Washoe County Library System

Tells the story of how the celestial objects that make up the solar system arose from common beginnings billions of years ago, and how scientists and philosophers have sought to unravel this mystery down through the centuries, piecing together the clues that enabled them to deduce the solar system's layout, its age, and the likely way it formed.

Explores how the world works at the quantum level, the cosmic level, and the human level and discusses how they interact, showing how the scientific discoveries of the past few hundred years have dramatically changed human perception of the world.

A biochemist, building on the pillars of evolutionary theory and drawing on cutting-edge research into the link between energy and genes, argues that the evolution of multicellular life was the result of a single event.

"A friendly, non-threatening, and accessible introduction to evolution, emphasizing both the evidence for evolution and the importance of understanding it in contemporary social context"--

Describes the startling discoveries being made in the very real science of astrobiology, an intriguing new field that blends astronomy, biology, and geology to explore the possibility of life on other planets. Jeffrey Bennett takes readers beyond UFOs to discuss some of the tantalizing questions astrobiologists grapple with every day: What is life and how does it begin? What makes a planet or moon habitable? Is there life on Mars or elsewhere in the...

Looks at the evidence of dinosaurs with skeletal structures and feathers so similar to birds and why that is convincing many scientists that birds evolved from dinosaurs.

Traces anthropological research in human evolution, beginning with discoveries in Africa of australopithecine bones, the Leakeys' discoveries in the African Rift Valley and Olduai Gorge, Johanson's work in Hadar, Ethiopia. Includes discussion of dating techniques such as laser dating, and the search for a common ancestor.an. Gives a history of anthropological research, beginning with discoveries in Africa of australopithecine bones, the Leakeys'...

Shows how unprecedented advances in our understanding of life have equipped us with the ability to create entirely new life-forms like goats that produce spider silk in their milk, bacteria that excrete diesel and genetic codes that identify and destroy cancer cells. This new synthetic biology is poised to offer radical new solutions to the crises of food shortage, pandemic disease and climate change.