Catalog Search Results
1) The violinist's thumb: and other lost tales of love, war, and genius, as written by our genetic code
Author
Language
English
Description
"In The Disappearing Spoon, bestselling author Sam Kean unlocked the mysteries of the periodic table. In THE VIOLINIST'S THUMB, he explores the wonders of the magical building block of life: DNA. There are genes to explain crazy cat ladies, why other people have no fingerprints, and why some people survive nuclear bombs. Genes illuminate everything from JFK's bronze skin (it wasn't a tan) to Einstein's genius. They prove that Neanderthals and humans...
Author
Publisher
Princeton University Press
Pub. Date
[2015]
Language
English
Description
"Humans are a puzzling species. On the one hand, we struggle to survive on our own in the wild, often failing to overcome even basic challenges, like obtaining food, building shelters, or avoiding predators. On the other hand, human groups have produced ingenious technologies, sophisticated languages, and complex institutions that have permitted us to successfully expand into a vast range of diverse environments. What has enabled us to dominate the...
Author
Language
English
Description
"Peter Godfrey-Smith is a leading philosopher of science. He is also a scuba diver whose underwater videos of warring octopuses have attracted wide notice. In this book, he brings his parallel careers together to tell a bold new story of how nature became aware of itself. Mammals and birds are widely seen as the smartest creatures on earth. But one other branch of the tree of life has also sprouted surprising intelligence: the cephalopods, consisting...
Author
Pub. Date
2008.
Language
English
Appears on list
Formats
Description
Neil Shubin, a leading paleontologist and professor of anatomy who discovered Tiktaalik--the "missing link" that made headlines around the world in April 2006--tells the story of evolution by tracing the organs of the human body back millions of years, long before the first creatures walked the earth. By examining fossils and DNA, Shubin shows us that our hands actually resemble fish fins, our head is organized like that of a long-extinct jawless...
Author
Publisher
Basic Books
Pub. Date
[2001]
Language
English
Description
"When Charles Darwin landed on the Galapagos Islands in 1835, he was the first to recognize that their isolation and desolation were advantages for a naturalist: Here the workings of nature are laid bare for study. Still, much more happened on these islands than Darwin's lone visit. Evolution's Workshop describes how specimen-hunting and science have supported each other (or not) on the Galapagos over the past three centuries. In lucid prose, Edward...
Author
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Pub. Date
1996.
Language
English
Description
This exciting exploration into the nature of life brilliantly weaves together the excitement of intellectual discovery and a fertile mix of insights to give the general reader a fascinating look at the new science of complexity--and at the forces for order that lie at the edge of chaos. "An important new argument".--Carl Sagan, The Washington Post. 59 illustrations.
Author
Series
Publisher
Basic Books
Pub. Date
[1995]
Language
English
Description
How did the replication bomb we call "life" begin and where in the world, or rather, in the universe, is it heading? Writing with characteristic wit and an ability to clarify complex phenomena (the New York Times described his style as "the sort of science writing that makes the reader feel like a genius"), Richard Dawkins confronts this ancient mystery. Dawkins has been named by the London Daily Telegraph "the most brilliant contemporary preacher...
Author
Publisher
Current
Pub. Date
[2012]
Language
English
Description
"A new approach to uderstanding the ever-changing information that bombards us. Arbesman is an expert in scientometrics, literally the science of science--how we know what we know. It turns out that knowledge in most fields evolves in systematic and predictable ways, and understanding that evolution can enormously powerful"--
Author
Series
Publisher
Scholastic Press
Pub. Date
2021.
Language
English
Description
When Arnold wishes he had more information for his family tree, Ms. Frizzle revs up the Magic School Bus and the class zooms back to prehistoric times. First stop: 3.5 billion years ago! There aren't any people around to ask for directions. Luckily Ms. Frizzle has a plan, and the class is right there to watch simple cells become sponges and then fish and dinosaurs, then mammals and early primates and, eventually, modern humans. It's the longest class...
Author
Publisher
Shambhala Publications, Inc
Pub. Date
[2017]
Language
English
Description
Wilber's account of humankind's place in a universe of sex, soul, and spirit. He examines the course of evolution as the unfolding manifestation of Spirit, from matter to life to mind, including the higher stages of spiritual development where Spirit becomes conscious of itself. Original views on many topics of continuing interest and controversy are explored: from gender roles, to multiculturalism, to environmental ethics and even the meaning of...
Author
Publisher
Pantheon Books
Pub. Date
[2019]
Language
English
Description
"Highly accessible, authoritative, and intellectually provocative, a startlingly original theory of how Homo sapiens came to be: Richard Wrangham forcefully argues that, a quarter of a million years ago, rising intelligence among our ancestors led to a unique new ability with unexpected consequences: our ancestors invented socially sanctioned capital punishment, facilitating domestication, increased cooperation, the accumulation of culture, and ultimately...
17) The selfish gene
Author
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Pub. Date
2016.
Language
English
Description
The million copy international bestseller, critically acclaimed and translated into over 25 languages. As influential today as when it was first published, The Selfish Gene has become a classic exposition of evolutionary thought. Professor Dawkins articulates a gene's eye view of evolution - a view giving centre stage to these persistent units of information, and in which organisms can be seen as vehicles for their replication. This imaginative, powerful,...
18) Leech
Author
Pub. Date
2022.
Language
English
Appears on list
Formats
Description
"In an isolated chateau, as far north as north goes, the baron's doctor has died. The doctor's replacement has a mystery to solve: discovering how the Institute lost track of one of its many bodies. For hundreds of years the Interprovincial Medical Institute has grown by taking root in young minds and shaping them into doctors, replacing every human practitioner of medicine. The Institute is here to help humanity, to cure and to cut, to cradle and...
Author
Publisher
Scribe
Pub. Date
2022.
Language
English
Description
Prehistory is all around us. We just need to know where to look. Juan Jose Millas has always felt like he doesn't quite fit into human society. Sometimes he wonders if he is even a Homo sapiens at all, or something simpler. Perhaps he is a Neanderthal who somehow survived? So he turns to Juan Luis Arsuaga, one of the world's leading palaeontologists and a super-smart sapiens, to explain why we are the way we are and where we come from. Over the course...
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