"Bill Bryson, bestselling author of A Short History of Nearly Everything, takes us on a head-to-toe tour of the marvel that is the human body. As compulsively readable as it is comprehensive, this is Bryson at his very best, a must-read owner's manual for everybody. Bill Bryson once again proves himself to be an incomparable companion as he guides us through the human body--how it functions, its remarkable ability to heal itself, and (unfortunately)...

"Why do we do the things we do? Over a decade in the making, this game-changing book is Robert Sapolsky's genre-shattering attempt to answer that question as fully as perhaps only he could, looking at it from every angle. Sapolsky's storytelling concept is delightful but it also has a powerful intrinsic logic: he starts by looking at the factors that bear on a person's reaction in the precise moment a behavior occurs, and then hops back in time from...

"A new theory of how the brain constructs emotions that could revolutionize psychology, health care, law enforcement, and our understanding of the human mind

Emotions feel automatic, like uncontrollable reactions to things we think and experience. Scientists have long supported this assumption by claiming that emotions are hardwired in the body or the brain. Today, however, the science of emotion is in the midst of a revolution on par...

"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 management over who we find gorgeous or repugnant? How...

A narrative history of humanity's creation and evolution explores how biology and history have defined understandings of what it means to be human and details the role of modern cognition in shaping the ecosystem and civilizations.

A leading zoologist takes a fierce and often humorous look at the females of the animal kingdom and subverts the prevailing opinion among evolutionary biologists who have insisted that males are more interesting. Somewhere in the ocean, an orca matriarch is leading her pod to better hunting grounds. On a reef, a male clownfish, alone after the death of his mate, is changing sex. In Africa, two female bonobos are engaging in same-sex frottage. All...

A look at how alcohol and other intoxicants helped spark the rise of the first large-scale societies by enhancing creativity, alleviating stress and building trust among conflicting tribes to allow them to cooperate with each other. Drunk cuts through the tangle of urban legends and anecdotal impressions that surround our notions of intoxication to provide the first rigorous, scientifically-grounded explanation for our love of alcohol. Drawing on...

"An enthralling account of a modern voyage of discovery as we meet a rare and mysterious bird of prey--the caracara--that puzzled Darwin, fascinates modern-day falconers, and carries secrets of our planet's deep past in its family history. In 1833, Charles Darwin was astonished by an animal he met in the Falkland Islands: handsome, social, and oddly crow-like falcons that were "tame and inquisitive ... quarrelsome and passionate," and so insatiably...

"Highly accessible, authoritative, and intellectually provocative, a startlingly original theory of how Homo sapiens came to be: Richard Wrangham forcefully argues that, a quarter of a million years ago, rising intelligence among our ancestors led to a unique new ability with unexpected consequences: our ancestors invented socially sanctioned capital punishment, facilitating domestication, increased cooperation, the accumulation of culture, and ultimately...

The story of our home planet and the organisms spread across its surface is far more spectacular than any Hollywood blockbuster, filled with enough plot twists to rival a bestselling thriller. But only recently have we begun to piece together the whole mystery into a coherent narrative. Drawing on his decades of field research and up-to-the-minute understanding of the latest science, geologist Andrew H. Knoll delivers a biography of Earth, charting...