Book picks similar to
Quirks of Human Anatomy: An Evo-Devo Look at the Human Body by Lewis I. Held Jr.
biology
science
evolution
evolution-genetics-biology-7
Spineless: The Science of Jellyfish and the Art of Growing a Backbone
Juli Berwald - 2017
Recent, massive blooms of billions of jellyfish have clogged power plants, decimated fisheries, and caused millions of dollars of damage. Driven by questions about how overfishing, coastal development, and climate change were contributing to a jellyfish population explosion, Juli embarked on a scientific odyssey. She traveled the globe to meet the biologists who devote their careers to jellies, hitched rides on Japanese fishing boats to see giant jellyfish in the wild, raised jellyfish in her dining room, and throughout it all marveled at the complexity of these alluring and ominous biological wonders.
Accidental Medical Discoveries: How Tenacity and Pure Dumb Luck Changed the World
Robert W. Winters - 2013
Serendipity, timing, and luck played a part in the discovery of unintentional cures and breakthroughs:A plastic shard in an RAF pilot’s eye leads to the use of plastic for contact lenses.The inability to remove a titanium chamber from rabbit’s bone leads to dental implants.Viagra was discovered by a group of chemists, working in the lab to find a new drug to alleviate the pain of angina pectoris.A stretch of five weeks of unusually warm weather in 1928 played a role in assisting Dr. Alexander Fleming in his analysis of bacterial growth and the discovery of penicillin.After studying the effects of the venom injected by the bite of a deadly pit viper snake, chemists developed a groundbreaking drug that works to control blood pressure.
Accidental Medical Discoveries
is an entertaining and enlightening look at the creation of 25 medical inventions that have changed the world – unintentionally. The book is presented in a lively and engaging way, and will appeal to a wide variety of readers, from history buffs to trivia fanatics to those in the medical profession.
Human Anatomy
Frederic H. Martini - 1994
Time-saving study tools help readers arrive at a complete understanding of human anatomy. KEY TOPICS: An Introduction to Anatomy, The Cell, Tissues and Early Embryology, The Integumentary System, The Skeletal System: Osseous Tissue and Skeletal Structure, The Skeletal System: Axial Division, The Skeletal System: Appendicular Division, The Skeletal System: Articulations, The Muscular System: Skeletal Muscle Tissue and Muscle Organization, The Muscular System: Axial Musculature, The Muscular System: Appendicular Musculature, Surface Anatomy and Cross-Sectional Anatomy, The Nervous System: Neural Tissue, The Nervous System: The Spinal Cord and Spinal Nerves, The Nervous System: The Brain and Cranial Nerves, The Nervous System: Pathways And Higher-Order Functions, The Nervous System: Autonomic Division, The Nervous System: General and Special Senses, The Endocrine System, The Cardiovascular System: Blood, The Cardiovascular System: The Heart, The Cardiovascular System: Vessels and Circulation, The Lymphoid System, The Respiratory System, The Digestive System, The Urinary System, The Reproductive System, The Reproductive System: Embryology and HumanDevelopment. MARKET: For all readers interested in human anatomy.
The Last Pendragon
Aurora Dawn - 2018
A kingdom that’s hers for the taking. And five warriors who will do anything to serve their queen. With a milestone birthday looming, newly single Carrie isn’t looking forward to the not so secret surprise party she has coming up, especially since her ex is going to be there with his brand new fiancé. But, when a strange chance encounter with the hottest man she’s ever seen sends her spiraling into a world she only thought existed in fables, Carrie soon finds that her life and identity is nothing like she imagined. Waking up in Camelot, Carrie finds herself surrounded by five-count ‘em five- smoking hot men, all sworn to stay by her side. They tell her that she’s the daughter of King Arthur and, as such, rightful queen of Camelot. But, with a dark queen already sitting on her throne, Carrie and her gaggle of supernatural protectors must embark on a journey that will bring them closer to death-and closer to her- then any of them ever imagined. With a loyal knight, a tattooed sorcerer, an immortal with a shocking connection to her, and a pair of twin dragon shifters who do everything together at her side, Carrie must find the strength to become the ruler she never thought she’d have to be…or lose everything in the process.A Reverse Harem Arthurian Fantasy
My Kindle Fire (My...)
Jim Cheshire - 2011
With this book you will learn how to tap into every Kindle Fire feature, including many of the hidden ones not discussed in other books. From setting up your Kindle Page, managing your music, watching movies, and downloading content - this book covers everything. The task based full-color format allows you to quickly and easily find the exact task you want to accomplish and walks you through it in a delightfully concise and visual manner. My Kindle Fire makes it easy for you to:• Master all the basics, fast: reading, playing, watching, browsing, and more• Tweak your Kindle Fire for quicker access and longer battery life• Sample best-seller book chapters for free• Mark up any eBook with highlights, notes, and bookmarks• Convert your personal documents for use on Kindle Fire• Discover Calibre, a powerful eBook management tool• Control even the largest music libraries• Get instant answers from Wikipedia, and from Kindle Fire’s built-in dictionary• Listen to personalized Internet radio stations created just for you• Use your Kindle Fire as a digital photo frame• Prevent unwanted subscription charges• Set up any email account to work on your Kindle Fire• Explore any web content with Amazon’s innovative Silk browser• Use Amazon Cloud to get your stuff anywhere—even if you left your Kindle at home• And much much more…Unlike many other guides which might only briefly mention or skip over some very import Kindle Fire features My Kindle Fire covers everything. Here are just a few of the things you'll find in My Kindle Fire that aren't covered in other guides: • Full coverage of Calibre, a free application for Mac or PC that helps manage your eBook library• A large number of walkthroughs for managing music playlists, including how to use cloud playlists. • How to reinstall multiple apps at once in case you reset your Kindle Fire. • Step-by-step walkthroughs on configuring all types of email accounts. • Coverage on handling attachments in your email application. • Importing contacts from your existing email application or cloud service and how you can export your contacts in order to back them up. • How to use Copy and Paste on the Kindle Fire. • How to use social networking integration with Facebook and others. • Walkthroughs on using the Gallery app, Pandora, Audible, and other popular apps. • Shows you how to access files on other computers in your house right from your Kindle Fire.
Inside Animal Hearts and Minds: Bears That Count, Goats That Surf, and Other True Stories of Animal Intelligence and Emotion
Belinda Recio - 2017
Now, we know that rats laugh when tickled, magpies mourn as they cover the departed with greenery, female whales travel thousands of miles for annual reunions with their gal pals, seals navigate by the stars, bears hum when happy, and crows slide down snowy rooftops for fun.In engaging text, photographs, and infographics, Inside Animal Hearts and Minds showcases fascinating and heart-warming examples of animal emotion and cognition that will foster wonder and empathy. Learn about an orangutan who does “macramé,” monkeys that understand the concept of money, and rats that choose friendship over food. Even language, math, and logic are no longer exclusive to humans. Prairie dogs have their own complex vocabularies to describe human intruders, parrots name their chicks, sea lions appear capable of deductive thinking akin to a ten-year-old child’s, and bears, lemurs, parrots, and other animals demonstrate numerical cognition.In a world where a growing body of scientific research is closing the gap between the human and non-human, Inside Animal Hearts and Minds invites us to change the way we view animals, the world, and our place in it.
Steroid Nation: Juiced Home Run Totals, Anti-aging Miracles, and a Hercules in Every High School: The Secret History of America's True Drug Addiction
Shaun Assael - 2007
Chronicling steroid use far beyond the headlines, it begins with the bodybuilders of Venice Beach in the 1970s and continues through to the NFL’s Raiders of the ’80s and ’90s and the baseball scandals of today. Assael also reveals the dramatic story of the godfather of the steroid movement: Dan Duchaine, who wrote The Original Underground Steroid Handbook in 1981.Part detective story, part medical investigation, and part sociological examination, Steroid Nation is a groundbreaking work on the most compelling story in the sports world today.
Delavier's Stretching Anatomy
Frédéric Delavier - 2011
The very best stretches for shoulders, chest, arms, torso, back, hips, and legs are all here, and all in the stunning detail that only Frederic Delavier can provide.With over 550 full-color photos and illustrations, you'll go inside more than 130 exercises to see how muscles interact with surrounding joints and skeletal structures and learn how variations, progressions, and sequencing can affect muscle recruitment, the underlying structures, and ultimately the results."Delavier's Stretching Anatomy" includes 13 proven programs for increasing muscle tone, releasing tension and stress, and optimizing training and performance in 13 sports, including running, cycling, basketball, soccer, golf, and track and field.The former editor in chief of "PowerMag" in France, author and illustrator Frederic Delavier is a journalist for "Le Monde du" "Muscle" and a contributor to "Men's Health Germany "and several other strength publications. His previous publications, "Strength Training Anatomy "and "Women's Strength Training Anatomy, " have sold more than 2 million copies.
Germs, Genes, & Civilization: How Epidemics Shaped Who We Are Today
David P. Clark - 2004
No one can stop him--but he walks away. A miracle? No...dysentery. Microbes saved the Roman Empire. Nearly a millennium later, the microbes of the Black Death ended the Middle Ages, making possible the Renaissance, western democracy, and the scientific revolution. Soon after, microbes ravaged the Americas, paving the way for their European conquest. Again and again, microbes have shaped our health, our genetics, our history, our culture, our politics, even our religion and ethics. This book reveals much that scientists and cultural historians have learned about the pervasive interconnections between infectious microbes and humans. It also considers what our ongoing fundamental relationship with infectious microbes might mean for the future of the human species. The "good side" of history's worst epidemics The surprising debt we owe to killer diseases Where diseases came from... ...and where they may be going Children of pestilence: disease and civilization From Egypt to Mexico, the Romans to Attila the Hun STDs, sexual behavior, and culture How microbes may shape cultural cycles of puritanism and promiscuity
Microbiology with Diseases by Body System
Robert W. Bauman - 2008
The Sports Gene: Inside the Science of Extraordinary Athletic Performance
David Epstein - 2013
In college, I ran against Kenyans, and wondered whether endurance genes might have traveled with them from East Africa. At the same time, I began to notice that a training group on my team could consist of five men who run next to one another, stride for stride, day after day, and nonetheless turn out five entirely different runners. How could this be?We all knew a star athlete in high school. The one who made it look so easy. He was the starting quarterback and shortstop; she was the all-state point guard and high-jumper. Naturals. Or were they?The debate is as old as physical competition. Are stars like Usain Bolt, Michael Phelps, and Serena Williams genetic freaks put on Earth to dominate their respective sports? Or are they simply normal people who overcame their biological limits through sheer force of will and obsessive training?The truth is far messier than a simple dichotomy between nature and nurture. In the decade since the sequencing of the human genome, researchers have slowly begun to uncover how the relationship between biological endowments and a competitor’s training environment affects athleticism. Sports scientists have gradually entered the era of modern genetic research.In this controversial and engaging exploration of athletic success, Sports Illustrated senior writer David Epstein tackles the great nature vs. nurture debate and traces how far science has come in solving this great riddle. He investigates the so-called 10,000-hour rule to uncover whether rigorous and consistent practice from a young age is the only route to athletic excellence.Along the way, Epstein dispels many of our perceptions about why top athletes excel. He shows why some skills that we assume are innate, like the bullet-fast reactions of a baseball or cricket batter, are not, and why other characteristics that we assume are entirely voluntary, like an athlete’s will to train, might in fact have important genetic components.This subject necessarily involves digging deep into sensitive topics like race and gender. Epstein explores controversial questions such as:Are black athletes genetically predetermined to dominate both sprinting and distance running, and are their abilities influenced by Africa’s geography?Are there genetic reasons to separate male and female athletes in competition?Should we test the genes of young children to determine if they are destined for stardom?Can genetic testing determine who is at risk of injury, brain damage, or even death on the field?Through on-the-ground reporting from below the equator and above the Arctic Circle, revealing conversations with leading scientists and Olympic champions, and interviews with athletes who have rare genetic mutations or physical traits, Epstein forces us to rethink the very nature of athleticism.
The Kingdom of Rarities
Eric Dinerstein - 2013
From the Himalayan slopes of Bhutan to the most isolated mountain ranges of New Guinea, The Kingdom of Rarities takes us to some of the least-traveled places on the planet to catch a glimpse of these unique animals and many others. As he shares stories of these species, Eric Dinerstein gives readers a deep appreciation of their ecological importance and the urgency of protecting all types of life—the uncommon and abundant alike.An eye-opening tour of the rare and exotic, The Kingdom of Rarities offers us a new understanding of the natural world, one that places rarity at the center of conservation biology. Looking at real-time threats to biodiversity, from climate change to habitat fragmentation, and drawing on his long and distinguished scientific career, Dinerstein offers readers fresh insights into fascinating questions about the science of rarity and unforgettable experiences from the field.
The Great Divide: History and Human Nature in the Old World and the New
Peter Watson - 2012
By 15,000 BC, humans had migratedfrom northeastern Asia across the frozen Beringland bridge to the Americas. When the world warmed up and the last Ice Age came to an end,the Bering Strait refilled with water, dividing America from Eurasia. This division—with two great populations on Earth, each unaware of theater—continued until Christopher Columbus voyaged to the New World in the fifteenth century.The Great Divide compares the development of human kind in the Old World and the New between 15,000 BC and AD 1500. Watson identifies three major differences between the two worlds—climate, domesticable mammals, and hallucinogenic plants—that combined to produce very different trajectories of civilization in the two hemispheres. Combining the most up-to-date knowledge in archaeology, anthropology, geology, meteorology, cosmology, and mythology, this unprecedented, masterful study offers uniquely revealing insight into what it means to be human.
463 Hard to Believe Facts
Nayden Kostov - 2021
My objective has been to provide you with a lifetime supply of icebreakers and points of discussion. Amaze your friends and family by telling them that all the planets in our Solar System could fit in the distance between Earth and the Moon or that flamingos can drink boiling water.Following the success of my site RaiseYourBrain, I decided to collect the best trivia gems and present you with a fact compendium suitable for a wide audience. This is the product of years of sifting through history and references books on a myriad of subjects as well as searching the Internet and paying attention to the news.These facts are a result of years of sifting through history and reference books, as well as searching the Internet and researching the news. Each fact is suitable for nearly any age – the “spiciest” entries are separated by their own chapter but still use clean language!Become a trivia whiz with even more facts in the Hard to Believe Facts series!