The New York Times bestselling book coauthored by the Nobel Prize winner who discovered telomerase and telomeres' role in the aging process and the health psychologist who has done original research into how specific lifestyle and psychological habits can protect telomeres, slowing disease and improving life. Have you wondered why some sixty-year-olds look and feel like forty-year-olds and why some forty-year-olds look and feel like sixty-year-olds? While many factors contribute to aging and illness, Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn discovered a biological indicator called telomerase, the enzyme that replenishes telomeres, which protect our genetic heritage. Dr. Blackburn and Dr. Elissa Epel's research shows that the length and health of one's telomeres are a biological underpinning of the long-hypothesized mind-body connection. They and other scientists have found that changes we can make to our daily habits can protect our telomeres and increase our health spans (the number of years we remain healthy, active, and disease-free) . THE TELOMERE EFFECT reveals how Blackburn and Epel's findings, together with research from colleagues around the world, cumulatively show that sleep quality, exercise, aspects of diet, and even certain chemicals profoundly affect our telomeres, and that chronic stress, negative thoughts, strained relationships, and even the wrong neighborhoods can eat away at them. Drawing from this scientific body of knowledge, they share lists of foods and suggest amounts and types of exercise that are healthy for our telomeres, mind tricks you can use to protect yourself from stress, and information about how to protect your children against developing shorter telomeres, from pregnancy through adolescence. And they describe how we can improve our health spans at the community level, with neighborhoods characterized by trust, green spaces, and safe streets. THE TELOMERE EFFECT will make you reassess how you live your life on a day-to-day basis. It is the first book to explain how we age at a cellular level and how we can make simple changes to keep our chromosomes and cells healthy, allowing us to stay disease-free longer and live more vital and meaningful lives.
Grand Central Publishing
|
9781455587971
|
Print book
Year of No Garbage
By Schaub, Eve O.
"Eve's brave and honest experiment reveals the shocking impact of the throwaway society we've become and at the same time showing small ways we can all do better." - Rebecca Prince-Ruiz, founder of Plastic Free July. Year of No Garbage is Super Size Me meets the environmental movement. . In this book Eve O. Schaub, humorist and stunt memoirist extraordinaire, tackles her most difficult challenge to date: garbage. Convincing her husband and two daughters to go along with her, Schaub attempts the seemingly impossible: living in the modern world without creating any trash at all. For an entire year. And- as it turns out- during a pandemic. . In the process, Schaub learns some startling things: that modern recycling is broken, and single stream recycling is a lie.
Skyhorse
|
9781510774636
|
Paperback
Easy Chemistry Step-by-Step
By Dewane, Marian
Youve come to the right place for the solution to learning chemistry quickly and easily! Easy Chemistry Step-by-Step is based on the idea that the quickest route to learning this subject is building a solid foundation in the basics. You wont find a lot of pointless discussion instead, you get an original, step-by-step approach to mastering chemistry, with important concepts linked together by clear explanations, appropriate exercises, and helpful answers. The first steps introduce you to the fundamentals of chemistry, allowing you to identify common mistakes almost immediately. Gradually, a series of interconnected steps takes you from simple to more challenging concepts at your own pace, with a variety of increasingly difficult exercises to practice what youve learned.
McGraw-Hill Education; 1 edition
|
9780071767880
|
Book
The Secret Life of the Human Body
By Clancy, John
Getting to know just how intricate and fascinating our bodies are. Most of us take our body for granted and are never aware of its amazing capabilities. The Secret Life of the Human Body reveals just how intricate and fascinating our body is. Using offbeat illustrations and concise text, the book examines the symphony of interconnections and interdependences that keeps us alive. For example, there are seven octillion atoms making up the human body distributed among the organs, tissues, nerves, fibers, fluids and more which ensure that the entire system runs smoothly as we go about our daily life, totally unaware. How many of us know that the body has 15 "other senses" or that our eyes are capable of seeing the Andromeda galaxy 2.5 million light years away? The Secret Life of the Human Body takes us under our skin to discover a world we take for granted. The chapters are: 1. An inventory of what you're made of 2. The perfect world of the cardiovascular system -- Get to know your own heart; Mapping your blood vessels 3. The hidden world of hormones and enzymes -- How enzymes speed up processes in the body; The crucial role of hormones 4. Breath and fueling muscles 5. Musculoskeletal secrets 6. Digestive tract and what lies within 7. The battleground of your immune system -- Antibodies and how they protect your body; The amazing spleen 8. The senses 9. Skin, hair, nails 10. When things go wrong -- What causes disease and how our bodies counteract it; Vaccination and eradicating illnesses 11. Future health -- Curing HIV and other "incurable" diseases 12. Technology and the future of medicine -- 3D-printing of organs for transplant; surgery by ultrasound. We all love to learn something about ourselves, about our body, how it works and what happens when it doesn't work. Readers of all ages and interests will discover fascinating facts and come to appreciate the wonder of their body... and perhaps take better care of it. The Secret Life of... series unlocks the fascinating workings behind subjects such as mathematics, biology, linguistics, chemistry and genetics, to give readers a practical introduction and insights into the underlying stories and facts. Fully illustrated and packed with quirky illustrations and helpful diagrams, these books are sure to pique the curiosity of anyone who's ever thought, "I wonder how that works..."
Firefly Books
|
9780228100935
|
Paperback
The House of Kennedy
By Patterson, James
Those who dwell in the House of Kennedy work hard, live hard, and win at all costs. But just how much has it cost them? The Kennedy name is synonymous with American royalty. The family commitment to public service is legendary and enduring. But all their wild charisma has been dashed by disgrace and tragedy: Assassinations. Murder. Plane crashes. Fatal accidents. Mental illness. Drug overdoses. Alcohol abuse, and plenty of sex scandals. This family of widows and fatherless children has been cursed with nearly unimaginable losses -- yet even today, there remains a glamorous aura around the indomitable Kennedys. #1 bestselling author James Patterson once again tells a spellbinding story to "maximum dramatic effect" (The Wall Street Journal) --and this one is all true.
Little, Brown and Company
|
9780316454483
|
Hardcover
Behave
By Sapolsky, Robert
"It's no exaggeration to say that Behave is one of the best nonfiction books I've ever read." - David P. Barash, The Wall Street JournalFrom the celebrated neurobiologist and primatologist, a landmark, genre-defining examination of human behavior, both good and bad, and an answer to the question: Why do we do the things we do?Sapolsky's storytelling concept is delightful but it also has a powerful intrinsic logic: he starts by looking at the factors that bear on a person's reaction in the precise moment a behavior occurs, and then hops back in time from there, in stages, ultimately ending up at the deep history of our species and its evolutionary legacy. And so the first category of explanation is the neurobiological one. A behavior occurs--whether an example of humans at our best, worst, or somewhere in between. What went on in a person's brain a second before the behavior happened? Then Sapolsky pulls out to a slightly larger field of vision, a little earlier in time: What sight, sound, or smell caused the nervous system to produce that behavior? And then, what hormones acted hours to days earlier to change how responsive that individual is to the stimuli that triggered the nervous system? By now he has increased our field of vision so that we are thinking about neurobiology and the sensory world of our environment and endocrinology in trying to explain what happened.Sapolsky keeps going: How was that behavior influenced by structural changes in the nervous system over the preceding months, by that person's adolescence, childhood, fetal life, and then back to his or her genetic makeup? Finally, he expands the view to encompass factors larger than one individual. How did culture shape that individual's group, what ecological factors millennia old formed that culture? And on and on, back to evolutionary factors millions of years old. The result is one of the most dazzling tours d'horizon of the science of human behavior ever attempted, a majestic synthesis that harvests cutting-edge research across a range of disciplines to provide a subtle and nuanced perspective on why we ultimately do the things we do...for good and for ill. Sapolsky builds on this understanding to wrestle with some of our deepest and thorniest questions relating to tribalism and xenophobia, hierarchy and competition, morality and free will, and war and peace. Wise, humane, often very funny, Behave is a towering achievement, powerfully humanizing, and downright heroic in its own right.Behave makes a great Father's Day gift!
Penguin Books
|
9781594205071
|
Hardcover
To Infinity and Beyond
By Tyson, Neil Degrasse
Linked to a special mini season of the award-winning StarTalk podcast, this enlightening illustrated narrative by the world's most celebrated astrophysicist explains the universe from the solar system to the farthest reaches of space with authority and humor.No one can make the mysteries of the universe more comprehensible and fun than Neil deGrasse Tyson. Drawing on mythology, history, and literature - alongside his trademark wit and charm - Tyson and StarTalk senior producer Lindsey Nyx Walker bring planetary science down to Earth and principles of astrophysics within reach. In this entertaining book, illustrated with vivid photographs and art, readers travel with him through space and time, starting with the Big Bang and voyaging to the far reaches of the universe and beyond.
National Geographic
|
9781426223303
|
Hardcover
Endurance
By Kelly, Scott
A stunning memoir from the astronaut who spent a record-breaking year aboard the International Space Station--a candid account of his remarkable voyage, of the journeys off the planet that preceded it, and of his colorful formative years.The veteran of four space flights and the American record holder for consecutive days spent in space, Scott Kelly has experienced things very few have. Now, he takes us inside a sphere utterly inimical to human life. He describes navigating the extreme challenge of long-term spaceflight, both existential and banal: the devastating effects on the body; the isolation from everyone he loves and the comforts of Earth; the pressures of constant close cohabitation; the catastrophic risks of depressurization or colliding with space junk, and the still more haunting threat of being unable to help should tragedy strike at home--an agonizing situation Kelly faced when, on another mission, his twin brother's wife, Gabrielle Giffords, was shot while he still had two months in space. Kelly's humanity, compassion, humor, and passion resonate throughout, as he recalls his rough-and-tumble New Jersey childhood and the youthful inspiration that sparked his astounding career, and as he makes clear his belief that Mars will be the next, ultimately challenging step in American spaceflight. A natural storyteller and modern-day hero, Kelly has a message of hope for the future that will inspire for generations to come. Here, in his personal story, we see the triumph of the human imagination, the strength of the human will, and the boundless wonder of the galaxy.
Alfred A Knopf
|
9781524731595
|
Hardcover
What the F
By Bergen, Benjamin K
It may be starred, beeped, and censored--yet profanity is so appealing that we can't stop using it. In the funniest, clearest study to date, Benjamin Bergen explains why, and what that tells us about our language and brains.Nearly everyone swears-whether it's over a few too many drinks, in reaction to a stubbed toe, or in flagrante delicto. And yet, we sit idly by as words are banned from television and censored in books. We insist that people excise profanity from their vocabularies and we punish children for yelling the very same dirty words that we'll mutter in relief seconds after they fall asleep. Swearing, it seems, is an intimate part of us that we have decided to selectively deny.That's a damn shame. Swearing is useful. It can be funny, cathartic, or emotionally arousing. As linguist and cognitive scientist Benjamin K. Bergen shows us, it also opens a new window onto how our brains process language and why languages vary around the world and over time.In this groundbreaking yet ebullient romp through the linguistic muck, Bergen answers intriguing questions: How can patients left otherwise speechless after a stroke still shout Goddamn! when they get upset? When did a cock grow to be more than merely a rooster? Why is crap vulgar when poo is just childish? Do slurs make you treat people differently? Why is the first word that Samoan children say not mommy but eat shit? And why do we extend a middle finger to flip someone the bird?Smart as hell and funny as fuck, What the F is mandatory reading for anyone who wants to know how and why we swear.
Basic Books
|
9780465060917
|
Hardcover
A
By Gee, Henry
In the beginning, Earth was an inhospitably alien place -- in constant chemical flux, covered with churning seas, crafting its landscape through incessant volcanic eruptions. Amid all this tumult and disaster, life began. The earliest living things were no more than membranes stretched across microscopic gaps in rocks, where boiling hot jets of mineral-rich water gushed out from cracks in the ocean floor.Although these membranes were leaky, the environment within them became different from the raging maelstrom beyond. These havens of order slowly refined the generation of energy, using it to form membrane-bound bubbles that were mostly-faithful copies of their parents -- a foamy lather of soap-bubble cells standing as tiny clenched fists, defiant against the lifeless world.
The Telomere Effect
By Blackburn, Elizabeth H
The New York Times bestselling book coauthored by the Nobel Prize winner who discovered telomerase and telomeres' role in the aging process and the health psychologist who has done original research into how specific lifestyle and psychological habits can protect telomeres, slowing disease and improving life. Have you wondered why some sixty-year-olds look and feel like forty-year-olds and why some forty-year-olds look and feel like sixty-year-olds? While many factors contribute to aging and illness, Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn discovered a biological indicator called telomerase, the enzyme that replenishes telomeres, which protect our genetic heritage. Dr. Blackburn and Dr. Elissa Epel's research shows that the length and health of one's telomeres are a biological underpinning of the long-hypothesized mind-body connection. They and other scientists have found that changes we can make to our daily habits can protect our telomeres and increase our health spans (the number of years we remain healthy, active, and disease-free) . THE TELOMERE EFFECT reveals how Blackburn and Epel's findings, together with research from colleagues around the world, cumulatively show that sleep quality, exercise, aspects of diet, and even certain chemicals profoundly affect our telomeres, and that chronic stress, negative thoughts, strained relationships, and even the wrong neighborhoods can eat away at them. Drawing from this scientific body of knowledge, they share lists of foods and suggest amounts and types of exercise that are healthy for our telomeres, mind tricks you can use to protect yourself from stress, and information about how to protect your children against developing shorter telomeres, from pregnancy through adolescence. And they describe how we can improve our health spans at the community level, with neighborhoods characterized by trust, green spaces, and safe streets. THE TELOMERE EFFECT will make you reassess how you live your life on a day-to-day basis. It is the first book to explain how we age at a cellular level and how we can make simple changes to keep our chromosomes and cells healthy, allowing us to stay disease-free longer and live more vital and meaningful lives.
Year of No Garbage
By Schaub, Eve O.
"Eve's brave and honest experiment reveals the shocking impact of the throwaway society we've become and at the same time showing small ways we can all do better." - Rebecca Prince-Ruiz, founder of Plastic Free July. Year of No Garbage is Super Size Me meets the environmental movement. . In this book Eve O. Schaub, humorist and stunt memoirist extraordinaire, tackles her most difficult challenge to date: garbage. Convincing her husband and two daughters to go along with her, Schaub attempts the seemingly impossible: living in the modern world without creating any trash at all. For an entire year. And- as it turns out- during a pandemic. . In the process, Schaub learns some startling things: that modern recycling is broken, and single stream recycling is a lie.
Easy Chemistry Step-by-Step
By Dewane, Marian
Youve come to the right place for the solution to learning chemistry quickly and easily! Easy Chemistry Step-by-Step is based on the idea that the quickest route to learning this subject is building a solid foundation in the basics. You wont find a lot of pointless discussion instead, you get an original, step-by-step approach to mastering chemistry, with important concepts linked together by clear explanations, appropriate exercises, and helpful answers. The first steps introduce you to the fundamentals of chemistry, allowing you to identify common mistakes almost immediately. Gradually, a series of interconnected steps takes you from simple to more challenging concepts at your own pace, with a variety of increasingly difficult exercises to practice what youve learned.
The Secret Life of the Human Body
By Clancy, John
Getting to know just how intricate and fascinating our bodies are. Most of us take our body for granted and are never aware of its amazing capabilities. The Secret Life of the Human Body reveals just how intricate and fascinating our body is. Using offbeat illustrations and concise text, the book examines the symphony of interconnections and interdependences that keeps us alive. For example, there are seven octillion atoms making up the human body distributed among the organs, tissues, nerves, fibers, fluids and more which ensure that the entire system runs smoothly as we go about our daily life, totally unaware. How many of us know that the body has 15 "other senses" or that our eyes are capable of seeing the Andromeda galaxy 2.5 million light years away? The Secret Life of the Human Body takes us under our skin to discover a world we take for granted. The chapters are: 1. An inventory of what you're made of 2. The perfect world of the cardiovascular system -- Get to know your own heart; Mapping your blood vessels 3. The hidden world of hormones and enzymes -- How enzymes speed up processes in the body; The crucial role of hormones 4. Breath and fueling muscles 5. Musculoskeletal secrets 6. Digestive tract and what lies within 7. The battleground of your immune system -- Antibodies and how they protect your body; The amazing spleen 8. The senses 9. Skin, hair, nails 10. When things go wrong -- What causes disease and how our bodies counteract it; Vaccination and eradicating illnesses 11. Future health -- Curing HIV and other "incurable" diseases 12. Technology and the future of medicine -- 3D-printing of organs for transplant; surgery by ultrasound. We all love to learn something about ourselves, about our body, how it works and what happens when it doesn't work. Readers of all ages and interests will discover fascinating facts and come to appreciate the wonder of their body... and perhaps take better care of it. The Secret Life of... series unlocks the fascinating workings behind subjects such as mathematics, biology, linguistics, chemistry and genetics, to give readers a practical introduction and insights into the underlying stories and facts. Fully illustrated and packed with quirky illustrations and helpful diagrams, these books are sure to pique the curiosity of anyone who's ever thought, "I wonder how that works..."
The House of Kennedy
By Patterson, James
Those who dwell in the House of Kennedy work hard, live hard, and win at all costs. But just how much has it cost them? The Kennedy name is synonymous with American royalty. The family commitment to public service is legendary and enduring. But all their wild charisma has been dashed by disgrace and tragedy: Assassinations. Murder. Plane crashes. Fatal accidents. Mental illness. Drug overdoses. Alcohol abuse, and plenty of sex scandals. This family of widows and fatherless children has been cursed with nearly unimaginable losses -- yet even today, there remains a glamorous aura around the indomitable Kennedys. #1 bestselling author James Patterson once again tells a spellbinding story to "maximum dramatic effect" (The Wall Street Journal) --and this one is all true.
Behave
By Sapolsky, Robert
"It's no exaggeration to say that Behave is one of the best nonfiction books I've ever read." - David P. Barash, The Wall Street JournalFrom the celebrated neurobiologist and primatologist, a landmark, genre-defining examination of human behavior, both good and bad, and an answer to the question: Why do we do the things we do?Sapolsky's storytelling concept is delightful but it also has a powerful intrinsic logic: he starts by looking at the factors that bear on a person's reaction in the precise moment a behavior occurs, and then hops back in time from there, in stages, ultimately ending up at the deep history of our species and its evolutionary legacy. And so the first category of explanation is the neurobiological one. A behavior occurs--whether an example of humans at our best, worst, or somewhere in between. What went on in a person's brain a second before the behavior happened? Then Sapolsky pulls out to a slightly larger field of vision, a little earlier in time: What sight, sound, or smell caused the nervous system to produce that behavior? And then, what hormones acted hours to days earlier to change how responsive that individual is to the stimuli that triggered the nervous system? By now he has increased our field of vision so that we are thinking about neurobiology and the sensory world of our environment and endocrinology in trying to explain what happened.Sapolsky keeps going: How was that behavior influenced by structural changes in the nervous system over the preceding months, by that person's adolescence, childhood, fetal life, and then back to his or her genetic makeup? Finally, he expands the view to encompass factors larger than one individual. How did culture shape that individual's group, what ecological factors millennia old formed that culture? And on and on, back to evolutionary factors millions of years old. The result is one of the most dazzling tours d'horizon of the science of human behavior ever attempted, a majestic synthesis that harvests cutting-edge research across a range of disciplines to provide a subtle and nuanced perspective on why we ultimately do the things we do...for good and for ill. Sapolsky builds on this understanding to wrestle with some of our deepest and thorniest questions relating to tribalism and xenophobia, hierarchy and competition, morality and free will, and war and peace. Wise, humane, often very funny, Behave is a towering achievement, powerfully humanizing, and downright heroic in its own right.Behave makes a great Father's Day gift!
To Infinity and Beyond
By Tyson, Neil Degrasse
Linked to a special mini season of the award-winning StarTalk podcast, this enlightening illustrated narrative by the world's most celebrated astrophysicist explains the universe from the solar system to the farthest reaches of space with authority and humor.No one can make the mysteries of the universe more comprehensible and fun than Neil deGrasse Tyson. Drawing on mythology, history, and literature - alongside his trademark wit and charm - Tyson and StarTalk senior producer Lindsey Nyx Walker bring planetary science down to Earth and principles of astrophysics within reach. In this entertaining book, illustrated with vivid photographs and art, readers travel with him through space and time, starting with the Big Bang and voyaging to the far reaches of the universe and beyond.
Endurance
By Kelly, Scott
A stunning memoir from the astronaut who spent a record-breaking year aboard the International Space Station--a candid account of his remarkable voyage, of the journeys off the planet that preceded it, and of his colorful formative years.The veteran of four space flights and the American record holder for consecutive days spent in space, Scott Kelly has experienced things very few have. Now, he takes us inside a sphere utterly inimical to human life. He describes navigating the extreme challenge of long-term spaceflight, both existential and banal: the devastating effects on the body; the isolation from everyone he loves and the comforts of Earth; the pressures of constant close cohabitation; the catastrophic risks of depressurization or colliding with space junk, and the still more haunting threat of being unable to help should tragedy strike at home--an agonizing situation Kelly faced when, on another mission, his twin brother's wife, Gabrielle Giffords, was shot while he still had two months in space. Kelly's humanity, compassion, humor, and passion resonate throughout, as he recalls his rough-and-tumble New Jersey childhood and the youthful inspiration that sparked his astounding career, and as he makes clear his belief that Mars will be the next, ultimately challenging step in American spaceflight. A natural storyteller and modern-day hero, Kelly has a message of hope for the future that will inspire for generations to come. Here, in his personal story, we see the triumph of the human imagination, the strength of the human will, and the boundless wonder of the galaxy.
What the F
By Bergen, Benjamin K
It may be starred, beeped, and censored--yet profanity is so appealing that we can't stop using it. In the funniest, clearest study to date, Benjamin Bergen explains why, and what that tells us about our language and brains.Nearly everyone swears-whether it's over a few too many drinks, in reaction to a stubbed toe, or in flagrante delicto. And yet, we sit idly by as words are banned from television and censored in books. We insist that people excise profanity from their vocabularies and we punish children for yelling the very same dirty words that we'll mutter in relief seconds after they fall asleep. Swearing, it seems, is an intimate part of us that we have decided to selectively deny.That's a damn shame. Swearing is useful. It can be funny, cathartic, or emotionally arousing. As linguist and cognitive scientist Benjamin K. Bergen shows us, it also opens a new window onto how our brains process language and why languages vary around the world and over time.In this groundbreaking yet ebullient romp through the linguistic muck, Bergen answers intriguing questions: How can patients left otherwise speechless after a stroke still shout Goddamn! when they get upset? When did a cock grow to be more than merely a rooster? Why is crap vulgar when poo is just childish? Do slurs make you treat people differently? Why is the first word that Samoan children say not mommy but eat shit? And why do we extend a middle finger to flip someone the bird?Smart as hell and funny as fuck, What the F is mandatory reading for anyone who wants to know how and why we swear.
A
By Gee, Henry
In the beginning, Earth was an inhospitably alien place -- in constant chemical flux, covered with churning seas, crafting its landscape through incessant volcanic eruptions. Amid all this tumult and disaster, life began. The earliest living things were no more than membranes stretched across microscopic gaps in rocks, where boiling hot jets of mineral-rich water gushed out from cracks in the ocean floor.Although these membranes were leaky, the environment within them became different from the raging maelstrom beyond. These havens of order slowly refined the generation of energy, using it to form membrane-bound bubbles that were mostly-faithful copies of their parents -- a foamy lather of soap-bubble cells standing as tiny clenched fists, defiant against the lifeless world.