検索キーワード： 生物学

As human beings, we are fascinated by what makes us tick. We know that nature gave us certain biological appetites to ensure our survival, among those the need for water, food, sex, and love, but meeting these alone is not enough to ensure happiness. Scientists, and now managers, are realizing that people have a biological need to experience social rewards like praise, the thrill of innovation, and the satisfaction of acquiring new skills.

Our health care system is crippled by desperate efforts to prevent the inevitable. A third of the national Medicare budget - nearly $175 billion - is spent on the final year of life, and a third of that amount on the final month, often on expensive (and futile) treatments. Such efforts betray a fundamental flaw in how we think about healthcare: we squander resources on hopeless situations, instead of using them to actually improve health.

Here is a scientific look at zombies - and the ultimate guide to how the other half lives (or not). How fast and far would a zombie infection spread? What would a nutritionist say about an all-brain diet? Why are the undead so pissed off? Here are the answers to all of your essential zombie questions (you know you've asked them), with a lively, science-based exploration of every aspect of the undead.

The Western world has had an enduring love affair with dolphins since the early 1960s, with fanciful claims of their 'healing powers' and 'super intelligence'. Myths and pseudoscience abound on the subject. Justin Gregg weighs up the claims made about dolphin intelligence and separates scientific fact from fiction. He puts our knowledge about dolphin behavior and intelligence into perspective, with comparisons to scientific studies of other animals, especially the crow family and great apes.

A compelling investigation into one of our most coveted and cherished ideals, and the efforts of modern science to penetrate the mysterious nature of this timeless virtue. We all recognize wisdom, but defining it is more elusive. In this fascinating journey from philosophy to science, Stephen S. Hall gives us a dramatic history of wisdom, from its sudden emergence in four different locations (Greece, China, Israel, and India) in the fifth century B.C. to its modern manifestations.

What causes a child to grow up gay or straight? In this book, neuroscientist Simon LeVay summarizes a wealth of scientific evidence that points to one inescapable conclusion: Sexual orientation results primarily from an interaction between genes, sex hormones, and the cells of the developing body and brain. LeVay helped create this field in 1991 with a much-publicized study in Science, where he reported on a difference in the brain structure between gay and straight men. Since then, an entire scientific discipline has sprung up around the quest for a biological explanation of sexual orientation. In this book, LeVay provides a clear explanation of where the science stands today, taking the reader on a whirlwind tour of laboratories that specialize in genetics, endocrinology, neuroscience, cognitive psychology, evolutionary psychology, and family demographics. He describes, for instance, how researchers have manipulated the sex hormone levels of animals during development, causing them to mate preferentially with animals of their own gender. LeVay also reports on the prevalence of homosexual behavior among wild animals, ranging from Graylag geese to the Bonobo chimpanzee.

In Strange Bedfellows, David P. Barash and Judith Eve Lipton look at how biology actually promotes monogamy in some species and how these lessons apply to human beings. An accessible work of science that is relevant to our intimate daily life, Strange Bedfellows will reassure some people, surprise others, and engage everyone.

In this classic work that continues to inspire its many fans, James Lovelock deftly explains his idea that life on Earth functions as a single organism. Written for the non-scientist, Gaia is a journey through time and space in search of evidence with which to support a new and radically different model of our planet. In contrast to conventional belief that living matter is passive in the face of threats to its existence, the book explores the hypothesis that the Earth's living matter - air, ocean, and land surfaces - forms a complex system that has the capacity to keep the Earth a fit place for life.

By 2030, experts predict two-thirds of people living on this planet will not have enough water, a situation expected to result in the deaths of millions and an unprecedented rise in military conflicts. Can we as individuals hope to reverse these dire predictions? Award-winning author and water activist Florencia Ramirez believes we can if our conservation efforts focus on the 70 percent of freshwater flowing to the fields and ranches that grow our food. Eat Less Water takes the listener on a journey to meet America's food producers growing food with less water.

In Long Hops, physicist Mark Denny explains, in a clear, conversational style, the science of bird migration - from the intricacies of bird aeronautics to the newly unraveled mysteries of their magnetic compasses. While providing wherever possible examples of indigenous Hawaiian species, the book surveys the migration phenomenon as a whole, showing that birds are breathtaking works of engineering with spectacular capabilities for long-distance flights.

Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature was written in 1863 by Thomas Henry Huxley. In this work, Huxley presents evidence for the evolution of man and ape from a common ancestor. Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature was the first book in history devoted to the topic of human evolution, and it discussed this theory in light of anatomical and other evidence.

Jeremy Stone, a renowned, almost Zelig-like figure in the world of public interest activism offers his antic, wry and moving memoirs of a life spent trying to make the world a better place. There probably isn't another human being who's been involved with more issues as an activist than Jeremy Stone. During his tenure as head of the 2,000 member Federation of American Scientists, Stone has been involved with just about every major activist issue of the past quarter century.

This gives a brief and quick overview of evolutionary theories of the origins of early life at the microscopic levels and the view of how organic substances can come from inorganic substances.

This serves as the second book in the Basics of Biology series. In this segment, the functions of membranes are explored. With regards to fully understanding biological organisms, the cell membrane is essential to developing an understanding of how cell function to control the substance that enter and exit them along with they way in which they interact with their environment.

In this book, some of the basic information and background into biology is broken down and explained. This serves as a quick and fast to the point introduction to biology. Some of the concepts explored include cell structure, taxonomy, biochemistry, and systems biology. With listening to this book, one could explain some of the simpler concepts of biology in a short time.

DNA serves as the basic instruction manual for life. In this installment, we look at the way in which DNA is structured, replicated, and how it is packaged into such a small area. This will provide the basic understanding of how genes are structured in an easy to understand way.

The environment can cause - and cure - cancer! Out of the labs of the prestigious Pasteur Institute came decades of research that unlocked the mystery of cancer at the DNA level. But we're only just now finding out about it.

Why do organisms grow old and die? What are the theories of aging? Does the Free Radical Theory of Aging still stack up? How do cells decide when to divide, differentiate or die? What factors accelerate the aging process? This essay takes a look at these issues and would thus be useful to students who want to know more about the processes that control cell death. The essay also documents the more extreme measures that some people have taken in the pursuit of eternal youth.

Emmy Award - winning filmmaker, writer, and naturalist Joe Hutto has done it again. Touching the Wild is the enchanting story about one man who has lived with a herd of mule deer in the Wind River mountains of Wyoming for almost seven years. Why, you may ask, would a person choose to do such a thing? His response: how could you not? For Joe Hutto, close proximity to wild things is irresistible. In Illumination in the Flatwoods he unveiled the secret lives of the wild turkey to great critical acclaim.

This pathbreaking book explores how life can begin, taking us from cosmic clouds of stardust, to volcanoes on Earth, to the modern chemistry laboratory. Seeking to understand life's connection to the stars, David Deamer introduces astrobiology, a new scientific discipline that studies the origin and evolution of life on Earth and relates it to the birth and death of stars, planet formation, interfaces between minerals, water, and atmosphere, and the physics and chemistry of carbon compounds.