Download or read book Humans Are Not From Earth written by Ellis Silver (PhD.) and published by . This book was released on 2017-09-28 with total page 644 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Neanderthals had brow ridges to keep the sun out of their eyes, but why don't we? When a leading scientist walked into a wall and broke his nose, he decided to find out. In this fascinating and wide-ranging book, Dr. Ellis Silver discusses the evidence that proves we evolved on a world distinctly different from the one we live on today.
Download or read book The World Without Us written by Alan Weisman and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2008-08-05 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A penetrating take on how our planet would respond without the relentless pressure of the human presence
Download or read book Harvesting the Biosphere written by Vaclav Smil and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2012-12-21 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An interdisciplinary and quantitative account of human claims on the biosphere's stores of living matter, from prehistoric hunting to modern energy production. The biosphere—the Earth's thin layer of life—dates from nearly four billion years ago, when the first simple organisms appeared. Many species have exerted enormous influence on the biosphere's character and productivity, but none has transformed the Earth in so many ways and on such a scale as Homo sapiens. In Harvesting the Biosphere, Vaclav Smil offers an interdisciplinary and quantitative account of human claims on the biosphere's stores of living matter, from prehistory to the present day. Smil examines all harvests—from prehistoric man's hunting of megafauna to modern crop production—and all uses of harvested biomass, including energy, food, and raw materials. Without harvesting of the biomass, Smil points out, there would be no story of human evolution and advancing civilization; but at the same time, the increasing extent and intensity of present-day biomass harvests are changing the very foundations of civilization's well-being. In his detailed and comprehensive account, Smil presents the best possible quantifications of past and current global losses in order to assess the evolution and extent of biomass harvests. Drawing on the latest work in disciplines ranging from anthropology to environmental science, Smil offers a valuable long-term, planet-wide perspective on human-caused environmental change.
Download or read book Earth in Human Hands written by David Grinspoon and published by Grand Central Publishing. This book was released on 2016-12-06 with total page 519 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NASA Astrobiologist and renowned scientist Dr. David Grinspoon brings readers an optimistic message about humanity's future in the face of climate change. For the first time in Earth's history, our planet is experiencing a confluence of rapidly accelerating changes prompted by one species: humans. Climate change is only the most visible of the modifications we've made--up until this point, inadvertently--to the planet. And our current behavior threatens not only our own future but that of countless other creatures. By comparing Earth's story to those of other planets, astrobiologist David Grinspoon shows what a strange and novel development it is for a species to evolve to build machines, and ultimately, global societies with world-shaping influence. Without minimizing the challenges of the next century, Grinspoon suggests that our present moment is not only one of peril, but also great potential, especially when viewed from a 10,000-year perspective. Our species has surmounted the threat of extinction before, thanks to our innate ingenuity and ability to adapt, and there's every reason to believe we can do so again. Our challenge now is to awaken to our role as a force of planetary change, and to grow into this task. We must become graceful planetary engineers, conscious shapers of our environment and caretakers of Earth's biosphere. This is a perspective that begs us to ask not just what future do we want to avoid, but what do we seek to build? What kind of world do we want? Are humans the worst thing or the best thing to ever happen to our planet? Today we stand at a pivotal juncture, and the answer will depend on the choices we make.
Download or read book The Humans written by Matt Haig and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2013-07-02 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The bestselling, award-winning author of The Midnight Library offers his funniest, most devastating dark comedy yet, a “silly, sad, suspenseful, and soulful” (Philadelphia Inquirer) novel that’s “full of heart” (Entertainment Weekly). When an extra-terrestrial visitor arrives on Earth, his first impressions of the human species are less than positive. Taking the form of Professor Andrew Martin, a prominent mathematician at Cambridge University, the visitor is eager to complete the gruesome task assigned him and hurry home to his own utopian planet, where everyone is omniscient and immortal. He is disgusted by the way humans look, what they eat, their capacity for murder and war, and is equally baffled by the concepts of love and family. But as time goes on, he starts to realize there may be more to this strange species than he had thought. Disguised as Martin, he drinks wine, reads poetry, develops an ear for rock music, and a taste for peanut butter. Slowly, unexpectedly, he forges bonds with Martin’s family. He begins to see hope and beauty in the humans’ imperfection, and begins to question the very mission that brought him there. Praised by The New York Times as a “novelist of great seriousness and talent,” author Matt Haig delivers an unlikely story about human nature and the joy found in the messiness of life on Earth. The Humans is a funny, compulsively readable tale that playfully and movingly explores the ultimate subject—ourselves.
Download or read book Lone Survivors written by Chris Stringer and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2012-03-13 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A top researcher proposes a controversial new theory of human evolution in a book “combining the thrill of a novel with a remarkable depth of perspective” (Nature). In this groundbreaking and engaging work of science, world-renowned paleoanthropologist Chris Stringer sets out a new theory of humanity’s origin, challenging both the multiregionalists (who hold that modern humans developed from ancient ancestors in different parts of the world) and his own “out of Africa” theory, which maintains that humans emerged rapidly in one small part of Africa and then spread to replace all other humans within and outside the continent. Stringer’s new theory, based on archeological and genetic evidence, holds that distinct humans coexisted and competed across the African continent—exchanging genes, tools, and behavioral strategies. Stringer draws on analyses of old and new fossils from around the world, DNA studies of Neanderthals (using the full genome map) and other species, and recent archeological digs to unveil his new theory. He shows how the most sensational recent fossil findings fit with his model, and he questions previous concepts (including his own) of modernity and how it evolved. With photographs included, Lone Survivors will be the definitive account of who and what we were—and will change perceptions about our origins and about what it means to be human. “An essential book for anyone interested in psychology, sociology, anthropology, human evolution, or the scientific process.” —Library Journal “Highlights just how many tantalizing discoveries and analytical advances have enriched the field in recent years.” —Literary Review
Download or read book SuperMars written by Ellis Silver and published by . This book was released on 2021-01-25 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Humans Are Not From Earth, ecologist and environmentalist Dr. Ellis Silver proved we couldn't have evolved on this planet. Now he looks at where we really came from - and where we might be heading. A Mars-like planet would suit us better than the Earth, so why did we end up here, on the wrong planet? Could there be another planet Mars in another solar system or another galaxy? Could our ancestors still be living there? Could we find it and live there too? We only have a few hundred million years left on Earth. As the Sun grows hotter, the plants will die and the planet will become uninhabitable. Mars could become our home for the next five billion years. In fact, it will have to - we have no choice. But when the Sun expands into a red giant and consumes the inner planets, Mars will become red hot. And then what? This far-reaching book looks at our real history, including our evolution on another planet and our arrival on Earth, and the many changes we've undergone since we settled here. There's a detailed comparison of Earth, Mars, and our original home planet. And then we take a fascinating look at our possible future, from terraforming Mars, colonizing frozen moons, and building artificial worlds, to planet-hopping in other star systems, and (maybe) surviving the end of the universe.
Download or read book The Uninhabitable Earth written by David Wallace-Wells and published by Crown. This book was released on 2019-02-19 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “The Uninhabitable Earth hits you like a comet, with an overflow of insanely lyrical prose about our pending Armageddon.”—Andrew Solomon, author of The Noonday Demon NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New Yorker • The New York Times Book Review • Time • NPR • The Economist • The Paris Review • Toronto Star • GQ • The Times Literary Supplement • The New York Public Library • Kirkus Reviews It is worse, much worse, than you think. If your anxiety about global warming is dominated by fears of sea-level rise, you are barely scratching the surface of what terrors are possible—food shortages, refugee emergencies, climate wars and economic devastation. An “epoch-defining book” (The Guardian) and “this generation’s Silent Spring” (The Washington Post), The Uninhabitable Earth is both a travelogue of the near future and a meditation on how that future will look to those living through it—the ways that warming promises to transform global politics, the meaning of technology and nature in the modern world, the sustainability of capitalism and the trajectory of human progress. The Uninhabitable Earth is also an impassioned call to action. For just as the world was brought to the brink of catastrophe within the span of a lifetime, the responsibility to avoid it now belongs to a single generation—today’s. LONGLISTED FOR THE PEN/E.O. WILSON LITERARY SCIENCE WRITING AWARD “The Uninhabitable Earth is the most terrifying book I have ever read. Its subject is climate change, and its method is scientific, but its mode is Old Testament. The book is a meticulously documented, white-knuckled tour through the cascading catastrophes that will soon engulf our warming planet.”—Farhad Manjoo, The New York Times “Riveting. . . . Some readers will find Mr. Wallace-Wells’s outline of possible futures alarmist. He is indeed alarmed. You should be, too.”—The Economist “Potent and evocative. . . . Wallace-Wells has resolved to offer something other than the standard narrative of climate change. . . . He avoids the ‘eerily banal language of climatology’ in favor of lush, rolling prose.”—Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times “The book has potential to be this generation’s Silent Spring.”—The Washington Post “The Uninhabitable Earth, which has become a best seller, taps into the underlying emotion of the day: fear. . . . I encourage people to read this book.”—Alan Weisman, The New York Review of Books
Download or read book Understanding Climate s Influence on Human Evolution written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2010-04-17 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The hominin fossil record documents a history of critical evolutionary events that have ultimately shaped and defined what it means to be human, including the origins of bipedalism; the emergence of our genus Homo; the first use of stone tools; increases in brain size; and the emergence of Homo sapiens, tools, and culture. The Earth's geological record suggests that some evolutionary events were coincident with substantial changes in African and Eurasian climate, raising the possibility that critical junctures in human evolution and behavioral development may have been affected by the environmental characteristics of the areas where hominins evolved. Understanding Climate's Change on Human Evolution explores the opportunities of using scientific research to improve our understanding of how climate may have helped shape our species. Improved climate records for specific regions will be required before it is possible to evaluate how critical resources for hominins, especially water and vegetation, would have been distributed on the landscape during key intervals of hominin history. Existing records contain substantial temporal gaps. The book's initiatives are presented in two major research themes: first, determining the impacts of climate change and climate variability on human evolution and dispersal; and second, integrating climate modeling, environmental records, and biotic responses. Understanding Climate's Change on Human Evolution suggests a new scientific program for international climate and human evolution studies that involve an exploration initiative to locate new fossil sites and to broaden the geographic and temporal sampling of the fossil and archeological record; a comprehensive and integrative scientific drilling program in lakes, lake bed outcrops, and ocean basins surrounding the regions where hominins evolved and a major investment in climate modeling experiments for key time intervals and regions that are critical to understanding human evolution.
Download or read book Grey Aliens and the Harvesting of Souls written by Nigel Kerner and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-01-19 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exposes the agenda behind the bio-robotic grey aliens’ genetic manipulation of certain human races • Reveals the Grey’s nature as sophisticated self-aware machines created by a long vanished extraterrestrial civilization • Explains how their quest to capture human souls appears in the historical record from biblical times • Explains how the phenomenon of racism is a by-product of their genetic tampering In 1997 Nigel Kerner first introduced the notion of aliens known as Greys coming to Earth, explaining that Greys are sophisticated biological robots created by an extraterrestrial civilization they have long since outlived. In this new book Kerner reveals that the Greys are seeking to master death by obtaining something humans possess that they do not: souls. Through the manipulation of human DNA, these aliens hope to create their own souls and, thereby, escape the entropic grip of the material universe in favor of the timeless realm of spirit. Kerner explains that genetic manipulation by the Greys has occurred since biblical times and has led to numerous negative qualities that plague humanity, such as violence, greed, and maliciousness. Racism, he contends, was developed by the aliens to prevent their genetic experiments from being compromised by breeding with others outside their influence. Examining historical records, Kerner shows that Jesus, who represented an uncorrupted genetic line, warned his disciples about the threat posed by these alien interlopers, while Hitler, a pure product of this alien intelligence, waged genocide in an attempt to rid Earth of all those untouched by this genetic tampering. Despite the powerful grip the Greys have on humanity, Kerner says that all hope is not lost. Greys exist wholly in the material world, so if we follow the spiritual laws of reincarnation and karma, aiming for enlightenment and rising above the material--a state the Greys are unable to reach--we can free ourselves from their grasp.
Download or read book Humans on Earth written by Filipe Duarte Santos and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2011-09-06 with total page 423 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a wide-ranging and persuasive book written by an undisputed expert. Beginning with a broad history of the Universe, Earth, Life, and Man, it considers the origins and rise of science and technology, before moving on to discuss the present state of the world and its/our possible futures. Humans on Earth then addresses the main challenges for social and economic development in the 21st century in the context of global change. It presents a detailed but non-technical analysis of questions relating to climate change, our dependence on fossil fuels, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, desertification, and air, water, soil, and ocean pollution, as well as problems related to overpopulation, poverty, social and economic inequalities, and conflict potential. The three main, but largely mutually exclusive, discourses on human development and the environment are described and discussed. The main emphasis is on the risks and uncertainties of the short-term future – the next 50 to 100 years – with regard to environmental degradation and the sustainability of our growth paradigm. "... a sweeping, thoughtful view of the role of humans in shaping our modern world." Paul Epstein, Center for Health and the Global Environment, Harvard Medical School
Download or read book Half Earth Our Planet s Fight for Life written by Edward O. Wilson and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2016-03-07 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "An audacious and concrete proposal…Half-Earth completes the 86-year-old Wilson’s valedictory trilogy on the human animal and our place on the planet." —Jedediah Purdy, New Republic In his most urgent book to date, Pulitzer Prize–winning author and world-renowned biologist Edward O. Wilson states that in order to stave off the mass extinction of species, including our own, we must move swiftly to preserve the biodiversity of our planet. In this "visionary blueprint for saving the planet" (Stephen Greenblatt), Half-Earth argues that the situation facing us is too large to be solved piecemeal and proposes a solution commensurate with the magnitude of the problem: dedicate fully half the surface of the Earth to nature. Identifying actual regions of the planet that can still be reclaimed—such as the California redwood forest, the Amazon River basin, and grasslands of the Serengeti, among others—Wilson puts aside the prevailing pessimism of our times and "speaks with a humane eloquence which calls to us all" (Oliver Sacks).
Download or read book The Fate of the Earth and The Abolition written by Jonathan Schell and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 484 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These two books, which helped focus national attention on the movement for a nuclear freeze, are published in one volume.
Download or read book The Social Conquest of Earth written by Edward O. Wilson and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2012-04-09 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times Bestseller and Notable Book of the Year A Kirkus Reviews Book of the Year (Nonfiction) Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence (Nonfiction) From the most celebrated heir to Darwin comes a groundbreaking book on evolution, the summa work of Edward O. Wilson's legendary career. Sparking vigorous debate in the sciences, The Social Conquest of Earth upends “the famous theory that evolution naturally encourages creatures to put family first” (Discover). Refashioning the story of human evolution, Wilson draws on his remarkable knowledge of biology and social behavior to demonstrate that group selection, not kin selection, is the premier driving force of human evolution. In a work that James D. Watson calls “a monumental exploration of the biological origins of the human condition,” Wilson explains how our innate drive to belong to a group is both a “great blessing and a terrible curse” (Smithsonian). Demonstrating that the sources of morality, religion, and the creative arts are fundamentally biological in nature, the renowned Harvard University biologist presents us with the clearest explanation ever produced as to the origin of the human condition and why it resulted in our domination of the Earth’s biosphere.
Download or read book Life Changing written by Helen Pilcher and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-02-06 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: SHORTLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE FOR WRITING ON GLOBAL CONSERVATION 'Pilcher is both very funny and very, very clever.' Gillian Burke 'Richly entertaining throughout.' Sunday Times For the last three billion years or so, life on Earth was shaped by natural forces. Evolution tended to happen slowly, with species crafted across millennia. Then, a few hundred thousand years ago, along came a bolshie, big-brained, bipedal primate we now call Homo sapiens, and with that, the Earth's natural history came to an abrupt end. We are now living through the post-natural phase, where humans have become the leading force shaping evolution. This thought-provoking book considers the many ways that we've altered the DNA of living things and changed the fate of life on earth. We have carved chihuahuas from wolves and fancy chickens from jungle fowl. We've added spider genes to goats and coral genes to tropical fish. It's possible to buy genetically-modified pets, eat genetically-modified fish and watch cloned ponies thunder up and down the polo field. Now, as our global dominance grows, our influence extends far beyond these species. As we warm our world and radically reshape the biosphere, we affect the evolution of all living things, near and far, from the emergence of novel hybrids such as the pizzly bear, to the entirely new strains of animals and plants that are evolving at breakneck speed to cope with their altered environment. In Life Changing, Helen introduces us to these post-natural creations and talks to the scientists who create, study and tend to them. At a time when the future of so many species is uncertain, we meet some of the conservationists seeking to steer evolution onto firmer footings with novel methods like the 'spermcopter', coral IVF and plans to release wild elephants into Denmark. Helen explores the changing relationship between humans and the natural world, and reveals how, with evidence-based thinking, humans can help life change for the better.
Download or read book Forging the Future of Space Science written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2010-03-08 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From September 2007 to June 2008 the Space Studies Board conducted an international public seminar series, with each monthly talk highlighting a different topic in space and Earth science. The principal lectures from the series are compiled in Forging the Future of Space Science. The topics of these events covered the full spectrum of space and Earth science research, from global climate change, to the cosmic origins of life, to the exploration of the Moon and Mars, to the scientific research required to support human spaceflight. The prevailing messages throughout the seminar series as demonstrated by the lectures in this book are how much we have accomplished over the past 50 years, how profound are our discoveries, how much contributions from the space program affect our daily lives, and yet how much remains to be done. The age of discovery in space and Earth science is just beginning. Opportunities abound that will forever alter our destiny.
Download or read book The Next 500 Years written by Christopher E. Mason and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2022-04-12 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An argument that we have a moral duty to explore other planets and solar systems--because human life on Earth has an expiration date. Inevitably, life on Earth will come to an end, whether by climate disaster, cataclysmic war, or the death of the sun in a few billion years. To avoid extinction, we will have to find a new home planet, perhaps even a new solar system, to inhabit. In this provocative and fascinating book, Christopher Mason argues that we have a moral duty to do just that. As the only species aware that life on Earth has an expiration date, we have a responsibility to act as the shepherd of life-forms--not only for our species but for all species on which we depend and for those still to come (by accidental or designed evolution). Mason argues that the same capacity for ingenuity that has enabled us to build rockets and land on other planets can be applied to redesigning biology so that we can sustainably inhabit those planets. And he lays out a 500-year plan for undertaking the massively ambitious project of reengineering human genetics for life on other worlds. As they are today, our frail human bodies could never survive travel to another habitable planet. Mason describes the toll that long-term space travel took on astronaut Scott Kelly, who returned from a year on the International Space Station with changes to his blood, bones, and genes. Mason proposes a ten-phase, 500-year program that would engineer the genome so that humans can tolerate the extreme environments of outer space--with the ultimate goal of achieving human settlement of new solar systems. He lays out a roadmap of which solar systems to visit first, and merges biotechnology, philosophy, and genetics to offer an unparalleled vision of the universe to come.
