Hi all,
There is a project coming up and they gave all the students a book list. And I'm not sure which book I should read (which would be beneficial for me as well, the Work). Unfortunately, "Mean Genes" and "Molecules of Emotions" are not on the list, though I could ask if I may read one of them.
Have you read maybe one of these books and recommend it to me? There were more but these are the ones that I find interesting.
Some really appeal to me, but it's so hard to choose!
Maybe if you guys would like, I could also post a review of the book I'm going to read and post it here.
There is a project coming up and they gave all the students a book list. And I'm not sure which book I should read (which would be beneficial for me as well, the Work). Unfortunately, "Mean Genes" and "Molecules of Emotions" are not on the list, though I could ask if I may read one of them.
Have you read maybe one of these books and recommend it to me? There were more but these are the ones that I find interesting.
Some really appeal to me, but it's so hard to choose!
Maybe if you guys would like, I could also post a review of the book I'm going to read and post it here.
Attenborough, David
The Private life of Plants
Bryson, Bill
A short history of nearly everything
Synopsis
Bill Bryson describes himself as a reluctant traveller: but even when he stays safely in his own study at home, he can't contain his curiosity about the world around him. A Short History of Nearly Everything is his quest to find out everything that has happened from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization - how we got from there, being nothing at all, to here, being us. Bill Bryson's challenge is to take subjects that normally bore the pants off most of us, like geology, chemistry and particle physics, and see if there isn't some way to render them comprehensible to people who have never thought they could be interested in science. It's not so much about what we know, as about how we know what we know. How do we know what is in the centre of the Earth, or what a black hole is, or where the continents were 600 million years ago? How did anyone ever figure these things out? On his travels through time and space, he encounters a splendid collection of astonishingly eccentric, competitive, obsessive and foolish scientists, like the painfully shy Henry Cavendish who worked out many conundrums like how much the Earth weighed, but never bothered to tell anybody about many of his findings. In the company of such extraordinary people, Bill Bryson takes us with him on the ultimate eye-opening journey, and reveals the world in a way most of us have never seen it before.
Davies, Kevin
The Sequence: Inside the Race for the Human Genome
Dawkins, Richard
The Selfish gene; 30th Anniversary Edition with a new introduction by the author.
Diamond, Jared
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive
Viking Books USA edition, 2005
Synopsis
In Collapse, Jared Diamond investigates the fate of past human societies, and the lessons for our own future. What happened to the people who built the ruined temples of Angkor Wat, the long-abandoned statues of Easter Island, the crumbling Maya pyramids of the Yucatan? All saw their cultures collapse because of environmental crises. And it looks as if those crises were self-induced. As in his celebrated global best-seller Guns, Germs and Steel, Diamond brings together new evidence from a startling range of sources to tell a story with epic scope. And he lends it urgency for the modern world by probing the roots of decisions which allowed some societies to avoid ecological catastrophe, while others succumbed. How, he asks, can we learn to be survivors?
Friend, Tim
Animal Talk: Breaking the Codes of Animal Language
Free Press, Reprint edition (February 1, 2005)
Review
Friend, a longtime USA Today science writer, has written a delightful, entertaining and instructive book for the general public on animal communication. All kinds of animal lovers will enjoy his presentation of "the bigger picture" of animal talk in the wild-"how animals communicate with each other and what they spend so much time chattering to each other about." Friend provides readers with clear explanations of complex issues such as how the colorful and noisy signals of communication in the animal kingdom arose in the first place and to what extent animal systems of communication are similar to human language. Along the way, he impressively explores a wide range of related topics, such as how Descartes and Darwin influenced the study of animal sounds, the mating purpose of animal songs and the roots of whale communication research in Cold War technology. Friend is an engaging writer; throughout he displays a deft ability to capture the world of animal sound with just the right phrase, such as his description of tree frogs and insects in the Amazon rainforest "laying down a soulful energetic chorus like a choir at an old-fashioned, Southern tent revival," and his wry observation of rival male albatrosses attracting potential female mates by "clapping their beaks and moving their heads like Mick Jagger."
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Heinrich, Bernard
Mind of the Raven
Review
Beyond croaking, "Nevermore," what exactly do ravens do all day? Bernd Heinrich, biology professor at the University of Vermont and author of Ravens in Winter, has spent more than a decade learning the secrets of these giants of the crow family. He has observed startlingly complex activities among ravens, including strong pair-bonding, use of tools, elaborate vocal communication, and even play. Ravens are just plain smart, and we can see much of ourselves in their behavior. They seem to be affectionate, cranky, joyful, greedy, and competitive, just like us. And in Mind of the Raven, Heinrich makes no bones about attributing emotions and intellect to Corvus corax--just not the kind we humans can understand. He mostly catalogs their behaviors in the manner of a respectful anthropologist, although a few moments of proud papa show through when he describes the pet ravens he hand-raised to adulthood.
Heinrich spends hundreds of loving hours feeding roadkill fragments to endlessly hungry raven chicks, and cold days in blinds watching wild ravens squabble and frolic. He is a passionate fan of his "wolf-birds," a name he gave them when he made the central discovery of the book: that ravens in Yellowstone National Park are dependent on wolves to kill for them. Mind of the Raven offers inspiring insight into both the lives of ravens and the mind of a truly gifted scientist. --Therese Littleton--
Jones, Steve
The Language of the Genes
Reviews
Steve Jones's highly acclaimed, double prize-winning, bestselling first book is now fully revised to cover all the new genetic breakthroughs from GM food to Dolly the sheep.'An essential sightseer's guide to our own genetic terrain.' Peter Tallack, Sunday Telegraph 'Superb and stimulating...an exhilarating trip around the double spiral of DNA, a rush of gravity-defying concepts and wild swerves of the scientific imagination.' J.G. Ballard, Daily Telegraph
'Not so much divination as demystification... An attempt to bring genetics and evolution more into the public domain. If, for instance, you ever wondered just what genetic engineering is about, here is as good a place as any to discover. Few have Jones's ability to communicate a difficult idea with such humour, clarity, precision and ease.' Laurence Hurst, Times Higher;
'Sensitive to the social issues raised by genetics... yet Jones's interest reaches beyond contemporary social issues to the human past, to what genetics can and cannot tell us about our evolution and patterns of social development. He interleaves a broad knowledge of biology with considerations of cultural, demographic and -- as his title indicates -- linguistic history. At once instructive and captivating.' Daniel J.Kevles, London Review of Books
Noble, Denis
The Music of Life, Biology beyond the Genome
Oxford University Press, 2006
Synopsis
What is Life? Decades of research have resulted in the full mapping of the human genome - three billion pairs of code whose functions are only now being understood. The gene's eye view of life, advocated by evolutionary biology, sees living bodies as mere vehicles for the replication of the genetic codes.But for a physiologist, working with the living organism, the view is a very different one. Denis Noble is a world renowned physiologist, and sets out an alternative view to the question - one that becomes deeply significant in terms of the living, breathing organism. The genome is not life itself. Noble argues that far from genes building organisms, they should be seen as prisoners of the organism.
The view of life presented in this little, modern, post-genome project reflection on the nature of life, is that of the systems biologist: to understand what life is, we must view it at a variety of different levels, all interacting with each other in a complex web. It is that emergent web, full of feedback between levels, from the gene to the wider environment, that is life. It is a kind of music. Including stories from Noble's own research experience, his work on the heartbeat, musical metaphors, and elements of linguistics and Chinese culture, this very personal and at times deeply lyrical book sets out the systems biology view of life.
Ramachandran, V.S.; Sandra Blakeslee
Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind
Harper Perennial (September 7, 1999)
Synopsis
Phantoms In The Brain takes a revolutionary new approach to theories of the brain, from one of the world's leading experimental neurologists. Phantoms In The Brain, using a series of case histories, introduces strange and unexplored mental worlds. Ramachandran, through his research into brain damage, has discovered that the brain is continually organising itself in response to change. A woman maintains that her left arm is not paralysed, a young man loses his right arm in a motorcycle accident, yet he continues to feel a phantom arm with vivid sensation of movement. In a series of experiments using nothing more than Q-tips and dribbles of warm water the young man helped Ramachandran discover how the brain is remapped after injury. Ramachandran believes that cases such as these illustrate fundamental principles of how the human brain operates. The brain 'needs to create a "script" or a story to make sense of the world, a unified and internally consistent belief system.' Ramachandran's radical new approach will have far-reaching effects.
Sapolsky, Robert
Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers
Holt Paperbacks; 3rd edition (August 26, 2004)
Review (amazon.com)
Why don't zebras get ulcers--or heart disease, diabetes and other chronic diseases--when people do? In a fascinating look at the science of stress, biologist Robert Sapolsky presents an intriguing case, that people develop such diseases partly because our bodies aren't designed for the constant stresses of a modern-day life--like sitting in daily traffic jams or growing up in poverty. Rather, they seem more built for the kind of short-term stress faced by a zebra--like outrunning a lion.
Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers makes understanding the science of stress an adventure in discovery. "This book is a primer about stress, stress-related disease, and the mechanisms of coping with stress. How is it that our bodies can adapt to some stressful emergencies, while other ones make us sick? Why are some of us especially vulnerable to stress-related diseases, and what does that have to do with our personalities?"
Seachrist, Chiu
When a Gene Makes You Smell Like a Fish: And Other Amazing Tales about the Genes in Your Body
Oxford University Press, USA (May 1, 2006)
Synopsis (NHBS.com)
From the gene that causes people to age prematurely to the "bitter gene" that may spawn broccoli haters, this book explores a few of the more exotic locales on the human genome, highlighting some of the tragic and bizarre ways our bodies go wrong when genes fall prey to mutation and the curious ways in which genes have evolved for our survival.
Lisa Seachrist Chiu offers here a smorgasbord of stories about rare and not so rare genetic quirks - the gene that makes some people smell like a fish, the Black Urine Gene, the Werewolf Gene, the Calico Cat Gene. We read about the Dracula Gene, a mutation in zebra fish that causes blood cells to explode on contact with light, and suites of genes that also influence behavior and physical characteristics. The Tangier Island Gene, first discovered after physicians discovered a boy with orange tonsils (scientists now realize that the child's odd condition comes from an inability to process cholesterol). And Wilson's Disease, a gene defect that fails to clear copper from the body, which can trigger schizophrenia and other neurological symptoms, and can be fatal if left untreated. On the plus side, we read about the Myostatin gene, a mutation which allows muscles to become much larger than usual and enhances strength - indeed, the mutations have produced beefier cows and at least one stronger human. And there is also the much-envied Cheeseburger Gene, which allows a lucky few to eat virtually anything they want and remain razor thin. While fascinating us with stories of genetic peculiarities, Chiu also manages to explain much cutting-edge research in modern genetics, resulting in a book that is both informative and entertaining. It is a must read for everyone who loves popular science or is curious about the human body.
39 Smith, Jeffrey M.
Seeds of Deception: Exposing Industry and Government Lies About the Safety of the Genetically Engineered Foods You're Eating
Yes! Books (September 2003)
ISBN-10: 0972966587
Synopsis
Recent news headlines have focused on the disagreement between the U.S. and Europe over genetically modified foods: the U.S. exports them, but the European Union doesn't want to import them, believing their safety remains unproven. Are genetically modified foods safe? Longtime anti-GM foods campaigner Smith presents the "opposing" case. He offers cases where GM produced results that were at best unexpected (increased starch content in potatoes), at worst grotesque (pigs without genitals). He describes how one corporation reportedly tried to bribe Canadian government scientists into approving genetically engineered bovine growth hormones they deemed unsafe; how some scientists have reported their careers were threatened as a result of their refusal to approve certain GM products in the U.S.; and how "conflicts of interest, sloppy science, and industry influence" can distort the approval process. The cases Smith presents are scary and timely, but he explores only one side of the story. Readers looking for a balance consideration of genetically modified foods will want to look elsewhere.
Watson, J.D. & Berry, A.
DNA, the secret of life
Wynne, Clive
Do animals think?
