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Author: Chip Walter
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0802778917
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 289
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Book Description
Over the past 150 years scientists have discovered evidence that at least twenty-seven species of humans evolved on planet Earth. These weren't simply variations on apes, but upright-walking humans who lived side by side, competing, cooperating, sometimes even mating with our direct ancestors. Why did the line of ancient humans who eventually evolved into us survive when the others were shown the evolutionary door? Chip Walter draws on new scientific discoveries to tell the fascinating tale of how our survival was linked to our ancestors being born more prematurely than others, having uniquely long and rich childhoods, evolving a new kind of mind that made us resourceful and emotionally complex; how our highly social nature increased our odds of survival; and why we became self aware in ways that no other animal seems to be. Last Ape Standing also profiles the mysterious "others" who evolved with us-the Neanderthals of Europe, the "Hobbits" of Indonesia, the Denisovans of Siberia and the just-discovered Red Deer Cave people of China who died off a mere eleven thousand years ago. Last Ape Standing is evocative science writing at its best-a witty, engaging and accessible story that explores the evolutionary events that molded us into the remarkably unique creatures we are; an investigation of why we do, feel, and think the things we do as a species, and as people-good and bad, ingenious and cunning, heroic and conflicted.
Author: Chip Walter
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0802778917
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 289
Get Book Here
Book Description
Over the past 150 years scientists have discovered evidence that at least twenty-seven species of humans evolved on planet Earth. These weren't simply variations on apes, but upright-walking humans who lived side by side, competing, cooperating, sometimes even mating with our direct ancestors. Why did the line of ancient humans who eventually evolved into us survive when the others were shown the evolutionary door? Chip Walter draws on new scientific discoveries to tell the fascinating tale of how our survival was linked to our ancestors being born more prematurely than others, having uniquely long and rich childhoods, evolving a new kind of mind that made us resourceful and emotionally complex; how our highly social nature increased our odds of survival; and why we became self aware in ways that no other animal seems to be. Last Ape Standing also profiles the mysterious "others" who evolved with us-the Neanderthals of Europe, the "Hobbits" of Indonesia, the Denisovans of Siberia and the just-discovered Red Deer Cave people of China who died off a mere eleven thousand years ago. Last Ape Standing is evocative science writing at its best-a witty, engaging and accessible story that explores the evolutionary events that molded us into the remarkably unique creatures we are; an investigation of why we do, feel, and think the things we do as a species, and as people-good and bad, ingenious and cunning, heroic and conflicted.
Author: Chip Walter
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 080271756X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 237
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Book Description
Seeks to explain why homo sapiens survived while other hominids did not, drawing on recent scientific discoveries and examining the survival value of such factors as premature births, long childhoods, and an extremely social nature.
Author: Chip Walter
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0802718841
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 274
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Book Description
The fascinating evolutionary links between six seemingly unremarkable traits that make us the very remarkable creatures we are. Countless behaviors separate us from the rest of the animal kingdom, but all of them can be traced one way or another to six traits that are unique to the human race-our big toe, our opposable thumb, our oddly shaped pharynx, and our ability to laugh, kiss, and cry. At first glance these may not seem to be connected but they are. Each marks a fork in the evolutionary road where we went one way and the rest of the animal kingdom went another. Each opens small passageways on the peculiar geography of the human heart and mind. Walter weaves together fascinating insights from complexity theory, the latest brain scanning techniques, anthropology, artificial intelligence, cognitive psychology, and robotics to explore how the smallest of changes over the past six million years - all shaped by the forces of evolution -- have enabled a primate once on the brink of extinction to evolve into a creature that would one day create all of the grand and exuberant edifices of human culture. As the story of each trait unfolds, Walter explains why our brains grew so large and complex, why we find one another sexually attractive, how toolmaking laid the mental groundwork for language, why we care about what others think, and how we became the creature that laughs and cries and falls in love. Thumbs, Toes and Tears is original, informative, and delightfully thought-provoking.
Author: Sara Gruen
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0385530250
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 371
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Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A “propulsive” (Entertainment Weekly) novel “full of heart, hope, and compelling questions about who we really are” (Redbook) from the acclaimed author of At the Water’s Edge and Water for Elephants “Terrific: an incisive piece of social commentary.”—The New York Times Book Review Isabel Duncan, a scientist at the Great Ape Language Lab, doesn’t understand people, but apes she gets—especially the bonobos Sam, Bonzi, Lola, Mbongo, Jelani, and Makena, who are capable of reason and communication through American Sign Language. Isabel feels more comfortable in their world than she’s ever felt among humans—until she meets John Thigpen, a very married reporter writing a human interest feature. But when an explosion rocks the lab, John’s piece turns into the story of a lifetime—and Isabel must connect with her own kind to save her family of apes from a new form of human exploitation.
Author: Steve Stewart-Williams
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108776035
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 671
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Book Description
The Ape that Understood the Universe is the story of the strangest animal in the world: the human animal. It opens with a question: How would an alien scientist view our species? What would it make of our sex differences, our sexual behavior, our altruistic tendencies, and our culture? The book tackles these issues by drawing on two major schools of thought: evolutionary psychology and cultural evolutionary theory. The guiding assumption is that humans are animals, and that like all animals, we evolved to pass on our genes. At some point, however, we also evolved the capacity for culture - and from that moment, culture began evolving in its own right. This transformed us from a mere ape into an ape capable of reshaping the planet, travelling to other worlds, and understanding the vast universe of which we're but a tiny, fleeting fragment. Featuring a new foreword by Michael Shermer.
Author: Chip Walter
Publisher:
ISBN: 1426219806
Category : HEALTH & FITNESS
Languages : en
Pages : 324
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Book Description
"Veteran journalist Chip Walter takes us deep inside Silicon Valley's boardrooms and the world's most advanced biomedical labs to reveal the incredible new science of extending human lifespan. Here are the bold business moves funded by Google and made by Apple chairman and Calico CEO Arthur Levinson; the pioneering stem cell techniques developed by scientist Robert Hariri; the transformative enterprises established by genomics genius Craig Venter; and the mind-bending future envisioned by thought leader Ray Kurzweil--all pointing toward a time not too long from now when we will live without disease or diminished faculties far beyond the age of 100. It's an audacious cast of characters, and through their stories you will come to understand how groundbreaking discoveries in gene therapy, molecular biology, and artificial intelligence are cracking the aging process--and could even lead to immortality. As Walter reveals, the quest to cheat death isn't science fiction anymore. It's real, it's serious, and it will change absolutely everything--including our definition of what it means to be alive."--Dust jacket.
Author: Benjamin Hale
Publisher: Hachette+ORM
ISBN: 0446575070
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 398
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Book Description
Bruno Littlemore is quite unlike any chimpanzee in the world. Precocious, self-conscious and preternaturally gifted, young Bruno, born and raised in a habitat at the local zoo, falls under the care of a university primatologist named Lydia Littlemore. Learning of Bruno's ability to speak, Lydia takes Bruno into her home to oversee his education and nurture his passion for painting. But for all of his gifts, the chimpanzee has a rough time caging his more primal urges. His untimely outbursts ultimately cost Lydia her job, and send the unlikely pair on the road in what proves to be one of the most unforgettable journeys -- and most affecting love stories -- in recent literature. Like its protagonist, this novel is big, loud, abrasive, witty, perverse, earnest and amazingly accomplished. The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore goes beyond satire by showing us not what it means, but what it feels like be human -- to love and lose, learn, aspire, grasp, and, in the end, to fail.
Author: Craig Stanford
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674071662
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 226
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Book Description
Planet Without Apes demands that we consider whether we can live with the consequences of wiping our closest relatives off the face of the Earth. Leading primatologist Craig Stanford warns that extinction of the great apes—chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans—threatens to become a reality within just a few human generations. We are on the verge of losing the last links to our evolutionary past, and to all the biological knowledge about ourselves that would die along with them. The crisis we face is tantamount to standing aside while our last extended family members vanish from the planet. Stanford sees great apes as not only intelligent but also possessed of a culture: both toolmakers and social beings capable of passing cultural knowledge down through generations. Compelled by his field research to take up the cause of conservation, he is unequivocal about where responsibility for extinction of these species lies. Our extermination campaign against the great apes has been as brutal as the genocide we have long practiced on one another. Stanford shows how complicity is shared by people far removed from apes’ shrinking habitats. We learn about extinction’s complex links with cell phones, European meat eaters, and ecotourism, along with the effects of Ebola virus, poverty, and political instability. Even the most environmentally concerned observers are unaware of many specific threats faced by great apes. Stanford fills us in, and then tells us how we can redirect the course of an otherwise bleak future.
Author: Will Self
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
ISBN: 0802193366
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 420
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Book Description
Some people lost their sense of proportion, others their sense of scale, but Simon Dykes, a middle-aged, successful London painter, has lost his sense of perspective in a most disturbing fashion. After a night of routine, pedestrian debauchery, traipsing from toilet to toilet, and imbibing a host of narcotics on the way, Simon wakes up cuddled in his girlfriend’s loving arms. Much to his dismay, however, his girlfriend has turned into a chimpanzee. To add insult to injury, the psychiatric crash team sent to deal with him as he flips his lid is also comprised of chimps. Indeed, the entire city is overrun by clever primates, who, when they are not jostling for position, grooming themselves, or mating some of the females, can be found driving Volvos, hanging out on street corners, and running the world. Nonetheless convinced that he is still a human, Simon is confined to the emergency psychiatric ward of Charing Cross Hospital, where he becomes the patient of Dr. Zack Busner, clinical psychologist, medical doctor, anti-psychiatrist, and former television personality—an expert at the height of his reign as alpha male. As Busner attempts to convince him that “everyone who is fully sentient in this world are chimpanzees,” Simon struggles with the horrifying delusion that he is really a human trapped in a chimp’s body. Written with the same brilliant satiric wit that has distinguised Self’s earlier fiction, Great Apes is a hilarious, often disturbing, and absolutely original take on man’s place in the evolutionary chain. In a strange and twisted tale that recalls Jonathan Swift and Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis, Will Self’s comic genius is impossible to ignore.
Author: C. S. Lewis
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0064405036
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : es
Pages : 176
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Book Description
The conclusion of the saga that began with The Magician's Nephew
