"In the mid-1970s, scientists began using DNA sequences to reexamine the history of all life. Perhaps the most startling discovery to come out of this new field—the study of life’s diversity and relatedness at the molecular level—is horizontal gene transfer (HGT), or the movement of genes across species lines. It turns out that HGT has been widespread and important. For instance, we now know that roughly eight percent of the human...

"For evolutionary biologists Heather Heying and Bret Weinstein, the cause of many modern woes is clear: the world is out of sync with humans' ancient brains and bodies. The authors cut through the disputes surrounding issues like sex, gender, diet, parenting, sleep, education, and more to outline a science-based worldview that will empower the reader to live a better, wiser life. They distill more than twenty years of research and first-hand accounts...

"Most historians study the smallest slivers of time, emphasizing specific dates, individuals, and documents. But what would it look like to study the whole of history, from the big bang through the present day--and even into the remote future? How would looking at the full span of time change the way we perceive the universe, the earth, and our very existence? These were the questions David Christian set out to answer when he created the field of...

Before the universe was formed, before time and space existed, there was ... nothing. But then ... BANG! Stars caught fire and burned so long that they exploded, flinging stardust everywhere. And the ash of those stars turned into planets. Into our Earth. And into us. In a poetic text, Marion Dane Bauer takes readers from the trillionth of a second when our universe was born to the singularities that became each one of us, while vivid illustrations...

Explores the connection between dogs and humans from hunter-gatherer partners to modern day pets, focusing on how humans have influenced dogs' evolution and raising new questions about the species' shared future.

"In Eve, Cat Bohannon answers questions scientists should have been addressing for decades. With boundless curiosity and sharp wit, Bohannon covers the past 200 million years to explain the specific science behind the development of the female sex. Eve is not just a sweeping revision of human history, it's an urgent and necessary corrective for a world that has focused primarily on the male body for far too long. Bohannon's findings, including everything...

Origins explores cosmic science's stunning new insights into the formation and evolution of our universe--of the cosmos, of galaxies and galaxy clusters, of stars within galaxies, of planets that orbit those stars, and of different forms of life that take us back to the first three seconds and forward through three billion years of life on Earth to today's search for life on other planets. Drawing on the current cross-pollination of geology, biology,...

The theory of evolution unites the past, present, and future of living things. It puts humanity's place in the universe into necessary perspective. Despite a history of controversy, the evidence for evolution continues to accumulate as a result of many separate strands of amazing scientific sleuthing.
In The Story of Evolution in 25 Discoveries, Donald R. Prothero explores the most fascinating breakthroughs in piecing together the evidence

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"Arrested? For teaching? John Scopes's crime riveted the world, and crowds flocked to the trial of the man who dared to tell students about a forbidden topic--evolution. The year was 1925, and discussing Darwin's theory of evolution was illegal in Tennessee classrooms. Lawyers wanted to challenge the law, and businessmen smelled opportunity. But no one imagined the firestorm the Scopes Trial would ignite--or the media circus that would follow. As...

The science on race is clear. Common categories like "Black," "white," and "Asian" do not represent genetic differences among groups. But if race is a pernicious fiction according to natural science, it is all too significant in the day-to-day lives of racialized people across the globe. Inequities in health, wealth, and an array of other life outcomes cannot be explained without referring to "race"—but their true source is racism.

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