Download or read book Erectus Walks Amongst Us written by Richard D. Fuerle and published by Stranger Journalism. This book was released on 2008-03 with total page 588 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Story of the Human Body written by Daniel Lieberman and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2014-07-01 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A landmark book of popular science that gives us a lucid and engaging account of how the human body evolved over millions of years—with charts and line drawings throughout. “Fascinating.... A readable introduction to the whole field and great on the making of our physicality.”—Nature In this book, Daniel E. Lieberman illuminates the major transformations that contributed to key adaptations to the body: the rise of bipedalism; the shift to a non-fruit-based diet; the advent of hunting and gathering; and how cultural changes like the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions have impacted us physically. He shows how the increasing disparity between the jumble of adaptations in our Stone Age bodies and advancements in the modern world is occasioning a paradox: greater longevity but increased chronic disease. And finally—provocatively—he advocates the use of evolutionary information to help nudge, push, and sometimes even compel us to create a more salubrious environment and pursue better lifestyles.
Download or read book Evolution written by Donald R. Prothero and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2017-08-22 with total page 891 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Donald R. Prothero’s Evolution is an entertaining and rigorous history of the transitional forms and series found in the fossil record. Its engaging narrative of scientific discovery and well-grounded analysis has led to the book’s widespread adoption in courses that teach the nature and value of fossil evidence for evolution. Evolution tackles systematics and cladistics, rock dating, neo-Darwinism, and macroevolution. It includes extensive coverage of the primordial soup, invertebrate transitions, the development of the backbone, the reign of the dinosaurs, and the transformation from early hominid to modern human. The book also details the many alleged “missing links” in the fossil record, including some of the most recent discoveries that flesh out the fossil timeline and the evolutionary process. In this second edition, Prothero describes new transitional fossils from various periods, vividly depicting such bizarre creatures as the Odontochelys, or the “turtle on the half shell”; fossil snakes with legs; and the “Frogamander,” a new example of amphibian transition. Prothero’s discussion of intelligent design arguments includes more historical examples and careful examination of the “experiments” and observations that are exploited by creationists seeking to undermine sound science education. With new perspectives, Prothero reframes creationism as a case study in denialism and pseudoscience rather than a field with its own intellectual dynamism. The first edition was hailed as an exemplary exploration of the fossil evidence for evolution, and this second edition will be welcome in the libraries of scholars, teachers, and general readers who stand up for sound science in this post-truth era.
Download or read book First Steps written by Jeremy DeSilva and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2021-04-06 with total page 389 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Science News Best Science Book of the Year: “A brilliant, fun, and scientifically deep stroll through history, anatomy, and evolution.” —Agustín Fuentes, PhD, author of The Creative Spark: How Imagination Made Humans Exceptional Winner of the W.W. Howells Book Prize from the American Anthropological Association Blending history, science, and culture, this highly engaging evolutionary story explores how walking on two legs allowed humans to become the planet’s dominant species. Humans are the only mammals to walk on two rather than four legs—a locomotion known as bipedalism. We strive to be upstanding citizens, honor those who stand tall and proud, and take a stand against injustices. We follow in each other’s footsteps and celebrate a child’s beginning to walk. But why, and how, exactly, did we take our first steps? And at what cost? Bipedalism has its drawbacks: giving birth is more difficult and dangerous; our running speed is much slower than other animals; and we suffer a variety of ailments, from hernias to sinus problems. In First Steps, paleoanthropologist Jeremy DeSilva explores how unusual and extraordinary this seemingly ordinary ability is. A seven-million-year journey to the very origins of the human lineage, this book shows how upright walking was a gateway to many of the other attributes that make us human—from our technological abilities to our thirst for exploration and our use of language—and may have laid the foundation for our species’ traits of compassion, empathy, and altruism. Moving from developmental psychology labs to ancient fossil sites throughout Africa and Eurasia, DeSilva brings to life our adventure walking on two legs. Includes photographs “A book that strides confidently across this complex terrain, laying out what we know about how walking works, who started doing it, and when.” —The New York Times Book Review “DeSilva makes a solid scientific case with an expert history of human and ape evolution.” —Kirkus Reviews “A brisk jaunt through the history of bipedalism . . . will leave readers both informed and uplifted.” —Publishers Weekly “Breezy popular science at its best.” —Science News
Download or read book 50 Popular Beliefs That People Think Are True written by Guy P. Harrison and published by Prometheus Books. This book was released on 2012-01-03 with total page 460 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “What would it take to create a world in which fantasy is not confused for fact and public policy is based on objective reality?" asks Neil deGrasse Tyson, science popularizer and author of Astrophysics for People in a Hurry. "I don't know for sure. But a good place to start would be for everyone on earth to read this book." Maybe you know someone who swears by the reliability of psychics or who is in regular contact with angels. Or perhaps you're trying to find a nice way of dissuading someone from wasting money on a homeopathy cure. Or you met someone at a party who insisted the Holocaust never happened or that no one ever walked on the moon. How do you find a gently persuasive way of steering people away from unfounded beliefs, bogus cures, conspiracy theories, and the like? This down-to-earth, entertaining exploration of commonly held extraordinary claims will help you set the record straight. The author, a veteran journalist, has not only surveyed a vast body of literature, but has also interviewed leading scientists, explored "the most haunted house in America," frolicked in the inviting waters of the Bermuda Triangle, and even talked to a "contrite Roswell alien." He is not out simply to debunk unfounded beliefs. Wherever possible, he presents alternative scientific explanations, which in most cases are even more fascinating than the wildest speculation. For example, stories about UFOs and alien abductions lack good evidence, but science gives us plenty of reasons to keep exploring outer space for evidence that life exists elsewhere in the vast universe. The proof for Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster may be nonexistent, but scientists are regularly discovering new species, some of which are truly stranger than fiction. Stressing the excitement of scientific discovery and the legitimate mysteries and wonder inherent in reality, this book invites readers to share the joys of rational thinking and the skeptical approach to evaluating our extraordinary world.
Download or read book The Sediments of Time written by Meave Leakey and published by Houghton Mifflin. This book was released on 2020 with total page 413 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Meave Leakey's thrilling, high-stakes memoir--written with her daughter Samira--encapsulates her distinguished life and career on the front lines of the hunt for our human origins, a quest made all the more notable by her stature as a woman in a highly competitive, male-dominated field.
Download or read book The Symbolic Species The Co evolution of Language and the Brain written by Terrence W. Deacon and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 1998-04-17 with total page 532 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A work of enormous breadth, likely to pleasantly surprise both general readers and experts."—New York Times Book Review This revolutionary book provides fresh answers to long-standing questions of human origins and consciousness. Drawing on his breakthrough research in comparative neuroscience, Terrence Deacon offers a wealth of insights into the significance of symbolic thinking: from the co-evolutionary exchange between language and brains over two million years of hominid evolution to the ethical repercussions that followed man's newfound access to other people's thoughts and emotions. Informing these insights is a new understanding of how Darwinian processes underlie the brain's development and function as well as its evolution. In contrast to much contemporary neuroscience that treats the brain as no more or less than a computer, Deacon provides a new clarity of vision into the mechanism of mind. It injects a renewed sense of adventure into the experience of being human.
Download or read book A Different Flesh written by Harry Turtledove and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2015-06-09 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This novel by the New York Times–bestselling “master of alternate history” explores an America reshaped by a twist in prehistoric evolution (Publishers Weekly). What if mankind’s “missing link,” the apelike Homo erectus, had survived to dominate a North American continent where woolly mammoths and saber-toothed tigers still prowled, while the more advanced Homo sapiens built their civilizations elsewhere? Now imagine that the Europeans arriving in the New World had chanced on these primitive creatures and seized the opportunity to establish a hierarchy in which the sapiens were masters and the “sims” were their slaves. This is the premise that drives the incomparable Harry Turtledove’s A Different Flesh. The acclaimed Hugo Award winner creates an alternate America that spans three hundred years of invented history. From the Jamestown colonists’ desperate hunt for a human infant kidnapped by a local sim tribe, to a late-eighteenth-century contest between a newfangled steam-engine train and the popular hairy-elephant-pulled model, to the sim-rights activists’ daring 1988 rescue of an unfortunate biped named Matt who’s being used for animal experimentation, Turtledove turns our world inside out in a remarkable science fiction masterwork that explores what it truly means to be human.
Download or read book Almost Human written by Lee Berger and published by Disney Electronic Content. This book was released on 2017-05-09 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This first-person narrative about an archaeological discovery is rewriting the story of human evolution. A story of defiance and determination by a controversial scientist, this is Lee Berger's own take on finding Homo naledi, an all-new species on the human family tree and one of the greatest discoveries of the 21st century. In 2013, Berger, a National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence, caught wind of a cache of bones in a hard-to-reach underground cave in South Africa. He put out a call around the world for petite collaborators—men and women small and adventurous enough to be able to squeeze through 8-inch tunnels to reach a sunless cave 40 feet underground. With this team of "underground astronauts," Berger made the discovery of a lifetime: hundreds of prehistoric bones, including entire skeletons of at least 15 individuals, all perhaps two million years old. Their features combined those of known prehominids like Lucy, the famousAustralopithecus, with those more human than anything ever before seen in prehistoric remains. Berger's team had discovered an all new species, and they called it Homo naledi. The cave quickly proved to be the richest prehominid site ever discovered, full of implications that shake the very foundation of how we define what makes us human. Did this species come before, during, or after the emergence of Homo sapiens on our evolutionary tree? How did the cave come to contain nothing but the remains of these individuals? Did they bury their dead? If so, they must have had a level of self-knowledge, including an awareness of death. And yet those are the very characteristics used to define what makes us human. Did an equally advanced species inhabit Earth with us, or before us? Berger does not hesitate to address all these questions. Berger is a charming and controversial figure, and some colleagues question his interpretation of this and other finds. But in these pages, this charismatic and visionary paleontologist counters their arguments and tells his personal story: a rich and readable narrative about science, exploration, and what it means to be human.
Download or read book The Substance of Civilization written by Stephen L. Sass and published by Skyhorse Publishing Inc.. This book was released on 2011-08 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Demonstrates the way in which the discovery, application, and adaptation of materials has shaped the course of human history and the routines of our daily existence.
Download or read book The Races of Man written by Joseph Deniker and published by . This book was released on 1906 with total page 662 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Race Differences in Intelligence written by Richard Lynn and published by . This book was released on 2014-08-01 with total page 446 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through more than 50 years of academic research, Richard Lynn has distinguished himself as one of the world's preeminent authorities on intelligence, personality, and human biodiversity. *Race Differences in Intelligence* is his essential work on this most controversial and consequential topic. Covering more than 500 published studies that span 10 population groups, Lynn demonstrates both the validity of innate intelligence as well as its heritability across racial groups. The Second Edition (2014) has been revised and updated to reflect the latest research.
Download or read book The Mind of Primitive Man written by Franz Boas and published by BoD – Books on Demand. This book was released on 2023-01-22 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reprint of the original, first published in 1938.
Download or read book The Story of B written by Daniel Quinn and published by Bantam. This book was released on 2010-01-13 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of the critically acclaimed, award-winning bestseller Ishmael and its sequel, My Ishmael, comes a powerful novel with one of the most profound spiritual testaments of our time “A compelling ‘humantale’ that will unglue, stun, shock, and rearrange everything you’ve learned and assume about Western civilization and our future.”—Paul Hawken, author of The Ecology of Commerce Father Jared Osborne has received an extraordinary assignment from his superiors: Investigate an itinerant preacher stirring up deep trouble in central Europe. His followers call him B, but his enemies say he’s something else: the Antichrist. However, the man Osborne tracks across a landscape of bars, cabarets, and seedy meeting halls is no blasphemous monster—though an earlier era would undoubtedly have rushed him to the burning stake. For B claims to be enunciating a gospel written not on any stone or parchment but in our very genes, opening up a spiritual direction for humanity that would have been unimaginable to any of the prophets or saviors of traditional religion. Pressed by his superiors for a judgement, Osborne is driven to penetrate B’s inner circle, where he soon finds himself an anguished collaborator in the dismantling of his own religious foundations. More than a masterful novel of adventure and suspense, The Story of B is a rich source of compelling ideas from an author who challenges us to rethink our most cherished beliefs. Explore Daniel Quinn’s spiritual Ishmael trilogy: ISHMAEL • MY ISHMAEL • THE STORY OF B
Download or read book Just Curious About Animals and Nature Jeeves written by Erin Barrett and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-05-11 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: HOW MUCH ELECTRICITY CAN YOU GET FROM AN ELECTRIC EEL? WHEN CAN MISTLETOE BE THE KISS OF DEATH? HOW MANY SHEEP DOES IT TAKE TO GET ENOUGH WOOL FOR A SUIT? WHAT DID BOOK WORMS EAT BEFORE THERE WERE BOOKS? The mysteries of the natural world are endless, but your trusty manservant, Jeeves, has the answers to hundreds of nature's most fascinating mysteries. Based upon questions received at the popular Ask Jeeves® website, Just Curious About Animals and Nature, Jeeves is a fun and freewheeling safari of discovery that can tame even the most savage intellectual curiosity. Packed with incredible facts on everything from the size of a giraffe's tongue (yow, two feet!) to just how fast a fly can fly (4.5mph) to whether dogs have belly buttons (yes, they do), this is a book certain to both amuse and amaze. With a little help from everybody's butler, you'll unlock the secret behind the firefly's glow, wonder at the language of hippos, and scratch your head when you learn the truth about poison ivy. Certain to help you develop the kind of brainpower that will impress your friends and frighten your enemies, Just Curious About Animals and Nature, Jeeves is perfect for fans of flora and fauna, or for anyone who wants to know the whats, whens, whys, and hows of nature.
Download or read book Perfect Health Diet written by Paul Jaminet and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-12-11 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The simple, science-based, “Paleo perfected” (Vogue) diet that promotes effortless weight loss and peak health—written by two Harvard scientists. In Perfect Health Diet, Paul and Shou-Ching Jaminet explain in straightforward terms how anyone can regain health and lose weight by optimizing nutrition, detoxifying the diet, and supporting healthy immune function. They show how toxic, nutrient-poor diets sabotage health, and how on a healthy diet, diseases often spontaneously resolve. Perfect Health Diet makes weight loss effortless with a clear, balanced, and scientifically proven plan to change the way you eat—and feel—forever!
Download or read book The Last Great Walk written by Wayne Curtis and published by Rodale Books. This book was released on 2014-09-09 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1909, Edward Payson Weston walked from New York to San Francisco, covering around 40 miles a day and greeted by wildly cheering audiences in every city. The New York Times called it the "first bona-fide walk ... across the American continent," and eagerly chronicled a journey in which Weston was beset by fatigue, mosquitos, vicious headwinds, and brutal heat. He was 70 years old. In The Last Great Walk, journalist Wayne Curtis uses the framework of Weston's fascinating and surprising story, and investigates exactly what we lost when we turned away from foot travel, and what we could potentially regain with America's new embrace of pedestrianism. From how our brains and legs evolved to accommodate our ancient traveling needs to the way that American cities have been designed to cater to cars and discourage pedestrians, Curtis guides readers through an engaging, intelligent exploration of how something as simple as the way we get from one place to another continues to shape our health, our environment, and even our national identity. Not walking, he argues, may be one of the most radical things humans have ever done.
