検索キーワード： 解剖学・生理学

With its trillions of connections, the human brain is more beautiful and complex than anything we could ever build, but it’s far from perfect: our memory is unreliable; we can’t multiply large sums in our heads; advertising manipulates our judgment; we tend to distrust people who are different from us; supernatural beliefs and superstitions are hard to shake; we prefer instant gratification to long-term gain; and what we presume to be rational decisions are often anything but.

The dean of Columbia University's medical school explains why our bodies are out of sync with today's environment and how we can correct this to save our health. Over the past 200 years, human life-expectancy has approximately doubled. Yet we face soaring worldwide rates of obesity, diabetes...

In this "powerful and unflinching page-turner" (New York Times), a healthcare journalist examines the science, history, and culture of breast cancer. As a health-care journalist, Kate Pickert knew the emotional highs and lows of medical treatment well -- but always from a distance, through the...

Pain is complicated. But most of the time, the way we treat pain is superficial - we seek out states of perfect painlessness by avoiding it at all costs, or suppressing it, usually with drugs. This has left us hurting all the more. Through in-depth interviews, investigation into the history of pain and original research, Ouch! paints a new picture of pain as a complex and multi-layered phenomenon.

The question of how and why organisms age has teased scientists for centuries. There are myriad competing theories, from the idea that ageing is a simple wear and tear process, like the rusting of a car, to the belief that ageing and death are genetically programmed and controlled. In fact, there is no clearly defined limit to life and no single, predictable program playing itself out: different things are happening within and between tissues, and each system or organ accumulates damage at its own pace, according to the kind of insults imposed on it by daily living.

The human body is like an exceedingly well-fortified castle, defended by billions of soldiers - some live for less than a day, others remember battles for decades, but all are essential in protecting us from disease. This hidden army is our immune system, and without it we could not survive the eternal war between us and our microscopic enemies. Immune explores the incredible arsenal that lives within us - how it knows what to attack and what to defend and how it kills everything from the common cold to the plague bacterium.

What happens when we accept that everything we feel and think stems not from an immaterial spirit but from electrical and chemical activity in our brains? In this thought-provoking narrative - drawn from professional expertise as well as personal life experiences - trailblazing neurophilosopher Patricia S. Churchland grounds the philosophy of mind in the essential ingredients of biology. She reflects with humor on how she came to harmonize science and philosophy, the mind and the brain, abstract ideals and daily life.

The beginning of the modern contraceptive era began in 1882, when Dr. Aletta Jacobs opened the first birth control clinic in Amsterdam. The founding of this facility, and the clinical provision of contraception that it enabled, marked the moment when physicians started to take the prevention of pregnancy seriously as a medical concern. In this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, Donna Drucker traces the history of modern contraception, outlining the development, manufacturing, and use of contraceptive methods from the opening of Dr. Jacobs' clinic to the present.

The story of evolution as you’ve never heard it before. What’s the easiest way to tell species apart? Check their genitals. Researching private parts was long considered taboo, but scientists are now beginning to understand that the wild diversity of sex organs across species can tell us a lot about evolution. Menno Schilthuizen invites listeners to join him as he uncovers the ways the shapes and functions of genitalia have been molded by complex Darwinian struggles.

In this informative and highly entertaining account, intrepid science reporter Florence Williams sets out to uncover the latest scientific findings from the fields of anthropology, biology, and medicine. Her investigation follows the life cycle of the breast from puberty to pregnancy to menopause, taking her from a plastic surgeon's office, where she learns about the importance of cup size in Texas, to the laboratory, where she discovers the presence of environmental toxins in her own breast milk.

Everything from neurons to consciousness in the blink of an eye (which takes 300 milliseconds). Take a "fantastic voyage" through the whorls and curves of the human brain, no miniaturization required. Learn everything from how quickly you can possibly think (and that left-handed people think...

The Well-Dressed Ape, aka Homo sapiens, is a strange mammal. It thinks of itself as complex, intelligent, and in every way superior to other animals - but is it, really? With wit, humility, and penetrating insight, science journalist Hannah Holmes casts the inquisitive eye of a trained researcher and reporter on...herself. And not just on herself, but on our whole species - what Shakespeare called "the paragon of animals."

The Self Delusion is an explosive, powerful and inspiring book that brings together overwhelming evidence against the illusion we have of ourselves as independent beings - and explains how understanding our many connections may be the key to a better future.

Close your eyes and ask yourself, 'What do I feel?' What was your experience? Did you feel the physical presence of your body - its size, its shape? Did you feel any of your body's needs, like hunger or thirst? You probably also had a sense of whether you were feeling healthy or unwell. All of these sensations are kinds of body feelings, and although many of them are always present, in modern life we don't pay much attention to them.

Here are some facts: Women live longer than men. They have stronger immune systems. They're better at fighting cancer and surviving famine, and even see the world in a wider variety of colors. They are simply stronger than men at every stage of life. Why is this? And why are we taught the opposite? To find out, Dr. Sharon Moalem drew on his own medical experiences - treating premature babies in the neonatal intensive care unit; recruiting the elderly for neurogenetic studies; and more - and tried to understand why in every instance men were consistently less likely to thrive.

Nicolelis undertakes the first attempt to explain the entirety of human history, culture, and civilization based on a series of recently uncovered key principles of brain function. This new cosmology is centered around three fundamental properties of the human brain: its insurmountable malleability to adapt and learn; its exquisite ability to allow multiple individuals to synchronize their minds around a task, goal, or belief; and its incomparable capacity for abstraction.

When Donald Johanson found a partial skeleton, approximately 3.5 million years old, in a remote region of Ethiopia in 1974, a headline-making controversy was launched that continues today. Bursting with all the suspense and intrigue of a fast-paced adventure novel, here is Johanson’s lively account of the extraordinary discovery of “Lucy.” By expounding the controversial change Lucy makes in our view of human origins, Johanson provides a vivid, behind-the-scenes account of the history of paleoanthropology and the colorful, eccentric characters who were, and are, a part of it.

A raccoon bite on the arm doesn’t seem that serious, but it soon becomes a life-or-death medical crisis for Melissa Loomis. After days of treatment for recurring infection, it becomes obvious that her arm must be amputated. Dr. Ajay Seth, the son of immigrant parents from India and a local...

In a destitute hospital in the crowded African city of Kikwit, townspeople, nurses, and doctors are dying of a gruesome disease at the rate of more than a dozen a day. Zaire is on the brink of an explosive epidemic - but the outbreak is stopped when experts from the Centers for Disease Control...

“Persuasive, impassioned... hopeful news [for those] suffering from functional bowel disease.” — New York Times Book Review Dr. Gershon’s groundbreaking book fills the gap between what you need to know—and what your doctor has time to tell you. Dr. Michael Gershon has devoted his...