The Great Dinosaur Debate: New Theories Unlocking the Mystery of the Dinosaurs and Their Extinction

My Beloved Brontosaurus: On the Road with Old Bones, New Science, and Our Favorite Dinosaurs

Brian Switek · 264 pages

Dry Store Room No. 1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum

Richard Fortey · 335 pages

A remarkable behind-the-scenes look at the extraordinary people, meticulous research, and driving passions that make London's Natural History Museum one of the world's greatest institutions.In an elegant and illuminating narrative, Richard Fortey takes his readers to a place where only a few privileged scientists, curators, and research specialists have been--the hallowed halls that hold the perma

Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms: Essays on Natural History

Stephen Jay Gould · 422 pages

Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms is the newest collection of bestselling scientist Stephen Jay Gould's popular essays from Natural History magazine (the longest-running series of scientific essays in history). In this collection, Gould consciously and unconventionally formulates a humanistic natural history, a consideration of how humans have learned to study and understand natu

The Brain: A Very Short Introduction

Michael O'Shea · 140 pages

The Link: Uncovering Our Earliest Ancestor

Colin Tudge, Josh Young · 267 pages

For more than a century, scientists have raced to unravel the human family tree and have grappled with its complications. Now, with an astonishing new discovery, everything we thought we knew about primate origins could change. Lying inside a high-security vault, deep within the heart of one of the world's leading natural history museums, is the scientific find of a lifetime - a perfectly fossiliz

Bonobo: The Forgotten Ape

Frans de Waal, Frans Lanting · 200 pages

Most people have never heard of the bonobo, an intriguing member of the great ape family, despite the fact that bonobos are as close to us as their much better known relatives, the chimpanzees. Scientists are only beginning to explore the social life of the bonobo. Whereas chimpanzees are known for male power politics, cooperative hunting, and intergroup warfare, bonobo society is egalitarian and

Intelligence in Nature: An Inquiry Into Knowledge

Jeremy Narby · 277 pages

Continuing the journey begun in his acclaimed book The Cosmic Serpent, the noted anthropologist ventures firsthand into both traditional cultures and the most up-todate discoveries of contemporary science to determine nature's secret ways of knowing.Anthropologist Jeremy Narby has altered how we understand the Shamanic cultures and traditions that have undergone a worldwide revival in recent years

Animal Wise: The Thoughts and Emotions of Our Fellow Creatures

Virginia Morell · 291 pages

This book explores the frontiers of research on animal cognition and emotion, offering a surprising examination into the hearts and minds of wild and domesticated animals. Have you ever wondered what it is like to be a fish? Or a parrot, dolphin, or an elephant? Do they experience thoughts that are similar to ours, or have feelings of grief and love? These are tough questions, but scientists are

The Origin of Species/The Voyage of the Beagle

Charles Darwin · 972 pages

Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex

Mary Roach · 319 pages

Few things are as fundamental to human happiness as sex, and few writers are as entertaining about the subject as Mary Roach. Can a woman think herself to orgasm? Is your penis three inches longer than you think? Why doesn't Viagra help women - or, for that matter, pandas? Does orgasm boost fertility? Or cure hiccups? The study of sexual physiology - what happens, and why, and how to make it happe

Frankenstein's Cat: Cuddling Up to Biotech's Brave New Beasts

Emily Anthes · 241 pages

For centuries, we have toyed with our creature companions, breeding dogs that herd and hunt, housecats that look like tigers, and teacup pigs that fit snugly in our handbags. But what happens when we take animal alteration a step further, engineering a cat that glows green under ultraviolet light or cloning the beloved family Labrador Retriever? Science has given us a whole new toolbox for tinkeri

Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It

Gary Taubes · 257 pages

This book is an eye-opening, myth-shattering examination of what makes us fat, from acclaimed science writer Gary Taubes. In his New York Times best seller, Good Calories, Bad Calories, Taubes argued that our diet's overemphasis on certain kinds of carbohydrates -- not fats and not simply excess calories -- has led directly to the obesity epidemic we face today. The result of thorough research, ke

Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life

Daniel C. Dennett · 586 pages

In this groundbreaking and very accessible book, Daniel C. Dennett, the acclaimed author of Consciousness Explained, demonstrates the power of the theory of natural selection and shows how Darwin's great idea transforms and illuminates our traditional view of our place in the universe. Following Darwinian thinking to its logical conclusions is a risky business, with pitfalls for everybody. Creati

The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World

Michael Pollan · 304 pages

Every schoolchild learns about the mutually beneficial dance of honeybees and flowers: The bee collects nectar and pollen to make honey and, in the process, spreads the flowers’ genes far and wide. In The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan ingeniously demonstrates how people and domesticated plants have formed a similarly reciprocal relationship. He masterfully links four fundamental human desires—s

The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate – Discoveries from a Secret World

Peter Wohlleben, Susanne Simard · 288 pages

A visually stunning journey into the diversity and wonders of forests. In his international bestseller The Hidden Life of Trees, Peter Wohlleben opened readers' eyes to the amazing processes at work in forests every day. Now this new, breathtakingly illustrated edition brings those wonders to life like never before. With compelling selections from the original book and stunning, large-format photo

When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, Susan McCarthy · 272 pages

The Synaptic Self: How Our Brain Becomes Who We Are

Joseph E. Ledoux

Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge

Edward O. Wilson · 375 pages

"In this new book, the American biologist Edward O. Wilson argues for the fundamental unity of all knowledge and the need to search for consilience - the proof that everything in our world is organized in terms of a small number of fundamental natural laws that comprise the principles underlying every branch of learning." "Professor Wilson shows how and why our explosive rise in intellectual maste

Lucy: the beginnings of humankind

Donald C. Johanson, Maitland Armstrong Edey · 492 pages

En 1974, en Ethiopie, un tout jeune paléoanthropologue américain, Donald Johanson, découvrait, "en pièces détachées", le squelette d'une petite dame d'un mètre à peine, de trente kilos et de trois millions et demi d'années. En l'honneur des Beatles, elle était aussitôt baptisée Lucy.En 1979, l'annonce officielle de cette stupéfiante découverte, avec tous les détails résultant des travaux de J0hans

Sperm Wars: Infidelity, Sexual Conflict, and Other Bedroom Battles

Robin Baker · 358 pages

"Using a series of fictional scenes involving some form of sexual contact, followed by an interpretation of the behavior from the viewpoint of an evolutionary biologist," the author explains how the "old programming [prompts] sexual behavior that is often in conflict with ... rational plans."--Jackets.

Why We Run: A Natural History

Bernd Heinrich · 304 pages

In Why We Run, biologist, award-winning nature writer, and ultramarathoner Bernd Heinrich explores a new perspective on human evolution by examining the phenomenon of ultraendurance and makes surprising discoveries about the physical, spiritual -- and primal -- drive to win. At once lyrical and scientific, Why We Run shows Heinrich's signature blend of biology, anthropology, psychology, and philos

The Web of Life: A New Scientific Understanding of Living Systems

Fritjof Capra · 333 pages

In The Web of Life Capra offers a radical synthesis of such recent scientific breakthroughs as the theory of complexity, Gaia theory, chaos theory and other explanations of the properties of organisms, social systems and ecosystems.

Origins: How the Nine Months Before Birth Shape the Rest of Our Lives

Annie Murphy Paul · 320 pages

What makes us the way we are? Is it the genes? The childhood environment? Or could it be that many of our individual characteristics--our health, our intelligence, our temperaments--are influenced by conditions encountered before birth? That's the claim of a provocative field known as fetal origins. Scientists are developing a radically new understanding of our very earliest experiences and how th

Deadly Feasts: Tracking the Secrets of a Terrifying New Plague

Richard Rhodes · 259 pages

It lurks in the meat we eat. Undetectable, it incubates for years. It kills by eating holes in people's brains, so that they stagger and collapse and lose their minds. It's one hundred percent fatal. And it's already abroad in America. Deadly Feasts reads like a Michael Crichton thriller - but it's documented fact, bringing sober early warning of a new threat to our very lives that every one of us