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The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons: The History of the Human Brain as Revealed by True Stories of Trauma, Madness, and Recovery
Sam Kean · back to the book
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24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorPhineas Gage: A Gruesome but True Story About Brain Science
John Fleischman · 96 pages
Phineas Gage was truly a man with a hole in his head. Phineas, a railroad construction foreman, was blasting rock near Cavendish, Vermont, in 1848 when a thirteen-pound iron rod was shot through his brain. Miraculously, he survived to live another eleven years and become a textbook case in brain science. At the time, Phineas Gage seemed to completely recover from his accident. He could walk, ta
Hallucinations
Oliver Sacks · 352 pages
Have you ever seen something that wasn't really there? Heard someone call your name in an empty house? Sensed someone following you and turned around to find nothing? ---------- Hallucinations don't belong wholly to the insane. Much more commonly, they are linked to sensory deprivation, intoxication, illness, or injury. People with migraines may see shimmering arcs of light or tiny, Lilliput
Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind
V.S. Ramachandran, Sandra Blakeslee · 352 pages
The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science
Norman Doidge · 448 pages
An astonishing new science called neuroplasticity is overthrowing the centuries-old notion that the human brain is immutable. Psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, Norman Doidge, M.D., traveled the country to meet both the brilliant scientists championing neuroplasticity and the people whose lives they've transformed—people whose mental limitations or brain damage were seen as unalterable. We see a woma
The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist's Quest for What Makes Us Human
V.S. Ramachandran · 384 pages
Explores why the human brain is so unique and how it became so enchantingly complex. This title reveals what baffling and extreme case studies can teach us about the brain and how it evolved.
The Man Who Wasn't There: Investigations into the Strange New Science of the Self
Anil Ananthaswamy · 312 pages
"In the tradition of Oliver Sacks, a tour of the latest neuroscience of schizophrenia, autism, Alzheimer's disease, ecstatic epilepsy, Cotard's syndrome, out-of-body experiences, and other disorders--revealing the awesome power of the human sense of self from a master of science journalism Anil Ananthaswamy's extensive in-depth interviews venture into the lives of individuals who offer perspective
I Heard There Was a Secret Chord: Music as Medicine
Daniel J. Levitin
Cure: A Journey into the Science of Mind Over Body
Jo Marchant · 336 pages
"A rigorous, skeptical, deeply reported look at the new science behind the mind's extraordinary ability to heal the body ... While we accept that stress or anxiety can damage our health, the idea of "healing thoughts" was long ago hijacked by New Age gurus and spiritual healers. Recently, however, serious scientists from a range of fields have been uncovering evidence that our thoughts, emotions,
Making the Monster: The Science Behind Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (Bloomsbury Sigma)
Kathryn Harkup · 305 pages
The Gene: An Intimate History
Siddhartha Mukherjee · 593 pages
The Gene is the story of one of the most powerful and dangerous ideas in our history, from bestselling, prize-winning author Siddhartha Mukherjee. Spanning the globe and several centuries, The Gene is the story of the quest to decipher the master-code that makes and defines humans, that governs our form and function. This is an epic, moving history of a scientific idea coming to life, by the aut
The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the Mind
Michio Kaku · 356 pages
Rabid: A Cultural History of the World's Most Diabolical Virus
Bill Wasik, Monica Murphy · 288 pages
Charts the history, science, and cultural mythology of rabies, documenting how before its vaccine the disease caused fatal brain infections and sparked the creations of monsters, including werewolves, vampires and zombies.
Pandora's Lab: Seven Stories of Science Gone Wrong
Paul A. Offit · 287 pages
What happens when ideas presented as science lead us in the wrong direction? History is filled with brilliant ideas that gave rise to disaster, and this book explores some of these missteps: from opium's heyday as the pain reliever of choice to recognition of opioids as a major cause of death in the U.S.; from the rise of trans fats as the golden ingredient for tastier, cheaper food to the heart d
Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School
John Medina · 304 pages
Most of us have no idea what's really going on inside our heads. Yet brain scientists have uncovered details every business leader, parent, and teacher should know—such as the brain's need for physical activity to work at its best.How do we learn? What exactly do sleep and stress do to our brains? Why is multi-tasking a myth? Why is it so easy to forget—and so important to repeat new knowledge? Is
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
Mary Roach · 304 pages
A hilarious and witty look into the history of using cadavers for science, grave diggers, and options to consider about your burial plan. A dark and uncomfortable subject made more palatable and downright funny.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Rebecca Skloot · 381 pages
Mapping The Mind
Rita Carter · 224 pages
This book shows how the latest scans, which reveal thoughts, memories - even our moods - as clearly as an X-ray reveals our bones, can be used to help explain aspects of our behaviour, and how behavioural eccentricities can be traced to abnormalities in an individual brain. Dyslexia, for example, may be caused by a short-circuit in the messages converting sound to visual cues ; addiction, eating d
Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain
David Eagleman · 290 pages
"This book will shine light on some of the hard-to-reach places in the brain, showing the ways in which we are not the ones driving the boat. Why does the conscious mind know so little? What do visual illusions unmask about the machinery running under the hood? How much of our lives are determined by choices and behaviors that are hard-wired, unconscious, and beyond our control? Do we have any man
The Other Brain: From Dementia to Schizophrenia, How New Discoveries about the Brain Are Revolutionizing Medicine and Science
R. Douglas Fields · 371 pages
Despite everything that has been written about the brain, a very important part of this vital organ has been overlooked in most books until now. This book is the story of glia, which make up approximately 85 percent of the cells in the brain. Long neglected as little more than cerebral packing material ("glia" means glue), glia are sparking a revolution in brain science. Glia are completely differ
Connectome: How the Brain's Wiring Makes Us Who We Are
Sebastian Seung · 371 pages
Sebastian Seung, a dynamic young professor at MIT, is at the forefront of a revolution in neuroscience. He believes that our identity lies not in our genes, but in the connections between our brain cells - our own particular wiring.
Reading in the Brain: The Science and Evolution of a Human Invention
Stanislas Dehaene · 388 pages
A renowned cognitive neuroscientist's fascinating and highly informative account of how the brain acquires readingHow can a few black marks on a white page evoke an entire universe of sounds and meanings? In this riveting investigation, Stanislas Dehaene provides an accessible account of the brain circuitry of reading and explores what he calls the "reading paradox": Our cortex is the product of m
The Demon Under the Microscope: From Battlefield Hospitals to Nazi Labs, One Doctor's Heroic Search for the World's First Miracle Drug
Thomas Hager · 340 pages
The Nazis discovered it. The Allies won the war with it. It conquered diseases, changed laws, and single-handedly launched the era of antibiotics. It was sulfa, the first synthetic antibiotic. Science writer Hager chronicles the history of the drug that shaped modern medicine. Sulfa saved millions of lives--among them those of Winston Churchill and Franklin Delano Roosevelt Jr.--but even more, it
The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York
Deborah Blum · 327 pages
The untold story of how poison rocked Jazz Age New York City. A pair of forensic scientists began their trailblazing chemical detective work, fighting to end an era when untraceable poisons offered an easy path to the perfect crime. Chief medical examiner Charles Norris and toxicologist Alexander Gettler investigate a family mysteriously stricken bald, factory workers with crumbling bones, a diner