Genetic Science

Breakthroughs in genetics present us with a promise and a predicament. The promise is that we will soon be able to treat and prevent a host of debilitating diseases. The predicament is that our newfound genetic knowledge may enable us to manipulate our nature - to enhance our genetic traits and those of our children. Although most people find at least some forms of genetic engineering disquieting, it is not easy to articulate why.

Just in the last three years a flood of new scientific findings, driven by revelations discovered in the human genome, has provided compelling new answers to many long-standing mysteries about our most ancient ancestors, the people who first evolved in Africa and then went on to colonize the whole world. Nicholas Wade weaves this host of news-making findings together for the first time into an intriguing new history of the human story before the dawn of civilization.

Blending history, science, and culture, a stunning and highly engaging evolutionary story exploring how walking on two legs allowed humans to become the planet’s dominant species.

Once, he was Judd - Bengal Breed and brother to the notorious fugitive Gideon. After Gideon disappeared, Judd was experimented on until his tortured body knew nothing but agony. Now he is Cullen Maverick, serving as the commander of the Covert Law Enforcement Agency in the small community of Window Rock, Arizona.

At the age of 27, Whitney Dafoe was forced to give up his life as a photographer who traveled the world. Bit by bit a mysterious illness stole away the pieces of his life: First, it took the strength of his legs, then his voice, and his ability to eat. The Puzzle Solver follows several years in which he desperately sought answers. Whitney's father, Ron Davis, PhD, a world-class geneticist at Stanford University whose legendary research helped crack the code of DNA, suddenly changed the course of his career in a race against time to cure his son's debilitating condition.

Set in the adrenaline-fueled timeline between the novels Threshold and Ragnarok, this compilation is an electrifying journey through time and danger. Embark on a globe-trotting adventure that spans continents and eras, from the radioactive wastelands of Chernobyl to the menacing depths of the Superstition Mountains. Witness as each member of the Chess Team—King, Queen, Rook, Bishop, Knight, and Deep Blue—faces their own harrowing challenges, encounters unimaginable horrors, and battles against the clock to save not just themselves but the very fabric of the world.

After the defeat of the evil Antaere in the first REV series, Zac and his super warriors carry on, as the hammer used against a myriad of obstinate races. The Union of Affiliated Systems (Earth's new stellar empire) is determined to expand far beyond the Grid, using the REVs as the means of convincing reluctant species to join. After all, its for their own good. Membership in the UAS will benefit all. So what if a little blood has to be spilled in the meantime? Zac didn't want command of the REV force in the first place, and now he's put in an impossible situation.

Maya has died and been resurrected into countless cyborg bodies through the years of a dangerous long career with the infamous Dirty Dozen, the most storied crew of criminals in the galaxy, at least before their untimely and gruesome demise. Decades later, she and her diverse team of broken, diminished outlaws must get back together to solve the mystery of their disastrous last mission and to rescue a missing and much-changed comrade … but they’re not the only ones in pursuit of the secret at the heart of the planet Dimmuborgir.

In this epochal book, Immanuel Velikovsky, one of the great scientists of modern times, puts the complete histories of our Earth and of humanity on a new basis. He presents the results of his 10-year-long interdisciplinary research in an easily understandable, even entertaining manner. In spite - or even because - of the disgraceful hostility provoked by his theories, this book keeps being of ardent topicality, which in the light of recent scientific research is even growing.

Screams come next. Then the hunters. With a staccato flicker, the light disappears and everything within a hundred-yard radius goes with it. A massive crater is all that remains where a chunk of the world has gone missing. As the deadly phenomenon repeats and expands amidst the world's most densely populated cities—carving apartment buildings in half, scooping away entire city blocks, and claiming thousands of lives—Jack Sigler, call sign King, and his black ops team take action.

50 Great Myths of Human Evolution uses common misconceptions to explore basic theory and research in human evolution and strengthen critical thinking skills for lay audiences, listeners, and students. Includes myths such as: "Humans lived at the same time as dinosaurs"; "Lucy was so small because she was a child"; "Our ancestors have always made fire"; and "There is a strong relationship between brain size and intelligence."

Who are we? How do scientists define Homo sapiens, and how does our species differ from the extinct hominins that came before us? In this accessible account palaeoarchaeologist Paul Pettitt shows how the latest scientific advances, especially in genetics, are revolutionizing our understanding of human evolution. Pettitt reveals the extraordinary story of how our ancestors adapted to unforgiving and relentlessly changing climates, leading to remarkable innovations in art, technology, and society that we are only now beginning to comprehend.

Just a few hundred genes separate humans from chimpanzees. Imagine someone altering the chimp genome, splicing in human genes to increase the size of the cranium, reduce the amount of body hair, enable speech. What sort of creature would result? Sims takes place in the very near future, when the science of genetics is fulfilling its vaunted potential. A world where dangerous or boring manual labor is gradually being transferred to “sims”, genetically altered chimps who occupy a gray zone between simian and human.

Eleven years have passed since SHEVA was discovered in human DNA - a retrovirus that caused mutations in the human genome and heralded the arrival of a new wave of genetically enhanced humans. Now, these changed children have reached adolescence...and face a world that is outraged about their very existence. For these special youths, possessed of remarkable, advanced traits that mark a major turning point in human development, are also ticking time bombs harboring hosts of viruses that could exterminate the "old" human race.

The Ooken thought they upset a small but tough set of aliens. They had no idea the level of pain Bethany Anne was willing to bring. You don’t hurt Bethany Anne’s people, because the gloves come off and get destroyed, never to be placed back on again. The children have had to grow up, and quickly. Will they handle the new responsibilities that come with their new bodies? Or will the experiment fail? War is coming. Who will be the victor? Each side believes they know enough, but Bethany Anne gets a stark reminder that the fog of war cuts both ways.

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.

For five long years, Richard Stavos has been spilling blood in the arena of the interstellar prison Xan. Within the impenetrable walls of the galaxy's most notorious prison complex, the former lieutenant of the Commonwealth Federation Forces had only his technomancy skills to rely on. Though Stavos has accepted that life outside Xan is nothing but a pipe dream, the forces shaping the galaxy call to him once more. Great changes wash over humankind, threatening to drown civilizations. Changes that push the Technomancer to question his role in the universe.

Drawing on startling new evidence from the mapping of the genome, an explosive new account of the genetic basis of race and its role in the human story. Human evolution, the consensus view insists, ended in prehistory. Inconveniently, as Nicholas Wade argues in A Troublesome Inheritance, the consensus view cannot be right. And in fact, we know that populations have changed in the past few thousand years - to be lactose tolerant, for example, and to survive at high altitudes.

Bill Masen wakes up one morning in his hospital bed. His eyes are completely bandaged after an eye operation so he is unable to see. He immediately notices how still and quiet everything is. Having taken off his bandages, he discovers that both inside the hospital and out, the majority of the population (who watched a display of startlingly bright comets in the night sky the previous evening) have all gone blind, and realises that there is a terrifying new enemy for humankind to contend with.

From the author of Seed of Israel: DNA Guide to Tracing Your Jewish Ancestry comes this great dive into the history of Ashkenazi Jews. While controversial debates spark disagreements on the crystallization of this Jewish Diaspora, modern genetic studies and personal DNA samples finally conclude the Levantine Middle Eastern and Mediterranean roots of Ashkenazi ancestry: Judean people from the Holy Land that journeyed across the Mediterranean to the bottleneck of Europe.