Genetic Science

At a conference in Hong Kong in November 2018, Dr. He Jiankui announced that he had created the first genetically modified babies - twin girls named Lulu and Nana - sending shockwaves around the world. A year later, a Chinese court sentenced Dr. He to three years in prison for "illegal medical practice". As scientists elsewhere start to catch up with China's vast genetic research program, gene editing is fueling an innovation economy that threatens to widen racial and economic inequality. Fundamental questions about science, health, and social justice are at stake.

Still recovering from the tragic loss of a good friend, Jack Sigler, call sign King, leads the Chess Team—a crew of former Delta operators—back into action.

Toorop, a hard-boiled leatherneck veteran, has been hired to escort a young woman from Russia to Canada. But Marie is no ordinary girl. A schizophrenic and a possible carrier of a new artificial virus, Marie is bearing a mutant embryo created by an American cult, which dreams of producing a genetically modified messiah that will end all human life as we know it.

Until very recently, if you were to ask most doctors, they would tell you there were only two kinds of medicine: the quack kind, and the evidence-based kind. The former is baseless, and the latter based on the best information human effort could buy. Well, Eric Topol isn't most doctors, and he suggests you entertain the notion of a third kind of medicine, one that will make the evidence-based state-of-the-art stuff look scarcely better than an alchemist trying to animate a homunculus in a jar.

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.

We colonized 700 planets. Humankind enjoyed the benefits of expansion room and the end of wars. We even disbanded our military. Then the Krall found us. The Krall have used thousands of years of combat to select the genes of the strongest and fastest warriors. They are a species determined to dominate the entire galaxy, through destruction and annihilation of every opponent.

Koban is an uninhabited high-gravity planet with impossibly fast savage animals, which employ organic superconducting nerves. This deadly world is where the Krall tested humans for war capability.

Already faster and more powerful than the last 17 species that they have destroyed or subjugated, the Krall have set their sights on humankind. After testing humans on their future home world of Koban and finding them worthy opponents, the Krall start a war of slow extermination with the rest of humanity. The war is intended to last generations as they apply their own version of "natural selection" to cull their weaker warriors in combat, purifying the Krall gene pool with their finest warriors for breeding.

Raised in the closed cult of Mana's Hearth and denied access to modern technology, conjoined sisters Taema and Tila dream of a life beyond the walls of the compound. When the heart they share begins to fail, the twins escape to San Francisco, where they are surgically separated and given new artificial hearts. From then on they pursue lives beyond anything they could have previously imagined.

The Galactic Federation is confronted by the vast and implacable Thandol Empire, which has coveted the former Krall region of space for eons, a region of space now occupied and claimed by the upstart Kobani. Outnumbered, they face an opponent who possesses new and deadly weapons. An enemy that had thousands of years to develop the means to take on the Krall Empire, and now present the supermen with a weapon that turns their greatest genetic asset into their greatest weakness.

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."

Why are we the way we are? Why do some of us find it impossible to calm a quick temper or to shake anxiety? The debate has always been divided between nature and nurture, but as psychology professor Daniel P. Keating demonstrates in Born Anxious, new DNA science points to a third factor that allows us to inherit both the nature and the nurture of previous generations - with significant consequences.

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.

In GATTACA Has Fallen: how population genetics failed the populace, Dr. Ian Myles explains that the root of all of these issues is the belief that genetics meaningfully guide our fate. Using less controversial examples like eczema and allergic diseases, the book demonstrates how claiming there are genes for asthma is similar to claiming there are genes for intellect or favorite flavor of tea.

Where did mankind really come from? Why are we here? We can't understand the past until we embrace the future. These critical mysteries take center stage as Earth emerges into a galactic society that is far more perilous than anyone could have imagined. Our history is far more complicated than we could have known. Can a few brilliant minds find a way out for Earth?

Jack Sigler, call sign King, field leader for a black ops organization known as Endgame, is accustomed to feeling capable of handling most any situation. It is a confidence forged in the fires of battle against both monsters and madmen. But the introduction of Asya, a sister he never knew existed, and the kidnapping of his parents has him reeling.

Each of us began life as a single cell. From this humble origin, we embarked on a risky journey fraught with opportunities for disaster. Yet, amazingly, we reached our destination intact, emerging as dazzlingly complex, exquisitely engineered assemblages of trillions of cells. This metamorphosis constitutes one of nature's most spectacular yet commonplace magic tricks—and one of its most coveted secrets. In From One Cell, physician and researcher Ben Stanger offers a glimpse into what scientists are discovering about how life and the body take shape.

Grab this boxed set collection of the first 4 books in the Bad Company series today! Humanity’s greatest export-Justice. Space is a dangerous place, even for the wary, especially for the unprepared. The aliens have no idea. Here comes the Bad Company. Book 1, The Bad Company, Book 2, Blockade, Book 3, Price of Freedom, and Book 4, Liberation. Join the Bad Company as they fight an enemy from their worst nightmares.

Why Animals Talk is an exhilarating journey through the untamed world of animal communication. Following his international bestseller, The Zoologist’s Guide to the Galaxy, acclaimed zoologist Arik Kershenbaum draws on extensive original research to reveal how many of the animal kingdom’s most seemingly confusing or untranslatable signals are in fact logical and consistent—and not that different from our own.

We have long attributed man's violent, aggressive, competitive nature to his animal ancestry. But what if we are just as given to cooperation, empathy, and morality by virtue of our genes? What if our behavior actually makes us apes? What kind of apes are we?

‘What is it like to be a bat?’, the philosopher Thomas Nagel famously asked concerning consciousness. For biologist Martin Stevens, the question forms the starting point of an exploration of animal senses. In this enthralling account, we learn not only of the wonder of animal senses, but how they work and how scientists go about investigating them. And, throughout, we consider how these senses came to be.