Genetic Science

The domestic cat—your cat—has, from its evolutionary origins in Africa, been transformed in comparatively little time into one of the most successful and diverse species on the planet. Jonathan Losos, writing as both a scientist and a cat lover, explores how researchers today are unraveling the secrets of the cat, past and present, using all the tools of modern technology, from GPS tracking (you’d be amazed where those backyard cats roam) and genomics (what is your so-called Siamese cat . . . really?) to forensic archaeology.

With warmth and compassion, Denworth weaves together past and present, field biology and cutting-edge neuroscience, to show how our bodies and minds are designed to make friends, the process by which social bonds develop, and how a drive for friendship underpins human (and nonhuman) society. With its refreshingly optimistic vision of the evolution of human nature, this book puts friendship at the center of our lives.

Martin loved his job, believing he truly changed the world for the better. As a researcher at Replica Imagination, he was a small cog in the goliath's wheel. The mega-corp helped reunite cloned pets with their loving families. He wished his talent could be used in the realm of human cloning, helping the terminally ill, but the legal and moralistic hurdles to such research seemed insurmountable. Except... Replica Imagination's esteemed image falters as reality slips through the cracks. With caution tossed to the wind, Martin brazenly investigates, going into places he never should.

As a strong initiate of the Sawa sect, Kei never expected to be given the boot, while someone else cheated their way up the ladder. But here he was, kicked out, speeding across the planet, with one chance left to prove himself: His mission to infiltrate the enemy sect, and steal what makes them the most powerful family on the planet. Fail, and lose everything he’s ever strived for. Fail, and lose the one thing he loves the most, his family. For Kei, failure is just not an option.

The Kobani use captured Krall ships to return to Human Space. They seek expert training for their genetically modified fighters, modern weapons and new medical technology. There's a possible block to this help in the form of death penalty laws of the Planetary Union, prohibiting gene modifications of humans. A holdover from the Gene War, which nearly extinguished humanity. A perilous descent through a war torn planet's space defenses is a first step.

Perpetually bored, anxious, fatigued, and overweight, modern society has failed to deliver the happiness it promised. The remedy, Jevan Pradas argues, is in a unique synthesis of a Paleolithic lifestyle and Buddhist meditation. A sprawling journey, featuring Jevan's adventures with naked Amazonian tribes and retreats with enlightened monks to learn the secrets of optimal well-being, The Awakened Ape will teach you how to achieve deep states of bliss. All while shaping your body into the fit and healthy animal millions of years of evolution programmed you to be.

Leading futurist and OneShared.World founder Jamie Metzl explores how genome sequencing, gene editing, artificial intelligence, and other technologies are not only changing our lives, but catalyzing each other in radical and accelerating ways. These technologies have the potential to improve our health, feed billions of people, supercharge our economies, and store essential information for millions of years, but can also—if we are not careful—do immeasurable harm.

In a world where single combat determines the fate of nations, the Grievar fight in the Circles so that the rest can remain at peace. But given the stakes, things are never so simple. The Daimyo govern from the shadows and plot to gain an edge by unnaturally enhancing their Grievar Knights. Cego and his team return to the world’s most prestigious combat school, The Lyceum. Though he'd like to focus on his martial studies, Cego feels the pull of his mysterious past and two missing brothers.

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.

The crew of the Capricious seems to leave a trail of devastation wherever they go. But with powerful enemies in pursuit and family and friends under attack planetside, there's no time to worry about all that. Ensnared by the legend of Origin, humanity's birthplace, and a long-dead form of magic, the Capricious takes off on a journey to find the first colony ship...and power that could bring down gods.

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.

Presenting scientific evidence from diverse fields, including anthropology, biology, and psychology, Fuentes devises a myth-busting toolkit to dismantle persistent fallacies about the validity of biological races, the innateness of aggression and violence, and the nature of monogamy, sex, and gender. This revised and expanded edition provides up-to-date references, data, and analyses, and addresses new topics, including the popularity of home DNA testing kits and the lies behind ‘"incel" culture.

Alice Roberts uses the latest research to uncover the evolutionary history hidden in all of us, from the secrets found only in our embryos and genes - including why as embryos we have what look like gills - to those visible in your anatomy. This is a tale of discovery, exploring why and how we have developed as we have. This is your story, told as never before.

Fifty thousand years ago - merely a blip in evolutionary time - our Homo sapiens ancestors were competing for existence with several other human species, just as their precursors had done for millions of years. Yet something about our species distinguished it from the pack, and ultimately led to its survival while the rest became extinct. Just what was it that allowed Homo sapiens to become masters of the planet? Ian Tattersall, curator emeritus at the American Museum of Natural History, takes us deep into the fossil record to uncover what made humans so special.

First coined by Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene, a meme is any idea, behavior, or skill that can be transferred from one person to another by imitation. Susan Blackmore shows that once our distant ancestors acquired the crucial ability to imitate, a second kind of natural selection began, a survival of the fittest amongst competing ideas and behaviors. Ideas and behaviors that proved most adaptive-making tools, for example, or using language - survived and flourished, replicating themselves in as many minds as possible.

One of the biggest discoveries in physics, the quest for the Higgs boson demonstrates the value of a good theory. In July 2012, a Higgs-like particle was found near the energies scientists predicted. Now, armed with better evidence and better questions, the scientific process continues. In this audiobook, we’ve gathered our best reporting to explain that process - the theories, the search, the discovery, and the ongoing questions.

In this captivating book, neuroscientist Shane O'Mara invites us to marvel at the benefits walking confers on our bodies and brains, and to appreciate the advantages of this uniquely human skill. From walking's evolutionary origins, traced back millions of years to life forms on the ocean floor, to new findings from cutting-edge research, he reveals how the brain and nervous system give us the ability to balance, weave through a crowded city, and run our "inner GPS" system.

19世紀後半にメンデルが発見した遺伝の法則とダーウィンの進化論が出会い、遺伝学は歩み始めた。そして今、人類はゲノム編集の時代を迎えている。遺伝子が握る人類の運命とは？　ピュリッツァー賞受賞の医学者が自らの家系に潜む精神疾患の悲劇を織り交ぜながら、圧倒的なストーリーテリングで紡ぐ遺伝子全史

To the modern mind, the idea of honor is outdated, sexist, and barbaric. It evokes Hamilton and Burr and pistols at dawn, not visions of a well-organized society. But for philosopher Tamler Sommers, a sense of honor is essential to living moral lives. In Why Honor Matters, Sommers argues that our collective rejection of honor has come at great cost. Reliant only on Enlightenment liberalism, the United States has become the home of the cowardly, the shameless, the selfish, and the alienated. Properly channeled, honor encourages virtues like courage, integrity, and solidarity.

For all that science knows about the living world, notes David P. Barash, there are even more things we don't know, genuine evolutionary mysteries that perplex the best minds in biology. Paradoxically, many of these mysteries are very close to home, involving some of the most personal aspects of being human. Homo Mysterious examines a number of these evolutionary mysteries, exploring things we don't yet know about ourselves, laying out the best current hypotheses, and pointing toward insights that scientists are just beginning to glimpse.