla chronicles how the brilliant, dedicated minds at Pfizer, under the enormous strains of the global pandemic, overcame a series of crises that were compounded by social and political unrest, and reveals the doubts, decisions, obstacles, and failures they encountered. As Dr. Bourla makes clear, Pfizer's success wasn't due to luck; it was because of preparation driven by four simple values--Courage, Excellence, Equity, and Joy. Moonshot is a story of leadership under the most unprecedented circumstances--how Dr. Bourla, a Greek immigrant, a child of Holocaust survivors, and a veterinarian, became the head of one of the world's largest corporations and initiated a dramatic transformation of the organization just before a global health crisis would serve to test the organization, its scientists and its leader, like never before. Moonshot describes best practices that can be used to address the multiple, unprecedented challenges our world faces, reveals Pfizer's implementation of scientific breakthroughs at a record-breaking pace, and offers leadership lessons that can help anyone successfully manage their own seemingly unsolvable problems. As Dr. Bourla explains, "I am sharing the story of our moonshot--the challenges we faced, the lessons we learned, and the core values that allowed us to make it happen--in hopes that it might inspire and inform your own moonshot, whatever that may be."

Soul Made Flesh is the remarkable untold story of a dramatic turning point in history, the exciting discovery of how the human brain works. In an unprecedented examination of how the secrets of the brain were revealed in seventeenth-century England, award-winning author Carl Zimmer tells an extraordinary tale that unfurls against a deadly backdrop of civil war, plague, and the Great Fire of London. At the beginning of that turbulent century, no one knew how the brain worked or even what it looked like intact. By the century's close, the science of the brain had taken root, helping to overturn many of the most common misconceptions and dominant philosophies about man, God, and the universe. Presiding over the rise of this new scientific paradigm was the founder of modern neurology, Thomas Willis, a fascinating, sympathetic, even heroic figure who stands at the center of an extraordinary group of scientists and philosophers known as the Oxford circle. Chronicled here in vivid detail are their groundbreaking revelations and often gory experiments that first enshrined the brain as the chemical engine of reason, emotion, and madness, indeed as the very seat of the human soul. Called 'as fine a science essayist as we have' by The New York Times, Zimmer tells the story of this scientific revolution through the lives of a colorful array of alchemists, mystics, utopians, spies, revolutionaries, and kings. He recreates the religious, ethical, and scientific struggles involved in the pioneering autopsies of the brain carried out by Thomas Willis; the discovery of the circulation of blood by William Harvey and his flight from London with his besieged king, Charles I; René Descartes's persecution by Catholics and Protestants alike for his views of the brain and soul; and the experiments and personal dramas of gifted men who forever changed the way science is practiced as they simultaneously upended our view of our human selves and our place in the world. In this distant mirror to our own time of continuing scientific revolution and worldwide social upheaval, Zimmer brings to life the painstaking, innovative discoveries of Willis and his contemporaries, the taproots of the amazing work of today's neuroscientists, who continue to explore the brain, revealing the hidden workings of emotions, memories, and consciousness. Graced with beautiful illustrations by Christopher Wren, Soul Made Flesh conveys a contagious appreciation for the wonder of the brain, its structure, its many marvelous functions, and the implications for human identity, mind, and morality. It is the definitive history of the dawn of a world-changing science and attitude, the age of the brain and modern consciousness.

"Totem and Taboo" is a collection of four essays by Sigmund Freud that were published together in German in 1913. Freud sought to apply his theories of psychoanalysis to the study of anthropology and early human history. The four essays cover a wide range of topics. In "The Horror of Incest", Freud examines the varied and common rules in primitive cultures that limit contact between members of the same family. In "Taboo and Emotional Ambivalence," Freud posits that primitive cultures and their attitudes about magical objects are similar to the behavior of people with neurotic psychological conditions in the modern world. In "Animism, Magic and the Omnipotence of Thought," Freud draws comparisons between the primitive belief in magic and magical animals to obsessive and compulsive disorders. Finally, in "The Return of Totemism in Childhood," Freud, influenced by one of Charles Darwin's theories about the male-dominated arrangement of early human societies, looks for parallels with his own Oedipus complex theory in the structure of primitive cultures. A classic and influential work of early psychoanalysis, "Totem and Taboo" is an important read for students of both psychology and social anthropology.

hardcover medical research book

A vibrant cultural history investigating pandemics and vaccines, by bestselling author and historian Simon Schama Cities and countries engulfed by panic and death, desperate for vaccines but fearful of what inoculation may bring. This is what the world has just gone through with Covid-19. But as Simon Schama shows in his epic history of vulnerable humanity caught between the terror of contagion and the ingenuity of science, it has happened before. Characteristically, Schama's message is delivered through gripping, page-turning stories set in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: smallpox strikes London; cholera hits Paris; plague comes to India. Threading through the scenes of terror, suffering and hope - in hospitals and prisons, palaces, and slums - are an unforgettable cast of characters: a philosopher-playwright burning up with smallpox in a country chateau; a vaccinating doctor paying house calls in Halifax; a woman doctor in south India driving her inoculator-carriage through the stricken streets as dead monkeys drop from the trees. But we are also in the labs when great, life-saving breakthroughs happen, in Paris, Hong Kong, and Mumbai. At the heart of it all is an unsung hero: Waldemar Haffkine, a gun-toting Jewish student in Odesa turned microbiologist at the Pasteur Institute, hailed in England as "the saviour of mankind" for vaccinating millions against cholera and bubonic plague in British India while being cold-shouldered by the medical establishment of the Raj. Creator of the world's first mass production line of vaccines in Mumbai, he is tragically brought down in an act of shocking injustice. Foreign Bodies crosses borders between east and west, Asia and Europe, the worlds of rich and poor, politics and science. Its thrilling story carries with it the credo of its author on the interconnectedness of humanity and nature; of the powerful and the people. Ultimately, Schama says, as we face the challenges of our times together, "there are no foreigners, only familiars."

From the author of the #1 national bestselling Musicophilia comes a truly visionary book: an exploration of the remarkable, unpredictable ways that our brains cope with the loss of sight by finding new forms of perception to create worlds as complete and rich as the no-longer-visible world. Following the phenomenal success of his international bestseller Musicophilia , the inimitable Oliver Sacks returns with another book on the extraordinary interaction between our brain and our senses -- in this case, vision. In The Mind's Eye , Sacks examines questions ranging from the primary experiences of how we perceive depth or color or motion to the complex matter of how different individuals have varied ways of thinking and experiencing or recreating the visual world. Like The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and An Anthropologist on Mars , Sacks's new book is based primarily on individual stories -- including Sacks's own experience of an ocular tumor that left him unable to perceive depth. As always, he embeds these case histories in a rich historical and scientific context. Sacks goes beyond basic vision to explore perception, hallucination and the power of visualization, as well as the ocular effects of migraine, epilepsy and other conditions. Oliver Sacks is our perfect guide to the visual world, a realm that, it turns out, is much, much more complicated than we could have imagined.

This full-length translation of Professor Luria's book introduces to the English speaking world a major document in neuropsychology, summarizing Professor Luria's earlier contributions to that area for nearly a third of a century. It is a monumental contribution. Nothing of this scope exists in the Western literature of this field, with the possible exception of Ajuriaguerra and Hecaen's book (in French) on the cerebral cortex. Professor Luria's book thus marks a further and decisive step toward the eventual coalescence of neurology and psychology, a goal to which only a few laboratories in the East and West have been devoted over the last decades. The book is unique in its organization. The first half deals with observations and interpretations concerning the major syndromes of man's left cerebral hemisphere: those grievous distortions of higher functions traditionally described as aphasia, agnosia, and apraxia. There is also a detailed and brilliant analysis of the syndrome of massive frontal-lobe involvement. The entire second half of the book is given over to a painstaking description of Professor Luria's tests, many of them introduced by himself, and set out in such detail that anyone could repeat them and thus verify Professor Luria's interpretations.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

LIFE AND ENERGY is a brilliant introduction to the chemistry of life. In this highly lucid guide to the dynamics of modern biology, Isaac Asimov deftly explores the most recent discoveries in this constantly surprising field of inquiry. In the first part, he explains the mechanics of the inanimate world, the significance of energy, work, motion, heat, and chemical reaction. He then uses these concepts in the second half to analyze and explain the latest advances in the study of enzymes, amino acids, proteins and the very processes which constitute life itself. In short, Dr. Asimov's keen examination of biology's current desire to isolate and control the very basis of life--the significance of which promises to revolutionize life itself--becomes a fascinating as well as informative excursion. Illustrated with drawings, charts and diagrams.

THE 49TH VOLUME OF THE ANNUAL REVIEW OF ENTOMOLOGY FOR 2004

Spaceflight historian Amy Shira Teitel tells the riveting story of the female pilots who each dreamed of being the first American woman in space. When the space age dawned in the late 1950s, Jackie Cochran held more propeller and jet flying records than any pilot of the twentieth century-man or woman. She had led the Women's Auxiliary Service Pilots during the Second World War, was the first woman to break the sound barrier, ran her own luxury cosmetics company, and counted multiple presidents among her personal friends. She was more qualified than any woman in the world to make the leap from atmosphere to orbit. Yet it was Jerrie Cobb, twenty-five years Jackie's junior and a record-holding pilot in her own right, who finagled her way into taking the same medical tests as the Mercury astronauts. The prospect of flying in space quickly became her obsession. While the American and international media spun the shocking story of a "woman astronaut" program, Jackie and Jerrie struggled to gain control of the narrative, each hoping to turn the rumored program into their own ideal reality-an issue that ultimately went all the way to Congress. This dual biography of audacious trailblazers Jackie Cochran and Jerrie Cobb presents these fascinating and fearless women in all their glory and grit, using their stories as guides through the shifting social, political, and technical landscape of the time.

Biotechnology (BT) offers exciting and promising prospects for healing the sick and relieving the suffering. But because of their impressive powers to alter the workings of body and mind, the "dual uses" of the same technologies make them attractive also to people who are not sick but who would use them to look younger, perform better, feel happier, or become more "perfect." These applications of BT present us with difficult challenges. This report considers such possible "beyond therapy" uses and explores both their scientific basis and the ethical and social issues they will raise. In enjoying the benefits of BT, we will need to hold fast to an account of the human being, seen not in material or mechanistic or med. terms, but in psychic and moral and spiritual ones.

Partial table of contents: NEUROPEPTIDES AND THE STRESS RESPONSE. Brain Corticotropin Releasing Factor and Development (T. Insel, et al.). Opioids, Stress, and the Developing Brain (I. Zagon & P. McLaughlin). THE ADRENAL MEDULLA AND STRESS. Catecholamines and Stress in the Newborn (T. Slotkin & F. Seidler). Endogeneous Neuropeptides Maintain Adrenal Catecholamine Output during Stress (B. Livett, et al.). IMMUNOBIOLOGY OF STRESS. Shock Induced Immunosuppression: Naltrexone Sensitive and Insensitive Parameters (J. Cunnick, et al.). Regulation of Interleukin-2 Expression by Dexamethasone in a Mouse T Cell Line (B. Sorg, et al.). PHYSICAL CONSEQUENCES OF STRESS. Enzymatic and Morphological Adaptation to Physical Exercise in Young Middle Aged, and Old Mice: A Model for Physical Stress (A. Reznick, et al.). Gastric Erosion Formation by Stress: Brain Stem Mechanisms (H. Weiner, et al.). STRESS AND BEHAVIOR. Information-Induced Stress in Humans (S. Breznitz). Affect Specific Retrieval from Archival Memory (H. Weingartner, et al.). Index.

This is the first book to explore the effect of genetic research on the Lemba Judaising community of Southern Africa and the phenomenon of Israelite identity. The science of genetics as relayed by the media is perceived by laymen as being irreproachably objective 'hard science': its disinterested 'scientific' findings appear immensely impressive and may therefore act as a powerful catalyst for change. In this case, an oral tradition cherished by many of the Lemba that they are of Jewish origin appears to be supported by recent DNA testing, which has deeply affected the narrative and religious identity of the group and the way the tribe is perceived in the Western world. International in appeal, this topical text brings together cutting-edge research on the social, cultural and ethical implications of genetics and the study of Judaising movements across the world. This book will be of interest to researchers and students of Jewish history, genetic anthropology, race and ethnicity studies, and religious and cultural studies.