"The award-winning Caltech physicist and author of The Particle at the End of the Universe shares sweeping perspectives into how human purpose and meaning naturally fit into a scientific worldview,"--Amazon.com. "Sean Carroll is emerging as one of the greatest humanist thinkers of his generation as he brings his extraordinary intellect to bear not only on Higgs bosons and extra dimensions but now also on our deepest personal questions. Where are...

The story of our home planet and the organisms spread across its surface is far more spectacular than any Hollywood blockbuster, filled with enough plot twists to rival a bestselling thriller. But only recently have we begun to piece together the whole mystery into a coherent narrative. Drawing on his decades of field research and up-to-the-minute understanding of the latest science, geologist Andrew H. Knoll delivers a biography of Earth, charting...

A biochemist, building on the pillars of evolutionary theory and drawing on cutting-edge research into the link between energy and genes, argues that the evolution of multicellular life was the result of a single event.

"In the tradition of E.H. Gombrich, Stephen Hawking, and Alan Weisman-an entertaining and uniquely informed narration of Life's life story. In the beginning, Earth was an inhospitably alien place-in constant chemical flux, covered with churning seas, crafting its landscape through incessant volcanic eruptions. Amid all this tumult and disaster, life began. The earliest living things were no more than membranes stretched across microscopic gaps in...

"A paleontologist and a storyteller take two children through the birth of our planet to the present day, covering major geological periods and the evolution of life on Earth"--

"I'll begin with a challenging question: Why should anyone want to know about the origin of life? The answers will vary from one person to the next, but the simplest answer is curiosity. Anyone reading this introduction is curious because they wonder how life could have begun on the Earth, but there is more to it than that. My friend Stuart Kauffman wrote a book with the title At Home in the Universe. The title refers to a deep sense of satisfaction...

Curiosity and wonderment about the origins of the universe are at the heart of our experience of the world. From Hesiod's Chaos, described in his poem about the origins of the Greek gods, Theogony, to today's mind-bending theories of the multiverse, humans have been consumed by the relentless pursuit of an answer to one awe inspiring question: What exactly happened during those first moments? Guido Tonelli, the acclaimed, award-winning particle physicist...

Consider the Platypus explores the history and features of more than 50 animals to provide insight into our current understanding of evolution. Using Darwin's theory as a springboard, Maggie Ryan Sandford details scientists' initial understanding of the development of creatures and how that has expanded in the wake of genetic sequencing. Surprising, witty, and impeccably researched, Sandford describes each animal's significant features and how these...