Download or read book Bonobo Handshake written by Vanessa Woods and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2011-06-07 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A young woman follows her fiancé to war-torn Congo to study extremely endangered bonobo apes-who teach her a new truth about love and belonging. In 2005, Vanessa Woods accepted a marriage proposal from a man she barely knew and agreed to join him on a research trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo, a country reeling from a brutal decade-long war that had claimed the lives of millions. Settling in at a bonobo sanctuary in Congo's capital, Vanessa and her fiancé entered the world of a rare ape with whom we share 98.7 percent of our DNA. She soon discovered that many of the inhabitants of the sanctuary-ape and human alike-are refugees from unspeakable violence, yet bonobos live in a peaceful society in which females are in charge, war is nonexistent, and sex is as common and friendly as a handshake. A fascinating memoir of hope and adventure, Bonobo Handshake traces Vanessa's self-discovery as she finds herself falling deeply in love with her husband, the apes, and her new surroundings while probing life's greatest question: What ultimately makes us human? Courageous and extraordinary, this true story of revelation and transformation in a fragile corner of Africa is about looking past the differences between animals and ourselves, and finding in them the same extraordinary courage and will to survive. For Vanessa, it is about finding her own path as a writer and scientist, falling in love, and finding a home. Watch a Video
Download or read book Survival of the Friendliest written by Brian Hare and published by Random House. This book was released on 2020-07-14 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A powerful new theory of human nature suggests that our secret to success as a species is our unique friendliness “Brilliant, eye-opening, and absolutely inspiring—and a riveting read. Hare and Woods have written the perfect book for our time.”—Cass R. Sunstein, author of How Change Happens and co-author of Nudge For most of the approximately 300,000 years that Homo sapiens have existed, we have shared the planet with at least four other types of humans. All of these were smart, strong, and inventive. But around 50,000 years ago, Homo sapiens made a cognitive leap that gave us an edge over other species. What happened? Since Charles Darwin wrote about “evolutionary fitness,” the idea of fitness has been confused with physical strength, tactical brilliance, and aggression. In fact, what made us evolutionarily fit was a remarkable kind of friendliness, a virtuosic ability to coordinate and communicate with others that allowed us to achieve all the cultural and technical marvels in human history. Advancing what they call the “self-domestication theory,” Brian Hare, professor in the department of evolutionary anthropology and the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at Duke University and his wife, Vanessa Woods, a research scientist and award-winning journalist, shed light on the mysterious leap in human cognition that allowed Homo sapiens to thrive. But this gift for friendliness came at a cost. Just as a mother bear is most dangerous around her cubs, we are at our most dangerous when someone we love is threatened by an “outsider.” The threatening outsider is demoted to sub-human, fair game for our worst instincts. Hare’s groundbreaking research, developed in close coordination with Richard Wrangham and Michael Tomasello, giants in the field of cognitive evolution, reveals that the same traits that make us the most tolerant species on the planet also make us the cruelest. Survival of the Friendliest offers us a new way to look at our cultural as well as cognitive evolution and sends a clear message: In order to survive and even to flourish, we need to expand our definition of who belongs.
Download or read book Ape House written by Sara Gruen and published by Bond Street Books. This book was released on 2010-09-07 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The wildly entertaining new novel from the bestselling author of Water for Elephants. Sam, Bonzi, Lola, Mbongo, Jelani, and Makena are no ordinary apes. These bonobos, like others of their species, are capable of reason and carrying on deep relationships—but unlike most bonobos, they also know American Sign Language. Isabel Duncan, a scientist at the Great Ape Language Lab, doesn’t understand people, but animals she gets—especially the bonobos. Isabel feels more comfortable in their world than she’s ever felt among humans . . . until she meets John Thigpen, a very married reporter who braves the ever-present animal rights protesters outside the lab to see what’s really going on inside. When an explosion rocks the lab, severely injuring Isabel and “liberating” the apes, John’s human interest piece turns into the story of a lifetime, one he’ll risk his career and his marriage to follow. Then a reality TV show featuring the missing apes debuts under mysterious circumstances, and it immediately becomes the biggest—and unlikeliest—phenomenon in the history of modern media. Millions of fans are glued to their screens watching the apes order greasy take-out, have generous amounts of sex, and sign for Isabel to come get them. Now, to save her family of apes from this parody of human life, Isabel must connect with her own kind, including John, a green-haired vegan, and a retired porn star with her own agenda. Ape House delivers great entertainment, but it also opens the animal world to us in ways few novels have done, securing Sara Gruen’s place as a master storyteller who allows us to see ourselves as we never have before. BONUS: This edition contains a reader's guide.
Download or read book The Genius of Dogs written by Brian Hare and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2013-02-05 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The perfect gift for dog lovers and readers of Inside of a Dog by Alexandra Horowitz—this New York Times bestseller offers mesmerizing insights into the thoughts and lives of our smartest and most beloved pets. Does your dog feel guilt? Is she pretending she can't hear you? Does she want affection—or just your sandwich? In their New York Times bestselling book The Genius of Dogs, husband and wife team Brian Hare and Vanessa Woods lay out landmark discoveries from the Duke Canine Cognition Center and other research facilities around the world to reveal how your dog thinks and how we humans can have even deeper relationships with our best four-legged friends. Breakthroughs in cognitive science have proven dogs have a kind of genius for getting along with people that is unique in the animal kingdom. This dog genius revolution is transforming how we live and work with dogs of all breeds, and what it means for you in your daily life with your canine friend.
Download or read book The Bonobo Way written by Susan Block and published by . This book was released on 2014-10-30 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this unique and paradigm-changing book, internationally acclaimed and controversial sex educator Dr. Susan Block offers a brilliant new view of human sexuality, war, peace and community, inspired by a role model who isn't even human: our closest genetic cousin, the bonobo.With a provocative, humorous and engaging style that makes science fun and ecology erotic, The Bonobo Way boldly asks: What do these great apes know about sex--and the rest of life--that we don't? Here are some things we know about bonobos: They have lots of sex. They never kill each other. They empower the females.They stay younger longer.They live in peace through pleasure.And we thought humans were the smartest apes! For decades, experts have used the "killer ape" paradigm to explain why humans murder, make war, bomb and behead each other, and supposedly always will. Sure, our common chimp cousins kill, but do they tell the whole tale?Luckily, no. The Bonobo Way shows the other side of the story, presenting the bonobos as a new great ape paradigm for humanity that could change the world... or at least improve your love life. "This book is really good... something I rarely say these days! The Bonobo Way is whimsical yet serious, easy to read yet thoroughly researched, challenging yet ultimately deeply comforting. Dr. Susan Block is living proof that bonobos aren't just sexy and fun--some of them are damned smart, too."Christopher Ryan, Ph.D. author of Sex at DawnFrom the lush depths of the rainforest to the satin sheets of your bedroom, Dr. Block takes you on a fascinating journey, weaving stories, studies, theories and fantasies into possibilities and a practical path of action, presenting a very different kind of "12-Step Program" to release your "inner bonobo," help save the real bonobos from extinction and energize all facets of your life. Whether you don't know bonobos from bananas, or you think you know all about these amazing creatures, The Bonobo Way will show you the way to a happier, healthier, sexier life, and a more peaceful, sustainable culture.
Download or read book The Common Wind written by Julius S. Scott and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2018-11-27 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2019 Stone Book Award, Museum of African American History A remarkable intellectual history of the slave revolts that made the modern revolutionary era The Common Wind is a gripping and colorful account of the intercontinental networks that tied together the free and enslaved masses of the New World. Having delved deep into the gray obscurity of official eighteenth-century records in Spanish, English, and French, Julius S. Scott has written a powerful “history from below.” Scott follows the spread of “rumors of emancipation” and the people behind them, bringing to life the protagonists in the slave revolution.By tracking the colliding worlds of buccaneers, military deserters, and maroon communards from Venezuela to Virginia, Scott records the transmission of contagious mutinies and insurrections in unparalleled detail, providing readers with an intellectual history of the enslaved. Though The Common Wind is credited with having “opened up the Black Atlantic with a rigor and a commitment to the power of written words,” the manuscript remained unpublished for thirty-two years. Now, after receiving wide acclaim from leading historians of slavery and the New World, it has been published by Verso for the first time, with a foreword by the academic and author Marcus Rediker.
Download or read book The Behavioral Code written by Benjamin van Rooij and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2021-10-26 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A 2022 PROSE Award finalist in Legal Studies and Criminology A 2022 American Bar Association Silver Gavel Award Finalist A Behavioral Scientist’s Notable Book of 2021 Freakonomics for the law—how applying behavioral science to the law can fundamentally change and explain misbehavior Why do most Americans wear seatbelts but continue to speed even though speeding fines are higher? Why could park rangers reduce theft by removing “no stealing” signs? Why was a man who stole 3 golf clubs sentenced to 25 years in prison? Some laws radically change behavior whereas others are consistently ignored and routinely broken. And yet we keep relying on harsh punishment against crime despite its continued failure. Professors Benjamin van Rooij and Adam Fine draw on decades of research to uncover the behavioral code: the root causes and hidden forces that drive human behavior and our responses to society’s laws. In doing so, they present the first accessible analysis of behavioral jurisprudence, which will fundamentally alter how we understand the connection between law and human behavior. The Behavioral Code offers a necessary and different approach to battling crime and injustice that is based in understanding the science of human misconduct—rather than relying on our instinctual drive to punish as a way to shape behavior. The book reveals the behavioral code’s hidden role through illustrative examples like: • The illusion of the US’s beloved tax refund • German walls that “pee back” at public urinators • The $1,000 monthly “good behavior” reward that reduced gun violence • Uber’s backdoor “Greyball” app that helped the company evade Seattle’s taxi regulators • A $2.3 billion legal settlement against Pfizer that revealed how whistleblower protections fail to reduce corporate malfeasance • A toxic organizational culture playing a core role in Volkswagen’s emissions cheating scandal • How Peter Thiel helped Hulk Hogan sue Gawker into oblivion Revelatory and counterintuitive, The Behavioral Code catalyzes the conversation about how the law can effectively improve human conduct and respond to some of our most pressing issues today, from police misconduct to corporate malfeasance.
Download or read book The Meaning of Soul written by Emily J. Lordi and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2020-07-24 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Meaning of Soul, Emily J. Lordi proposes a new understanding of this famously elusive concept. In the 1960s, Lordi argues, soul came to signify a cultural belief in black resilience, which was enacted through musical practices—inventive cover versions, falsetto vocals, ad-libs, and false endings. Through these soul techniques, artists such as Aretha Franklin, Donny Hathaway, Nina Simone, Marvin Gaye, Isaac Hayes, and Minnie Riperton performed virtuosic survivorship and thus helped to galvanize black communities in an era of peril and promise. Their soul legacies were later reanimated by such stars as Prince, Solange Knowles, and Flying Lotus. Breaking with prior understandings of soul as a vague masculinist political formation tethered to the Black Power movement, Lordi offers a vision of soul that foregrounds the intricacies of musical craft, the complex personal and social meanings of the music, the dynamic movement of soul across time, and the leading role played by black women in this musical-intellectual tradition.
Download or read book The Social Lives of Animals written by Ashley Ward and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2022-03-01 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A rat will go out of its way to help a stranger in need. Lions have adopted the calves of their prey. Ants farm fungus in cooperatives. Why do we continue to believe that life in the animal kingdom is ruled by competition? In The Social Lives of Animals, biologist Ashley Ward takes us on a wild tour across the globe as he searches for a more accurate picture of how animals build societies. Ward drops in on a termite mating ritual (while his guides snack on the subjects), visits freelance baboon goatherds, and swims with a mixed family of whales and dolphins. Along the way, Ward shows that the social impulses we’ve long thought separated humans from other animals might actually be our strongest connection to them. Insightful, engaging, and often hilarious, The Social Lives of Animals demonstrates that you can learn more about animals by studying how they work together than by how they compete.
Download or read book Endangered written by Eliot Schrefer and published by Scholastic Inc.. This book was released on 2012-10-01 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From National Book Award Finalist Eliot Schrefer comes the compelling tale of a girl who must save a group of bonobos -- and herself -- from a violent coup. Congo is a dangerous place, even for people who are trying to do good.When Sophie has to visit her mother at her sanctuary for bonobos, she's not thrilled to be there. Then Otto, an infant bonobo, comes into her life, and for the first time she feels responsible for another creature.But peace does not last long for Sophie and Otto. When an armed revolution breaks out in the country, the sanctuary is attacked, and the two of them must escape unprepared into the jungle. Caught in the crosshairs of a lethal conflict, they must struggle to keep safe, to eat, and to live. In ENDANGERED, Eliot Schrefer plunges us into a heart-stopping exploration of the things we do to survive, the sacrifices we make to help others, and the tangled geography that ties us all, human and animal, together.
Download or read book Theory of Bastards written by Audrey Schulman and published by Europa Editions UK. This book was released on 2018-04-26 with total page 381 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new world, no longer brave. It's the near future, a time of new technologies – "bodyware" implants having replaced most past means of communication – but also of climate change and dwindling resources. Francine is a luminary in her field of evolutionary science. She joins the Foundation to study a colony of bonobo apes: remarkable animals, and the perfect creatures to certify her revolutionary feminist theory of reproduction. When the terrible, dry winds rise up and cut off the Foundation, silencing all the devices and endangering the survival of animals and humans alike, Francine and the man she has grown to love make a decision that may determine the possibility of a premature ending or a chance to start life over. A literary novel with elements of dystopia and science fiction, Theory of Bastards is an absorbing, recognizable story that will keep readers turning the pages.
Download or read book It s Every Monkey For Themselves written by Vanessa Woods and published by Allen & Unwin. This book was released on 2014-05-28 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Aiming to put as much distance as she could between herself and a dysfunctional relationship, Vanessa Woods left her Pleasantville life in the leafy but safe suburbs of Canberra and headed for the remote, wild and distinctly unsafe jungles of Costa Rica. She had a research job, a contract with Disney Channel and would spend the year working with a small community of dedicated like-minded scientific souls researching the behaviour of capuchin monkeys while making a documentary about Costa Rican wildlife. Or so she thought. As it turned out, Vanessa's housemates in the monkey house didn't appreciate her Australian sense of humour, she was stung so often by wasps and killer bees she developed a lethal allergy, and the monkeys were evasive, mean and aggressive - with the only difference between them and her housemates being that at least she could tell her housemates apart. Over the course of a wild, bruising and tumultuous year that can most accurately be characterized as Dian Fossey meets Big Brother, Vanessa learned that not all monkeys - or people - are alike, that friendship can be more important than sex, and that sometimes it takes a brush with death and an abscess the size of a melon on your head to make you realise that being pretty isn't always enough. This is a story of love, loss, bitter rivalry and vicious battles - and that's just the monkeys.
Download or read book Why Privacy Matters written by Neil Richards and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a book about what privacy is and why it matters. Governments and companies keep telling us that Privacy is Dead, but they are wrong. Privacy is about more than just whether our information is collected. It's about human and social power in our digital society. And in that society, that's pretty much everything we do, from GPS mapping to texting to voting to treating disease. We need to realize that privacy is up for grabs, and we need to craft rules to protect our hard-won, but fragile human values like identity, freedom, consumer protection, and trust.
Download or read book The Naked Bonobo written by Lynn Saxon and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2016-02-19 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No longer just a 'naked ape', we are now, apparently, the naked bonobo. Wannabe bonobos tell us that our "make love, not war" cousin is a reflection of who we really are, and by following the bonobo example we can discover our natural, sexy and peaceful, selves. But who is the bonobo? THE NAKED BONOBO reveals all there is to know about sex and violence amongst this 'forgotten' ape cousin of ours. When our hairy cousin is herself laid bare, does anyone really want to be her?
Download or read book Storytelling Apes written by Mary Sanders Pollock and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2015-05-04 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The annals of field primatology are filled with stories about charismatic animals native to some of the most challenging and remote areas on earth. There are, for example, the chimpanzees of Tanzania, whose social and family interactions Jane Goodall has studied for decades; the mountain gorillas of the Virungas, chronicled first by George Schaller and then later, more obsessively, by Dian Fossey; various species of monkeys (Indian langurs, Kenyan baboons, and Brazilian spider monkeys) studied by Sarah Hrdy, Shirley Strum, Robert Sapolsky, Barbara Smuts, and Karen Strier; and finally the orangutans of the Bornean woodlands, whom Biruté Galdikas has observed passionately. Humans are, after all, storytelling apes. The narrative urge is encoded in our DNA, along with large brains, nimble fingers, and color vision, traits we share with lemurs, monkeys, and apes. In Storytelling Apes, Mary Sanders Pollock traces the development and evolution of primatology field narratives while reflecting upon the development of the discipline and the changing conditions within natural primate habitat. Like almost every other field primatologist who followed her, Jane Goodall recognized the individuality of her study animals: defying formal scientific protocols, she named her chimpanzee subjects instead of numbering them, thereby establishing a trend. For Goodall, Fossey, Sapolsky, and numerous other scientists whose works are discussed in Storytelling Apes, free-living primates became fully realized characters in romances, tragedies, comedies, and never-ending soap operas. With this work, Pollock shows readers with a humanist perspective that science writing can have remarkable literary value, encourages scientists to share their passions with the general public, and inspires the conservation community.
Download or read book Desire Change written by Heather Davis and published by McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP. This book was released on 2017-06-26 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the resistance to the violence of gender-based oppression, vibrant – but often ignored – worlds have emerged, full of nuance, humour, and beauty. Correcting an absence of writing about contemporary feminist work by Canadian artists, Desire Change considers the resurgence of feminist art, thought, and practice in the past decade by examining artworks that respond to themes of diversity and desire. Essays by historians, artists, and curators present an overview of a range of artistic practices including performance, installation, video, textiles, and photography. Contributors address the desire for change through three central frames: how feminist art has significantly contributed to the complex understanding of gender as it intersects with sexuality and race; the necessary critique of patriarchy and institutions as they relate to colonization within the Canadian nation-state; and the ways in which contemporary critiques are formed and expressed. The resulting collection addresses art through an activist lens to examine intersectional feminism, decolonization, and feminist institution building in a Canadian context. Heavily illustrated with representative works, Desire Change raises both the stakes and the concerns of contemporary feminist art, with an understanding that feminism is always and necessarily plural. Contributors include Janice Anderson (Concordia University), Gina Badger (artist, writer, editor, Toronto), Noni Brynjolson (writer, San Diego), Amber Christensen (curator and writer, Toronto), Karin Cope (NSCAD), Lauren Fournier (artist, writer, and curator, York University), Amy Fung (curator and writer, Toronto), Kristina Huneault (Concordia University), Alice Ming Wai Jim (Concordia University), Tanya Lukin Linklater (artist, North Bay), Sheila Petty (University of Regina), Kathleen Ritter (curator and writer, Vancouver), Daniella Sanader (curator and writer, Toronto), Thérèse St. Gelais (UQAM), cheyanne turions (curator and writer, Toronto), Ellyn Walker (Queen’s University), Jayne Wark (NSCAD) and Jenny Western (curator and writer, Winnipeg).
Download or read book Bonobo and Chimpanzee written by Takeshi Furuichi and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2019-11-22 with total page 149 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book describes the similarities and differences between two species, bonobos and chimpanzees, based on the three decades the author has spent studying them in the wild, and shows how the contrasting nature of these two species is also reflected in human nature. The most important differences between bonobos and chimpanzees, our closest relatives, are the social mechanisms of coexistence in group life. Chimpanzees are known as a fairly despotic species in which the males exclusively dominate over the females, and maintain a rigid hierarchy. Chimpanzees have developed social intelligence to survive severe competition among males: by upholding the hierarchy of dominance, they can usually preserve peaceful relations among group members. In contrast, female bonobos have the same or even a higher social status than males. By evolving pseudo-estrus during their non-reproductive period, females have succeeded in moderating inter-male sexual competition, and in initiating mate selection. Although they are non-related in male-philopatric society, they usually aggregate in a group, enjoy priority access to food, determine which male is the alpha male, and generally maintain much more peaceful social relations compared to chimpanzees. Lastly, by identifying key mechanisms of social coexistence in these two species, the author also seeks to find solutions or “hope” for the peaceful coexistence of human beings. "Takeshi Furuichi is one of very few scientists in the world familiar with both chimpanzees and bonobos. In lively prose, reflecting personal experience with apes in the rain forest, he compares our two closest relatives and explains the striking differences between the male- dominated and territorial chimpanzees and the female-centered gentle bonobos." Frans de Waal, author of Mama’s Last Hug - Animal Emotions and What They Tell Us about Ourselves (Norton, 2019)
