Titoli in Biologia

From breasts and orgasms to periods, pregnancies, and menopause—A Brief History of the Female Body is a fascinating science book explaining the mysteries of the female body through an evolutionary lens.

Biomimetics literally means emulating biology—and in a broader sense the term covers technological advances where the original inspiration came from nature. The Earth is a vast laboratory where the mechanisms of natural selection have enabled evolutionary solutions to be developed to a wide range of problems. Science writer Brian Clegg looks at how humans have piggybacked on natural experimentation, redeploying a solution to create things that make our lives easier.

For many of us, the great scientific discoveries of the modern age—the Big Bang, evolution, quantum physics, relativity—point to an existence that is bleak, devoid of meaning, pointless. But in The Sacred Depths of Nature, eminent biologist Ursula Goodenough shows us that the scientific world view need not be a source of despair. Indeed, it can be a wellspring of solace and hope. This volume reconciles the modern scientific understanding of reality with our timeless spiritual yearnings for reverence and continuity.

Life innovates constantly, producing perfectly adapted species—but there's a catch. Many animals and plants eke out seemingly unremarkable lives. Passive, constrained, modest, threatened. Then, in a blink of evolutionary time, they flourish spectacularly. Once we start to look, these 'sleeping beauties' crop up everywhere. But why? Looking at the book of life, from apex predators to keystone crops, and informed by his own cutting-edge experiments, renowned scientist Andreas Wagner demonstrates that innovations can come frequently and cheaply to nature, well before they are needed.

Seashells, stretching from the deep past into the present day, are touchstones leading into fascinating realms of the natural world and cutting-edge science. In Spirals in Time, marine biologist Helen Scales shows how seashells have been sculpted by the fundamental rules of mathematics and evolution; how they gave us color, gems, food, and new medicines. Spirals in Time shows why nature matters and reveals the hidden wonders that you can hold in the palm of your hand.

Nature is rife with cheating. Possums play possum, feigning death to cheat predators. Crows cry wolf to scare off rivals. Amphibians and reptiles are inveterate impostors. Even genes and cells cheat. The Liars of Nature and the Nature of Liars explores the evolution of cheating in the natural world, revealing how dishonesty has given rise to wondrous diversity.

For many of us, the buzzing of a bee elicits panic. But the next time you hear that low droning sound, look closer: the bee has navigated to this particular spot for a reason using a fascinating set of tools. What a Bee Knows: Exploring the Thoughts, Memories, and Personalities of Bees invites us to follow bees' mysterious paths and experience their alien world.

What is life? Many scientists believe life can be reduced to ‘mechanistic’ factors, such as genes and information codes. Yet there is a growing army of scientists, philosophers and artists who reject this view. The gene metaphor is not only too simplistic but deeply misleading. If there is a way to reduce life to a single principle, that principle must acknowledge the creativity of life, turning genetic determinism on its head.

The egg is a paradox―both alive and not alive―and a symbol as old as culture itself. In this wide-ranging and delightful journey through its natural and cultural history, Lizzie Stark explores the egg’s deep meanings, innumerable uses, and metabolic importance through a dozen dazzling specimens. Egg is playful, informative, and guarantees that you’ll never take this delicate ovoid for granted again.

As dramatic as The Double Helix and as absorbing as The Soul of a New Machine, Natural Obsessions explores the advanced reaches of molecular biology, the nature of the human cell, and the genes that control cancer. It unforgettably portrays some of the best young scientists in the world, the rewards and discouragements of scientific research, and the very process of scientific inquiry.

To date, more than a million insect species have been described, with probably at least another 5-8 million species waiting in the wings for a name. Insects are a fascinatingly diverse and beautiful spectrum of animals. They range in size from the tiny parasitic wasp, measuring a mere 139µm, to the aptly named Titan beetle, which can reach lengths of up to 17cm. They can be found on all continents of the world, from the Sahara Desert to the frozen wastes of Antarctica. While no insects live beneath the waves, the intrepid sea skaters skim the surface of some of the world's oceans.

For as long as humans have existed, insects have been our constant companions. Yet we hardly know them, not even the ones we’re closest to: those that eat our food, share our beds, and live in our homes. Organizing his book alphabetically, Hugh Raffles weaves together brief vignettes, meditations, and extended essays, taking the listener on a mesmerizing exploration of history and science, anthropology and travel, economics, philosophy, and popular culture.

This volume, aimed at the general audience, presents life and times of the amazing animals that inhabited Earth more than 500 million years ago. The Cambrian Period was a critical time in Earth's history. During this immense span of time nearly every modern group of animals appeared. Although life had been around for more than 2 million millennia, Cambrian rocks preserve the record of the first appearance of complex animals with eyes, protective skeletons, antennae, and complex ecologies.

You may be familiar with the idea of our body's biome - the bacterial fauna that populates our gut and can so profoundly affect our health. In We Are Electric we cross the next frontier of scientific understanding: discover your body's electrome.

Natalie Angier knows all that scientists know—and sometimes more—about the power of symmetry in sexual relations, about the brutal courting habits of dolphins, about the grand deceit of orchids, about the impact of female and male preferences on evolution. She knows how scientists go about their work, and she describes their ways, their visions, and their arguments. Perhaps most poignantly, she understands the complexities and the sad necessity of death.

Most of us are aware of the hive mind—the power of bees as an amazing collective. But do we know how uniquely intelligent bees are as individuals? In The Mind of a Bee, Lars Chittka draws from decades of research, including his own pioneering work, to argue that bees have remarkable cognitive abilities. He shows that they are profoundly smart, have distinct personalities, can recognize flowers and human faces, exhibit basic emotions, count, use simple tools, solve problems, and learn by observing others. They may even possess consciousness. 

Pest, kopper og kolera. Det er blot nogle af de epidemier, der gennem tiden har været med til at slå millioner og atter millioner af mennesker ihjel. I Mikroskopiske dræbere kan du læse om nogle af de historiske sygdomme, der er gået amok og har spredt sig i rasende fart – og du kan læse om nogle af de sygdomme, vi måske skal frygte i fremtiden.

By the time a baby is born, its brain is equipped with billions of intricately crafted neurons wired together through trillions of interconnections to form a compact and breathtakingly efficient supercomputer. Zero to Birth takes you on an extraordinary journey to the very edge of creation, from the moment of an egg's fertilization through each step of a human brain's development in the womb—and even a little beyond. As W. A. Harris guides you through the process of how the brain is built, he takes up the biggest questions that scientists have asked about the developing brain.

If you are at all interested in life on our planet, then you need to know about insects. They are the most successful group of animals ever to have lived on Earth. Making up three quarters of all animal species, insects conquered the planet long ago. They were among the very first animals to appear on land and were the first to take to the air. Their total biomass is at least 10 times that of all humans and our livestock combined.

Whether it's in a cockpit at takeoff or the planning of an offensive war, a romantic relationship or a dispute at the office, there are many opportunities to lie and self-deceive - but deceit and self-deception carry the costs of being alienated from reality and can lead to disaster. So why does deception play such a prominent role in our everyday lives? In short, why do we deceive?