The Well-Dressed Ape

The Well-Dressed Ape PDF Author: Hannah Holmes
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1588368025
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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Book Description
DID YOU KNOW THAT • we have more hair follicles than a chimpanzee • a male boxer in top condition can punch with the force of a thirteen-pound mallet swung at twenty miles an hour • the best human endurance runners can outlast a horse • one odor above all is sexually stimulating to the human male: cinnamon buns • our home-building skills compare nicely with those of the bagworm With dry wit and penetrating insight, science journalist Hannah Holmes casts the eye of a trained researcher and reporter on . . . herself. And on our whole species. She compares the biology and behavior of humans with that of other creatures, exploring how the human animal fits into the natural world. Holmes also reveals the ways in which Homo sapiens stands apart from other mammals (and all other animals) in ways that are alternately admirable and devastating. Deftly mixing personal stories with the latest scientific research, Hannah Holmes has fashioned an engaging field guide to that oddest and most fascinating of primates: ourselves.

The Well-Dressed Ape

The Well-Dressed Ape PDF Author: Hannah Holmes
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1588368025
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 370

Get Book Here

Book Description
DID YOU KNOW THAT • we have more hair follicles than a chimpanzee • a male boxer in top condition can punch with the force of a thirteen-pound mallet swung at twenty miles an hour • the best human endurance runners can outlast a horse • one odor above all is sexually stimulating to the human male: cinnamon buns • our home-building skills compare nicely with those of the bagworm With dry wit and penetrating insight, science journalist Hannah Holmes casts the eye of a trained researcher and reporter on . . . herself. And on our whole species. She compares the biology and behavior of humans with that of other creatures, exploring how the human animal fits into the natural world. Holmes also reveals the ways in which Homo sapiens stands apart from other mammals (and all other animals) in ways that are alternately admirable and devastating. Deftly mixing personal stories with the latest scientific research, Hannah Holmes has fashioned an engaging field guide to that oddest and most fascinating of primates: ourselves.

Quirk

Quirk PDF Author: Hannah Holmes
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1400068401
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
Who are you? It’s the most fundamental of human questions. Are you the type of person who tilts at windmills, or the one who prefers to view them from the comfort of an air-conditioned motorcoach? Our personalities are endlessly fascinating—not just to ourselves but also to our spouses, our parents, our children, our co-workers, our neighbors. As a highly social species, humans have to navigate among an astonishing variety of personalities. But how did all these different permutations come about? And what purpose do they serve? With her trademark wit and sly humor, Hannah Holmes takes readers into the amazing world of personality and modern brain science. Using the Five Factor Model, which slices temperaments into the major factors (Extraversion, Neuroticism, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness) and minor facets (such as impulsive, artistic, or cautious), Holmes demonstrates how our genes and brains dictate which factors and facets each of us displays. Are you a Nervous Nelly? Your amygdala is probably calling the shots. Hyperactive Hal? It’s all about the dopamine. Each facet took root deep in the evolution of life on Earth, with Nature allowing enough personal variation to see a species through good times and bad. Just as there are introverted and extroverted people, there are introverted and extroverted mice, and even starfish. In fact, the personality genes we share with mice make them invaluable models for the study of disorders like depression, schizophrenia, and anxiety. Thus it is deep and ancient biases that guide your dealings with a very modern world. Your personality helps to determine the political party you support, the car you drive, the way you eat M&Ms, and the likelihood that you’ll cheat on your spouse. Drawing on data from top research laboratories, the lives of her eccentric friends, the conflicts that plague her own household, and even the habits of her two pet mice, Hannah Holmes summarizes the factors that shape you. And what she proves is that it does take all kinds. Even the most irksome and trying personality you’ve ever encountered contributes to the diversity of our species. And diversity is the key to our survival.

Suburban Safari

Suburban Safari PDF Author: Hannah Holmes
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 159691811X
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
The suburban lawn sprouts a crop of contradictory myths. To some, it's a green oasis; to others, it's eco-purgatory. Science writer Hannah Holmes spent a year appraising the lawn through the eyes of the squirrels, crows, worms, and spiders who think of her backyard as their own. Suburban Safari is a fascinating and often hilarious record of her discoveries: that many animals adore the suburban environment, including bears and cougars venturing in from the woods; how plants, in their struggle for dominance, communicate with their own kind and battle other species; and that ways already exist for us to grow healthier, livelier lawns.

The Secret Life of Dust

The Secret Life of Dust PDF Author: Hannah Holmes
Publisher: Turner Publishing Company
ISBN: 0470589140
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
Hannah Holmes A mesmerizing expedition around our dusty world Some see dust as dull and useless stuff. But in the hands of author Hannah Holmes, it becomes a dazzling and mysterious force; Dust, we discover, built the planet we walk upon. And it tinkers with the weather and spices the air we breathe. Billions of tons of it rise annually into the air--the dust of deserts and forgotten kings mixing with volcanic ash, sea salt, leaf fragments, scales from butterfly wings, shreds of T-shirts, and fireplace soot. Eventually, though, all this dust must settle. The story of restless dust begins among exploding stars, then treks through the dinosaur beds of the Gobi Desert, drills into Antarctic glaciers, filters living dusts from the wind, and probes the dark underbelly of the living-room couch. Along the way, Holmes introduces a delightful cast of characters--the scientists who study dust. Some investigate its dark side: how it killed off dinosaurs and how its industrial descendents are killing us today. Others sample the shower of Saharan dust that nourishes Caribbean jungles, or venture into the microscopic jungle of the bedroom carpet. Like The Secret Life of Dust, however, all of them unveil the mayhem and magic wrought by little things. Hannah Holmes (Portland, ME) is a science and natural history writer for the Discovery Channel Online. Her freelance work has been widely published, appearing in the Los Angeles Times Magazine, the New York Times Magazine, Outside, Sierra, National Geographic Traveler, and Escape. Her broadcast work has been featured on Living on Earth and the Discovery Channel Online's Science Live.

Great Apes

Great Apes PDF 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.

A Natural History of Ourselves

A Natural History of Ourselves PDF Author: Hannah Holmes
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781848870406
Category : Animal behavior
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
In this fascinating explication of the animal behaviour of the human species, Hannah Holmes explores our plumage, our mating habits, our social lives and our development.

How Not to Kill Yourself

How Not to Kill Yourself PDF Author: Set Sytes
Publisher: Microcosm Publishing
ISBN: 1621067025
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
A highly imaginative and relatable guide for anyone who needs the reassurance that suicide is NEVER worth it. Are you inclined to escape the crumminess of everyday life into fantasy worlds? Are you smart and imaginative in a way that isn't really suited to your surroundings? Are you definitely misunderstood, likely angry, and almost certainly depressed? Set Sytes, hailing from the UK, would prefer you stay alive and sort things out rather than the alternative, thanks. He figures there are better opportunities for you out there and lays it all out in a way that's compelling, funny, sharp, and useful. This zine turned book (please don't call it a self-help guide, asks the author) is ultimately about how to be a person in the world. It can be done non-miserably, we promise.

Rescued

Rescued PDF Author: Eliot Schrefer
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
ISBN: 0545655048
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
From two-time National Book Award finalist Eliot Schrefer comes an unbelievable story of survival. Raja has been raised in captivity. Not behind the bars of a zoo, but within the confines of an American home. He was stolen when he was young to be someone's pet. Now he's grown up . . . and is about to be sent away again, to a place from which there will be no return. John grew up with Raja. The orangutan was his friend, his brother -- never his pet. But when John's parents split up and he moved across the country, he left Raja behind. Now Raja is suffering.There's one last chance to save Raja -- a chance that will force John to confront his fractured family and the captivity he's imposed on himself all of these years.Eliot Schrefer's last two novels, Endangered and Threatened, were both finalists for the National Book Award. With Rescued, he brings his remarkable storytelling to the American landscape, giving us a boy who must redefine his own humanity and an orangutan who will need his help in order to return home.

Monkey Portraits

Monkey Portraits PDF Author: Jill Greenberg
Publisher: Little, Brown
ISBN: 9780316005128
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Jill Greenberg offers a fascinating, funny, and all-too-human collection of celebrity monkey and ape portraits. Each of these 76 amazing anthropomorphic photographs will remind readers of someone they know. Little, Brown and Company

Planet Ape

Planet Ape PDF Author: Desmond Morris
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781845334413
Category : Apes
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
Planet Ape brings you face to face with your closest living relatives, the Great Apes.Gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos and orang-utans are only a hair's breadth away from us in evolutionary terms; our DNA differs by just a few per cent. These fascinating creatures hold up a mirror to humanity, giving us insights into our past, our present, and perhaps even our future - the environmental pressures they face today could be those we face tomorrow. Planet Ape reveals the Great Apes in unprecedented detail: where they live, how they live and the challenges they face. Throughout, the approach is to compare them with each other and with us, their cousins. Using innovative artworks, photographs and text, the book makes key comparisons with human beings including anatomy, social life, physical and mental development, diet and communication. From peace-loving bonobos to warring chimpanzee communities, from highly sociable gorillas to solitary orang-utans, from their amazing communication skills to their breathtaking physical agility, Planet Ape is the first book to do justice to the diversity and complexity of the ape world and what it tells us about our own.