The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2023

Carl Zimmer

Jaime Green

Harpercollins

How the secrets of the brain were uncovered in 17th century England? We take it for granted that the brain is the seat of our minds, the part of our body that is most ourselves. 500 years ago, Europeans, if they thought about the brain at all, took it much less seriously - whether it was a refrigerator or a pump, it was seen as little more than a mechanism, its only products tears and snot. Among the revolutions of the seventeenth century was a revolution on the understanding of the brain and mind. It's central figure was a 17th century Englishman called Thomas Willis. To him, we owe our modern understanding of the miracle that is the human brain, the first dissections of the skull and the word 'psychology'. Zimmer's new book tells Willis' story against the background of Civil War, regicide and Restoration. Set in London and Oxford, we see the context of Willis' researches and dissections, meet his famous friends, the founders of the Royal Society, Boyle, Hooke and Sir Christopher Wren, who attended Willis' dissections and sketched the results. Few stories in the history of science are as important and fascinating - and as little-known - as this one. Carl Zimmer writes the monthly essay in the US magazine "Natural History", having inherited this position from Stephen Jay Gould.

Soul Made Flesh : How the Secrets of the Brain Were Uncovered in Seventeenth Century England

Biographies & Memoirs

Leaders & Notable People

Random House]

Almost every animal will at some time or other become the home of a parasite. Not only are parasites the most sucessful life-forms on Earth, they triggered the development of sex, shape, ecosystems, and have driven the engine of evolution. Carl Zimmer describes the frightening and amazing ingenuity these commando invaders use to devour their hosts from the inside and control their behaviour. "Sacculina carcini" makes its home in an unlucky crab and proceeds to eat everything but what the crab needs to put food in its mouth, which "Sacculina" then consumes. Single-celled "Toxoplama gondi" has an even more insidious role, for it can invade the human brain and cause personality changes, making its host less afraid and more prone to danger and a violent end - so that, in the carnage, it will be able to move on to another host. Finally, Zimmer concludes that humankind itself is a new kind of parasite, one that preys on the entire earth. If we are to achieve the sophistication of the parasites on display here in vivid detail, if we are to promote the flourishing of life in all its diversity as they do, we must learn the ways nature lives with itself, the laws of "Parasite Rex".

Parasite Rex : Inside the Bizarre World of Nature's Most Dangerous Creatures

Science & Math

Biological Sciences

Arrow

•Within days of being born, we are infected with billions of E. coli. They will inhabit each and every one of us until we die.  E. coli is notorious for making people gravely ill, but engineered strains of the bacteria  save millions of lives each year.•Despite its microscopic size, E.coli contains more than four thousand genes that operate a staggeringly sophisticated network of millions of molecules. •Scientists are rebuilding E. coli from the ground up, redefining our understanding of life on Earth.In the tradition of classics like Lewis Thomas's Lives of a Cell, Carl Zimmer has written a fascinating and utterly accessible investigation of what it means to be alive. Zimmer traces E. coli's remarkable history, showing how scientists used it to discover how genes work and then to launch the entire biotechnology industry. While some strains of E. coli grab headlines by causing deadly diseases, scientists are retooling the bacteria to produce everything from human insulin to jet fuel. Microcosm is the story of the one species on Earth that science knows best of all. It's also a story of life itself--of its rules, its mysteries, and its future.

Microcosm: E. coli and the New Science of Life

Pantheon

Where Did We Come From? : An Intimate Guide to the Latest Discoveries in Human Origins

ABC Books

Worms, protozoa, and other terrifying parasites, capable even of mind control. Author calls them the real drivers of evolution.

Parasite Rex: Inside the Bizarre World of Nature's Most Dangerous Creatures

Free Press

She Has Her Mother's Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity

Please Read Notes: Brand New, International Softcover Edition, Printed in black and white pages, minor self wear on the cover or pages, Sale restriction may be printed on the book, but Book name, contents, and author are exactly same as Hardcover Edition. Fast delivery through DHL/FedEx express.

PAN MACMILLAN U.K

Life's Edge: The Search for What it Means to be Alive

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.\nCarl Zimmer investigates one of the biggest questions of all: What is life? The answer seems obvious until you try to seriously answer it. Is the apple sitting on your kitchen counter alive, or is only the apple tree it came from deserving of the word? If we can't answer that question here on earth, how will we know when and if we discover alien life on other worlds? The question hangs over some of society's most charged conflicts--whether a fertilized egg is a living person, for example, and when we ought to declare a person legally dead.Charting the obsession with Dr. Frankenstein's monster and how Coleridge came to believe the whole universe was alive, Zimmer leads us all the way into the labs and minds of researchers working on engineering life from the ground up.

Picador

From the savannas of Africa to modern-day labs for biomechanical analysis and molecular genetics, Smithsonian Intimate Guide to Human Origins reveals how anthropologists are furiously redrawing the human family tree. Their discoveries have spawned a host of new Should chimpanzees be included as a human species? Was it the physical difficulty of human childbirth that encouraged the development of social groups in early human species? Did humans and Neanderthals interbreed? Why did humans supplant Neanderthals in the end? In answering such questions, Smithsonian Intimate Guide to Human Origins sheds new light on one of the most important questions of What makes us human?

Where Did We Come From?: An Intimate Guide to the Latest Discoveries in Human Origins

Apple Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Carl Zimmer. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Carl Zimmer

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Carl Zimmer. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2023

Soul Made Flesh : How the Secrets of the Brain Were Uncovered in Seventeenth Century England

Parasite Rex : Inside the Bizarre World of Nature's Most Dangerous Creatures

Microcosm: E. coli and the New Science of Life

Where Did We Come From? : An Intimate Guide to the Latest Discoveries in Human Origins

Parasite Rex: Inside the Bizarre World of Nature's Most Dangerous Creatures

She Has Her Mother's Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity

Life's Edge: The Search for What it Means to be Alive

Life's Edge: The Search for What it Means to be Alive

Where Did We Come From?: An Intimate Guide to the Latest Discoveries in Human Origins