Mostrando títulos en Biología

Living at the limits of our ordinary perception, mosses are a common but largely unnoticed element of the natural world. Gathering Moss is a beautifully written mix of science and personal reflection that invites listeners to explore and learn from the elegantly simple lives of mosses.

Dr. Steven R. Gundry, the New York Times bestselling author of the groundbreaking Plant Paradox series, shares compelling evidence that our gut microbiome is driving our thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and our mental, emotional, and neuronal health—and shows us how to heal our microbiomes to take back control of our minds.

Biology is undergoing a quiet but profound transformation. Several aspects of the standard picture of how life works have been exposed as incomplete, misleading, or wrong. In How Life Works, Philip Ball explores the new biology, revealing life to be a far richer, more ingenious affair than we had guessed. Ball explains that there is no unique place to look for an answer to this question: life is a system of many levels, each with its own rules and principles. How Life Works explains how these levels operate, interface, and work together (most of the time).

Robert Sapolsky’s Behave, his now classic account of why humans do good and why they do bad, pointed toward an unsettling conclusion: We may not grasp the precise marriage of nature and nurture that creates the physics and chemistry at the base of human behavior, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Now, in Determined, Sapolsky takes his argument all the way, mounting a brilliant (and in his inimitable way, delightful) full-frontal assault on the pleasant fantasy that there is some separate self telling our biology what to do.

Sy Montgomery's popular 2011 Orion magazine piece, "Deep Intellect", about her friendship with a sensitive, sweet-natured octopus named Athena and the grief she felt at her death, went viral, indicating the widespread fascination with these mysterious, almost alien-like creatures. Since then Sy has practiced true immersion journalism, from New England aquarium tanks to the reefs of French Polynesia and the Gulf of Mexico, pursuing these wild, solitary shape-shifters.

Ambika Kamath and Melina Packer reveal how scientists studying animal behavior have long projected human norms and values onto animals while seeking to understand them. When scientific studies conclude that these norms and values are natural in animals, it makes it easier to think of them as natural in humans too. And because scientists, historically and to this day, largely belong to elite, powerful segments of society, the norms and values embedded into animal behavior science match those of the already powerful.

From the celebrated neurobiologist and primatologist, a landmark, genre-defining examination of human behavior, both good and bad, and an answer to the question: Why do we do the things we do? 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.

Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells - taken without her knowledge - became one of the most important tools in medicine: The first “immortal” human cells grown in culture, which are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than 60 years. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb’s effects.

We humans like to think of ourselves as highly evolved creatures. But if we are supposedly evolution's greatest creation, why do we have such bad knees? Why do we catch head colds so often - 200 times more often than a dog does? How come our wrists have so many useless bones? And are we really supposed to swallow and breathe through the same narrow tube? Surely there's been some kind of mistake. As professor of biology Nathan H. Lents explains in Human Errors, our evolutionary history is nothing if not a litany of mistakes, each more entertaining and enlightening than the last.

We may believe that we are the masters of our fates, but in reality, we are at the mercy of hundreds of trillions of single-celled organisms that exert control over every aspect of how our minds and bodies function. These are the diverse species of microbes that work together synergistically to communicate with each other and with every system in our bodies. You are your microbiome’s home, and it wants to take care of you, but first you have to protect it. In Gut Check, Dr. Steven Gundry reveals the emerging science proving that Hippocrates was right—all disease begins in the gut.

Epigenetics can potentially revolutionize our understanding of the structure and behavior of biological life on Earth. It explains why mapping an organism's genetic code is not enough to determine how it develops or acts and shows how nurture combines with nature to engineer biological diversity. Surveying the 20-year history of the field while also highlighting its latest findings and innovations, this volume provides a readily understandable introduction to the foundations of epigenetics.

Why do women live longer than men? Why do women have menopause? Why are women more likely to get Alzheimer’s? Why do girls score better at every academic subject than boys until puberty, when suddenly their scores plummet? And does the female brain really exist? In Eve, Cat Bohannon answers questions scientists should have been addressing for decades. With boundless curiosity and sharp wit, she covers the past 200 million years to explain the specific science behind the development of the female sex.

Perfect for fans of horror and science alike, Rise of the Zombie Bugs offers a chilling yet enlightening look at the hidden world of parasites. It's a must-listen for anyone curious about the true terrors lurking in nature's undergrowth and the unnerving beauty of evolution's darker side.

We all know the importance of mothers. They are typically as paramount in the wild as they are in human relationships. But what about fathers? In most mammals, fathers have little to no involvement in raising their offspring—and sometimes even kill the offspring sired by other fathers. How, then, can we explain modern fathers having the capacity to be highly engaged parents? In Father Nature, James Rilling explores how humans have evolved to endow modern fathers with this potential and considers why this capacity evolved in humans.

For decades Richard Dawkins has been the world's most brilliant scientific communicator, consistently illuminating the wonders of nature and attacking faulty logic. Science in the Soul brings together 42 essays, polemics, and paeans - culled from personal papers, newspapers, lectures, and online salons - all written with Dawkins' characteristic erudition, remorseless wit, and unjaded awe of the natural world.

Aging - not cancer, not heart disease - is the underlying cause of most human death and suffering. The same cascade of biological changes that renders us wrinkled and gray also opens the door to dementia and disease. We work furiously to conquer each individual disease, but we never think to ask: Is aging itself necessary? Nature tells us it is not: There are tortoises and salamanders who are spry into old age and whose risk of dying is the same no matter how old they are.

If fresh water is to be treasured, the Great Lakes are the mother lode. No bodies of water can compare to them. One of them, Superior, is the largest lake on earth, and the five lakes together contain a fifth of the world's supply of standing fresh water. Their surface area of 95,000 square miles is greater than New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island combined. They are so vast that they dominate much of the geography, climate, and history of North America. In one way or another, they affect the lives of tens of millions.

You wake up and feel a tickle in your throat. Your head hurts. You’re mildly annoyed as you get the kids ready for school and dress for work yourself. Meanwhile, an epic war is being fought, just below your skin. Millions are fighting and dying for you to be able to complain as you head out the door. So what, exactly, is your immune system? In Immune, Philipp Dettmer, the brains behind the most popular science channel on YouTube, takes listeners on a journey through the fortress of the human body and its defenses.

In the 200 years since we discovered that microbes cause infectious diseases, we've battled to keep them at bay. But a recent explosion of scientific knowledge has led to undeniable evidence that early exposure to these organisms is beneficial to our children's well-being. Our current emphasis on hyper-cleanliness is taking a toll on our children's lifelong health. This engaging and important book explains how the millions of microbes that live in our bodies influence childhood development.

At every moment, within our bodies and all around us, trillions of microscopic combatants are waging a war that shapes our health and life on Earth. Countless times per second, viruses known as phages attack and destroy bacteria while leaving all other life forms, including us, unscathed. Vastly outnumbering the viruses that do us harm, phages power ecosystems, drive evolutionary innovation, and harbor a remarkable capacity to heal life-threatening infections when conventional antibiotics fail. Yet most of us have never heard of them, thinking of viruses only as enemies to be feared.