Genetic Genealogy: The Basics and Beyond


Emily D. Aulicino - 2013
    The book guides genealogists in understanding various tests and determining what DNA segments came from which ancestor. The book explains how DNA testing helps when written records stop and discusses how testing proves or disprove oral family history. Learn which tests help adoptees; understand why you resemble your relatives and how testing can connect you with cousins you never knew. Discover how to encourage potential cousins to test and learn guidelines for becoming a project administrator, genetic genealogy speaker or facilitator for your genealogical society’s DNA interest group. A Genetic Genealogy Handbook: The Basics and Beyond helps experienced and fledgling researchers become genetic genealogists able to use DNA testing to resolve genealogical roadblocks."

La Doctora: An American Doctor In The Amazon


Linnea Smith - 1998
    Linnea Smith went to Peru on an ecotourism vacation. She was so moved that she abandoned her thriving medical practice in Wisconsin to serve the Yagua Indians in the deepest part of the Amazon rainforest of Peru-alone.Taken straight from the pages of Dr. Smith’s journal, La Doctora offers readers a rare glimpse into the suspense and drama of practicing medicine in a culture far removed from the sophisticated supplies and supports of 20th-century medicine.Learn how Dr. Smith evolved from a “strange white woman” to an adopted member of the indigenous community. Her story of adventure, self-discovery and service creates inspiring testimony to one person’s power to make a lasting difference.

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


Gregory Cochran - 2009
    The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution

Biological Psychology: An Introduction to Behavioral, Cognitive, and Clinical Neuroscience


S. Marc Breedlove - 2010
    It encompasses lucid descriptions of behaviour, evolutionary history, development, proximate mechanisms and applications.

The Spark of Learning: Energizing the College Classroom with the Science of Emotion


Sarah Rose Cavanagh - 2016
    The field of education, however, is beginning to awaken to the potential power of emotions to fuel learning, informed by contributions from psychology and neuroscience. In friendly, readable prose, Sarah Rose Cavanagh argues that if you as an educator want to capture your students' attention, harness their working memory, bolster their long-term retention, and enhance their motivation, you should consider the emotional impact of your teaching style and course design. To make this argument, she brings to bear a wide range of evidence from the study of education, psychology, and neuroscience, and she provides practical examples of successful classroom activities from a variety of disciplines in secondary and higher education.

Illegal Drugs: A Complete Guide to their History, Chemistry, Use, and Abuse


Paul Gahlinger - 2003
    • Does Ecstasy cause brain damage? • Why is crack more addictive than cocaine? • What questions regarding drugs are legal to ask in a job interview? • When does marijuana possession carry a greater prison sentence than murder?Illegal Drugs is the first comprehensive reference to offer timely, pertinent information on every drug currently prohibited by law in the United States.  It includes their histories, chemical properties and effects, medical uses and recreational abuses, and associated health problems, as well as addiction and treatment information.Additional survey chapters discuss general and historical information on illegal drug use, the effect of drugs on the brain, the war on drugs, drugs in the workplace, the economy and culture of illegal drugs, and information on thirty-three psychoactive drugs that are legal in the United States, from caffeine, alcohol and tobacco to betel nuts and kava kava.This book is a must-have resource for students, parents, health care workers, law enforcement officers, and anyone else who needs accurate information about drugs.

What on Earth Happened?... In Brief: The Planet, Life & People from the Big Bang to the Present Day


Christopher Lloyd - 2009
    In this thrill-ride across millennia and continents, the complete history of the planet comes to life: from the Earth's fiery birth to its near-obliteration in the Triassic period, and from the first signs of human life to the tentative future of a world with a burgeoning population and a global warming crisis. Covering a wide range of topics including astrophysics, zoology, and sociology, and complete with maps and illustrations, What on Earth Happened? In Brief is the endlessly entertaining story of the planet, life, and people.

The Private Life of the Brain: Emotions, Consciousness, and the Secret Life of the Self


Susan A. Greenfield - 2000
    She examines the physical basis of our emotions and searches for the answer to one of the most enduring mysteries in modern science: How does the brain create a unique, subjective experience for each one of us?Utilizing cutting-edge research and compelling personal anecdotes, Greenfield reveals that emotions, triggered by individual life experiences, are the very foundation upon which our brains build our unique minds. In this absorbing, lyrical exploration, Dr. Greenfield presents a provocative new theory that provides an illuminating glimpse into the human brain and reveals the astonishing essence of who we are."This is one of those rare books that can make a reader happy to have been led to think."-Booklist

The Emotional Brain: The Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life


Joseph E. LeDoux - 1996
    The Emotional Brain investigates the origins of human emotions and explains that many exist as part of complex neural systems that evolved to enable us to survive.

The Thing with Feathers: The Surprising Lives of Birds and What They Reveal About Being Human


Noah Strycker - 2014
    Drawing deep from personal experience, cutting-edge science, and colorful history, he spins captivating stories about the birds in our midst and reveals the startlingly intimate coexistence of birds and humans.

The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature


Steven Pinker - 2007
    His previous books, including the Pulitzer Prize finalist The Blank Slate, have catapulted him into the limelight as one of today's most important and popular science writers. Now, in The Stuff of Thought, Pinker marries two of the subjects he knows best: language and human nature. The result is a fascinating look at how our words explain our nature. What does swearing reveal about our emotions? Why does innuendo disclose something about relationships? Pinker reveals how our use of prepositions and tenses taps into peculiarly human concepts of space and time, and how our nouns and verbs speak to our notions of matter. Even the names we give our babies have important things to say about our relations to our children and to society. With his signature wit and style, Pinker takes on scientific questions like whether language affects thought, as well as forays into everyday life: why is bulk e-mail called spam and how do romantic comedies get such mileage out of the ambiguities of dating? The Stuff of Thought is a brilliantly crafted and highly readable work that will appeal to fans of readers of everything from The Selfish Gene and Blink to Eats, Shoots & Leaves.

Life-Span Development


John W. Santrock - 2006
    While maintaining these hallmarks, this revision includes increased coverage of adulthood and aging, two new "Interlude" features on research and diversity, and updated research with more 21st-century citations than ever before.

The Ten Types of Human: Who We Are and Who We Can Be


Dexter Dias - 2018
    In a way, you already know them. Only you don’t – not really. In a sense, they are you. Only they’re not entirely. They inform and shape the most important decisions in your life. But you’re almost certainly unaware of their intervention. They are the Ten Types of Human. Who are they? What are they for? How did they get into your head? We want to believe that there are some things we would never do. We want to believe that there are others we always would. But how can we be sure? What are our limits? Do we have limits?The answer lies with the Ten Types of Human: the people we become when we are faced with life's most difficult decisions. But who or what are these Types? Where do they come from? How did they get into our heads?The Ten Types of Human is a pioneering examination of human nature. It looks at the best and worst that human beings are capable of, and asks why. It explores the frontiers of the human experience, excavating the forces that shape our thoughts and actions in extreme situations. It begins in a courtroom and journeys across four continents and through the lives of some exceptional people, in search of answers.Mixing cutting-edge neuroscience, social psychology and visceral true stories, The Ten Types of Human is at once a provocation and a roadmap of the hidden parts of us. It is a book to inspire; to refashion our understanding of our many selves and semblances; and ultimately to find fresh ways to be free.

Identity Theft: Rediscovering Ourselves After Stroke


Debra Meyerson - 2019
    In addition to providing realistic expectations for the hard work needed to regain everyday capabilities, Meyerson focuses on the less frequently documented emotional journey in recovery. Virtually every survivor is haunted by questions like: “Who am I now?” and “How do I rebuild a meaningful and rewarding life?” after losing so much of what they had before—capabilities, careers and jobs, relationships, and more. This is a book full of hope for survivors—from stroke or other injuries—as well as their families and support networks.Debra Meyerson and her husband, Steve Zuckerman, have created Stroke Onward (strokeonward.org), a non-profit initiative of the Social Good Fund, to provide stroke survivors, families and caregivers with more resources to help them navigate the emotional journey to rebuild their identities and rewarding lives.”Winner of the 2019 Silver Nautilus Book Award, Identity Theft centers on Debra’s experience: her stroke, her extraordinary efforts to recover, and her journey to redefine herself. But she also draws on her skills as a social scientist, sharing stories from several dozen fellow survivors, family members, friends, colleagues, therapists, and doctors she has met and interviewed. By sharing this diversity of experiences, Debra highlights how every person is different, every stroke is different, and every recovery is different. She provides a valuable look at the broad possibilities for successfully navigating the challenging physical recovery—and the equally difficult emotional journey toward rebuilding one’s identity and a rewarding life after a trauma like stroke.

The Odd Brain: Mysteries of Our Weird and Wonderful Brains Explained


Stephen Juan - 1999
    Juan is that rarest of rarities, a scholar with a sense of humor. He fearlessly tours the brain's mysterious corridors, discussing such wide-ranging topics as phobias, compulsive water drinking, serial killers, the secrets of hypnotism, and the man who thought he was a cat. You will find this book absolutely engrossing.Do kleptomaniacs have a legitimate excuse to steal? Can excessive TV watching physically "shape" a child's growing brain?These answers and scores more fill Dr. Stephen Juan's fascinating and endlessly entertaining book The Odd Brain. Following up his popular first book, The Odd Body, Dr. Juan takes us on an animated tour of the enigmatic organ that sits on top of them all.Equal parts scholarly professor--he teaches at the University of Sydney--cultural detective, and theater of oddities tour guide, Dr. Juan explores bizarre brain disorders and the normal-but-still-weird brain phenomena that we all occasionally experience (like deja vu). Through it all, Dr. Juan pulls off the nifty trick of making the clinical both clear and entertaining.Each chapter is packed with real-life anecdotes and case studies. These include the Criminal Brain, the Savant Brain, the Shy Brain, the Suicidal Brain, the Thrill-Seeking Brain, the Obsessive-Compulsive Brain, and more than 20 others.For anyone who's ever witnessed unusual behavior and thought, "Now, what would make a person do that?" The Odd Brain is sure to have an answer.