Biological Sciences

As the country's top forensic pathologist, Dr Richard Shepherd has spent a lifetime uncovering the secrets of the dead....

Until very recently, science had no answer to the question of why we sleep, or what good it served, or why its absence is so damaging to our health....

People talk a lot about the problems with intensive farming. But the problem isn't the adjective. It's the noun....

All around us people are looking at their phones too much, eating too much, drinking too much. Our world is addicted to fleeting distracting pleasures that get us nowhere. Dr Anna Lembke provides a clear way back to a balanced life....

Dawkins' brilliant reformulation of the theory of natural selection has the distinction of having provoked as much excitement and interest outside the scientific community as within it....

Neither plant nor animal, it is found throughout the earth, the air and our bodies....

As a botanist and professor of plant ecology, Robin Wall Kimmerer has spent a career learning how to ask questions of nature using the tools of science....

For decades, the medical community has looked to a variety of reasons for why we age, and the consensus is that no-one dies of old age; they die of age-related diseases....

How do trees live? Do they feel pain or have awareness of their surroundings? Research is now suggesting trees are capable of much more than we have ever known....

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Guns, Germs and Steel examines the rise of civilization and the issues its development has raised throughout history....

This memoir is soaked in the sunshine of Corfu, where Gerald Durrell lived as a boy, surrounded by his eccentric family....

A bold, provocative exploration of the tension between our evolutionary history and our modern woes and what we can do about it....

Why do you lose arguments with people who know MUCH LESS than you?Why can you recognise that woman, from that thing...but can't remember her name?....

Cosmos is one of the bestselling science books of all time. In clear-eyed prose, Sagan reveals a jewel-like blue world inhabited by a life form that is just beginning to discover its own identity and to venture into the vast ocean of space....

This book asks questions about our origins, our destiny, and our place in the universe....

The New York Times best-selling coauthor of Sex at Dawn explores the ways in which “progress” has perverted the way we live — how we eat, learn, feel, mate, parent, communicate, work, and die....

The wonder of flight. The science of evolution. From both, Richard Dawkins weaves a fascinating account of how nature and humans have learned to overcome the pull of gravity and take to the skies....

Why do human beings behave as they do? We are capable of savage acts of violence but also spectacular feats of kindness: is one side of our nature destined to win out over the other? Find out...

Challenging what you know and think about your own body and how it defends you against all sorts of maladies and how it might also eventually be your own downfall, Immune is a vital and remarkably fun crash course in what is arguably the most important system in the body....

Why is addiction “perfectly logical” to an addict? The answer is found in a single chemical in your brain: dopamine. Dopamine ensured the survival of early man. Thousands of years later, it is the source of our most basic behaviors and cultural ideas - and progress itself....

Of all the many things humans rely on plants for, surely the most curious is our use of them to change consciousness: to stimulate, calm, or completely alter the qualities of our mental experience....

The science of emotion is in the midst of a revolution on par with the discovery of relativity in physics and natural selection in biology....

This is a story about you. It is the history of who you are and how you came to be. It is unique to you, as it is for every one of the 100 billion modern humans who has ever drawn breath....

An Immense World will take us on an insider's tour of the natural world by describing the biology, physics and chemistry animals use to perceive it....

The Real Anthony Fauci details how Fauci, Gates, and their cohorts use their control of media outlets, scientific journals, key government agencies, global intelligence agencies, and influential scientists and physicians to flood the public with fearful propaganda about COVID-19....

In this timely and exciting contribution to a wider conversation about our relationship with the natural world, wildlife journalist Millie Kerr takes listeners on a global journey of discovery. She considers the practicalities and possibilities of ecological restoration around the world, while exploring first-hand some of the most ambitious undertakings occurring today, many of which involve species reintroductions in the Global South. 

Investigative journalist David Gardner turns his uncompromising gaze on the many conspiracy theories connected with the COVID pandemic. With first-hand reporting and detailed investigations into the people who originated these COVID theories—some of them plausible, some driven by an agenda and some plainly mad—he answers the questions that everyone has been asking for nearly two years since the pandemic began, and left us doubting our leaders as never before.

The puzzling lack of evidence for the peculiar but widespread belief that birds have no sense of smell irked evolutionary biologist Danielle Whittaker. Exploring the science behind the myth led her on an unexpected quest investigating mysteries from how juncos win a fight to why cowbirds smell like cookies. In The Secret Perfume of Birds―part science, part intellectual history, and part memoir―Whittaker blends humor, clear writing, and a compelling narrative to describe how scent is important not just for birds but for all animals, including humans.

In this groundbreaking book, John Morrison examines the theory of evolution currently being taught in high schools and colleges across the world. This planet was once nothing but liquid and gas, but somehow, over billions of years, the countless number of living organisms currently on Earth came into existence. This includes humans descending from apes. Once the currently taught theory is understood, John then proceeds to explain what the textbooks don't teach, which puts the theory of evolution in a new light.

What if human intelligence is actually more of a liability than a gift? After all, the animal kingdom, in all its diversity, gets by just fine without it. At first glance, human history is full of remarkable feats of intelligence, yet human exceptionalism can be a double-edged sword. With our unique cognitive prowess comes severe consequences, including existential angst, violence, discrimination and the creation of a world teetering towards climate catastrophe. What if human exceptionalism is more of a curse than a blessing?

For centuries, people have been returning to the same tired nature-versus-nurture debate, trying to determine what we learn and what we inherit. In Dancing Cockatoos and the Dead Man Test, biologist Marlene Zuk goes beyond the binary and instead focuses on interaction, or the way that genes and environment work together. Driving her investigation is a simple but essential question: How does behavior evolve? 

As humans accelerate global warming while laying waste to the environment, animals and plants must flee to the margins: on scattered nature reserves, between major highways, or among urban sprawl. And when even these places become too hot and inhospitable, wildlife is left with only one path to survival: an often-formidable journey toward the poles as they race to find a new home in a warming world. Award-winning environmental journalist Benjamin von Brackel traces these awe-inspiring journeys and celebrates the remarkable resilience of species around the world. 

Reflecting on family, identity and nature, Belonging is a personal memoir about what it is to have and make a home. It is a love letter to nature, especially the northern landscapes of Scotland and the Scots pinewoods of Abernethy—home to standing dead trees known as snags, which support the overall health of the forest. Belonging is a book about how we are held in thrall to elements of our past. It speaks to the importance of attention and reflection, and will encourage us all to look and observe and ask questions of ourselves.

The Nature of Drugs presents Sasha Shulgin’s popular San Francisco State University course on what drugs are, how they work, how they are processed by the body, and how they affect our society. The course also delves into social issues and reactions involving drugs, and discussions of governmental attempts at controlling them and features Sasha's engaging lecture style peppered with illuminating anecdotes and amusing asides.

The historical Jesus of Nazareth is arguably the most influential person ever to walk on the face of the planet Earth. For the past 2,000 years, thousands of books have been written about him, and yet no book has been written about the mechanism by which the eternally existing God—the Christ—became Jesus, the man in the flesh. This book precisely explains this mystery by looking through the prism of the scientific discipline of genetics.

Do you want to know how an ordinary person like you can grow flower bulbs from scratch for profit or as a hobby even if you have zero gardening experience? Growing Bulbs is your comprehensive go-to guide for understanding how to grow colorful flower bulbs in an exciting way outdoors or indoors, even if you have no farming or gardening experience. This audiobook is an exquisite mix of practical tips and cultivation methods from a seasoned gardener with decades of experience, bringing you the information you need to grow flourishing tulips, daffodils, crocuses, alliums, and more.

From University of Washington professor Chantel Prat comes The Neuroscience of You, a rollicking adventure into the human brain that reveals the surprising truth about neuroscience, shifting our focus from what’s average to an understanding of how every brain is different, exactly why our quirks are important, and what this means for each of us. 

Travel Tales: Wild Animals is a collection of wildlife-viewing stories including some very scary tales of often coming close to serious trouble with wild animals in your travels but managing to just barely escape. It is also a collection of the fearful sorts of things that can and do happen to travelers, but, mostly, these will not happen to you. But if they do, you get to experience real raw fear, including sometimes fear for your very own life. These are very unsettling occasions that may pop up now and again in your travels.