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I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life
Ed Yong · back to the book
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24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorLife: An Unauthorised Biography: A Natural History of the First Four Thousand Million Years of Life on Earth
Richard Fortey · 416 pages
Richard Fortey guides us from the barren globe spinning in space, through the very earliest signs of life in the sulphurous hot springs and volcanic vents of the young planet, the appearance of cells, the slow creation of an atmosphere and the evolution of myriad forms of plants and animals that could then be sustained, including the magnificent era of the dinosaurs, and on to the last moment befo
Survival of the Sickest: A Medical Maverick Discovers Why We Need Disease
Sharon Moalem · 279 pages
Survival of the Sickest: The Surprising Connections Between Disease and Longevity is a 2007 New York Times Bestselling science book by Sharon Moalem, an evolutionary biologist and neurogeneticist, and Jonathan Prince, senior advisor and speechwriter for the Clinton administration. It was originally titled, Survival of the Sickest: A Medical Maverick Discovers Why We Need Disease.
The Hot Zone: The Terrifying True Story of the Origins of the Ebola Virus
Richard Preston · 384 pages
This interesting books talks about the author doing an investigation about several viruses in africa, including ebola. He explains the different strains and tells us their stories.
The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History
Elizabeth Kolbert · 336 pages
From the author of Field Notes from a Catastrophe, a powerful and important work about the future of the world, blending intellectual and natural history and field reporting into a compelling account of the mass extinction unfolding before our eyes.
Parasite Rex: Inside the Bizarre World of Nature's Most Dangerous Creatures
Carl Zimmer · 298 pages
A look inside the often hidden world of parasites turns the clock back to the beginning of life on Earth to answer key questions about these highly evolved and resilient life forms.
Genome: the Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters
Matt Ridley · 344 pages
The human genome, the complete set of genes housed in twenty-three pairs of chromosomes, is nothing less than an autobiography of our species. Spelled out in a billion three-letter words using the four-letter alphabet of DNA, the genome has been edited, abridged, altered and added to as it has been handed down, generation to generation, over more than three billion years. With the first draft of t
The Earth Moved: On the Remarkable Achievements of Earthworm
Amy Stewart · 240 pages
Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic
David Quammen · 592 pages
This work examines the emergence and causes of new diseases all over the world, describing a process called "spillover" where illness originates in wild animals before being passed to humans and discusses the potential for the next huge pandemic. 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 pan
Why Evolution is True
Jerry A. Coyne · 309 pages
Why evolution is more than just a theory: it is a factIn 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. Even Richard Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould, while extolling the beauty of evolution and examining case studie
The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution
Richard Dawkins · 673 pages
*The Ancestor's Tale* describes the various processes involved in the development of life on Earth. Enormously rich and diverse, it includes the results of recent research that, using dna analysis, has led to some surprising insights into evolutionary history. The fundamental, unifying principle of evolution underlies this unique history - our history, and that of all living things. This masterpie
Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body
Neil Shubin · 240 pages
Why do we look the way we do? What does the human hand have in common with the wing of a fly? Are breasts, sweat glands, and scales connected in some way? To better understand the inner workings of our bodies and to trace the origins of many of today's most common diseases, we have to turn to unexpected sources: worms, flies, and even fish.Neil Shubin, a leading paleontologist and professor of
Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo Devo
Sean B. Carroll · 384 pages
Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation
Olivia Judson · 320 pages
Do your genitals explode? Are you 200,000 times smaller than your mate? Do you drug your lover with a potion that keeps her faithful? You may not get up to such tricks, but some creatures do: sex is one of the most powerful forces in nature, and generates an astounding diversity of forms and behaviors. But why? Dr Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation explores the science of sex, considering eve
Ever Since Darwin: Reflections in Natural History
Stephen Jay Gould · 285 pages
Provides information on developments in evolutionary theory, discussing such topics as the Cambrian population explosion, Velikovsky's theories, and others.
The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time
Jonathan Weiner · 332 pages
On a desert island in the heart of the Galapagos archipelago, where Darwin received his first inklings of the theory of evolution, two scientists, Peter and Rosemary Grant, have spent twenty years proving that Darwin did not know the strength of his own theory. For among the finches of Daphne Major, natural selection is neither rare nor slow: it is taking place by the hour, and we can watch. In
Life Ascending: The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution
Nick Lane · 344 pages
Woman: An Intimate Geography
Natalie Angier · 407 pages
Natalie Angier lifts the veil of secrecy from that most enigmatic of evolutionary masterpieces, the female body, exploring the essence of what it means to be a woman. Angier takes on everything from organs (breasts "are funny things, really, and we should learn to laugh at them") to orgasm (happily for women, the clitoris has 8,000 nerve fibers, twice the number in the penis). Also delving into t
Microbe Hunters
Paul de Kruif · 363 pages
Paul de Kruif’s classic account of the first scientists to see and learn about the microscopic world continues to fascinate new readers. This is a timeless dramatization of the scientists, bacteriologists, doctors, and medical technicians who discovered the microbes and invented the vaccines to counter them. De Kruif writes about how seemingly simple but really fundamental discovers of science—for
The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race
Walter Isaacson · 560 pages
A scientific biography of Jennifer Doudna, a founder and co-developer of the CRISPR gene-editing mechanism, and an examination of what happened after CRISPR hit the marketplace.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Rebecca Skloot · 381 pages
The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal
Jared Diamond · 407 pages
Explores the question of what in the less than two percent of genes has made humans different from apes.
How to Clone a Mammoth: The Science of de-Extinction
Beth Shapiro · 220 pages
"Could extinct species like mammoths and passenger pigeons be brought back to life? The science says yes. In [this book], Beth Shapiro, evolutionary biologist and pioneer in 'ancient DNA' research, walks readers through the astonishing and controversial process of de-extinction. From deciding which species should be restored, to sequencing their genomes, to anticipating how revived populations mig
Almost Like A Whale: The Origin Of Species Updated
Steve Jones · 519 pages