Genetic Science

High in the Canadian Rockies is a small limestone quarry formed 530 million years ago called the Burgess Shale. It holds the remains of an ancient sea where dozens of strange creatures lived—a forgotten corner of evolution preserved in awesome detail. In this book, Stephen Jay Gould explores what the Burgess Shale tells us about evolution and the nature of history.

Cherry Bomb, an A.I. made human—and immortal—is out for revenge against her creator, Will, who left her on the Galahad, a ship full of unholy monsters, traversing the universe from beginning to end, ad infinitum. Countless years pass, giving her more than enough time to plot her revenge. Upon gaining control of the ship, she sets her plan in motion, building a vast army and reforming the universe as she sees fit.

When radical terrorists take hostages in Indonesia, Captain Ezekiel Fortunes is called to lead the rescue team. Part of a classified government experiment, Zeke is a super soldier with enhanced abilities. He can see better, run faster, disappear when necessary, and hunt the enemy along any terrain. There are those in the world willing to do anything for power like that. A formidable spy genetically engineered to hide in plain sight, Bellisia rarely meets a man who doesn't want to control her or kill her. But Zeke's different.

She Has Her Mother's Laugh presents a profoundly original perspective on what we pass along from generation to generation. Charles Darwin played a crucial part in turning heredity into a scientific question, and yet he failed spectacularly to answer it. The birth of genetics in the early 1900s seemed to do precisely that. Gradually, people translated their old notions about heredity into a language of genes. We need a new definition of what heredity is and, through Carl Zimmer's lucid exposition and storytelling, this resounding tour de force delivers it.

Four years ago, two girls went looking for monsters on Bodmin Moor. Only one came back. Lee thought she'd lost Mal, but now she's miraculously returned. But what happened that day on the moors? And where has she been all this time? Mal's reappearance hasn't gone unnoticed by MI5 officers either, and Lee isn't the only one with questions. Julian Sabreur is investigating an attack on top physicist Kay Amal Khan. This leads Julian to clash with agents of an unknown power - and they may or may not be human.

In this innovative celebration of diversity and affirmation of individuality in animals and humans, Joan Roughgarden challenges accepted wisdom about gender identity and sexual orientation. A distinguished evolutionary biologist, Roughgarden takes on the medical establishment, the Bible, social science--and even Darwin himself. She leads the reader through a fascinating discussion of diversity in gender and sexuality among fish, reptiles, amphibians, birds, and mammals, including primates. Evolution's Rainbow explains how this diversity develops from the action of genes and hormones and how people come to differ from each other in all aspects of body and behavior. Roughgarden reconstructs primary science in light of feminist, gay, and transgender criticism and redefines our understanding of sex, gender, and sexuality. A new preface shows how this witty, playful, and daring book has revolutionized our understanding of sexuality.

EL ORIGEN DE LAS ESPECIES • CHARLES DARWIN Charles Darwin, al publicar su obra El origen de las especies en 1859, presentó su teoría de la evolución mediante la selección natural que, pasados ciento cincuenta años, continúa siendo la base de la interpretación de la naturaleza de la biología moderna. El libro tuvo un gran éxito desde su primera edición, suscitó grandes polémicas y su influencia se hizo notar no sólo en la comunidad científica, sino también en toda la sociedad.

What is life? This is among the most difficult open problems in science, right up there with the nature of consciousness and the existence of matter. All the definitions we have fall short. None help us understand how life originates or the full range of possibilities for what life on other planets might look like. In Life as No One Knows It, physicist and astrobiologist Sara Imari Walker argues that solving the origin of life requires radical new thinking and an experimentally testable theory for what life is.

When people started to develop superpowers, the world changed forever. Me? I wasn't one of the lucky ones with powers. So I had to develop more mundane skills, skills which have taken me across the globe on dangerous missions. But there are some missions I’ve always had to refuse. I've never been able to take on a super. They're just too powerful. They're gods, whereas I'm just a man, even with all my knowledge and training. All that changes after I discover my dad's secret research project.

Scientists' understanding of life is progressing more rapidly than at any point in human history, from the extraordinary decoding of DNA to the controversial emergence of biotechnology. Featuring pioneering biologists, geneticists, physicists, and science writers, Life explains just how far we've come - and takes a brilliantly educated guess at where we're heading.

Our world has ended five times: It has been broiled, frozen, poison gassed, smothered, and pelted by asteroids. In The Ends of the World, Peter Brannen dives into deep time, exploring Earth's past dead ends, and in the process offers us a glimpse of our possible future. Many scientists now believe that the climate shifts of the 21st century have analogs in these five extinctions.

Dr. Adrian Kessler is on the verge of a breakthrough. His revolutionary gene-editing therapy promises to preserve and enhance cognitive function, offering new hope for neurodegenerative diseases. But when funding runs out, he is forced to accept an offer from Prometheus Biotech, an enigmatic research institute with resources beyond his imagination. At first, the results exceed expectations. The therapy doesn’t just slow cognitive decline—it amplifies human intelligence, sharpening memory, logic, and perception. But soon, the side effects become impossible to ignore.

Just over 125,000 years ago, humanity was going extinct until a dramatic shift occurred—Homo sapiens started tracking the tides in order to eat the nearby oysters. Before long, they’d pulled themselves back from the brink of extinction. The human brain, and its evolutionary journey, is unlike anything else in history. In A History of the Human Brain, Bret Stetka takes listeners through that far-reaching journey. He also tackles the question of where the brain will take us next, exploring the burgeoning con­cepts of epigenetics and new technologies like CRISPR.

What is animal welfare? This concise and accessible guide is for anyone who is interested in animals and who has wondered how we can assess their welfare scientifically. It defines animal welfare as "health and animals having what they want", a definition that can be easily understood by scientists and non-scientists alike, expresses in simple words what underlies many existing definitions, and shows what evidence we need to collect to improve animal welfare in practice. Above all, it puts the animal's own point of view at the heart of an assessment of its welfare.

Few people know much about stem cell research beyond the ethical questions raised by using embryos. But in the last decade, stem cell research has made huge advances toward eliminating some of our most intractable diseases. Now this sweeping and accessible book introduces us to this cutting-edge science, which will revolutionize medicine and change the way we think about and treat disease.

We human beings share 98 percent of our genes with chimpanzees. Yet humans are the dominant species on the planet - having founded civilizations and religions, developed intricate and diverse forms of communication, learned science, built cities, and created breathtaking works of art - while chimps remain animals concerned primarily with the basic necessities of survival. What is it about that two percent difference in DNA that has created such a divergence between evolutionary cousins?

Sex, Time, and Power offers a tantalizing answer to an age-old question: Why did big-brained Homo sapiens suddenly emerge some 150,000 years ago? The key, according to Shlain, is female sexuality. Drawing on an awesome breadth of research, he shows how, long ago, the narrowness of the newly bipedal human female's pelvis and the increasing size of infants' heads precipitated a crisis for the species. Natural selection allowed for reconfiguration of hormonal cycles, entraining women with the periodicity of the moon - and imbuing women with the concept of time.

In 2004, Doctor Damien Howard's 131st birthday celebration took an unexpected turn. His personal SETI project detected an extraterrestrial signal directed at Earth. Unfortunately, Dr. Howard's long-hoped-for communication contained a message of dire warning rather than greeting. In 1945, humanity had become a species of galactic interest and was given 100 years to address the issue.

The replacement of humans has begun. It starts with the voices ... It is war-ravaged China in the 1930’s. John Powers and his fellow group of pilgrims are trying to evade Nationalist forces, communist rebels and the invading Japanese army, all while carrying a strange golden statue and searching for a mysterious woman known as Her. At the same time, John begins hearing voices insisting that he conceive a son with another of the travelers. Who is Her? Why do the voices want John to have a son? Are the voices evidence that John has schizophrenia, as he fears? Or are they something else ...

Nearly every depressed person is assured by doctors, well-meaning friends and family, the media, and ubiquitous advertisements that the underlying problem is a chemical imbalance. Such a simple defect should be fixable, yet despite all of the resources that have been devoted to finding a pharmacological solution, depression remains stubbornly widespread. Why are we losing this fight?