Biological Sciences

In this new collection of bite-size pop science essays, bestselling author, chemistry professor, and radio broadcaster Dr. Joe Schwarcz shows that you can find science virtually anywhere you look. And the closer you look, the more fascinating it becomes.

In Cow Hug Therapy, Ellie Laks recounts the extraordinary journey that started with her first teacher, Buddha—not the religious figure, but a rescued miniature Hereford cow. One evening Buddha wrapped her neck around an exhausted and upset Ellie and transferred a singular form of healing and comfort with an incredible impact. Understanding that this was something to be shared with others, Ellie developed Cow Hug Therapy, a groundbreaking approach to emotional healing that has proved effective for trauma, illness, disabilities, addiction, grief, and stress.

This delightful narrative takes listeners on a powerful search to unlock the secrets of dog cognition, based on evidence from trainers, owners, behaviorists, and the animals themselves. With in-depth reporting and more than a few personal adventures, best-selling author Jennifer S. Holland digs into what intelligence really means.

In this tour of the animal kingdom, evolutionary biologist Lee Alan Dugatkin reveals a new field of study, uncovering social networks that existed long before the dawn of human social media. He accessibly describes the latest findings from animal behavior, evolution, computer science, psychology, anthropology, genetics, and neurobiology, and incorporates interviews and insights from researchers he finds swimming with manta rays, avoiding pigeon poop, and stopping monkeys from stealing iPads.

A farm kid at heart, and a Nlaka'pamux woman of mixed ancestry, Dr. Jennifer Grenz always felt a deep connection to the land. Which is why, after nearly two decades of working as a restoration ecologist in the Pacific Northwest, she became frustrated that she and her colleagues weren't making the meaningful change needed for plant, animal and human communities to adapt to a warming climate. She began to question the central conceit of restoration ecology: that somehow, we must return the natural world to an untouched, pristine state, placing humans in a godlike role.

This audiobook narrated by Katherine Fenton gives a sweeping account of male nurturing, explaining how and why men are biologically transformed when they care for babies.

So begins this lively collection of essays by acclaimed filmmaker and novelist Priyanka Kumar. Growing up at the feet of the Himalayas in northern India, Kumar took for granted her immersion in a lush natural world. After moving to North America as a teenager, she found herself increasingly distanced from more than human life and discouraged by the civilization she saw contributing to its destruction. It was only in her twenties, living in Los Angeles and working on films, that she began to rediscover her place in the landscape-and in the cosmos—by way of watching birds.

Have you ever observed a bee up close and wondered what was going on inside its head? Like ours, insects' brains take up most of the space in their heads, but their brains are smaller than a grain of rice, only 0.0002% as large as ours. But what purpose does the insect brain serve, and how does that drive their creativity, morality, and emotions?

A unified theory of human living, the concept of Quanology represents the next evolutionary step in achieving what humans would consider "the good life." And while it's currently popular to view nature and technology as two fundamentally opposed concepts, Quanology approaches each as complementary to the other.

In the summer of 2024, a cacophony unlike any other will fill the air in many parts of the United States. Cicadas, those enigmatic insects known for their distinctive buzzing sound and periodic emergence, are set to make their grand appearance.

Together, they settled on the title, Stalking the Wild Asparagus. No one expected that this iconic title would become part of the American language, nor did they anticipate the revival of interest in natural food and in environmental preservation in which this book played a major role. Euell Gibbons became an unlikely celebrity and made many television appearances. Stalking the Wild Asparagus has sold the better part of half a million copies since the original publication, and has been continuously in print since 1962.

For decades the practice of manifestation has been widely dismissed as self-involved, materialistic pseudoscience. But as neuroscientist and recognized compassion leader Dr. James Doty reveals, manifestation introduces us to different possibilities, and it lays the groundwork for a kinder, better world. Doty grounds us in the practices that change our brain structures: attention, meditation, visualization, and compassion. This mind magic allows us to move through the world in ways that help us see clearly.

It takes tremendous biological creativity to be a plant. To survive and thrive while rooted in a single spot, plants have adapted ingenious methods of survival. In recent years, scientists have learned about their ability to communicate, recognize their kin and behave socially, hear sounds, morph their bodies to blend into their surroundings, store useful memories that inform their life cycle, and trick animals into behaving to their benefit, to name just a few remarkable talents.

Raging ambition. Towering egos. Competition under a veneer of courtesy. Heroic effort combined with plagiarism, theft, exaggeration, and fraud. This was the state of bird study in eastern North America during the early 1800s, as a handful of intrepid men raced to find the last few birds that were still unknown to science. The most famous name in the bird world was John James Audubon, who painted spectacular portraits of birds. But although his images were beautiful, creating art was not his main goal. Instead, he aimed to illustrate (and write about) as many different species as possible.

Become body literate with Heart: An Owner's Guide, the next book in The Body Literacy Library, an enlightening series that will democratize health for a new generation of listeners. Heart: An Owner's Guide is an informative, practical, and engaging introduction to all aspects of heart health with the goal of living well and longer. Find out what is the key to a long, healthy life, and what is your own personal cardiac risk.

The emergence of strange new diseases is a frightening problem that seems to be getting worse. In this age of speedy travel, it threatens a worldwide pandemic. We hear news reports of Ebola, SARS, AIDS, and something called Hendra killing horses and people in Australia - but those reports miss the big truth that such phenomena are part of a single pattern. The bugs that transmit these diseases share one thing: they originate in wild animals and pass to humans by a process called spillover. David Quammen tracks this subject around the world.

Own an unruly horse? Thinking about purchasing a horse but don't exactly know what to expect once you do? Ever wondered what and how a horse thinks? Mark Rashid tells stories that provide horse owners and potential buyers with the best training solutions - straight from the horse's mouth. By considering the horse's point of view, he explores a variety of solutions to common training problem like head tossing, trailer loading, mounting problems, and more.

The enchanted island of Corfu was home to Gerald Durrell and his family for five years before the Second World War. For the passionate young zoologist, Corfu was a natural paradise, teeming with strange birds and beasts that he could collect watch and care for. But life was not without its problems - Gerald’s family often objected to his animal-collecting activities, especially when the beasts wound up in the family’s villa or even worse - the fridge.

The Blind Watchmaker, knowledgably narrated by author Richard Dawkins, is as prescient and timely a book as ever. The watchmaker belongs to the 18th-century theologian William Paley, who argued that just as a watch is too complicated and functional to have sprung into existence by accident, so too must all living things, with their far greater complexity, be purposefully designed. Charles Darwin's brilliant discovery challenged the creationist arguments; but only Richard Dawkins could have written this elegant riposte.

Deep is a voyage from the ocean's surface to its darkest trenches, the most mysterious places on Earth. Fascinated by the sport of freediving - in which competitors descend to great depths on a single breath - James Nestor embeds with a gang of oceangoing extreme athletes and renegade researchers. He finds whales that communicate with other whales hundreds of miles away, sharks that swim in unerringly straight lines through pitch-black waters, and other strange phenomena.

Not since the atomic bomb has a technology so alarmed its inventors that they warned the world about its use. Not, that is, until the spring of 2015, when biologist Jennifer Doudna called for a worldwide moratorium on the use of the new gene-editing tool CRISPR - a revolutionary new technology that she helped create - to make heritable changes in human embryos.

Rosemary and Peter Grant and those assisting them have spend 20 years on Daphne Major, an island in the Galapagos, studying natural selection. They recognize each individual bird on the island, when there are 400 at the time of the author's visit or when there are over a thousand. They have observed about 20 generations of finches - continuously.Jonathan Weiner follows these scientists as they watch Darwin's finches and come up with a new understanding of life itself.

Ever wonder why onions make you cry? Or why lizards do pushups? Or why leaves change color in the fall? Don't worry, you're not alone. Acclaimed science writer and broadcaster Jay Ingram wonders the same things. After a long career of asking important questions (does time speed up as we age? How much Neanderthal is in me? Why do some animals throw their feces?), he's here to put our scientific quandaries to rest.

Our gut is almost as important to us as our brain, yet we know very little about how it works. Gut: The Inside Story is an entertaining, informative tour of the digestive system from the moment we raise a tasty morsel to our lips until the moment our body surrenders the remnants to the toilet bowl. No topic is too lowly for the author's wonder and admiration, from the careful choreography of breaking wind to the precise internal communication required for a cleansing vomit.

Best-selling author and commentator Jay Ingram is back to explain the magic and mysteries of the world around us. Jay takes listeners on a tour of the universe, exploring wonders big and small. From the farthest reaches of space to the most perplexing historical riddles to the marvels of who we are and what we're made of, Jay answers the important questions, such as: What's inside a black hole? Will machines ever learn to feel? And how much pee is in the average pool?

Why did humans abandon hunting and gathering for sedentary communities dependent on livestock and cereal grains and governed by precursors of today's states? Most people believe that plant and animal domestication allowed humans, finally, to settle down and form agricultural villages, towns, and states, which made possible civilization, law, public order, and a presumably secure way of living. But archaeological and historical evidence challenges this narrative.

Why evolution is more than just a theory: it is a fact. In all the current highly publicized debates about creationism and its descendant "intelligent design", there is an element of the controversy that is rarely mentioned: the evidence, the empirical truth of evolution by natural selection.

Les énormes progrès technologiques récents ont révélé un univers bien plus étrange que nous n'aurions pu l'imaginer. "L'infini au creux de votre main" est un voyage époustouflant à travers 50 observations scientifiques parmi les plus insolites et les plus merveilleuses de notre univers.

Richard Dawkins' brilliant reformulation of the theory of natural selection has the rare distinction of having provoked as much excitement and interest outside the scientific community as within it. His theories have helped change the whole nature of the study of social biology, and have forced thousands to rethink their beliefs about life.

For too long, scientists have focused on the dark side of our biological heritage: our capacity for aggression, cruelty, prejudice, and self-interest. But natural selection has given us a suite of beneficial social features, including our capacity for love, friendship, cooperation, and learning. Beneath all our inventions - our tools, farms, machines, cities, nations - we carry with us innate proclivities to make a good society.