The core of the orthodoxy consists of three dogmas:- Gender is a social construct.- Race is a social construct.- Class is a function of privilege. The problem is that all three dogmas are half-truths. They have stifled progress in understanding the rich texture that biology adds to our understanding of the social, political, and economic worlds we live in.It is not a story to be feared. "There are no monsters in the closet," Murray writes, "no dread doors we must fear opening." But it is a story that needs telling. Human Diversity does so without sensationalism, drawing on the most authoritative scientific findings, celebrating both our many differences and our common humanity.

    They have also become vibrant educational centers, full of engaging exhibits that share those discoveries with students and an enthusiastic general public.   At the heart of it all from the very start have been curators. Yet after three decades as a natural history curator, Lance Grande found that he still had to explain to people what he does. This book is the answer—and, oh, what an answer it is: lively, exciting, up-to-date, it offers a portrait of curators and their research  like none we’ve seen, one that conveys the intellectual excitement and the educational and social value of curation. Grande uses the personal story of his own career—most of it spent at Chicago’s storied Field Museum—to structure his account as he explores the value of research and collections, the importance of public engagement, changing ecological and ethical considerations, and the impact of rapidly improving technology. Throughout, we are guided by Grande’s keen sense of mission, of a job where the why is always as important as the what.   This beautifully written and richly illustrated book is a clear-eyed but loving account of natural history museums, their curators, and their ever-expanding roles in the twenty-first century.

    Thanks largely to YouTube clips posted by the sloth orphanage in Costa Rica, sloths have attracted a vast audience of admirers. Instead of seeing them as ridiculous anachronisms of which we know little, they have turned into creatures considered by many to be the most endearing on earth.Over much the same period, scientific investigations have also changed our view of sloths. No longer are they seen as total misfits in the modern world but, in the words of one specialist sloth investigator, they are 'masters of an alternative lifestyle'.In this wonderfully entertaining celebration of this most unique of creatures, William Hartston reveals the fascinating history of the sloth, from the prehistoric ground sloth to modern pygmy sloths in Panama, explores the current state of the science of sloths and reveals the truth behind sloth behaviour.

    They attracted followers ranging from Thomas Jefferson, who laid out mastodon bones on the White House floor, to twentieth-century doctors who used their knowledge of new species to conquer epidemic diseases. Acclaimed science writer Richard Conniff brings these daredevil "species seekers" to vivid life. Alongside their globe-spanning tales of adventure, he recounts some of the most dramatic shifts in the history of human thought. At the start, everyone accepted that the Earth had been created for our benefit. We weren't sure where vegetable ended and animal began, we couldn't classify species, and we didn't understand the causes of disease. But all that changed as the species seekers introduced us to the pantheon of life on Earth—and our place within it.

    The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution

    A group of young scientists, under the guidance of Dr. George Church, the most brilliant geneticist of our time, works to make fantasy reality by sequencing the DNA of a frozen woolly mammoth harvested from above the Arctic circle, and splicing elements of that sequence into the DNA of a modern elephant. Will they be able to turn the hybrid cells into a functional embryo and bring the extinct creatures to life in our modern world?Along with Church and his team of Harvard scientists, a world-famous conservationist and a genius Russian scientist plan to turn a tract of the Siberian tundra into Pleistocene Park, populating the permafrost with ancient herbivores as a hedge against an environmental ticking time bomb.

    In The Missing Lynx, Ross Barnett uses case studies, new fossil discoveries, biomolecular evidence and more to paint pictures of these extinct species, and to explore the significance of the lynx's disappearance in ecological terms. He also discusses how the Britons that these animals shared their home with might have viewed them, and why some survived while others vanished.Barnett also looks in detail and the realistic potential of reintroductions and even of resurrection--topics that capture public interest today. With Beaver now wild again in various parts of Britain and even Great Bustard on Salisbury Plain, what about the return of sabretooths, mammoths, and the aurochs to modern ecosystems? Will we ever be able to bring these animals back? And should we?At a time where rewilding is moving from pie-in-the-sky to actual reality, this timely and important book looks from a scientific perspective at the magnificent megafauna we've lost, why we lost it and what happened as a result, and how we might realistically turn the ecological tide.

    This remarkable book describes Fout's odyssey from novice researcher to celebrity scientist to impassioned crusader for the rights of animals. Living and conversing with these sensitive creatures has given him a profound appreciation of what they can teach us about ourselves. It has also made Fouts an outspoken opponent of biomedical experimentation on chimpanzees. A voyage of scientific discovery and interspecies communication, this is a stirring tale of friendship, courage, and compassion that will change forever the way we view our biological--and spritual--next of kin. Fouts is a professor of Psychology.

    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

      Since the Victorian period, it has been understood that the story of Noah, iconic in the Book of Genesis, and a central motif in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, derives from a much older story that existed centuries before in ancient Babylon. But the relationship between the Babylonian and biblical traditions was shrouded in mystery. Then, in 2009, Irving Finkel, a curator at the British Museum and a world authority on ancient Mesopotamia, found himself playing detective when a member of the public arrived at the museum with an intriguing cuneiform tablet from a family collection. Not only did the tablet reveal a new version of the Babylonian Flood Story; the ancient poet described the size and completely unexpected shape of the ark, and gave detailed boat building specifications. Decoding this ancient message wedge by cuneiform wedge, Dr. Finkel discovered where the Babylonians believed the ark came to rest and developed a new explanation of how the old story ultimately found its way into the Bible. In The Ark Before Noah, Dr. Finkel takes us on an adventurous voyage of discovery, opening the door to an enthralling world of ancient voices and new meanings.

    Who fights off predators by spraying blood from its eyes? How does the slender, deep-sea gulper swallow prey twice its size? Who sucks out body fluids with its short, sharp mouthparts? Readers will learn everything they ever wanted to know about some of the scariest creatures on the planet.

    Have you ever wondered if your dog might be a bit depressed? How about heartbroken or homesick? Animal Madness takes these questions seriously, exploring the topic of mental health and recovery in the animal kingdom and turning up lessons that Publishers Weekly calls “Illuminating…Braitman’s delightful balance of humor and poignancy brings each case of life….[Animal Madness’s] continuous dose of hope should prove medicinal for humans and animals alike.” Susan Orlean calls Animal Madness “a marvelous, smart, eloquent book—as much about human emotion as it is about animals and their inner lives.” It is “a gem…that can teach us much about the wildness of our own minds” (Psychology Today).

    Its presence in nature was dismissed as a desperate response to starvation or other life-threatening circumstances, and few spent time studying it. A taboo subject in our culture, the behavior was portrayed mostly through horror movies or tabloids sensationalizing the crimes of real-life flesh-eaters. But the true nature of cannibalism--the role it plays in evolution as well as human history--is even more intriguing (and more normal) than the misconceptions we've come to accept as fact. In Cannibalism: A Perfectly Natural History, zoologist Bill Schutt sets the record straight, debunking common myths and investigating our new understanding of cannibalism's role in biology, anthropology, and history in the most fascinating account yet written on this complex topic. Schutt takes readers from Arizona's Chiricahua Mountains, where he wades through ponds full of tadpoles devouring their siblings, to the Sierra Nevadas, where he joins researchers who are shedding new light on what happened to the Donner Party--the most infamous episode of cannibalism in American history. He even meets with an expert on the preparation and consumption of human placenta (and, yes, it goes well with Chianti). Bringing together the latest cutting-edge science, Schutt answers questions such as why some amphibians consume their mother's skin; why certain insects bite the heads off their partners after sex; why, up until the end of the twentieth century, Europeans regularly ate human body parts as medical curatives; and how cannibalism might be linked to the extinction of the Neanderthals. He takes us into the future as well, investigating whether, as climate change causes famine, disease, and overcrowding, we may see more outbreaks of cannibalism in many more species--including our own.Cannibalism places a perfectly natural occurrence into a vital new context and invites us to explore why it both enthralls and repels us.

    The intriguing cast of characters includes Mary Anning, a working-class woman who became one of the most successful fossil collectors of all time; Thomas Hawkins, another amateur collector who "improved upon" fossils in order to increase their market value; the eccentric William Buckland, discoverer of the world's first dinosaur (Megalosaurus), and Richard Owen, an expert anatomist, who synthesized the discoveries of the age and ultimately coined the word "dinosaur" in 1842. Christopher McGowan takes us back to a time when the new sciences of geology and paleontology were as young and vibrant as genetic engineering is today. Through heated public debates on everything from the age of the earth to the notion of extinction, the Dragon Seekers initiated the shift from a biblical to a scientific interpretation of the remote past. In this way, they laid the intellectual groundwork for Darwin's revolutionary ideas, and launched a global obsession with the Age of Reptiles that continues even today.

    Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Childs Frick, and a host of other wall Street titans, the Central Asiatic Expeditions (1922-1930) comprised the most ambitious scientific venture ever launched from the United States. Under the auspices of the American Museum of Natural History, Andrews conducted five expeditions to the last uncharted corner of the world: the Gobi Desert of Outer and Inner Mongolia. Using automobiles supported by camel caravans, Andrews' expeditions stumbled upon unimagined scientific wonders: the Flaming Cliffs, dinosaur egges, the first skeleton of Velociraptor, and a treasure trove of other dinosaurs and extinct mammals. In Dragon Hunter, Charles Gallenkamp vividly recounts these extraordinary discoveries and the unforgettable advantures that attended them. Filled with astonishing tales of Andrews and his team braving raging sandstorms and murderous bandits, enduring civil wars and political intrigue, and reveling in the fascinating world of Peking's foreign colony, Dragon Hunter also traces the religious controversy over evolution and the anti-imperialist conflicts involving China, Mongolia and the United States that were sparked by Andrews' expeditions. Gallemkamp tells Andrews' incredible life story - from his beginnings as a floor sweeper at the American Museumm to his international fame as one of the century's mot acclaimed explorers. The result - lavishly illustrated with original photographs from the expeditions - is a thrilling page-turner, an epic search for fossils cloaked in a sweeping historical narrative.