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• Introduction: The borderland
• The quickening. The way the spirit comes to the bones ; Death is resisted
• The hallmarks. Dinner ; Decisive matter ; Preserving constant the conditions of life ; Copy/Paste ; Darwin's lung
• A series of dark questions. This astonishing multiplication ; Irritations ; The sect ; This mud was actually alive ; A play of water ; Scripts
• Return to the borderland. Half life ; Data needed for a blueprint ; No obvious bushes ; Four blue droplets.

"We all assume we know what life is, but the more scientists learn about the living world-from protocells to brains, from zygotes to pandemic viruses-the harder they find it is to locate life's edge"-- Provided by publisher.
What is life? The power seems obvious until you try to seriously answer it. Zimmer journeys through experiments that have attempted to recreate life; shows how coronaviruses have altered the course of history; and even tries his own had at evolving life in a test tube... with unnerving results. -- adapted from jacket

• Introduction: The borderland
• The quickening. The way the spirit comes to the bones ; Death is resisted
• The hallmarks. Dinner ; Decisive matter ; Preserving constant the conditions of life ; Copy/Paste ; Darwin's lung
• A series of dark questions. This astonishing multiplication ; Irritations ; The sect ; This mud was actually alive ; A play of water ; Scripts
• Return to the borderland. Half life ; Data needed for a blueprint ; No obvious bushes ; Four blue droplets

• Introduction: The borderland
• The quickening. The way the spirit comes to the bones ; Death is resisted
• The hallmarks. Dinner ; Decisive matter ; Preserving constant the conditions of life ; Copy/Paste ; Darwin's lung
• A series of dark questions. This astonishing multiplication ; Irritations ; The sect ; This mud was actually alive ; A play of water ; Scripts
• Return to the borderland. Half life ; Data needed for a blueprint ; No obvious bushes ; Four blue droplets.

"We all assume we know what life is, but the more scientists learn about the living world-from protocells to brains, from zygotes to pandemic viruses-the harder they find it is to locate life's edge"-- Provided by publisher.
What is life? The power seems obvious until you try to seriously answer it. Zimmer journeys through experiments that have attempted to recreate life; shows how coronaviruses have altered the course of history; and even tries his own had at evolving life in a test tube... with unnerving results. -- adapted from jacket

• Introduction: The borderland
• The quickening. The way the spirit comes to the bones ; Death is resisted
• The hallmarks. Dinner ; Decisive matter ; Preserving constant the conditions of life ; Copy/Paste ; Darwin's lung
• A series of dark questions. This astonishing multiplication ; Irritations ; The sect ; This mud was actually alive ; A play of water ; Scripts
• Return to the borderland. Half life ; Data needed for a blueprint ; No obvious bushes ; Four blue droplets

"We all assume we know what life is, but the more scientists learn about the living world-from protocells to brains, from zygotes to pandemic viruses-the harder they find it is to locate life's edge"-- Provided by publisher

• Foreword / by Judy Diamond and Charles Wood
• Introduction. "A contagious living fluid" : tobacco mosaic virus and the discovery of the virosphere
• Old companions. The uncommon cold : how rhinoviruses gently conquered the world ; Looking down from the stars : influenza's never-ending reinvention ; Rabbits with horns : human papillomavirus and infectious cancer
• Everywhere, in all things. The enemy of our enemy : bacteriophages as viral medicine ; The infected ocean : how marine phages rule the sea ; Our inner parasites : endogenous retroviruses and our virus-riddled genomes
• The viral future. The young scourge : human immunodeficiency virus and the animal origins of disease ; Becoming an American : the globalization of West Nile virus ; The pandemic age : why COVID-19 should have come as no surprise ; The long goodbye : the delayed oblivion of Smallpox
• Epilogue. The alien in the water cooler : giant viruses and what it means to be a virus

In 2020, an invisible germ-a virus-wholly upended our lives. We're most familiar with the viruses that give us colds or Covid-19. But viruses also cause a vast range of other diseases, including one disorder that makes people sprout branch-like growths as if they were trees. Viruses have been a part of our lives for so long that we are actually part virus: the human genome contains more DNA from viruses than our own genes. Meanwhile, scientists are discovering viruses everywhere they look: in the soil, in the ocean, even in deep caves miles underground. Fully revised and updated, with new illustrations and a new chapter about coronaviruses and the spread of Covid-19, this third edition of Carl Zimmer's A Planet of Viruses pulls back the veil on this hidden world. It presents the latest research on how viruses hold sway over our lives and our biosphere, how viruses helped give rise to the first life-forms, how viruses are producing new diseases, how we can harness viruses for our own ends, and how viruses will continue to control our fate as long as life endures.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Prologue
• Part I.A stroke on the cheek. The light trifle of his substance
• Traveling across the face of time
• This race should end with them
• Attagirl
• Part II. Wayward DNA. An evening's revelry
• The sleeping branches
• Individual Z
• Mongrels
• Nine foot high complete
• Ed and Fred
• Part III. The pedigree within. Ex ovo omnia
• Witches'-broom
• Chimeras
• Part IV. Other channels. You, my friend, are a wonderland
• Flowering monsters
• The teachable ape
• Part V. The sun chariot. Yet did he greatly dare
• Orphaned at conception
• The planet's heirs.

Celebrated New York Times columnist and science writer Carl Zimmer presents a profoundly original perspective on what we pass along from generation to generation. Charles Darwin played a crucial part in turning heredity into a scientific question, and yet he failed spectacularly to answer it. The birth of genetics in the early 1900s seemed to do precisely that. Gradually, people translated their old notions about heredity into a language of genes. As the technology for studying genes became cheaper, millions of people ordered genetic tests to link themselves to missing parents, to distant ancestors, to ethnic identities ... But, Zimmer writes, "Each of us carries an amalgam of fragments of DNA, stitched together from some of our many ancestors. Each piece has its own ancestry, traveling a different path back through human history. A particular fragment may sometimes be cause for worry, but most of our DNA influences who we are--our appearance, our height, our penchants--in inconceivably subtle ways." Heredity isn't just about genes that pass from parent to child. Heredity continues within our own bodies, as a single cell gives rise to trillions of cells that make up our bodies. We say we inherit genes from our ancestors--using a word that once referred to kingdoms and estates--but we inherit other things that matter as much or more to our lives, from microbes to technologies we use to make life more comfortable. We need a new definition of what heredity is and, through Carl Zimmer's lucid exposition and storytelling, this resounding tour de force delivers it. Weaving historical and current scientific research, his own experience with his two daughters, and the kind of original reporting expected of one of the world's best science journalists, Zimmer ultimately unpacks urgent bioethical quandaries arising from new biomedical technologies, but also long-standing presumptions about who we really are and what we can pass on to future generations.

• Prologue
• Part I.A stroke on the cheek. The light trifle of his substance
• Traveling across the face of time
• This race should end with them
• Attagirl
• Part II. Wayward DNA. An evening's revelry
• The sleeping branches
• Individual Z
• Mongrels
• Nine foot high complete
• Ed and Fred
• Part III. The pedigree within. Ex ovo omnia
• Witches'-broom
• Chimeras
• Part IV. Other channels. You, my friend, are a wonderland
• Flowering monsters
• The teachable ape
• Part V. The sun chariot. Yet did he greatly dare
• Orphaned at conception
• The planet's heirs

• Machine generated contents note: Chapter 1: The Virus and The Whale: How Scientists Study Evolution
• Chapter 2: The Evolution of Evolution: From Natural Philosophy to Darwin
• Chapter 3: What The Rocks Say: How Geology and Paleontology Reveal the History of Life
• Chapter 4: The Tree of Life: How Biologists Use Phylogeny to Reconstruct the Deep Past
• Chapter 5: Raw Material: Heritable Variation Among Individuals
• Chapter 6: The Ways of Change: Drift and Selection
• Chapter 7: Natural Selection All Around: Empirical Examples of Natural Selection
• Chapter 8: The History in Our Genes: Using Molecular Phylogeny To Understand Evolution
• Chapter 9: Adaptations: From Genes to Traits
• Chapter 10: Sex: Causes and Consquences
• Chapter 11: After Conception: The Evolution of Parental Care and Life Histories
• Chapter 12: On the Origin of Species: Mechanisms of Speciation
• Chapter 13: Macroevolution: Radiations, Extinctions, and the Grand Patterns of History
• Chapter 14: Coevolution: The Intimate Partnerships of Nature
• Chapter 15: Minds and Microbes: The Evolution of Behavior
• Chapter 16: A New Kind of Ape: Human Evolution
• Chapter 17: Evolutionary Medicine: Using Darwin's Principles to Understand Human Health.

"Science writer Carl Zimmer and evolutionary biologist Douglas Emlen have teamed up to write a textbook intended for biology majors that will inspire students while delivering a solid foundation in evolutionary biology. Zimmer brings the same story-telling skills he displayed in The Tangled Bank, his 2009 non-majors textbook that the Quarterly Review of Biology called "spectacularly successful." Emlen, an award-winning evolutionary biologist at the University of Montana, has infused Evolution: Making Sense of Life with the technical rigor and conceptual depth that today's biology majors require. Students will learn the fundamental concepts of evolutionary theory, such as natural selection, genetic drift, phylogeny, and coevolution. Evolution: Making Sense of Life also drives home the relevance of evolution for disciplines ranging from conservation biology to medicine. With riveting stories about evolutionary biologists at work everywhere from the Arctic to tropical rain forests to hospital wards, the book is a reading adventure designed to grab the imagination of the students, showing them exactly why it is that evolution makes such brilliant sense of life"-- Provided by publisher.
"Students will learn the fundamental concepts of evolutionary theory, such as natural selection, genetic drift, phylogeny, and coevolution. Evolution: Making Sense of Life also drives home the relevance of evolution for disciplines ranging from conservation biology to medicine"-- Provided by publisher.

• "A contagious living fluid" : tobacco mosaic virus
• Old companions
• The uncommon cold : rhinovirus
• Looking down from the stars : influenza virus
• Rabbits with horns : human papillomavirus
• Everywhere, in all things
• The enemy of our enemy : bacteriophages
• The infected ocean : marine phages
• The inner parasites : endogenous retroviruses
• The viral future
• The young scourge : human immunodeficiency virus
• Becoming an American : West Nile virus
• Predicting the next plague : severe acute respiratory syndrome and ebola
• The long goodbye : smallpox
• The alien in the watercooler : mimivirus.

Viruses are the smallest living things known to science, and yet they hold the entire planet in their sway. We're most familiar with the viruses that give us colds or the flu, but viruses also cause a vast range of other diseases, including one disorder that makes people sprout branch-like growths as if they were trees. Viruses have been a part of our lives for so long, in fact, that we are actually part virus: the human genome contains more DNA from viruses than our own genes. Meanwhile, scientists are discovering viruses everywhere they look: in the soil, in the ocean, even in deep caves miles underground. This fascinating book explores the hidden world of viruses-a world that each of us inhabit. Here Carl Zimmer, popular science writer and author of Discover magazine's award-winning blog The Loom, presents the latest research on how viruses hold sway over our lives and our biosphere, how viruses helped give rise to the first life-forms, how viruses are producing new diseases, how we can harness viruses for our own ends, and how viruses will continue to control our fate for years to come. In this eye-opening tour through the frontiers of biology, where scientists are expanding our understanding of life as we know it, we learn that some treatments for the common cold do more harm to us than good; that the world's oceans are home to an astonishing 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 viruses; and that the evolution of HIV is now in overdrive, spawning more mutated strains than we care to imagine. The New York Times Book Review calls Carl Zimmer as fine a science essayist as we have.A" A Planet of Viruses is sure to please his many fans and further enhance his reputation as one of America's most respected and admired science journalists.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Preface
• "Does Shame Excite a Blush?"
• The Googled Mind
• The Music of Time
• They Imprint Your Genes
• Your Mum and Dad
• Of Ether and Consciousness
• Stalking the Elusive Grandmother Cell
• The Flash of Desire
• Two Brains in One; The Neurobiology of Zoning Out
• The Brain's Dark Matter
• An Intuition for Math
• The Speed of Thought; Fear's Anatomy
• The Mind's Eye Goes Blind
• Too Clever
• Selected References.

The human brain has long been a mystery, but twenty-first century science is beginning to reveal some of its inner workings. With microscopes and brain scans, with psychological experiments and breakthroughs in genetics, neuroscientists are developing new theories about every aspect of our minds--from the nature of consciousness to the causes of disorders like autism and schizophrenia. In Brain Cuttings, award-winning science writer Carl Zimmer takes readers on fascinating explorations of the frontiers of research, shedding light on our innermost existence--the speed of thought, our perception o.

• Signature
• E. coli and the elephant
• The system
• The E. coli watcher's field guide
• Everflux
• Death and kindness
• Darwin at the drugstore
• Open source
• Palimpsest
• Playing nature
• N equals one.

• 1. The clues
• 2. A budding branch
• 3. The walk begins
• 4. The toolmakers
• 5. Becoming human
• 6. Sapiens
• 7. The last wave
• 8. Where do we go from here?

New discoveries in the field of human evolution are changing our understanding of human origins almost daily. What does all this new knowledge about our species mean? Science journalist Zimmer offers an illuminating journey through our ancestry, beginning 65 million years ago with the first primates and ending today, as we enter a new phase of evolution. Along the way he re-examines the major steps in human evolution, as hominids began to stand upright, fashion tools and develop consciousness. What's most intriguing, he concludes, is that fossils are no longer the sole source of information about our origins--part of the story of where we came from turns out to be inscribed in our own DNA!--From publisher description.

Presents a rich and up-to-date view of evolution, exploring the far reaching implications of Darwin's theory, and including recent scientific findings.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

A tour of the strange and bizarre world that parasites inhabit. It follows researchers in parasitology as they attempt to penetrate the mysteries of these creatures who can control evolution, ecosystems and maybe even the human race.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

Evolution is one of the most hotly debated areas of popular science. Zimmer's account of cutting-edge scientific research and fieldwork helps to illuminate this particular chapter in the history of ideas.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• 1. The Whale and the virus : how scientists study evolution
• 2. From natural philosophy to Darwin : a brief history of evolutionary ideas
• 3. What the rocks say : how geology and paleontology reveal the history of life
• 4. The tree of life : how biologists use phylogeny to reconstruct the deep past
• 5. Raw material : heritable variation among individuals
• 6. The ways of change : drift and selection
• 7. Beyond alleles : quantitative genetics and the evolution of phenotypes
• 8. The history in our genes
• 9. From genes to traits : the evolution of genetic networks and development
• 10. Natural selection : empirical studies in the wild
• 11. Sex : causes and consequences
• 12. After conception : the evolution of life history and parental care
• 13. The origin of species
• 14. Macroevolution : the long run
• 15. Intimate partnerships : how species adapt to each other
• 16. Brains and behavior
• 17. Human Evolution : a new kind of ape
• 18. Evolutionary medicine

• Frontmatter
• Contents
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Human Viruses
• Vertebrate Animal Viruses
• Plant Viruses
• Invertebrate Animal Viruses
• Fungal and Protist Viruses
• Bacterial and Archaeal Viruses
• Glossary
• Further Resources
• Index
• Acknowledgments

This stunningly illustrated book provides a rare window into the amazing, varied, and often beautiful world of viruses. Contrary to popular belief, not all viruses are bad for you. In fact, several are beneficial to their hosts, and many are crucial to the health of our planet. Virus offers an unprecedented look at 101 incredible microbes that infect all branches of life on Earth-from humans and other animals to insects, plants, fungi, and bacteria.Featuring hundreds of breathtaking color images throughout, this guide begins with a lively and informative introduction to virology. Here readers can learn about the history of this unique science, how viruses are named, how their genes work, how they copy and package themselves, how they interact with their hosts, how immune systems counteract viruses, and how viruses travel from host to host. The concise entries that follow highlight important or interesting facts about each virus. Learn about the geographic origins of dengue and why old tires and unused pots help the virus to spread. Read about Ebola, Zika, West Nile, Frog virus 3, the Tulip breaking virus, and many others-how they were discovered, what their hosts are, how they are transmitted, whether or not there is a vaccine, and much more. Each entry is easy to read and includes a graphic of the virus, and nearly every entry features a colorized image of the virus as seen through the microscope.Written by a leading authority, this handsomely illustrated guide reveals the unseen wonders of the microbial world. It will give you an entirely new appreciation for viruses

Extinction and Evolution recounts the work and discoveries of Niles Eldredge, one of the world's most renowned paleontologists, whose research overturned Charles Darwin's theory of evolution as a slow and inevitable process, as published in On the Origin of Species in 1859. Darwin had concluded that evolutionary changes happened very slowly over millions of years. Eldredge's work, however, convinced him that Darwin was wrong and that major evolution of life forms does not happen to any significant degree until after a mass extinction event, thus disproving the traditional view of evolution. Eldredge's groundbreaking work is now accepted as the definitive statement of how life as we know it evolved on Earth. This book chronicles how Eldredge made his discoveries and traces the history of life through the lenses of paleontology, geology, ecology, anthropology, biology, genetics, zoology, mammalogy, herpetology, entomology and botany. While rigorously accurate, the text is accessible, engaging and free of jargon. Extinction and Evolution features 160 beautiful colour plates that bridge the gap between science and art. More than 200 different fossil specimens are shown, including photographs of some of the most significant fossil discoveries of recent years. This is a book with appeal to a broad general audience, including natural history readers and students.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)