Why do we dream? Do dreams hold psychological meaning or are they merely the reflection of random brain activity? What purpose do dreams serve?When Brains Dream addresses these core questions about dreams while illuminating the most up-to-date science in the field. Written by two world-renowned sleep and dream researchers, it debunks common myths; that we only dream in REM sleep, for example—while acknowledging the mysteries that persist around both the science and experience of dreaming.Antonio Zadra and Robert Stickgold bring together state-of-the-art neuroscientific ideas and findings to propose a new and innovative model of dream function called NEXTUP—Network Exploration to Understand Possibilities. By detailing this model’s workings, they help readers understand key features of several types of dreams, from prophetic dreams to nightmares and lucid dreams.

    Respect all life2. Live as part of the Animal Kingdom3. Educate our children to respect animals4. Treat animals as you would like to be treated5. Be a steward6. Value the sounds of nature and help preserve them7. Do not harm life in order to learn about it8. Have the courage of your convictions9. Act knowing that your actions make a difference10. Act knowing that you are not alone.Filled with inspirational stories, The Ten Trusts provides lessons Jane Goodall has learned from a lifetime of experience, with the warmth and emotion her readers have come to expect from her. Marc Bekoff, cofounder of the Roots and Shoots program with Jane, also contributes his profound insights and research, which Jane has come to rely on. Together, they share their hope and vision for humanity and all the earth's creatures, distilled into ten eloquent spiritual lessons. Within these ten trusts, Goodall reveals how we can gain true enlightenment by living in harmony with the animal kingdom and honoring the interconnection between all species.

    . . . Anyone with the slightest interest in biology should read this book."--The New York Times Book Review"A marvelous museum of the past four billion years on earth--capacious, jammed with treasures, full of learning and wide-eyed wonder."--The Boston GlobeFrom its origins on the still-forming planet to the recent emergence of Homo sapiens--one of the world's leading paleontologists offers an absorbing account of how and why life on earth developed as it did. Interlacing the tale of his own adventures in the field with vivid descriptions of creatures who emerged and disappeared in the long march of geologic time, Richard Fortey sheds light upon a fascinating array of evolutionary wonders, mysteries, and debates. Brimming with wit, literary style, and the joy of discovery, this is an indispensable book that will delight the general reader and the scientist alike."A drama bolder and more sweeping than Gone with the Wind . . . a pleasure to read."--Science"A beautifully written and structured work . . . packed with lucid expositions of science."--Natural History

    Jonathan Reiner, share the story of Cheney’s thirty-five-year battle with heart disease—providing insight into the incredible medical breakthroughs that have changed cardiac care over the last four decades. For as long as he has served at the highest levels of business and government, Vice President Dick Cheney has also been one of the world’s most prominent heart patients. Now, for the first time ever, Cheney, together with his longtime cardiologist, Jonathan Reiner, MD, shares the very personal story of his courageous thirty-five-year battle with heart disease, from his first heart attack in 1978 to the heart transplant he received in 2012.In 1978, when Cheney suffered his first heart attack, he received essentially the same treatment President Eisenhower had had in 1955. Since then, cardiac medicine has been revolutionized, and Cheney has benefitted from nearly every medical breakthrough. At each juncture, when Cheney faced a new health challenge, the technology was one step ahead of his disease. Cheney’s story is in many ways the story of the evolution of modern cardiac care.Heart is the riveting, singular memoir of both doctor and patient. Like no US politician has before him, Cheney opens up about his health struggles, sharing harrowing, never-before-told stories about the challenges he faced during a perilous time in our nation’s history. Dr. Reiner provides his perspective on Cheney’s case and also gives readers a fascinating glimpse into his own education as a doctor and the history of our understanding of the human heart. He masterfully chronicles the important discoveries, radical innovations, and cutting-edge science that have changed the face of medicine and saved countless lives.Powerfully braiding science with story and the personal with the political, Heart is a sweeping, inspiring, and ultimately optimistic book that will give hope to the millions of Americans affected by heart disease.

    . . when it comes to the legacy of this country's war on drugs, we should all share his outrage." --The New York Times Book Review From one of the world's foremost experts on the subject, a powerful argument that the greatest damage from drugs flows from their being illegal, and a hopeful reckoning with the possibility of their use as part of a responsible and happy lifeDr. Carl L. Hart, Ziff Professor at Columbia University and former chair of the Department of Psychology, is one of the world's preeminent experts on the effects of so-called recreational drugs on the human mind and body. Dr. Hart is open about the fact that he uses drugs himself, in a happy balance with the rest of his full and productive life as a colleague, husband, father, and friend. In Drug Use for Grown-Ups, he draws on decades of research and his own personal experience to argue definitively that the criminalization and demonization of drug use--not drugs themselves--have been a tremendous scourge on America, not least in reinforcing this country's enduring structural racism.Dr. Hart did not always have this view. He came of age in one of Miami's most troubled neighborhoods at a time when many ills were being laid at the door of crack cocaine. His initial work as a researcher was aimed at proving that drug use caused bad outcomes. But one problem kept cropping up: the evidence from his research did not support his hypothesis. From inside the massively well-funded research arm of the American war on drugs, he saw how the facts did not support the ideology. The truth was dismissed and distorted in order to keep fear and outrage stoked, the funds rolling in, and Black and brown bodies behind bars.Drug Use for Grown-Ups will be controversial, to be sure: the propaganda war, Dr. Hart argues, has been tremendously effective. Imagine if the only subject of any discussion about driving automobiles was fatal car crashes. Drug Use for Grown-Ups offers a radically different vision: when used responsibly, drugs can enrich and enhance our lives. We have a long way to go, but the vital conversation this book will generate is an extraordinarily important step.

    Will temperatures rise by 2�C or 8�C over the next hundred years? Will sea levels rise by 2 or 30 feet? The only way that we can accurately answer questions like these is by looking into the distant past, for a comparison with the world long before the rise of mankind.We may currently believe that atmospheric shifts, like global warming, result from our impact on the planet, but the earth's atmosphere has been dramatically shifting since its creation. This book reveals the crucial role that plants have played in determining atmospheric change - and hence the conditions on the planet we know today. Along the way a number of fascinating puzzles arise: Why did plants evolve leaves? When and how did forests once grow on Antarctica? How did prehistoric insects manage to grow so large? The answers show the extraordinary amount plants can tell us about the history of the planet -- something that has often been overlooked amongst the preoccuputations with dinosaur bones and animal fossils.David Beerling's surprising conclusions are teased out from various lines of scientific enquiry, with evidence being brought to bear from fossil plants and animals, computer models of the atmosphere, and experimental studies. Intimately bound up with the narrative describing the dynamic evolution of climate and life through Earth's history, we find Victorian fossil hunters, intrepid polar explorers and pioneering chemists, alongside wallowing hippos, belching volcanoes, and restless landmasses.

    From biblical plagues, to the AIDS crisis, to supergerms of the future, this updated and revised edition of the original covers the whole gamut of diseases that have threatened humanity since its origins.It also includes a new chapter on the history of bioterrorism and the deplorable role it has played and is likely to play in the phenomenal diversity of diseases.

    It’s so bound up with our deepest feelings that emotional trauma causes it to change shape.Practising cardiologist Sandeep Jauhar beautifully weaves his own experiences with the defining discoveries of the past to tell the story of our most vital organ. He looks at some of the pioneers who risked their careers and their patients’ lives to better understand the heart. People like Daniel Hale Williams, who performed the world’s first documented heart surgery, and Wilson Greatbatch, who accidentally invented the pacemaker.Amid gripping scenes from the operating theatre, Jauhar interweaves stories about the patients he’s treated with the moving tale of his family’s own history of heart problems, from his grandfather’s sudden death in India – an event that sparked his life-long obsession – to the ominous signs of how he himself might die.He also confronts the limits of medical technology and argues that future progress will be determined more by how we choose to live rather than by any device we invent.

    if Fast Food Nation made you consider some serious lifestyle changes, The Hundred-Year Lie will inspire you to go ten steps farther." -- Boston HeraldCombining the impact of the classic bestseller Silent Spring with Fast Food Nation, The Hundred-Year Lie: How Food and Medicine Are Destroying Your Health presents a devastating exposé of how chemicals in everyday products are ruining our health. Over the past one hundred years, we have been guinea pigs in a vast chemistry experiment that uses our bodies, our health, and our good will to test the proposition that modern science can improve upon nature. In The Hundred-Year Lie, investigative journalist RandallFitzgerald shatters dozens of myths being perpetuated by the chemical, pharmaceutical and processed food industries. Find out why you would never be FDA-approved—and why humans are becoming one of the most polluted species on the planet: • The average American now carries a “body burden” of 700 or more synthetic chemicals, including Teflon, plastics, and dozens of pesticides. • Musk fragrances used in detergents and air fresheners are not filtered out by our current water treatment facilities, ending up in our drinking water. • The artificial sweetener aspartame, an ingredient in 1,200 food products from diet drinks to chewing gum, has been linked to eighty-eight toxic symptoms. Fitzgerald not only sheds light on the problems we face from the unprecedented chemical onslaught, he presents suggestions for what we can to do to turn the tide.

    As she sped through the pages, she became enthralled by the intense drama behind the competition to discover the code of life. Even though her high school counselor told her girls didn’t become scientists, she decided she would.Driven by a passion to understand how nature works and to turn discoveries into inventions, she would help to make what the book’s author, James Watson, told her was the most important biological advance since his co-discovery of the structure of DNA. She and her collaborators turned ​a curiosity ​of nature into an invention that will transform the human race: an easy-to-use tool that can edit DNA. Known as CRISPR, it opened a brave new world of medical miracles and moral questions. The development of CRISPR and the race to create vaccines for coronavirus will hasten our transition to the next great innovation revolution. The past half-century has been a digital age, based on the microchip, computer, and internet. Now we are entering a life-science revolution. Children who study digital coding will be joined by those who study genetic code. Should we use our new evolution-hacking powers to make us less susceptible to viruses? What a wonderful boon that would be! And what about preventing depression? Hmmm…Should we allow parents, if they can afford it, to enhance the height or muscles or IQ of their kids? After helping to discover CRISPR, Doudna became a leader in wrestling with these moral issues and, with her collaborator Emmanuelle Charpentier, won the Nobel Prize in 2020.

    One heart. Two eyes. Ten fingers. You may think you know what makes up a human. But it turns out our bodies are full of surprises. What makes tears of joy different from tears of sadness?Why is a gut feeling so much smarter than you think?And why is 90% of you not even human?You may think you know the human body – heart, lungs, brain and bones – but your body is full of extraordinary mysteries that science is only just beginning to understand. This book, which accompanies a major new BBC TV programme, will change the way we think about our bodies.Doctors are in the business of keeping secrets, but medical confidentiality isn’t just about privacy, shame or discretion. It’s about vulnerability to exploitation. In this ground-breaking new book, the effervescent van Tulleken twins bring their knowledge and charm to the page to reveal just how well our bodies keep secrets from the things that want to exploit it: bacteria, viruses, fungi, parasites, larger predators and, crucially, other people. They uncover the remarkable stories behind the science we are not meant to know, on matters of life and death.Leading us through these revelations are tales of everyday miracles – the human stories that bind every one of us together through the universal stages of life. From the most extreme environments on Earth to the most extreme events, Chris and Xand reveal the incredible abilities every human shares. Arranged around the three themes of learning, survival and growth, this book shows the human body like never before.Combining cutting-edge science and technology with stunning photography that gives us a tantalising glimpse beneath our skin, the van Tullekens reveal the secrets that make very ordinary human body … extraordinary.

    But it took a team of Oxford scientists headed by Howard Florey and Ernst Chain four more years to develop it as the first antibiotic, and the most important family of drugs in the twentieth century. At once the world was transformed—major bacterial scourges such as blood poisoning and pneumonia, scarlet fever and diphtheria, gonorrhea and syphilis were defeated as penicillin helped to foster not only a medical revolution but a sexual one as well. In his wonderfully engaging book, acclaimed author Eric Lax tells the real story behind the discovery and why it took so long to develop the drug. He reveals the reasons why credit for penicillin was misplaced, and why this astonishing achievement garnered a Nobel Prize but no financial rewards for Alexander Fleming, Florey, and his team. The Mold in Dr. Florey’s Coat is the compelling story of the passage of medicine from one era to the next and of the eccentric individuals whose participation in this extraordinary accomplishment has, until now, remained largely unknown.

    Some parts of it are still mysteries to science and much is a mystery to the average person on the street. But we've come a long way from the sketches and diagrams drawn by the first anatomists in Ancient Greece. New medical procedures and imaging techniques have allowed "access all areas", revealing incredible detail and providing a much deeper understanding of how our bodies work. Making full use of all the latest knowledge, The Complete Human Body is the definitive guide to the development, form, function, and disorders of the human body, illustrated withunprecedented clarity by new computer-generated artworks and the latest medical and microscopic imaging.The Complete Human Body consists of five chapters. The first provides an overview of the human as an organism, covering human evolution, genetics, and the composition of the body. The second chapter explores human anatomy, looking at the body region by region (head and neck; thorax; abdomen and pelvis; upper arm; forearm and hand; hip and thigh; lower leg). The third chapter explores and explains how the body works, from individual organs to whole systems. Chapters four and five trace the human life cycle from zygote to old age, and profile the major diseases and disorders that can affect us.ContentsPRELIMS (5pp)1. INTEGRATED BODY (20pp)Human evolution - from our primate ancestors to modern humans.The human genome - our unique genetic makeup.Body composition - what the body is made up of.The complete human - how body systems work together to maintain health and equilibrium.2. ANATOMY (240pp)Body Systems - an overview of the anatomy of the body systems:Skin, hair, and nailsSkeletal systemMuscular systemNervous systemCardiovascular systemLymphatic systemEndocrine systemRespiratory systemDigestive systemUrinary systemReproductive systemAnatomy atlas - a detailed look at the anatomy of the human body, organized by body regions:Head and neckTorso (divided into thorax and abdomen)Shoulder and arm (divided into upper and lower)Hip and leg (divided into upper and lower)3. HOW THE BODY WORKS (120pp)Skin, hair, and nails: includes skin functions,skin renewal, skin healing, hair growth.Skeletal system: includes bone functions, bone growth, making blood vessels, different types of joint, cartilages and ligaments, functions of the skull, functions of the spine, ribs, sternum, and pelvis.Muscular system: includes muscle functions, different types of muscle, how muscles work.Nervous system: includes nerve impulses, nerve regeneration, central nervous system, brain functions, the limbic system, the hypothalamus, peripheral nervous system, autonomic nervous system, voluntary and involuntary responses, reflexes, the senses.Cardiovascular system: includes blood functions, blood formation, how the heart works, circulation, arteries and veins.Endocrine system: includes gland functions, hormone secretion, how hormones work, triggers,controls, feedback.Lymphatic and immune system: includes body defenses, non-specific and specific responses, types and functions of white cells, fighting infections, spleen functions.Respiratory system: includes breathing, how the lungs work, gas exchange, vocalization, sneezing and coughing.Digestive system: includes teeth and chewing, production and function of saliva, swallowing, how the stomach works, function of the intestines, how the liver works, processing nutrients.Urinary system: includes blood filtration, blood volume and pressure regulation, producing urine, urine removal.Reproductive system: includes production of sperm and seminal fluid, female reproductive system, sexual intercourse, milk production.4. LIFE CYCLE (46pp) - covers our development from conception to old age.Includes life cycle overview, inheritance and genes, conception and embryo development,fetal development, changes in the mother during pregnancy, labor and birth, newborn babies, childhood, puberty and adolescence, the aging process and death.5. DISEASES AND DISORDERS (60pp) - profiles the major diseases and disorders; organized by system.INDEX (12pp)GLOSSARY (7pp)ACKNOWLEDGMENTS (2pp)

    The Chronic Cough Enigma is written for people who have been coughing for months or years and cannot get useful answers from their doctors.More than 20 million Americans suffer from what is known as enigmatic chronic cough. This book provides insights from Dr. Jamie Koufman’s almost forty years of successfully managing thousands of long-suffering cough patients. Indeed, the typical chronic cough patient who comes to her office has been coughing for more than a decade. This book provides the many who suffer from chronic cough new and potentially life-changing information and the potential to be cured.

    Conventional wisdom may be wrong. In this controversial book, the eminent biologist Paul W. Ewald offers some startling arguments:-Germs appear to be at the root of heart disease, Alzheimer’s, schizophrenia, many forms of cancer, and other chronic diseases.-The greatest threats to our health come not from sensational killers such as Ebola, West Nile virus, and super-virulent strains of influenza, but from agents that are already here causing long-term infections, which eventually lead to debilitation and death. -The medical establishment has largely ignored the evidence that implicates these germs, to the detriment of our public health.-New evolutionary theories are available, which explain how germs function and offer opportunities for controlling these modern plagues — if we are willing to listen to them.Plague Time is an eye-opening exploration of the revolutionary new understanding of disease that may set the course of medical research for the twenty-first century.