Showing titles in Biological Sciences

Why was gin and tonic the cocktail of choice for British colonists in India and Africa? What does Starbucks have to thank for its global domination? What has protected the lives of popes for millennia? Why did Scotland surrender its sovereignty to England? What was George Washington's secret weapon during the American Revolution? The answer to all these questions, and many more, is the mosquito. Driven by surprising insights and fast-paced storytelling, The Mosquito is the extraordinary untold story of the mosquito’s reign through human history.

For three years, Jennifer Ackerman lived in the small coastal town of Lewes, Delaware, in the sort of blue-water, white-sand landscape that draws summer crowds up and down the Eastern Seaboard. Birds by the Shore is a book about discovering the natural life at the ocean's edge: the habits of shorebirds and seabirds, the movement of sand and water, the wealth of creatures that survive amid storm and surf. Against this landscape's rhythms, Ackerman revisits her own history - her mother's death, her father's illness, and her hopes to have children of her own.

When Helen MacDonald's father died suddenly on a London street, she was devastated. An experienced falconer captivated by hawks since childhood, she'd never before been tempted to train one of the most vicious predators: the goshawk. But in her grief, she saw that the goshawk's fierce and feral anger mirrored her own.

Your practical guide to better health, stronger relationships, and a happier life - by reconnecting with nature. There is something simply soul-soothing about being in nature. In fact, research shows that spending time outside can improve the immune system, combat stress hormones, lower blood pressure, and boost self-esteem.

Most people think of New Jersey as a suburban-industrial corridor that runs between New York and Philadelphia. Yet in the low center of the state is a near wilderness, larger than most national parks, which has been known since the seventeenth century as the Pine Barrens.

When Lawrence Anthony learned that the northern white rhino, living in the war-ravaged Congo, was on the very brink of extinction, he knew he had to act. If the world lost the sub-species, it would be the largest land mammal since the woolly mammoth to go extinct. In The Last Rhinos, Anthony recounts his attempts to save these remarkable animals. The demand for rhino horns in the Far East has turned poaching into a dangerous black market that threatens the lives of not just these rare beasts, but also the rangers who protect them.

If you think you are you, think again. Primate Change is a wide-ranging, polemical look at how and why the human body has changed since humankind first got up on two feet. Spanning the entirety of human history - from primate to transhuman - Vybarr Cregan-Reid's book investigates where we came from, who we are today and how modern technology will change us beyond recognition.

Honeybees make decisions collectively-and democratically. Every year, faced with the life-or-death problem of choosing and traveling to a new home, honeybees stake everything on a process that includes collective fact-finding, vigorous debate, and consensus building. In fact, as world-renowned animal behaviorist Thomas Seeley reveals, these incredible insects have much to teach us when it comes to collective wisdom and effective decision making.

Are there universal laws of life and can we find them? Is there a physics of society, of ecology, of evolution? Join us for six episodes of thought-provoking insights on the physics of life and its profound implications on our understanding of the universe. In this season of the Santa Fe Institute’s Complexity podcast’s relaunch, we talk to researchers who have been exploring these questions and more through the lens of complexity science. Subscribe now and be part of the exploration!

Сто тысяч лет назад Homo sapiens был одним из как минимум шести видов человека, живших на этой планете, — ничем не примечательным животным, которое играло в экосистеме роль не большую, чем гориллы, светлячки или медузы. Но около семидесяти тысяч лет назад загадочное изменение когнитивных способностей Homo sapiens превратило его в хозяина планеты и кошмар экосистемы. Как человек разумный сумел покорить мир? Что стало с другими видами человека? Когда и почему появились деньги, государства и религия? Как возникали и рушились империи?

¿Por qué olvidamos cosas? ¿Cuánto dura un momento de rabia o de llanto? ¿Qué ocurre cuando sufrimos una pérdida? Entender cómo funciona nuestro cerebro es muy complicado, tanto como entrar en un universo mágico e insospechado. Con esta guíareveladora sabrás, por fin, grandes y valiosos secretos del funcionamiento cerebral que, sin duda, mejorarán tu vida para siempre. Descubrirás por qué sentimos amor, envidia, angustia o deseos de venganza; qué acelera la vejez, qué impulsos siguen los suicidas, cuáles son los efectos de reír todos los días y cómo se desencadena una depresión.

Out of all the trees in the world, the ash is the most closely bound up with who we are. From tool handles to arrows, wheels and bowls to furniture and baseball bats, humans have made more and varied use of ash than any other kind of wood. Journeying across the English-speaking world, Robert Penn meets craftsmen with rare skills and a knowledge of the properties of ash developed over millennia.

Welcome to The Metabolic Classroom, a nutrition and lifestyle podcast focused on metabolism, which is how our bodies use energy, and the truth behind why we get sick and fat. Every week, Dr. Ben Bikman shares valuable insights that you can apply in your own life and share with friends and loved ones. The Metabolic Classroom is brought to you by InsulinIQ.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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.

Science is fantastic. It tells us about the infinite reaches of space, the tiniest living organism, the human body, the history of Earth. People have always been doing science because they have always wanted to make sense of the world and harness its power. From ancient Greek philosophers through Einstein and Watson and Crick to the computer-assisted scientists of today, men and women have wondered, examined, experimented, calculated, and sometimes made discoveries so earthshaking that people understood the world-or themselves-in an entirely new way.

William Davis, MD, cardiologist and author of the #1 New York Times bestselling Wheat Belly books, as well as Undoctored and, most recently, Super Gut, brings the unvarnished truth about many health conditions. So much information in health is crafted by industry, bent to the benefit of healthcare systems, delivered by willfully ignorant physicians. Yet a critical mass of truly useful, safe, effective health information has been reached--but someone has to deliver it to you. That is Dr. Davis' intention. Among the topics the Defiant Health Podcast covers are:--Microbiome health--The key to so ...

Who can forget the sense of wonder with which they discovered the creatures of the deep? In this vibrant hymn to the sea, Callum Roberts - one of the world’s foremost conservation biologists - leads listeners on a fascinating tour of mankind’s relationship to the sea, from the earliest traces of water on Earth to the oceans as we know them today. In the process, Roberts looks at how the taming of the oceans has shaped human civilization and affected marine life. Like Four Fish and The Omnivore’s Dilemma, The Ocean of Life takes a long view to tell a story in which each one of us has a role to play.

The knowledge of death is so terrifying that we live most of our lives in denial of it. One of the most difficult moments of childhood must be when each of us first realizes that not only we but all our loved ones will die—and there is nothing we can do about it. Or at least, there hasn’t been. Today, we are living through a revolution in biology. Giant strides are being made in understanding why we age—and why some species live longer than others. Could we eventually cheat disease and death and live for a very long time, possibly many times our current lifespan?

You are just 10% human. For every one of the cells that make up the vessel that you call your body, there are nine impostor cells hitching a ride. You are not just flesh and blood, muscle and bone, brain and skin, but also bacteria and fungi. Over your lifetime, you will carry the equivalent weight of five African elephants in microbes. You are not an individual but a colony. Until recently, we had thought our microbes hardly mattered, but science is revealing a different story, one in which microbes run our bodies and becoming a healthy human is impossible without them.

John T. Cacioppo's groundbreaking research topples one of the pillars of modern medicine and psychology: the focus on the individual as the unit of inquiry. By employing brain scans, monitoring blood pressure, and analyzing immune function, he demonstrates the overpowering influence of social context - a factor so strong that it can alter DNA replication.