"The Earth teems with sights and textures, sounds and vibrations, smells and tastes, electric and magnetic fields. But every animal is enclosed within its own unique sensory bubble, perceiving but a tiny sliver of an immense world. This book welcomes us into a previously unfathomable dimension--the world as it is truly perceived by other animals. We encounter beetles that are drawn to fires (and fireworks), songbirds that can see the Earth's magnetic...

"Have you wondered why some 60-year olds look and feel like 40-year-olds and why some 40-year-olds look and feel like 60-year-olds? While many factors contribute to aging and illness, Nobel Prize-winning Doctor Elizabeth Blackburn discovered biological markers, called telomerase, the enzyme that replenishes telomeres, which protect our DNA Dr. Blackburn discovered that the length and health of one's telomeres provides a biological basis for the long...

With the clarity, insight, and sheer joy of language that has secured her reputation as one of the New York Times' premier stylists, Natalie Angier lifts the veil of secrecy from that most enigmatic of evolutionary masterpieces, the female body, exploring the essence of what it means to be a woman. Angier's thoughts on everything from organs to orgasm evince her famously playful originality, yet stand their ground in scientific fact. She also dives...

"Psychologists and neuroscientists struggle with how best to interpret human motivation and decision making. The assumption is that below a mental "surface" of conscious awareness lies a deep and complex set of inner beliefs, values, and desires that govern our thoughts, ideas, and actions, and that to know this depth is to know ourselves. In this profoundly original book, behavioral scientist Nick Chater contends just the opposite: rather than being...

"A globetrotting voyage of discovery celebrating the navigational superpowers of animals -- by land, sea, and sky. Animals plainly know where they're going, but how they get there has remained surprisingly mysterious -- until now. In Supernavigators, award-winning author David Barrie catches us up on the cutting-edge science. Here are astounding animals of every stripe: Dung beetles that steer by the light of the Milky Way. Ants and bees that rely...

Examines the human ability to navigate using environmental clues and the brain's spatial orientation and cognitive mapping skills within the hippocampus, and details what this might mean for those suffering diseases in this area.

When Bernd Heinrich decided to write a memoir of his ultramarathon running experience, he realized that the preparation for the race was as important, if not more so, than the race itself. Considering the physiology and motivation of running from a scientific point of view, he wondered what he could learn from other animals. In Why We Run, Heinrich considers the flight endurance of birds, the antelope's running prowess and limitations, and the ultra-endurance...

In the tradition of Temple Grandin, Oliver Sacks, and Neil Shubin, cardiologist and psychiatrist Natterson-Horowitz and science writer Bowers look at the remarkable correspondences between the way human beings and animals live, die, get sick, and heal in their natural settings.

Early studies of human brain function used a simple method: wait for misfortune to strike -- strokes, seizures, infectious diseases, lobotomies, accidents -- and observe how the victim coped. In many cases, survival was miraculous and observers could only marvel at the transformations that took place afterward. An injury to one section can leave a person unable to recognize loved ones; some brain trauma can even make you a pathological gambler, pedophile,...

Gawande, a practicing surgeon, addresses his profession's ultimate limitation, arguing that quality of life is the desired goal for patients and families of the terminally ill.