Biology & Chemistry Audiobooks | Science & Technology

"Dr. Francis Collins, head of the Human Genome Project, is one of the world's leading scientists -- yet he is also a man of unshakable faith in God and scripture. Dr. Collins has resolved the dilemma that haunts everyone who believes in God and respects science. Faith in God and faith in science can be harmonious -- not separately but together, combined into one worldview. For Collins, science does not conflict with the Bible, science enhances it. The Language of God makes the case for God and for science. Dr. Collins considers and dismisses several positions along the spectrum from atheism to young-earth creationism -- including agnosticism and Intelligent Design. Instead, he proposes a new synthesis, a new way to think about an active, caring God who created humankind through evolutionary processes. He explains his own journey from atheism to faith, and then takes listeners on a stunning tour of modern science to show that physics, chemistry, and biology can all fit together with belief in God and the Bible. The Language of God is essential for anyone who wonders about the deepest questions of all: Why are we here? How did we get here? And what does life mean? " ** Please contact Member Services for additional documents.

Francis S. Collins (Author), Francis S. Collins (Narrator)

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The First Human: The Race to Discover Our Earliest Ancestors

This dynamic chronicle of the race to find the "missing links" between humans and apes transports readers into the highly competitive world of fossil hunting and into the lives of the ambitious scientists intent on pinpointing the dawn of humankind. The quest to find where and when the earliest human ancestors first appeared is one of the most exciting and challenging of all scientific pursuits. The First Human is the story of four international teams obsessed with solving the mystery of human evolution and of the intense rivalries that propel them. An award-winning science writer, Ann Gibbons introduces the various maverick fossil hunters and describes their most significant discoveries in Africa. There is Tim White, the irreverent and brilliant Californian whose team discovered the partial skeleton of a primate that lived more than 4.4 million years ago in Ethiopia. If White can prove that it was hominid---an ancestor of humans and not of chimpanzees or other great apes---he can lay claim to discovering the oldest known member of the human family. As White painstakingly prepares the bones, the French paleontologist Michel Brunet comes forth with another, even more startling find. Well known for his work in the most remote and hostile locations, Brunet and his team uncover a stunning skull in Chad that could set the date of the beginnings of humankind to almost seven million years ago. Two other groups---one led by the zoologist Meave Leakey, the other by the British geologist Martin Pickford and his partner, Brigitte Senut, a French paleontologist---enter the race with landmark discoveries of other fossils vying for the status of the first human ancestor. Through scrupulous research and vivid first-person reporting, The First Human takes readers behind the scenes to reveal the intense challenges of fossil hunting on a grand competitive scale.

Ann Gibbons (Author), Renee Raudman (Narrator)

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Before the Dawn

Based on a groundbreaking synthesis of recent scientific findings, critically acclaimed New York Times science reporter Nicholas Wade tells a bold and provocative new story of the history of our ancient ancestors and the evolution of human nature. Just in the last three years a flood of new scientific findings---driven by revelations discovered in the human genome---has provided compelling new answers to many long-standing mysteries about our most ancient ancestors---the people who first evolved in Africa and then went on to colonize the whole world. Nicholas Wade weaves this host of news-making findings together for the first time into an intriguing new history of the human story before the dawn of civilization. Sure to stimulate lively controversy, he makes the case for novel arguments about many hotly debated issues such as the evolution of language and race and the genetic roots of human nature, and reveals that human evolution has continued even to today. In wonderfully lively and lucid prose, Wade reveals the answers that researchers have ingeniously developed to so many puzzles: When did language emerge? When and why did we start to wear clothing? How did our ancestors break out of Africa and defeat the more physically powerful Neanderthals who stood in their way? Why did the different races evolve, and why did we come to speak so many different languages? When did we learn to live with animals and where and when did we domesticate man's first animal companions, dogs? How did human nature change during the thirty-five thousand years between the emergence of fully modern humans and the first settlements? This will be the most talked about science book of the season.

Nicholas Wade (Author), Michael Prichard (Narrator)

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A New Understanding of the Atom

The concept of the atom'the smallest physical building block of nature'has been around at least since ancient Greece. Leucippus and Democritus conceived of a mechanical or physical atom; in the Middle Ages the Islamic philosophers Ibn Rushd and Agostino Nifo added a chemical role to atomic theory. In the 17th century, Descartes' mechanical philosophy extended the idea of a corpuscle moving in a 'plenum'; and Robert Boyle suggested the possibility of subatomic particles. During the 18th and 19th centuries, atomic theory was involved in the growing understanding of chemistry and in debates about whether light is made of particles or waves. Atoms also were used to theoretically explain electricity, especially after J.C.Maxwell in 1873 showed that light, electricity, and magnetism are all forms of electromagnetic radiation. J.J. Thompson discovered the electron in 1897, stimulating interest in the internal structure of the atom. Prominent models of the atom included Kelvin's vortex model (1867), Thompson's plum pudding model (1904), and Rutherford's nuclear model (1911). Experimental and theoretical problems began to undermine classical physical theory, and in 1900 Max Panck postulated the 'quantum''a smallest possible unit of energy. Energy thus became 'atomized'; in 1905. Einstein's studies of the photoelectric effect suggested that light itself is atomized. In 1912, Neils Bohr created an atomic model that has 'rings' of orbiting electrons, thus accommodating quantum theory and the latest experimental results. Continued elaboration of this model produced what's called the 'Copenhagen Interpretation'; this conception of the atom explains experimental results yet it abandons precise definition of atomic behavior, abandons classical continuity in favor of quantum discontinuity, uses statistics rather than unambiguous definition, and abandons many traditional notions of determinism and causality.

John T. Sanders (Author), Edwin Newman (Narrator)

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David Attenborough: Zoo Quest For A Dragon

David Attenborough first appeared in front of a television camera in the 1950s when, together with London Zoo's Curator of Reptiles, Jack Lester, he persuaded the BBC to mount and film a joing animal-collecting expedition. The result was Zoo Quest. With its stunning photography, well-written scripts and David Attenborough's now instantly-recognisable narration, the series was an instant success. This behind-the-scenes look at how the first programmes were made reveals moments of hardship on horseback, canoe and in a wreck of a jeep through swamp, desert and rainforest. Attenborough tells of danger on the crew's hazardous boat trip with a gun-smuggling captain and the terror of erupting volcanoes. He also depicts for the listener some of the incredible sights he and his team witnessed breathtaking butterflies, taking tea with Charlie the orang-utan and the the voyage to the little-known island of Komodo to capture the elusive Komodo Dragon. Specially recorded for audio, David Attenborough's early adventures are sometimes life-threatening, often hilarious and always totally absorbing. The warmth and enthusiasm that have made him a broadcasting legend are instantly apparent here as he recounts this magical journey.

David Attenborough, David Attenborough (Author), David Attenborough, David Attenborough (Narrator)

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Healthy at 100: The Scientifically Proven Secrets of the World's Healthiest and Longest-Lived People

Why do some people age in failing health and sadness while others grow old with vitality and joy? Bringing the traditions of vibrantly healthy cultures together with the latest breakthroughs in medical science, Robbins reveals the secrets for living a fulfilling life and aging with wisdom, vitality, and happiness.

John Robbins (Author), Raymond Todd (Narrator)

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Consumer's Guide to a Brave New World

What is embryonic stem cell research and why is it so controversial? What are the implications of biotech companies manufacturing human embryos as "products"? Wesley J. Smith presents a clear-eyed vision of two potential futures. In one, biotechnology will be a powerful tool to treat disease and improve the quality of our lives. But in another, darker scenario, we will be steered into the antihuman path that Aldous Huxley warned against fifty years ago, before science fiction became science fact. "Smith deserves exceptionally high marks for providing an eminently readable, profoundly insightful and thoughtful conversation on the impact of biotechnology."-American Conservative

Wesley J. Smith (Author), Brian Emerson, Brian Emerson (Narrator)

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Our Inner Ape: A Leading Primatologist Explains Why We Are Who We Are

We have long attributed man's violent, aggressive, competitive nature to his animal ancestry. But what if we are just as given to cooperation, empathy, and morality by virtue of our genes? What if our behavior actually makes us apes? What kind of apes are we? From a scientist and writer E. O. Wilson has called "the world authority on primate social behavior" comes a fascinating look at the most provocative aspects of human nature-power, sex, violence, kindness, and morality-through our two closest cousins in the ape family. For nearly twenty years, Frans de Waal has worked with both the famously aggressive chimpanzee and the lesser-known egalitarian, erotic, matriarchal bonobo, two species whose DNA is nearly identical to that of humans. De Waal shows the range of human behavior through his study of chimpanzees and bonobos, drawing from their personalities, relationships, power struggles, and high jinks important insights about our human behavior. The result is an engrossing and surprising narrative that reveals what their behavior can teach us about our own nature.

Frans De Waal (Author), Alan Sklar (Narrator)

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Die Evolution des Lebens

Das Leben existiert seit circa vier Milliarden Jahren auf unserem Planeten. Doch wie entstand es? Kam das Leben aus dem Weltall? Wie kam es zur Menschwerdung und wohin steuert das Leben? Am 26. Oktober 4004 vor Christus, um 9.00 Uhr morgens, kam das Leben auf die Welt. Dieses exakte Datum errechnete der irische Bischof Ussher im 17. Jahrhundert. Er zählte einfach das Alter aller in der Bibel verzeichneten Menschen, von Adam bis Christus, zusammen. Die heutige Wissenschaft kann sich nicht auf die Stunde genau festlegen, wann das Leben auf die Erde kam. Sicher ist nur: Das Leben existiert seit rund vier Milliarden Jahren auf unserem Planeten. Diese Dokumentation ist eine Abenteuer-Entdeckungsreise zurück in eine Zeit, in der das Leben entstand. Sie fasst die Forschungsergebnisse, die in den letzten Jahren auf dem Gebiet der Evolution gemacht wurden, zusammen. Das Phänomen 'Leben' lässt aber noch immer viele Fragen offen.

Klaus Kamphausen (Author), Achim Höppner (Narrator)

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The Genius Factory: The Curious History of the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank

It was the most radical human-breeding experiment in American history, and no one knew how it turned out. The Repository for Germinal Choice-nicknamed the Nobel Prize sperm bank-opened to notorious fanfare in 1980, and for two decades, women flocked to it from all over the country to choose a sperm donor from its roster of Nobel-laureate scientists, mathematical prodigies, successful businessmen, and star athletes. But the bank quietly closed its doors in 1999-its founder dead, its confidential records sealed, and the fate of its children and donors unknown. In early 2001, award-winning columnist David Plotz set out to solve the mystery of the Nobel Prize sperm bank. Plotz wrote an article for Slate inviting readers to contact him-confidentially-if they knew anything about the bank. The next morning, he received an email response, then another, and another-each person desperate to talk about something they had kept hidden for years. Now, in The Genius Factory, Plotz unfolds the full and astonishing story of the Nobel Prize sperm bank and its founder's radical scheme to change our world. Believing America was facing genetic catastrophe, Robert Graham, an eccentric millionaire, decided he could reverse the decline by artificially inseminating women with the sperm of geniuses. In February 1980, Graham opened the Repository for Germinal Choice and stocked it with the seed of gifted scientists, inventors, and thinkers. Over the next nineteen years, Graham's "genius factory" produced more than two hundred children. What happened to them? Were they the brilliant offspring that Graham expected? Did any of the "superman" fathers care about the unknown sons and daughters who bore their genes? What were the mothers like? Crisscrossing the country and logging countless hours online, Plotz succeeded in tracking down previously unknown family members-teenage half-brothers who ended up following vastly different paths, mothers who had wondered for years about the identities of the donors they had selected on the basis of code names and brief character profiles, fathers who were proud or ashamed or simply curious about the children who had been created from their sperm samples. The children of the "genius factory" are messengers from the future-a future that is bearing down on us fast. What will families be like when parents routinely "shop" for their kids' genes? What will children be like when they're programmed for greatness? In this stunning, eye-opening book, one of our finest young journalists previews America's coming age of genetic expectations.

David Plotz (Author), Stefan Rudnicki (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Genius Factory: The Curious History of the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank

It was the most radical human-breeding experiment in American history, and no one knew how it turned out. The Repository for Germinal Choice–nicknamed the Nobel Prize sperm bank–opened to notorious fanfare in 1980, and for two decades, women flocked to it from all over the country to choose a sperm donor from its roster of Nobel-laureate scientists, mathematical prodigies, successful businessmen, and star athletes. But the bank quietly closed its doors in 1999–its founder dead, its confidential records sealed, and the fate of its children and donors unknown. In early 2001, award-winning columnist David Plotz set out to solve the mystery of the Nobel Prize sperm bank. Plotz wrote an article for Slate inviting readers to contact him–confidentially–if they knew anything about the bank. The next morning, he received an email response, then another, and another–each person desperate to talk about something they had kept hidden for years. Now, in The Genius Factory, Plotz unfolds the full and astonishing story of the Nobel Prize sperm bank and its founder’s radical scheme to change our world. Believing America was facing genetic catastrophe, Robert Graham, an eccentric millionaire, decided he could reverse the decline by artificially inseminating women with the sperm of geniuses. In February 1980, Graham opened the Repository for Germinal Choice and stocked it with the seed of gifted scientists, inventors, and thinkers. Over the next nineteen years, Graham’s “genius factory” produced more than two hundred children. What happened to them? Were they the brilliant offspring that Graham expected? Did any of the “superman” fathers care about the unknown sons and daughters who bore their genes? What were the mothers like? Crisscrossing the country and logging countless hours online, Plotz succeeded in tracking down previously unknown family members–teenage half-brothers who ended up following vastly different paths, mothers who had wondered for years about the identities of the donors they had selected on the basis of code names and brief character profiles, fathers who were proud or ashamed or simply curious about the children who had been created from their sperm samples. The children of the “genius factory” are messengers from the future–a future that is bearing down on us fast. What will families be like when parents routinely “shop” for their kids’ genes? What will children be like when they’re programmed for greatness? In this stunning, eye-opening book, one of our finest young journalists previews America’s coming age of genetic expectations. From the Hardcover edition.

David Plotz (Author), Stefan Rudnicki (Narrator)

Audiobook

Darwin, Darwinism, and the Modern World

The history of Western civilization can be divided neatly into pre-Darwinian and post-Darwinian periods. Darwin's 1859 treatise, On the Origin of Species, was not the first work to propose that organisms had descended from other, earlier organisms, and the mechanism of evolution it proposed remained controversial for years. Nevertheless, no biologist after 1859 could ignore Darwin's theories, and few areas of thought and culture remained immune to their influence. Darwinism was attacked, defended, debated, modified, ridiculed, championed, interpreted, and used not only by biologists but also by philosophers, priests, sociologists, warmongers, cartoonists, robber-barons, psychologists, novelists, and politicians of arious stripes. This course will introduce the major themes of Darwin's works and explore their diverse, often contradictory impacts on science and society from 1859 to the present. ** Please contact Customer Service for additional content.

Chandak Sengoopta, Dr. Chandak Sengoopta (Author), Richard Davidson, Richard M. Davidson (Narrator)

Audiobook

Biology & Chemistry Audiobooks in Science & Technology