Showing results by publisher "Highbridge Audio" in Biological Sciences

We are in the midst of an attention crisis - caused in large part by our smartphones. There's a constant stream of information that we are powerless to withstand because it shows up in our notifications. More and more of us are finding it harder and harder to concentrate. The good news, attention expert Stefan Van der Stigchel reports, is that we now know more about brain and behavior than ever before, and he draws on the latest scientific findings in his account of concentration. 

Over the centuries, we have learned to peer into what was once invisible. Imaging devices like cameras, telescopes, microscopes, and MRI machines map the world around, beyond, and within us in ways the naked eye could never see. In so doing, these technologies have transformed our understanding...

Between what can be learned from evolutionary psychology and cognitive science a picture emerges. In Sex, Murder, and the Meaning of Life, social psychologist Douglas Kenrick fuses these two fields to create a coherent story of human nature. In his analysis, many ingrained, apparently irrational behaviors—one-night stands, prejudice, conspicuous consumption, even art and religious devotion—are quite explicable and (when desired) avoidable.

Microfluidics is the field of science that studies fluids constrained to spaces that are smaller than one millimeter wide, and by extension, the engineering field which builds devices that exploit the unique properties of fluids at these scales. Author Albert Folch explores this micro science which has inspired engineers to build devices such as engines, spray cans, ballpoint pens, inkjet and 3D printers, pregnancy and Covid tests, glucometers, asthma nebulizers, kidney dialysis machines, and DNA analyzers.

Thanks to the popularity of personal genetic testing services, it's now easier than ever to get information about our own unique DNA - but who does this information really benefit? And, as genome editing and gene therapy transform the healthcare landscape, what do we gain - and what might we give up in return? 

Chat-GPT, humanoid robotics, and self-driving cars are just a few of the things that are changing our everyday lives. The rapid advancement of AI is eroding one by one all the cornerstones considered unique of human nature: language, consciousness, creativity, and moral responsibility. The book argues that the revolution we are facing is driven by Alan Turing's "vision". This vision rests on the idea that intelligence is not an intrinsic property of human beings, but is a way in which matter is functionally organized and an attribute we are naturally inclined to ascribe to certain entities.

A wry and thought-provoking tale about the defiant, eccentric figures obsessed with Australia's deadliest reptiles. Raymond Hoser is known as the Snakeman, a moniker he has zealously defended. As a day job, Hoser runs a business in Melbourne that offers several services. One service is snake...

A compassionate, evidence-based look at pregnancy loss—how and why it happens, and why the assurances of the medical industry don't reflect the reality One of the most prevalent myths about human pregnancy is that of all possible outcomes, a baby is the most likely. Pregnancy Interrupted...

From the New York Times bestselling author of A World on the Wing, an exploration of the efforts led by scientists, conservationists, and Indigenous peoples to save birds around the world. As populations fall and once-great migration multitudes wither away, the future of birds may seem grim. But...

Though you may not be able to see them with the naked eye, parasites inhabit our everyday lives. From headlice to bird droppings, litterboxes to unfiltered water, you have brushed up against the most common way of life on our planet. In this unique book, John Janovy Jr., one of the world's preeminent experts on parasites, reveals what can humans learn from the most reviled yet misunderstood animals on Earth: lice, tapeworms, flukes, and maggots that can eat a lizard from the inside, and how these lessons help us negotiate our own complicated world.

Twenty meters below water, the oceanographer François Sarano came face to face with a five-and-a-half-meter great white shark. Seduced by the gentle elegance of this majestic creature, Sarano experienced a profound sense of affinity with her as they swam side by side, shoulder to shoulder, eye to eye, cutting a single figure through the ocean depths. It was an experience which made him realize the depth of our ignorance of the lives of sharks, leading him to become a passionate advocate for their protection.

Once a killing ground for whalers hunting a leviathan they called the "devilfish," the San Ignacio Lagoon in Baja, Mexico, is now an environmental and spiritual sanctuary—the only place in the world where animals in their natural aquatic environment routinely seek out human contact. A nursery for the gray whale since before recorded history, the lagoon and its stories, told here by James Michael Dorsey, illuminate the magic of human connection to animals, and what those bonds teach us about ourselves and our purpose on this shared planet.

In 2018, the first genetically modified babies were reportedly born in China, made possible by the invention of CRISPR technology in 2012. This controversial advancement overturned the preexisting moral consensus, which had held for over 50 years before: While gene editing an adult person was morally acceptable, modifying babies, and thus subsequent generations, crossed a significant moral line. John H. Evans here provides a meta-level guide to how these debates move forward and their significance to society.

From rainforests to deserts, mountains to plains, the sea to the sky, animals raise their voices in an eclectic and thrilling chorus. This collection celebrates the unique calls of the keel-billed toucan, the morning roar of the Guatemalan howler monkey, the seriously social laughing of the spotted hyena Guatemalan coatimundi, the honk of the courtship-crazed hammerhead bat, sophisticated conversation from the Central African forest elephant, the subtle bellow of the great plains bison, and many more intriguing sounds.

Are birds monogamous? Why do kookaburras laugh? Is the ivory-billed woodpecker really extinct? These fascinating stories feature the delightful and exotic sounds of birds, plus astute and informative commentary from bird lovers, bird experts, and sometimes birds themselves. Learn how naturalist F. Schuyler Matthews translated bird song into musical notes. Discover how the city of Chicago has drawn purple martins back to Lake Michigan, their historic habitat.

A deft blend of science reporting and travel writing, The Journeys of Trees explores the evolving movements of forests by focusing on five trees: giant sequoia, ash, black spruce, Florida torreya, and Monterey pine.  

The last decade has seen an explosion of urban beekeeping in the US, Canada, and Europe, a well-intentioned response to perceived threats to the global honey bee population. Many thousands of people have taken up this seemingly environmentally friendly hobby, tending backyard and rooftop hives (or paying a company to do so) and encouraging honey bees to make honey and pollinate flowers. What could be wrong with that? Quite a lot, in fact. In The Honey Trap, scientist and author Dana Church demonstrates that despite reports to the contrary, honey bees are nowhere near extinction.

In Why Whales Sing, bioacoustician and cognitive scientist Eduardo Mercado transforms our understanding of these enigmatic sounds and proposes a groundbreaking theory that challenges decades of established science.

Part travelogue, part natural history, part science, and part psychology, this absorbing book shows us how we can reinvigorate our lives, reduce everyday stress, and bring out the best in ourselves when we heed the wisdom of trees.

At the heart of Israel Rosenfield and Edward Ziff's inquiry is the nature of brain function. The sensory world is disordered and chaotic. There are no labels for tables, chairs, or airplanes, and indeed there are no colors, sounds, or smells, only photons, airwaves, odorant molecules, and so on, which are unlabeled and impossible to "know." To make sense of this chaos, the brain must simplify the sensory inputs by creating, or inventing, the colors, sounds, smells, forms, and faces that are perceived in consciousness, which become a proxy for the chaotic world in which we live.