検索キーワード： 制作 "Audible studios" 生物学

In recent years, scientists have hypothesized life-forms that can only be called "weird": organisms that live off acid rather than water, microbes that thrive at temperatures and pressure levels so extreme that their cellular structures should break down, perhaps even organisms that reproduce without DNA. Some of these strange life-forms, unrelated to all life we know, might be nearby: on rock surfaces in the American southwest, hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor, or even in our own bodies. Some, stranger still, might live in Martian permafrost, swim in the dark oceans of Jupiter's moons, or survive in the exotic ices on comets.

We have long fantasized about finding life on planets other than our own. Yet even as we become aware of the vast expanses beyond our solar system, it remains clear that Earth is exceptional. The question is: Why? In Lucky Planet, astrobiologist David Waltham argues that Earth’s climate stability is what makes it uniquely able to support life, and it is nothing short of luck that made such conditions possible. The four-billion-year stretch of good weather that our planet has experienced is statistically so unlikely that chances are slim that we will ever encounter intelligent extraterrestrial others.

Did you know that the CIA once made use of a “spy cat”, or that, although delicious, eating the flesh of an armadillo can give you leprosy? And what about Terry, the small black Cairn Terrier from Kansas who was paid today’s equivalent of $2,000 a week for her work in The Wizard of Oz? Even if you think you have a handle on all things trivia, you're guaranteed a big surprise with Now I Know: Animals.

In What's Eating You? Eugene Kaplan recounts the true and harrowing tales of his adventures with parasites, and in the process introduces readers to the intimately interwoven lives of host and parasite.

Bedbugs. Few words strike such fear in the minds of travelers. In cities around the world, lurking beneath the plush blankets of otherwise pristine-looking hotel beds, are tiny, bloodthirsty beasts just waiting for weary wanderers to surrender to vulnerable slumber. Though bedbugs today have infested the globe, the common bedbug is not a new pest at all. Indeed, as Brooke Borel reveals in this unusual history, this most-reviled species may date back over 250,000 years.

John Tyler Bonner, one of our most distinguished and insightful biologists, here challenges a central tenet of evolutionary biology. In this concise, elegantly written book, he makes the bold and provocative claim that some biological diversity may be explained by something other than natural selection. With his customary wit and accessible style, Bonner makes an argument for the underappreciated role that randomness - or chance - plays in evolution.

If we are, in part, a product of our genes, can free will exist? Incisive and engaging, this indispensable tour of evolutionary biology runs the gamut of contemporary debates, from science and religion to our place in the universe.

More than anything else, this is a book about love. In this deeply moving account, you will hear about Rambo, a sheep who informs the staff when another animal is in trouble; and Paulie, a former cockfighting rooster who eats lunch with humans; Dino, an old toothless pony who survived a fire; and many more. Alongside these horses, roosters, pigs, sheep, rabbits, cows, and other animals is a staff of loving humans for whom every animal life, even that of a frog rushed to the vet for emergency surgery, has merit.

As human beings, we are fascinated by what makes us tick. We know that nature gave us certain biological appetites to ensure our survival, among those the need for water, food, sex, and love, but meeting these alone is not enough to ensure happiness. Scientists, and now managers, are realizing that people have a biological need to experience social rewards like praise, the thrill of innovation, and the satisfaction of acquiring new skills.

Our health care system is crippled by desperate efforts to prevent the inevitable. A third of the national Medicare budget - nearly $175 billion - is spent on the final year of life, and a third of that amount on the final month, often on expensive (and futile) treatments. Such efforts betray a fundamental flaw in how we think about healthcare: we squander resources on hopeless situations, instead of using them to actually improve health.

Here is a scientific look at zombies - and the ultimate guide to how the other half lives (or not). How fast and far would a zombie infection spread? What would a nutritionist say about an all-brain diet? Why are the undead so pissed off? Here are the answers to all of your essential zombie questions (you know you've asked them), with a lively, science-based exploration of every aspect of the undead.

The Western world has had an enduring love affair with dolphins since the early 1960s, with fanciful claims of their 'healing powers' and 'super intelligence'. Myths and pseudoscience abound on the subject. Justin Gregg weighs up the claims made about dolphin intelligence and separates scientific fact from fiction. He puts our knowledge about dolphin behavior and intelligence into perspective, with comparisons to scientific studies of other animals, especially the crow family and great apes.

A compelling investigation into one of our most coveted and cherished ideals, and the efforts of modern science to penetrate the mysterious nature of this timeless virtue. We all recognize wisdom, but defining it is more elusive. In this fascinating journey from philosophy to science, Stephen S. Hall gives us a dramatic history of wisdom, from its sudden emergence in four different locations (Greece, China, Israel, and India) in the fifth century B.C. to its modern manifestations.

What causes a child to grow up gay or straight? In this book, neuroscientist Simon LeVay summarizes a wealth of scientific evidence that points to one inescapable conclusion: Sexual orientation results primarily from an interaction between genes, sex hormones, and the cells of the developing body and brain. LeVay helped create this field in 1991 with a much-publicized study in Science, where he reported on a difference in the brain structure between gay and straight men. Since then, an entire scientific discipline has sprung up around the quest for a biological explanation of sexual orientation. In this book, LeVay provides a clear explanation of where the science stands today, taking the reader on a whirlwind tour of laboratories that specialize in genetics, endocrinology, neuroscience, cognitive psychology, evolutionary psychology, and family demographics. He describes, for instance, how researchers have manipulated the sex hormone levels of animals during development, causing them to mate preferentially with animals of their own gender. LeVay also reports on the prevalence of homosexual behavior among wild animals, ranging from Graylag geese to the Bonobo chimpanzee.

In Strange Bedfellows, David P. Barash and Judith Eve Lipton look at how biology actually promotes monogamy in some species and how these lessons apply to human beings. An accessible work of science that is relevant to our intimate daily life, Strange Bedfellows will reassure some people, surprise others, and engage everyone.

In this classic work that continues to inspire its many fans, James Lovelock deftly explains his idea that life on Earth functions as a single organism. Written for the non-scientist, Gaia is a journey through time and space in search of evidence with which to support a new and radically different model of our planet. In contrast to conventional belief that living matter is passive in the face of threats to its existence, the book explores the hypothesis that the Earth's living matter - air, ocean, and land surfaces - forms a complex system that has the capacity to keep the Earth a fit place for life.

Emmy Award - winning filmmaker, writer, and naturalist Joe Hutto has done it again. Touching the Wild is the enchanting story about one man who has lived with a herd of mule deer in the Wind River mountains of Wyoming for almost seven years. Why, you may ask, would a person choose to do such a thing? His response: how could you not? For Joe Hutto, close proximity to wild things is irresistible. In Illumination in the Flatwoods he unveiled the secret lives of the wild turkey to great critical acclaim.

While we joke that men are from Mars and women are from Venus, our gender differences can't compare to those of other animals. For instance: the male garden spider spontaneously dies after mating with a female more than fifty times his size. Female cichlids must guard their eggs and larvae--even from the hungry appetites of their own partners. And male blanket octopuses employ a copulatory arm longer than their own bodies to mate with females that outweigh them by four orders of magnitude. Why do these gender gulfs exist?

James Dearsley’s wife thought he had lost his mind when he announced his intention to become a beekeeper. But like many interested in the self-sufficient lifestyle, he loved gardening and growing vegetables on his allotment and the old romantic in him had idealistic notions of teaching his little boy where honey came from, so he set himself what seemed a reasonable goal: to get, in a year’s time, just one jar of honey.

We inherit mechanisms for survival from our primeval past - none so obviously as those involved in reproduction. The hormone testosterone underlies the organization of activation of masculinity: It changes the body and brain to make a male. It is involved not only in sexuality but in driving aggression, competitiveness, risk-taking - all elements that were needed for successful survival and reproduction in the past. But these ancient systems are carried forward into a modern world.