Genetic Science

To better understand the inner workings of our bodies and to trace the origins of many of today's most common diseases, we have to turn to unexpected sources: worms, flies, and even fish.

This adventure in science and imagination, which the Medical Tribune said might herald "a Copernican revolution for the life sciences", leads the listener through unexplored jungles and uncharted aspects of mind to the heart of knowledge. In a first-person narrative of scientific discovery that opens new perspectives on biology, anthropology, and the limits of rationalism, The Cosmic Serpent reveals how startlingly different the world around us appears when we open our minds to it.

A professor, biologist, and physiologist argues that modern Darwinism's materialist and mechanistic biases have led to a scientific dead end, unable to define what life is - and only an openness to the qualities of "purpose and desire" will move the field forward. J. Scott Turner contends, "To be scientists, we force ourselves into a Hobson's choice on the matter: accept intentionality and purposefulness as real attributes of life, which disqualifies you as a scientist; or become a scientist and dismiss life's distinctive quality from your thinking."

Quinn Morgan is just barely scraping by from day to day. She’s never had much money, and although a little more would certainly ease her stress levels, she’s never cared about being wealthy. So when her grandfather passes away and leaves her his multimillion dollar estate, Quinn isn’t quite sure how to navigate this new life. Making her transition easier is Ivan, the half human, half machine butler who came with the estate. As he helps Quinn navigate the new trials and tribulations of being an heiress, she comes to trust and care for him more than she’s ever trusted or cared for ...

After a rough break up, Wyatt moves to New York City, eager to prove himself while working on Wall Street. When he’s asked to visit the father of his ex-girlfriend, a billionaire tycoon, his fate is sealed. The revolutionary company, Nu-En, launches a radical innovation, an energy that will allow every person on the planet access to power. Only it doesn’t perform as anticipated. Harnessing the ocean has consequences, and highly dangerous creatures emerge from the depths. Soon, the Earth is fracturing, and the world will never be the same.

The Hygrometric Dehabitation Region, or the "Zone," is a growing band of rainforest on the equator, where the heat and humidity make it impossible for warm-blooded animals to survive. A human being without protection in the Zone is dead in minutes. Twenty years ago, Marks went into the rainforest with a group of researchers led by Doctor Elaine Fell, to study the extraordinary climate and see if it could be used in agriculture. The only thing she learned was that the Zone was no place for people. There were deaths, and the program was cut short. Now, they're sending her back in.

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.

In the mid-1970s, scientists began using DNA sequences to reexamine the history of all life. Perhaps the most startling discovery to come out of this new field is horizontal gene transfer (HGT), or the movement of genes across species lines. For instance, we now know that roughly eight percent of the human genome arrived not through traditional inheritance from directly ancestral forms, but sideways by viral infection - a type of HGT. In The Tangled Tree David Quammen chronicles these discoveries through the lives of the researchers who made them.

Scratch beneath the surface of a coffee bean, a red pepper flake, a poppy seed, a mold spore, a foxglove leaf, a magic-mushroom cap, a marijuana bud, or an apple seed, and we find a bevy of strange chemicals. We use these to greet our days (caffeine), titillate our tongues (capsaicin), recover from surgery (opioids), cure infections (penicillin), mend our hearts (digoxin), bend our minds (psilocybin), calm our nerves (CBD), and even kill our enemies (cyanide). But why do plants and fungi produce such chemicals? And how did we come to use and abuse some of them?

In this landmark medical narrative, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists Mark Johnson and Kathleen Gallagher chronicle the story of Nic Volker, the Wisconsin boy at the center of a daring breakthrough in medicine - a complete gene sequencing to discover the cure for an otherwise undiagnosable illness.

While plenty of entertaining books have been written about the history of alcohol and other intoxicants, none have offered a comprehensive, convincing answer to the basic question of why humans want to get high in the first place. Drunk elegantly cuts through the tangle of urban legends and anecdotal impressions that surround our notions of intoxication to provide the first rigorous, scientifically grounded explanation for our love of alcohol.

As Michael Talbot and crew hit the last stretch before the US border, they are struck by the most devastating losses thus far on their journey. After trekking some of the harshest environment on the continent, surviving the shipwreck of their floating home, an escape from a brutal military that still pursues them, and attacks from every ilk of undead monster, the finish line is finally just up ahead. Making better time on the road than they ever have, the crew are menaced by the most ironic of enemies, led by an evil presence that has yet to reveal its motives.

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?

Named one of the top books of 2009 by the Times Literary Supplement (London), this controversial and compelling audiobook from Dr. Stephen C. Meyer presents a convincing new case for intelligent design (ID) based on revolutionary discoveries in science and DNA. Along the way Meyer argues that Charles Darwin's theory of evolution as expounded in The Origin of Species did not, in fact, refute ID.

This paradigm-shifting book paints a spirited portrait of a restless people that challenges our established ways of looking at Europe's past. The story is more complex than at first believed, with new evidence suggesting that the European gene pool was stirred vigorously multiple times. Genetic clues are also enhancing our understanding of European mobility in epochs with written records, including the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons, the spread of the Slavs, and the adventures of the Vikings.

This Very Short Introduction uncovers the history of our understanding of sexual selection, from Darwin's key insights to the modern day. Considering the investment animals place on reproduction, variation in mating systems, sexual conflict, and the origin of sexual dimorphism, authors Marlene Zuk and Leigh Simmons discuss questions such as whether females can really choose between males on aesthetic grounds and how sexual conflict is resolved in different species.

In this landmark book of popular science, Daniel E. Lieberman - chair of the department of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University and a leader in the field - gives us a lucid and engaging account of how the human body evolved over millions of years, even as it shows how the increasing disparity between the jumble of adaptations in our Stone Age bodies and advancements in the modern world is occasioning this paradox: greater longevity but increased chronic disease.

At first glance, the planet Rada seems like a lush paradise. But the ruling families, all boasting genetically enhanced abilities, are in constant competition for power - and none more so than the Adlers and the Baenas. For generations, the powerful families have pushed and pulled each other in a dance for dominance. Until a catastrophic betrayal from within changes everything.

When Sam’s wife first tells him about Vitek, a twenty-first-century fertility lab, he sees it as the natural next step in trying to help their future child get a “leg up” in a competitive world. But the more Sam considers the lives that his child could lead, the more he begins to question his own relationships and the choices he has made in his life.

Some 73,000 years ago, the Mount Toba supervolcano in toda's Indonesia erupted, releasing the energy of a million tons of explosives. So much ash and debris was injected into the stratosphere that it partially blocked the sun's radiation and caused global temperatures to drop for a decade. In this book, Donald R. Prothero presents the controversial argument that the Toba catastrophe nearly wiped out the human race, leaving only about a thousand to ten thousand breeding pairs of humans worldwide.