Genetic Science

Discover the answers to your family history mysteries using the most cutting-edge tool available. This plain-English guide (newly updated and expanded to include the latest DNA developments) will teach you what DNA tests are available; the pros and cons of the major testing companies; and how to choose the right test to answer your specific genealogy questions.

A simple DNA test is all it takes. Just a quick mouth swab, and soon, you'll be matched with your perfect partner - the one you're genetically made for. That's the promise made by Match Your DNA. A decade ago, the company announced that they had found the gene that pairs each of us with our soul mate. Since then, millions of people around the world have been matched. But the discovery has its downsides: Test results have led to the breakup of countless relationships and upended the traditional ideas of dating, romance, and love.

A warm day in Dublin, a crowded street corner. Suddenly, a car-bomb explodes, killing and injuring scores of innocent people.From the second-floor window of a building across the street, a visiting American watches, helpless, as his beloved wife and children are sacrificed in the heat and fire of someone else's cause.

A man and woman possessed of telekinetic powers. She is the doctor. He is the experiment. What comes between them is a terrifying secret history that could save them or destroy them.

The heroes Terry Fairway once idolized have turned against him, hunting him down at every turn. His grandfather, the ruthless S-ranked necromancer who rules the city, watches from his throne as the people starve and suffer. Vampires stalk the streets unchecked, feeding on the innocent without fear of reprisal. Terry always believed his family were the good guys, but Wichita isn't a city of heroes or villains—it's a city of power. And if power is all that matters, then power is what Terry will seize.

In Native American DNA, Kim TallBear shows how DNA testing is a powerful - and problematic - scientific process that is useful in determining close biological relatives. But tribal membership is a legal category that has developed in dependence on certain social understandings and historical contexts, a set of concepts that entangles genetic information in a web of family relations, reservation histories, tribal rules, and government regulations.

A deadly cloud of spores has already infected and killed the inhabitants of two worlds. Now the plague is heading for Earth, threatening humans and aliens alike. Can either species be trusted to find the cure? Geneticist Marianne Jenner is immersed in the desperate race to save humanity, yet her family is tearing itself apart. Siblings Elizabeth and Ryan are strident isolationists who agree only that an alien conspiracy is in play. Marianne's youngest, Noah, is a loner addicted to a drug that constantly changes his identity.

Persephone Station, a seemingly backwater planet that has largely been ignored by the United Republic of Worlds, becomes the focus for the Serrao-Orlov Corporation as the planet has a few secrets the corporation wants to exploit. Rosie, owner of Monk's Bar, serves members of a rather exclusive criminal class and those who seek to employ them. Angel, ex-marine and head of a semi-organized band of beneficent criminals, wayward assassins, and washed-up mercenaries with a penchant for doing the honorable thing, is asked to perform a job for Rosie.

Slip doesn’t buy it, though. The Sci-gods took everything from him. They dropped a bomb that reduced his home to waste, his family to dust, and left him broken with no hope for vengeance. Now he’s just a lone cyborg digging through scraps for his next meal. That changes when a rebel assassin stalks Slip, eager to unlock the untapped potential hidden deep within him—his unique connection to the A.I. in his head. With nothing left to lose, he accepts the invitation to duel for upgrades to his tech, created by the very ones who destroyed his life: the history-obsessed Sci-gods.

In the middle of the night, in a house on a quiet street in suburban Minneapolis, intruders silently murder Luke Ellis' parents and load him into a black SUV. The operation takes less than two minutes. Luke will wake up at The Institute, in a room that looks just like his own, except there's no window. And outside his door are other doors, behind which are other kids with special talents - telekinesis and telepathy - who got to this place the same way Luke did: Kalisha, Nick, George, Iris, and 10-year-old Avery Dixon.

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 globe, more than any other species, while remaining virtually helpless as lone individuals?

There are rare moments in time when we make choices that irreversibly change the world, and our lives, forever. Today is one of those moments. Scientists, engineers and philosophers alike warn us that without a radical shift in our thinking, we are on track to be the last generation of pure humans that the world will know. Within a single generation we will devolve into a hybrid species of synthetic bodies, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and computer chips that limit our ability to think, to love, and to adapt to the conditions of the emerging world in a healthy way.

When a down-on-his-luck engineer ends up coming into possession of a rundown suit of power-armor, he sees an opportunity to make some quick cash by selling it off to the nearest supervillain. Unfortunately for him, what should have been a quick and easy sale to pay off his debts quickly grows into an ongoing series of events that serve only to drag him deeper and deeper into the criminal underbelly of the city he calls home.

It seems likely that scientists will someday discover how life can emerge on habitable planets like the early Earth and Mars. In Origin of Life: What Everyone Needs to Know, David W. Deamer has written a comprehensive guide to the origin of life that is organized in three sections.

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.

In a not-too-distant future, a simple outpatient procedure that has been promised to increase empathy between romantic partners has become all the rage. So when Briddey Flannigan's fiancé proposes that he and Briddey undergo the procedure, she is delighted! Only, the results aren't quite as expected. Instead of gaining an increased empathetic link with her fiancé, Briddey finds herself hearing the actual thoughts of one of the nerdiest techs in her office. And that's the least of her problems.

Everyone has heard of DNA. But by itself, DNA is just an inert blueprint for life. It is the ribosome - an enormous molecular machine made up of a million atoms - that makes DNA come to life, turning our genetic code into proteins and therefore into us. Gene Machine is an insider account of the race for the structure of the ribosome, a fundamental discovery that both advances our knowledge of all life and could lead to the development of better antibiotics against life-threatening diseases.

A catastrophic event renders the earth a ticking time bomb. In a feverish race against the inevitable, nations around the globe band together to devise an ambitious plan to ensure the survival of humanity far beyond our atmosphere, in outer space.

Between what can be learned from evolutionary psychology and cognitive science a picture emerges. In Sex, Murder, and the Meaning of Life, social psychologist Douglas Kenrick fuses these two fields to create a coherent story of human nature. In his analysis, many ingrained, apparently irrational behaviors—one-night stands, prejudice, conspicuous consumption, even art and religious devotion—are quite explicable and (when desired) avoidable.

Ken finds himself trapped in a strange world while asleep in a coma. Different from his endless dreams, he awakens inside a next-generation MMO. In desperation, this game’s governing AI somehow dragged him into this world. It offers Ken a bargain: it will grant him an escape from his coma, but he must improve the game’s content in exchange. With seemingly no downsides, Ken eagerly accepts the offer. Things might not be as simple as he initially thought, though.