Biology & Chemistry Audiobooks | Science & Technology

Evolution: The Remarkable History of a Scientific Theory

Edward J. Larson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and eminent science historian. This marvelously readable, yet sumptuously erudite work traces the development of the scientific theory of evolution. From Darwin's essential trip to the GalApagos, to the most contemporary studies in sociobiology, this work takes listeners both into the field and laboratories of the world's greatest evolutionary scientists, and shows how the theory of evolution has itself evolved.

Edward J. Larson (Author), John McDonough (Narrator)

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Exuberance: The Passion for Life

The author of the bestselling An Unquiet Mind-and internationally renowned authority on mood disorders-now gives us something wonderfully different: an exploration of exuberance and how it fuels our most important creative and scientific achievements. John Muir's lifelong passion to save America's wild places, Wilson Bentley's legendary obsession to record for posterity the beauty of individual snowflakes, the boundless scientific curiosity behind Watson and Crick's discovery of DNA, sea lions that surf and porcupines that dance-Kay Redfield Jamison shows how these and many more examples both human and animal define the nature of exuberance, and how this exuberance relates to intellectual searching, risk-taking, creativity, and survival itself. She examines the hereditary predisposition to exuberance; the role of the brain chemical dopamine; the connection between positive moods and psychological resilience; and the differences between exuberance and mania. She delves into some of the phenomena of exuberance-the contagiousness of laughter, the giddiness of new love, the intoxicating effects of music and of religious ecstasy-while also addressing the dangerous desire to simulate exuberance by using drugs or alcohol. In a fascinating and intimate coda to the rest of the book, renowned scientists, writers, and politicians share their thoughts on the forms and role of exuberance in their own lives. Original, inspiring, authoritative, Exuberance brims with the very energy and passion that it celebrates.

Kay Redfield Jamison (Author), Anne Twomey (Narrator)

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Exuberance: The Passion For Life

We have learned much about depression, but what about its opposite? Why hasn't the human emotion that lifts us, inspires us, drives us on, and makes life worth living been discussed-and celebrated? In this outstanding book, bestselling author Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison explores exuberance in all its unrestrained, joyful energy, and shows how its unique vitality is essential to our existence. Jamison points to the contagiousness of laughter, excitement, and positive feelings, and how it plays a role in choosing a mate, in the giddiness of new love, music, and religious ecstasy. She also discusses our dangerous desire to simulate exuberance by using drugs or alcohol. Most of all, Jamison points to some of our most famous artists and scientists to show how they all share an exuberance for life that inspires their discoveries, drives, and the force to persevere even when it seems the odds are against them.

Kay Redfield Jamison (Author), Bernadette Dunne (Narrator)

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Creating Humans: Ethical Questions Where Reproduction and Science Collide

In this course, we will discuss the various moral aspects of human reproduction from methods of conception to methods of ending a pregnancy. We will discuss the moral, cultural, legal, and political influences on reproduction as well as the scientific advances in reproductive technology. ** Please contact Customer Service for additional content**

Alexander McCall Smith (Author), Alexander McCall Smith (Narrator)

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The Genome War: How Craig Venter Tried to Capture the Code of Life and Save the World

The long-awaited story of the science, the business, the politics, the intrigue behind the scenes of the most ferocious competition in the history of modern science—the race to map the human genome. On May 10, 1998, biologist Craig Venter, director of the Institute for Genomic Research, announced that he was forming a private company that within three years would unravel the complete genetic code of human life—seven years before the projected finish of the U.S. government’s Human Genome Project. Venter hoped that by decoding the genome ahead of schedule, he would speed up the pace of biomedical research and save the lives of thousands of people. He also hoped to become very famous and very rich. Calling his company Celera (from the Latin for “speed”), he assembled a small group of scientists in an empty building in Rockville, Maryland, and set to work. At the same time, the leaders of the government program, under the direction of Francis Collins, head of the National Human Genome Research Institute at the National Institutes of Health, began to mobilize an unexpectedly unified effort to beat Venter to the prize—knowledge that had the potential to revolutionize medicine and society. The stage was set for one of the most thrilling—and important—dramas in the history of science. The Genome War is the definitive account of that drama—the race for the greatest prize biology has had to offer, told by a writer with exclusive access to Venter’s operation from start to finish. It is also the story of how one man’s ambition created a scientific Camelot where, for a moment, it seemed that the competing interests of pure science and commercial profit might be gloriously reconciled—and the national repercussions that resulted when that dream went awry.

James Shreeve (Author), Erik Singer (Narrator)

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The Genome War: How Craig Venter Tried to Capture the Code of Life and Save the World

The long-awaited story of the science, the business, the politics, the intrigue behind the scenes of the most ferocious competition in the history of modern science-the race to map the human genome. On May 10, 1998, biologist Craig Venter, director of the Institute for Genomic Research, announced that he was forming a private company that within three years would unravel the complete genetic code of human life-seven years before the projected finish of the U.S. government's Human Genome Project. Venter hoped that by decoding the genome ahead of schedule, he would speed up the pace of biomedical research and save the lives of thousands of people. He also hoped to become very famous and very rich. Calling his company Celera (from the Latin for "speed"), he assembled a small group of scientists in an empty building in Rockville, Maryland, and set to work. At the same time, the leaders of the government program, under the direction of Francis Collins, head of the National Human Genome Research Institute at the National Institutes of Health, began to mobilize an unexpectedly unified effort to beat Venter to the prize-knowledge that had the potential to revolutionize medicine and society. The stage was set for one of the most thrilling-and important-dramas in the history of science. The Genome War is the definitive account of that drama-the race for the greatest prize biology has had to offer, told by a writer with exclusive access to Venter's operation from start to finish. It is also the story of how one man's ambition created a scientific Camelot where, for a moment, it seemed that the competing interests of pure science and commercial profit might be gloriously reconciled-and the national repercussions that resulted when that dream went awry.

James Shreeve (Author), Erik Singer, Grover Gardner (Narrator)

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Death's Acre

Nowhere is there another lab like Dr. Bill Bass's: On a hillside in Tennessee, human bodies decompose in the open air, aided by insects, bacteria and birds, unhindered by coffins or mausoleums. At the "Body Farm," nature takes its course, with corpses buried in shallow graves, submerged in water, concealed beneath slabs of concrete, locked in trunks of cars. As stand-ins for murder victims, they serve the needs of science -- and the cause of justice. For thirty years, Dr. Bass's research has revolutionized the field of forensic science, particularly by pinpointing "time since death" in murder cases. In this riveting audiobook, he investigates real cases and leads listeners on an unprecedented journey behind the locked gates of the Body Farm. A master scientist and an engaging storyteller, Bass shares his most intriguing work: his revisit of the Lindbergh kidnapping and murder, fifty years after the fact; the mystery of a headless corpse whose identity astonished the police; the telltale bugs that finally sent a murderous grandfather to death row; and many more. Forensic science and murder investigations are among the most fascinating topics of our time. Dominating television and print media the subjects could not be hotter. As one of the world's leading forensic anthropologists, Dr. Bill Bass is the premier guide to this unusual realm.

Dr. Bill Bass, Jon Jefferson (Author), George Grizzard (Narrator)

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Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age

From the bestselling author of The End of Nature comes a passionate plea to limit the technologies that could change the very definition of who we are We are on the verge of crossing the line from born to made, from created to built. Sometime in the next few years, a scientist will reprogram a human egg or sperm cell, spawning a genetic change that could be passed down into eternity. We are sleepwalking toward the future, argues Bill McKibben, and it's time to open our eyes. In The End of Nature, nearly fifteen years ago, McKibben demonstrated that humanity had begun to irrevocably alter--and endanger--our environment on a global scale. Now he turns his eye to an array of technologies that could change our relationship not with the rest of nature but with ourselves. He explores the frontiers of genetic engineering, robotics, and nanotechnology--all of which we are approaching with astonishing speed--and shows that each threatens to take us past a point of no return. We now stand at a critical threshold, poised between the human past and a post-human future. Ultimately, McKibben offers a celebration of what it means to be human, and a warning that we risk the loss of all meaning if we step across the threshold. His wise and eloquent book argues that we cannot forever grow in reach and power--that we must at last learn how to say, "Enough."

Bill Mckibben (Author), Bill Mckibben (Narrator)

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Linked: The New Science of Networks

A cocktail party? A terrorist cell? Ancient bacteria? An international conglomerate? All are networks, and all are a part of a surprising scientific revolution. Albert-László Barabási, the nation’s foremost expert in the new science of networks and author of Bursts, takes us on an intellectual adventure to prove that social networks, corporations, and living organisms are more similar than previously thought. Grasping a full understanding of network science will someday allow us to design blue-chip businesses, stop the outbreak of deadly diseases, and influence the exchange of ideas and information. Just as James Gleick and the Erdos–Rényi model brought the discovery of chaos theory to the general public, Linked tells the story of the true science of the future and of experiments in statistical mechanics on the internet, all vital parts of what would eventually be called the Barabási–Albert model.

Albert-Laszlo Barabasi (Author), Henry Levya, Henry Leyva (Narrator)

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The Lost Dinosaurs of Egypt

The date is January 11, 1911. A young German paleontologist, accompanied only by a guide, a cook, four camels, and a couple of camel drivers, reaches the lip of the vast Bahariya Depression after a long trek across the bleak plateau of the western desert of Egypt. The scientist, Ernst Freiherr Stromer von Reichenbach, hopes to find fossil evidence of early mammals. In this, he will be disappointed, for the rocks here will prove to be much older than he thinks. They are nearly a hundred million years old. Stromer is about to learn that he has walked into the age of the dinosaurs. At the bottom of the Bahariya Depression, Stromer will find the remains of four immense and entirely new dinosaurs, along with dozens of other unique specimens. But there will be reversals—shipments delayed for years by war, fossils shattered in transit, stunning personal and professional setbacks. Then, in a single cataclysmic night, all of his work will be destroyed and Ernst Stromer will slip into history and be forgotten. The date is January 11, 2000—eighty-nine years to the day after Stromer descended into Bahariya. Another young paleontologist, Ameri-can graduate student Josh Smith, has brought a team of fellow scientists to Egypt to find Stromer’ s dinosaur graveyard and resurrect the German pioneer’s legacy. After weeks of digging, often under appalling conditions, they fail utterly at rediscovering any of Stromer’ s dinosaur species. Then, just when they are about to declare defeat, Smith’s team discovers a dinosaur of such staggering immensity that it will stun the world of paleontology and make headlines around the globe. Masterfully weaving together history, science, and human drama, The Lost Dinosaurs of Egypt is the gripping account of not one but two of the twentieth century’s great expeditions of discovery.

Josh Smith, William Nothdurft (Author), Michael C. Hall (Narrator)

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The Demon in the Freezer

"The bard of biological weapons captures the drama of the front lines." -Richard Danzig, former secretary of the navy The first major bioterror event in the United States-the anthrax attacks in October 2001-was a clarion call for scientists who work with "hot" agents to find ways of protecting civilian populations against biological weapons. In The Demon in the Freezer, his first nonfiction book since The Hot Zone, a #1 New York Times bestseller, Richard Preston takes us into the heart of Usamriid, the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Maryland, once the headquarters of the U.S. biological weapons program and now the epicenter of national biodefense. Peter Jahrling, the top scientist at Usamriid, a wry virologist who cut his teeth on Ebola, one of the world's most lethal emerging viruses, has ORCON security clearance that gives him access to top secret information on bioweapons. His most urgent priority is to develop a drug that will take on smallpox-and win. Eradicated from the planet in 1979 in one of the great triumphs of modern science, the smallpox virus now resides, officially, in only two high-security freezers-at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta and in Siberia, at a Russian virology institute called Vector. But the demon in the freezer has been set loose. It is almost certain that illegal stocks are in the possession of hostile states, including Iraq and North Korea. Jahrling is haunted by the thought that biologists in secret labs are using genetic engineering to create a new superpox virus, a smallpox resistant to all vaccines. Usamriid went into a state of Delta Alert on September 11 and activated its emergency response teams when the first anthrax letters were opened in New York and Washington, D.C. Preston reports, in unprecedented detail, on the government's response to the attacks and takes us into the ongoing FBI investigation. His story is based on interviews with top-level FBI agents and with Dr. Steven Hatfill. Jahrling is leading a team of scientists doing controversial experiments with live smallpox virus at CDC. Preston takes us into the lab where Jahrling is reawakening smallpox and explains, with cool and devastating precision, what may be at stake if his last bold experiment fails.

Richard Preston (Author), Paul Boehmer (Narrator)

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Great Minds of Science

Explore the Earth's last frontier, learn how the dinosaurs died, or discover the direction human evolution is heading. The world's greatest scientists are at your disposal in Great Minds of Science. Let them take you to the very frontiers of science, with narratives full of genius, personal insight, and enlightenment. In this tribute to mankind's ingenuity and boundless curiosity, get detailed explanations about dinosaurs, viruses, evolution, oceanography, astronomy, and artificial intelligence.

Dr. Robert Bakker (Author), Paul Hoffman, Paul Hoffmann (Narrator)

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Biology & Chemistry Audiobooks in Science & Technology