Carved Genes


Book Description

Mika has a new, near-indestructible body-a side effect of the Purge virus. Yet he broods in obscurity, pushing away everyone, including Amy, the one person who can lift his spirits. But when the Purge starts killing again, twenty years after it vanished, he accepts an open-ended mission and disappears. Thrust into power amid chaos, Amy struggles to rebuild a world ripped apart by the tension between those who carry the Purge and those who don't. When a general exploits that rift to grab power, Amy makes a bold decision that antagonizes the leaders of two states. As victims with Purge symptoms multiply, Mika returns with frightening news about the virus' variants and origins. With time running out, Amy must unite the bickering factions to stop the new outbreak from destroying their fragile society. But can she trust Mika again?




Carved in Sand


Book Description

A journalist tackles her growing forgetfulness and inability to concentrate as she seeks to understand how the brain works. Why can’t you remember where you put your keys? Or the title of the movie you saw last week? Anyone older than forty knows that forgetfulness can be unnerving, frustrating, and sometimes terrifying. With compassion and humor, acclaimed journalist Cathryn Jakobson Ramin explores the factors that determine how well or poorly one’s brain will age. She takes readers along on her lively journey—consulting with experts in the fields of sleep, stress, traumatic brain injury, hormones, genetics, and dementia, as well as specialists in nutrition, cognitive psychology, and the burgeoning field of drug-based cognitive enhancement. Along the way, she turns up fresh scientific findings, explores the dark regions of the human brain, and hears the intimate confessions of high-functioning midlife adults who—like so many of us—are desperate to understand exactly what’s going on upstairs. Praise for Carved in Sand “[An] insightful and well-researched journey through memoryland.” —Scientific American Mind “The variety of perspectives and the wealth of scientific information Ramin provides, as well as her warm personal style, will reward readers and may well help them stay mentally sharp.” —Publishers Weekly




The Genetic Book of the Dead


Book Description

From a renowned biologist and best-selling author, a whole new way of looking at living organisms: reading them as documents describing ancient worlds “Richard Dawkins’s new book is a glorious affair. Profusely illustrated in color by Jana Lenzová, it is arguably his most joyous ode to the wonders that evolution has wrought in the animal world.”—Philip Ball, Science An exquisitely camouflaged lizard has a desiccated landscape of sand and stones “painted” on its back. Its skin can be read as a description of an ancient desert, a world in which its ancestors survived. Such descriptions are more than skin deep, however. They penetrate the very warp and woof of the entire animal. In this groundbreaking exploration of the power of Darwinian evolution and what it can reveal about the past, Richard Dawkins shows how the body, behavior, and genes of every living creature can be read as a book—an archive of the worlds of its ancestors. In the future, a zoologist presented with a hitherto unknown animal will be able to decode its ancestral history, to read its unique “book of the dead.” Such readings are already uncovering the remarkable ways animals overcome obstacles, adapt to their environments, and, again and again, develop remarkably similar ways of solving life’s problems. From the author of The Selfish Gene comes a revolutionary, richly illustrated book that unlocks the door to a past more vivid, nuanced, and fascinating than anything we have seen.




The Greatest Show on Earth


Book Description

In 2008, a Gallup poll showed that 44 percent of Americans believed God had created man in his present form within the last 10,000 years. In a Pew Forum poll in the same year, 42 percent believed that all life on earth has existed in its present form since the beginning of time. In 1859 Charles Darwin's masterpiece, On the Origin of Species, shook society to its core. Darwin was only too aware of the storm his theory of evolution would provoke. But he surely would have raised an incredulous eyebrow at the controversy still raging a century and a half later. Evolution is accepted as scientific fact by all reputable scientists and indeed theologians, yet millions of people continue to question its veracity. Now the author of the iconic work The God Delusion takes them to task. The Greatest Show on Earth is a stunning counterattack on advocates of "Intelligent Design," explaining the evidence for evolution while exposing the absurdities of the creationist "argument." Dawkins sifts through rich layers of scientific evidence: from living examples of natural selection to clues in the fossil record; from natural clocks that mark the vast epochs wherein evolution ran its course to the intricacies of developing embryos; from plate tectonics to molecular genetics. Combining these elements and many more, he makes the airtight case that "we find ourselves perched on one tiny twig in the midst of a blossoming and flourishing tree of life and it is no accident, but the direct consequence of evolution by non-random selection." The Greatest Show on Earth comes at a critical time: systematic opposition to the fact of evolution is menacing as never before. In American schools, and in schools around the world, insidious attempts are made to undermine the status of science in the classroom. Dawkins wields a devastating argument against this ignorance, but his unjaded passion for the natural world turns what might have been a negative argument into a positive offering to the reader: nothing less than a master's vision of life, in all its splendor.




Purged Souls


Book Description

An unforgiving world... Two friends separated by their choices... A secret that shatters the definition of Human... Lori wants to restore order to a world ravaged by virus, violence, and dropping birthrates. But the rage that fueled her rise from hungry teenager to Special Forces colonel has left her with few allies. When a mortally-wounded soldier disappears from the hospital amid a cover up, Lori reaches beyond official channels to her only remaining friend, Mika. Orphaned at eight, Mika lives across a fortified border, away from the spotlight. But he could never say no to Lori, so he dives into a world of secrets and deceit. They uncover a conspiracy that assassinates two heads of state to start a war, all to hide the true nature of the virus that nearly destroyed the human race. With time running out, Lori has to disobey direct orders and embrace new allegiances. The problem is, the rage that powers her also distorts her moral compass-which hasn't been reliable in the best of times.




Mobilizing Mutations


Book Description

With every passing year, more and more people learn that they or their young or unborn child carries a genetic mutation. But what does this mean for the way we understand a person? Today, genetic mutations are being used to diagnose novel conditions like the XYY, Fragile X, NGLY1 mutation, and 22q11.2 Deletion syndromes, carving out rich new categories of human disease and difference. Daniel Navon calls this form of categorization “genomic designation,” and in Mobilizing Mutations he shows how mutations, and the social factors that surround them, are reshaping human classification. Drawing on a wealth of fieldwork and historical material, Navon presents a sociological account of the ways genetic mutations have been mobilized and transformed in the sixty years since it became possible to see abnormal human genomes, providing a new vista onto the myriad ways contemporary genetic testing can transform people’s lives. Taking us inside these shifting worlds of research and advocacy over the last half century, Navon reveals the ways in which knowledge about genetic mutations can redefine what it means to be ill, different, and ultimately, human.




Distributed, Ambient and Pervasive Interactions


Book Description

This conference proceedings LNCS 12782 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 9 th International Conference on Distributed, Ambient and Pervasive Interactions, DAPI 2021, held as part of the 23rd International Conference, HCI International 2021, which took place in July 2021. The conference was held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The total of 1276 papers and 241 posters included in the 39 HCII 2021 proceedings volumes was carefully reviewed and selected from 5222 submissions. The papers of DAPI 2021, Distributed, Ambient and Pervasive Interactions, are organized in topical sections named: Smart Cities; IoT, Sensors and Smart Environments; Learning and Culture in Intelligent Environments; Designing Intelligent Environments.




Turn Off the Fat Genes


Book Description

Breakthrough genetic research indicates that genes are not just onoff switches for characteristics we can't control (like gender or eye color). Some genes, including those that shape our bodies, actually adapt to outside influences. In Turn Off the Fat Genes, Dr. Neal Barnard draws on this cutting-edge research to create a revolutionary new program for activating thin genes and suppressing fat genes, a dramatic tool for sculpting away excess pounds to reveal the healthy, vital body that nature intended. In Turn Off the Fat Genes, Dr. Barnard begins by explaining the dynamics of nutrition and its impact on genetics. Once you understand how the genes that control your shape can be influenced, the next step is positive intervention. The heart of Dr. Barnard's book is a three-week gene-control program (complete with menus and recipes) specifically designed to influence the five key genes that determine: (1) which foods you prefer, (2) the strength of your appetite, (3) whether your calories are burned or stored as fat, (4) how fast you burn calories, and (5) your muscular type and ability to exercise. Dr. Barnard's program enables all of us to enjoy the same virtually effortless weight control as the naturally thin people we have always admired.




Original Selfishness


Book Description

This book defends a startling idea: that the age-old theological and philosophical problems of original sin and evil, long thought intractable, have already been solved. The solution has come from the very scientific discovery that many consider the most mortal threat to traditional religion: evolution. Daryl P. Domning explains in straightforward terms the workings of modern evolutionary theory, Darwinian natural selection, and how this has brought forth life and the human mind. He counters objections to Darwinism that are raised by some believers and emphasizes that the evolutionary process necessarily enforces selfish behavior on all living things. This account of both physical and moral evil is arguably more consistent with traditional Christian teachings than are the explanations given by most contemporary "evolutionary" theologians themselves. The prominent theologian, Monika K. Hellwig, dialogues with Daryl Domning throughout the book to present a balanced reappraisal of the doctrine of original sin from both a scientist's and theologian's perspective.




Welcome to the Genome


Book Description

The popular introduction to the genomic revolution for non-scientists—the revised and updated new edition Welcome to the Genome is an accessible, up-to-date introduction to genomics—the interdisciplinary field of biology focused on the structure, function, evolution, mapping, and editing of an organism's complete set of DNA. Written for non-experts, this user-friendly book explains how genomes are sequenced and explores the discoveries and challenges of this revolutionary technology. Genomics is a mixture of many fields, including not only biology, engineering, computer science, and mathematics, but also social sciences and humanities. This unique guide addresses both the science of genomics and the ethical, moral, and social questions that rise from the technology. There have been many exciting developments in genomics since this book's first publication. Accordingly, the second edition of Welcome to the Genome offers substantial new and updated content to reflect recent major advances in genome-level sequencing and analysis, and demonstrates the vast increase in biological knowledge over the past decade. New sections cover next-generation technologies such as Illumina and PacBio sequencing, while expanded chapters discuss controversial ethical and philosophical issues raised by genomic technology, such as direct-to-consumer genetic testing. An essential resource for understanding the still-evolving genomic revolution, this book: Introduces non-scientists to basic molecular principles and illustrates how they are shaping the genomic revolution in medicine, biology, and conservation biology Explores a wide range of topics within the field such as genetic diversity, genome structure, genetic cloning, forensic genetics, and more Includes full-color illustrations and topical examples Presents material in an accessible, user-friendly style, requiring no expertise in genomics Discusses past discoveries, current research, and future possibilities in the field Sponsored by the American Museum of Natural History, Welcome to the Genome: A User's Guide to the Genetic Past, Present, and Future is a must-read book for anyone interested in the scientific foundation for understanding the development and evolutionary heritage of all life.