He had a talent for drawing and an interest in birds, and he would spend the next thirty-five years traveling to the remotest regions of his new country–often alone and on foot–to render his avian subjects on paper. The works of art he created gave the world its idea of America. They gave America its idea of itself. Here Richard Rhodes vividly depicts Audubon’s life and career: his epic wanderings; his quest to portray birds in a lifelike way; his long, anguished separations from his adored wife; his ambivalent witness to the vanishing of the wilderness. John James Audubon: The Making of an American is a magnificent achievement.

    Mary T. Newport has demonstrated through her care for her husband that there is hope, relief, and perhaps a cure.

    The alimentary canal is classic Mary Roach terrain: the questions explored in Gulp are as taboo, in their way, as the cadavers in Stiff and every bit as surreal as the universe of zero gravity explored in Packing for Mars. Why is crunchy food so appealing? Why is it so hard to find words for flavors and smells? Why doesn’t the stomach digest itself? How much can you eat before your stomach bursts? Can constipation kill you? Did it kill Elvis? In Gulp we meet scientists who tackle the questions no one else thinks of—or has the courage to ask. We go on location to a pet-food taste-test lab, a fecal transplant, and into a live stomach to observe the fate of a meal. With Roach at our side, we travel the world, meeting murderers and mad scientists, Eskimos and exorcists (who have occasionally administered holy water rectally), rabbis and terrorists—who, it turns out, for practical reasons do not conceal bombs in their digestive tracts.Like all of Roach’s books, Gulp is as much about human beings as it is about human bodies.

    David Lewis-Williams proposes that the explanation for this lies in the evolution of the human mind. Cro-Magnons, unlike the Neanderthals, possessed a more advanced neurological makeup that enabled them to experience shamanistic trances and vivid mental imagery. It became important for people to "fix," or paint, these images on cave walls, which they perceived as the membrane between their world and the spirit world from which the visions came. Over time, new social distinctions developed as individuals exploited their hallucinations for personal advancement, and the first truly modern society emerged.Illuminating glimpses into the ancient mind are skillfully interwoven here with the still-evolving story of modern-day cave discoveries and research. The Mind in the Cave is a superb piece of detective work, casting light on the darkest mysteries of our earliest ancestors while strengthening our wonder at their aesthetic achievements.

    Harmony is central. There are two key aspects to the visual structure of Islamic design, calligraphy using Arabic script-one of the world's great calligraphic traditions-and abstract ornamentation using a varied but remarkably integrated visual language. This art of pure ornament revolves around two central themes; crystalline geometric patterns, the harmonic and symmetrical subdivision of the plane giving rise to intricately interwoven designs that speak of infinity and the omnipresent center; and idealized plant form, spiraling tendrils, leaves, buds and flowers embodying organic life and rhythm.1. WIDE APPEAL: Anyone interested in science, mathematics, design, architecture, and the natural world.2. AUTHORITATIVE: A compelling blend of scholarship and visual presentation, packs an enormous amount of information into a short space.3. BEAUTIFUL PACKAGE: A bargain at $10.00. Winner of First Prize for Nonfiction at the New York Book Show4. SERIES PURPOSE: All are aimed at bringing ancient wisdom forward into the 21st century.5. INSPIRING: The perfect entrée into a challenging topic; will inspire other reading.

    But now, with revolutionary medical advances, death has become just another serious complication. As a young medical student, Dr. David Casarett was inspired by the story of a two-year-old girl named Michelle Funk. Michelle fell into a creek and was underwater for over an hour. When she was found she wasn’t breathing, and her pupils were fixed and dilated. That drowning should have been fatal. But after three hours of persistent work, a team of doctors and nurses was able to bring her back. It was a miracle. If Michelle could come back after three hours of being dead, what about twelve hours? Or twenty-four? What would it take to revive someone who had been frozen for one thousand years? And what does blurring the line between “life” and “death” mean for society? In Shocked, Casarett chronicles his exploration of the cutting edge of resuscitation and reveals just how far science has come. He begins in the eighteenth century, when early attempts at resuscitation involved public displays of barrel rolling, horseback riding (sort of), and blowing smoke up the patient’s various orifices. He then takes us inside a sophisticated cryonics facility in the Arizona desert, a darkroom full of hibernating lemurs in North Carolina, and a laboratory that puts mice into a state of suspended animation. The result is a spectacular tour of the bizarre world of doctors, engineers, animal biologists, and cryogenics enthusiasts trying to bring the recently dead back to life. Fascinating, thought-provoking, and (believe it or not) funny, Shocked is perfect for those looking for a prequel—and a sequel—to Mary Roach’s Stiff, or for anyone who likes to ponder the ultimate questions of life and death.

    In this wise and passionate book, one of our most eminent physicians reacquaints us with a classic notion often overlooked in modern medicine: health care with a human face, in which the time-honored art of healing guides doctors in their approach to patient care and their use of medical technology.Drawing on four decades of practice as a cardiologist and a vast knowledge of literature and medical history, Dr. Lown probes the heart and soul of the doctor-patient relationship. Insightful and accessible to all, The Lost Art of Healing describes how true healers use sympathetic listening and touch to hone their diagnostic skills, how language affects the perception of illness, how doctors and patients can cultivate a relationship of trust, and how patients can obtain the most complete and beneficial care through a combination of healing techniques and conventional practices. As Dr. Lown explains, the art of healing does not mean abandoning the spectacular advances of modern science, but rather incorporating them into a sensitive, humane, enlightened approach to medical care. With its urgent message and poignant, fascinating vignettes, The Lost Art of Healing is a book of vital, universal importance.

    Lehninger Principles of Biochemistry, Fourth Edition brings clarity and coherence to an often unwieldy discipline, while incorporating the field's most important recent developments and applications.

    Great for the beginner and the expert, this book offers readers exercises to improve their work.

    Now in its Eleventh Edition, this classic atlas continues to provide students with accurate anatomical images presented in a pedagogically effective, clinically relevant manner. This new edition has been revised to include 100 additional four-color illustrations, additional orientation drawings, and updated terminology.This edition is packaged with a student version of Dynamic Human Anatomy, an interactive electronic supplement which includes 800 images from the Eleventh Edition of Grant's, 8 video clips from Acland's DVD Atlas of Human Anatomy, and 100 USMLE-style review questions in anatomy.

     Donna Tartt's Pulitzer Prize-winning, #1 New York Times bestselling novel, The Goldfinch, introduced millions of readers to a painting that becomes a lifelong obsession. Painted in 1654 by Carel Fabritius, the work is of a small bird, chained to its perch. This mysterious portrait, a masterpiece of the Dutch Golden Age, has been lost and found, adored and abandoned, for nearly four centuries. Now more famous than ever, this painting is the subject of its own book—a look behind the scenes at its creation and the tumultuous life of its creator. This gripping, true story of adventure, romance, and artistic fervor has never before been told and will enthrall readers of the now famous novel. Set against the vibrant backdrop of Holland in the seventeenth century, when it was the economic capital of the world, the book is populated by a glittering crowd of the wealthy and young, high society with appetites for success and excess. Holland was the center of the art world as well, boasting both Rembrandt, (Fabritius' mentor), and Vermeer (his rival). And there is Carel Fabritius himself—handsome, talented, hell-bent on greatness, but unable to escape tragedy. Yet through The Goldfinch, he achieves immortality. Deborah Davis is the author of the best-selling Strapless: John Singer Sargent and the Fall of Madame X, Party of the Century: The Fabulous Story of Truman Capote and His Black and White Ball, Gilded: How Newport Became the Richest Resort in America, and the prize-winning Guest of Honor: Booker T. Washington, Theodore Roosevelt, and the White House Dinner that Shocked a Nation. Cover design by Adil Dara

    It combines a detailed textbook that emphasizes clinical and functional correlates of histology with a beautifully illustrated atlas featuring full-color digital micrographs of the highest quality.This edition includes over 100 new illustrations, more Clinical Correlation boxes on the histology of common medical conditions, and new information on the molecular biology of endothelial cell function. Terminology throughout the text is consistent with Terminologia Anatomica.A powerful interactive histology atlas CD-ROM for students is included with the book and features all of the plates found in the text with interactive functionality.

    With extensive treatment of the heart of epidemiology-from study designs to descriptive epidemiology to quantitative measures-this reader-friendly text is accessible and interesting to a wide range of beginning students in all health-related disciplines. A unique focus is given to real-world applications of epidemiology and the development of skills that students can apply in subsequent course work and in the field. The text is also accompanied by a complete package of instructor and student resources available through a companion Web site.

    Ebola. "Killer microbes." All around us the alarms are going off, warning of the danger of new, deadly diseases. And yet, as Nancy Tomes reminds us in her absorbing book, this is really nothing new. A remarkable work of medical and cultural history, The Gospel of Germs takes us back to the first great "germ panic" in American history, which peaked in the early 1900s, to explore the origins of our modern disease consciousness.Little more than a hundred years ago, ordinary Americans had no idea that many deadly ailments were the work of microorganisms, let alone that their own behavior spread such diseases. The Gospel of Germs shows how the revolutionary findings of late nineteenth-century bacteriology made their way from the laboratory to the lavatory and kitchen, with public health reformers spreading the word and women taking up the battle on the domestic front. Drawing on a wealth of advice books, patent applications, advertisements, and oral histories, Tomes traces the new awareness of the microbe as it radiated outward from middle-class homes into the world of American business and crossed the lines of class, gender, ethnicity, and race.Just as we take some of the weapons in this germ war for granted--fixtures as familiar as the white porcelain toilet, the window screen, the refrigerator, and the vacuum cleaner--so we rarely think of the drastic measures deployed against disease in the dangerous old days before antibiotics. But, as Tomes notes, many of the hygiene rules first popularized in those days remain the foundation of infectious disease control today. Her work offers a timely look into the history of our long-standing obsession with germs, its impact on twentieth-century culture and society, and its troubling new relevance to our own lives.

    Why do living things and physical phenomena take the forms they do? Analyzing the mathematical and physical aspects of biological processes, this historic work, first published in 1917, has become renowned as well for the poetry of is descriptions.