Genetic Science

After an unfortunate accident, Handry is forced to wander a world he doesn't understand, searching for meaning. He soon discovers that the life he thought he knew is far stranger than he could even possibly imagine. Can an unlikely savior provide the answers to the questions he barely comprehends?

Humans are a puzzling species. On the one hand, we struggle to survive on our own in the wild, often failing to overcome even basic challenges, like obtaining food, building shelters, or avoiding predators. On the other hand, human groups have produced ingenious technologies, sophisticated languages, and complex institutions that have permitted us to successfully expand into a vast range of diverse environments. What has enabled us to dominate the globe, more than any other species, while remaining virtually helpless as lone individuals?

From leading geopolitical expert and technology futurist Jamie Metzl comes a groundbreaking exploration of the many ways genetic engineering is shaking the core foundations of our lives-sex, war, love, and death. At the dawn of the genetics revolution, our DNA is becoming as readable, writable, and hackable as our information technology. But as humanity starts retooling our own genetic code, the choices we make today will be the difference between realizing breathtaking advances in human well-being and descending into a dangerous and potentially deadly genetic arms race.

Long before space travel was possible, the idea of life beyond Earth transfixed humans. In this fascinating book, astronomer Jon Willis explores the science of astrobiology and the possibility of locating other life in our own galaxy. Describing the most recent discoveries by space exploration missions, including the Kepler space telescope, the Mars Curiosity rover, and the New Horizons probe, Willis asks listeners to imagine - and choose among-five scenarios for finding life.

It's 2040. After decades of research, scientists of the European Union believe that they have at last conquered humankind's most pernicious foe: old age. For the first time, technology holds out the promise of not merely slowing the aging process but actually reversing it. The first subject for treatment is 78-year-old philanthropist Jeff Baker. After 18 months in a rejuvenation tank, Jeff emerges looking like a 20-year-old. And the change is more than skin deep. From his hair cells down to his DNA, Jeff is 20 - with a breadth of life experience.

A warm day in Dublin, a crowded street corner. Suddenly, a car-bomb explodes, killing and injuring scores of innocent people.From the second-floor window of a building across the street, a visiting American watches, helpless, as his beloved wife and children are sacrificed in the heat and fire of someone else's cause.

On a rescue mission in the heart of the Indonesian jungle, Dr. Draden Freeman and his GhostWalker team need to extract the wounded as quickly as possible - or risk spreading a deadly virus unleashed by a terrorist cell. When Draden gets infected, he forces his team to leave him behind. He won’t risk exposing anyone else. He intends to find the ones responsible and go out in a blaze of glory. Shylah Cosmos’ mission is to track the virus and remain unseen. Her enhanced senses tell her that the gorgeous man eradicating the terrorists one by one is a GhostWalker.

In a not-too-distant future, a simple outpatient procedure that has been promised to increase empathy between romantic partners has become all the rage. So when Briddey Flannigan's fiancé proposes that he and Briddey undergo the procedure, she is delighted! Only, the results aren't quite as expected. Instead of gaining an increased empathetic link with her fiancé, Briddey finds herself hearing the actual thoughts of one of the nerdiest techs in her office. And that's the least of her problems.

A man and woman possessed of telekinetic powers. She is the doctor. He is the experiment. What comes between them is a terrifying secret history that could save them or destroy them.

Edward O. Wilson is one of the world’s preeminent biologists, a Pulitzer Prize winner, and the author of more than 25 books. The defining work in a remarkable career, The Social Conquest of Earth boldly addresses age-old questions (Where did we come from? What are we? Where are we going?) while delving into the biological sources of morality, religion, and the creative arts.

An epic story about war, peace, and the price of freedom, Forever Free reintroduces listeners to William Mandella - who has been living peacefully on the planet called Middle Finger, a refuge for humans who refuse to become part of the group mind known as Man. But after decades of this peace, Mandella and others are tired of living like zoo animals. So they steal a starship - and embark upon a voyage that will forever change their understanding of the universe, and themselves.

Sergeant Richard Stavos was a Technomancer, capable of creating stronger than normal mental links with nanites. But that alone wasn't enough to keep him alive. Not when the Ka Empire wages wars across the galaxy. Death was supposed to be his release...an end to the constant fighting that plagued his life. But gifted beings like Richard are assets, and almost a decade after his death, the Ka overlords bring him back from the grave as a "reward" for his good service.

In the city of Queen Mab, nothing is quite as it seems. Pariah, spy and Inquisitorial agent Alizebeth Bequin is all of these things and yet none of them. An enigma, even to herself, she is caught between Inquisitors Gregor Eisenhorn and Gideon Ravenor, former allies now enemies who are playing a shadow game against a mysterious and deadly foe. Coveted by the archenemy, pursued by the Inquisition, Bequin becomes embroiled in a dark plot of which she knows not her role or purpose.

Despite the death of a traitor and key conspirator, the plot to use the GhostWalker experiments to undermine the security of the US by foreign interests still exists. The GhostWalkers themselves must race against the clock to neutralize the danger.

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."

In this stunning narrative spanning more than 200 million years, Steve Brusatte, a young American paleontologist who has emerged as one of the foremost stars of the field - discovering 10 new species and leading groundbreaking scientific studies and fieldwork - masterfully tells the complete, surprising, and new history of the dinosaurs, drawing on cutting-edge science to dramatically bring to life their lost world and illuminate their enigmatic origins, spectacular flourishing, astonishing diversity, cataclysmic extinction, and startling living legacy.

Possessed of an extraordinary telekinetic gift - she can make objects burst into flames - Dahlia Le Blanc has spent her life isolated from other people. But just when she thinks she's finally achieved some peace, her world comes crashing down. For a reason she cannot guess, she has become the target of deadly assassins. Suddenly, no place is safe - not even the secret refuge she established long ago. Now she must rely on Nicolas Trevane, a dangerous warrior sent to track her down and protect her.

Belisarius is a quantum man, an engineered Homo quantus who fled the powerful insight of dangerously addictive quantum senses. He found a precarious balance as a con man, but when a client offers him untold wealth to move a squadron of warships across an enemy wormhole, he must embrace his birthright to even try. In fact, the job is so big that he'll need a crew built from all the new sub-branches of humanity. If he succeeds, he might trigger an interstellar war, but success might also point the way to the next step of Homo quantus evolution.

Slip doesn’t buy it, though. The Sci-gods took everything from him. They dropped a bomb that reduced his home to waste, his family to dust, and left him broken with no hope for vengeance. Now he’s just a lone cyborg digging through scraps for his next meal. That changes when a rebel assassin stalks Slip, eager to unlock the untapped potential hidden deep within him—his unique connection to the A.I. in his head. With nothing left to lose, he accepts the invitation to duel for upgrades to his tech, created by the very ones who destroyed his life: the history-obsessed Sci-gods.

The planet of Kiln is where the tyrannical Mandate keeps its prison colony, and for inmates the journey there is always a one-way trip. One such prisoner is Professor Arton Daghdev, xeno-ecologist and political dissident. Soon after arrival he discovers that Kiln has a secret. Humanity is not the first intelligent life to set foot there. In the midst a ravenous, chaotic ecosystem are the ruins of a civilization, but who were the vanished builders and where did they go?