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- How It Explains the World
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- Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
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PDF should come with this book...
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4 out of 5 stars
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Abridged - no Appendix!
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Every investment plan under the sun is, at best, an informed speculation of what may happen in the future, based on a systematic extrapolation from the known past. Same as Ever reverses the process, inviting us to identify the many things that never, ever change. With his usual elan, Morgan Housel presents a master class on optimizing risk, seizing opportunity, and living your best life. Through a sequence of engaging stories and pithy examples, he shows how we can use our newfound grasp of the unchanging to see around corners.
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Beautifully Succinct Summary of Others Original Ideas
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Sand, salt, iron, copper, oil, and lithium. These fundamental materials have created empires, razed civilizations, and fed our ingenuity and greed for thousands of years. Without them, our modern world would not exist, and the battle to control them will determine our future. In Material World, Ed Conway embarks on an epic journey across continents, cultures, and epochs to reveal the underpinnings of modern life on Earth—traveling from the sweltering depths of the deepest mine in Europe to spotless silicon chip factories in Taiwan to the eerie green pools where lithium originates.
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5 out of 5 stars
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You may be surprised to learn that microchips are the new oil—the scarce resource on which the modern world depends. Today, military, economic, and geopolitical power are built on a foundation of computer chips. Virtually everything—from missiles to microwaves—runs on chips, including cars, smartphones, the stock market, even the electric grid. Until recently, America designed and built the fastest chips and maintained its lead as the #1 superpower, but America’s edge is in danger of slipping, undermined by players in Taiwan, Korea, and Europe taking over manufacturing.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great history, but could poor narration
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Global warming is one of the greatest dangers mankind faces today. Even as temperatures increase, sea levels rise, and natural disasters escalate, our current environmental crisis feels difficult to predict and understand. But climate change and its effects on us are not new. In a bold narrative that spans centuries and continents, Peter Frankopan argues that nature has always played a fundamental role in the writing of history.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Thoughtful History of A Complex Phenomenon
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Publisher's summary
From the New York Times bestselling author of How the World Really Works, a wide-ranging look at the most fundamental governing principle of our world: size, whose laws, limits, and peculiarities offer the key to understanding health, wealth, and even happiness
“No one writes about the great issues of our time with more rigor or erudition than Vaclav Smil.”—Elizabeth Kolbert
To answer the most important questions of our age, we must understand size. Neither bacteria nor empires are immune to its laws. Measuring it is challenging, especially where complex systems like economies are concerned, yet mastering it offers rich rewards: the rise of the West, for example, was a direct result of ever more accurate and standardized measurements.
Using the interdisciplinary approach that has won him a wide readership, Smil draws upon history, earth science, psychology, art, and more to offer fresh insight into some of our biggest challenges, including income inequality, the spread of infectious disease, and the uneven impacts of climate change. Size explains the regularities—and peculiarities—of the key processes shaping life (from microbes to whales), the Earth (from asteroids to volcanic eruptions), technical advances (from architecture to transportation), and societies and economies (from cities to wages). This book about the big and the small, and the relationship between them, answers the big and small questions of human existence:
- What makes a human society too big? What about a human being?
- Which alternative energy sources have the best chance of scaling and reducing our dependence on fossil fuels?
- Why do tall people make more money?
- What makes a face beautiful? How about a cathedral?
- How can changing the size of your plates help you lose weight?
The latest masterwork of “an ambitious and astonishing polymath who swings for fences” (Wired) Size is a mind-bending journey that turns the modern world on its head.
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Growth has been both an unspoken and an explicit aim of our individual and collective striving. It governs the lives of microorganisms and galaxies; it shapes the capabilities of our extraordinarily large brains and the fortunes of our economies. Growth is manifested in annual increments of continental crust, a rising gross domestic product, a child's growth chart, the spread of cancerous cells. In this magisterial book, Vaclav Smil offers systematic investigation of growth in nature and society, from tiny organisms to the trajectories of empires and civilizations.
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PDF should come with this book...
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Humans are awesome. Our brains are gigantic, seven times larger than they should be for the size of our bodies. The human brain uses 25 percent of all the energy the body requires each day. And it became enormous in a very short amount of time in evolution, allowing us to leave our cousins, the great apes, behind. So the human brain is special, right? Wrong, according to Suzana Herculano-Houzel. Humans have developed cognitive abilities that outstrip those of all other animals but not because we are evolutionary outliers.
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Take That Raw Foods!
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A Pocket History of Human Evolution brings us up-to-date on the exploits of all our ancient relatives. Paleoanthropologist Silvana Condemi and science journalist François Savatier consider what accelerated our evolution: Was it tools, our "large" brains, language, empathy, or something else entirely? And why are we the sole survivors among many early bipedal humans? Their conclusions reveal the various ways ancient humans live on today - from gossip as modern "grooming" to our gendered division of labor - and what the future might hold for our strange and unique species.
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Well presented and very informative.
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Fifty thousand years ago - merely a blip in evolutionary time - our Homo sapiens ancestors were competing for existence with several other human species, just as their precursors had done for millions of years. Yet something about our species distinguished it from the pack, and ultimately led to its survival while the rest became extinct. Just what was it that allowed Homo sapiens to become masters of the planet? Ian Tattersall, curator emeritus at the American Museum of Natural History, takes us deep into the fossil record to uncover what made humans so special.
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Great Book, Some Sloppy Editing
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How four tools enabled humanity to control its destiny What enabled us to go from simple stone tools to smartphones? How did bands of hunter-gatherers evolve into multinational empires? Listeners of Sapiens will say a cognitive revolution - a dramatic evolutionary change that altered our brains, turning primitive humans into modern ones - caused a cultural explosion. In Transcendence, Gaia Vince argues instead that modern humans are the product of a nuanced coevolution of our genes, environment, and culture that goes back into deep time.
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1 out of 5 stars
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PDF should come with this book...
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 35
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 31
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 30
Humans are awesome. Our brains are gigantic, seven times larger than they should be for the size of our bodies. The human brain uses 25 percent of all the energy the body requires each day. And it became enormous in a very short amount of time in evolution, allowing us to leave our cousins, the great apes, behind. So the human brain is special, right? Wrong, according to Suzana Herculano-Houzel. Humans have developed cognitive abilities that outstrip those of all other animals but not because we are evolutionary outliers.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Take That Raw Foods!
- By Susie on 07-07-16
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A Pocket History of Human Evolution
- How We Became Sapiens
- By: Silvana Condemi, Francois Savatier
- Narrated by: Christa Lewis
- Length: 3 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 49
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 41
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 40
A Pocket History of Human Evolution brings us up-to-date on the exploits of all our ancient relatives. Paleoanthropologist Silvana Condemi and science journalist François Savatier consider what accelerated our evolution: Was it tools, our "large" brains, language, empathy, or something else entirely? And why are we the sole survivors among many early bipedal humans? Their conclusions reveal the various ways ancient humans live on today - from gossip as modern "grooming" to our gendered division of labor - and what the future might hold for our strange and unique species.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Well presented and very informative.
- By Jim Griggs on 11-11-21
By: Silvana Condemi, and others
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Masters of the Planet
- The Search for Our Human Origins
- By: Ian Tattersall
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 90
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 75
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 75
Fifty thousand years ago - merely a blip in evolutionary time - our Homo sapiens ancestors were competing for existence with several other human species, just as their precursors had done for millions of years. Yet something about our species distinguished it from the pack, and ultimately led to its survival while the rest became extinct. Just what was it that allowed Homo sapiens to become masters of the planet? Ian Tattersall, curator emeritus at the American Museum of Natural History, takes us deep into the fossil record to uncover what made humans so special.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great Book, Some Sloppy Editing
- By DB on 11-23-20
By: Ian Tattersall
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Pandora's Seed
- The Unforeseen Cost of Civilization
- By: Spencer Wells
- Narrated by: Spencer Wells
- Length: 6 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 167
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 67
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 68
This new book by Spencer Wells, the internationally known geneticist, anthropologist, author, and director of the Genographic Project, focuses on the seminal event in human history: mankind's decision to become farmers rather than hunter-gatherers.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Short and unfocused, but often quite interesting.
- By Alan on 06-23-10
By: Spencer Wells
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Transcendence
- How Humans Evolved Through Fire, Language, Beauty, and Time
- By: Gaia Vince
- Narrated by: Gaia Vince
- Length: 11 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 40
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 36
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 36
How four tools enabled humanity to control its destiny What enabled us to go from simple stone tools to smartphones? How did bands of hunter-gatherers evolve into multinational empires? Listeners of Sapiens will say a cognitive revolution - a dramatic evolutionary change that altered our brains, turning primitive humans into modern ones - caused a cultural explosion. In Transcendence, Gaia Vince argues instead that modern humans are the product of a nuanced coevolution of our genes, environment, and culture that goes back into deep time.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Far too much bias and unsupported conclusions
- By Kurt Leyendecker on 10-01-20
By: Gaia Vince
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Why Evolution Is True
- By: Jerry A. Coyne
- Narrated by: Victor Bevine
- Length: 9 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,915
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,432
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,428
Why evolution is more than just a theory: it is a fact. In all the current highly publicized debates about creationism and its descendant "intelligent design", there is an element of the controversy that is rarely mentioned: the evidence, the empirical truth of evolution by natural selection.
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5 out of 5 stars
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As great as everyone says it is
- By Joseph on 12-01-10
By: Jerry A. Coyne
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A Series of Fortunate Events
- Chance and the Making of the Planet, Life, and You
- By: Sean B. Carroll
- Narrated by: Sean B. Carroll
- Length: 4 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 124
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 105
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 103
Why is the world the way it is? How did we get here? Does everything happen for a reason, or are some things left to chance? Philosophers and theologians have pondered these questions for millennia, but startling scientific discoveries over the past half century are revealing that we live in a world driven by chance. A Series of Fortunate Events tells the story of the awesome power of chance and how it is the surprising source of all the beauty and diversity in the living world.
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4 out of 5 stars
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We are for a short time.
- By Anonymous User on 10-14-20
By: Sean B. Carroll
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When Life Nearly Died
- The Greatest Mass Extinction of All Time
- By: Michael J. Benton
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 11 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 141
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 120
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 120
Today it is common knowledge that the dinosaurs were wiped out by a meteorite impact 65 million years ago that killed half of all species then living. It is far less widely understood that a much greater catastrophe took place at the end of the Permian period 251 million years ago: at least 90 percent of life on earth was destroyed. When Life Nearly Died documents not only what happened during this gigantic mass extinction, but also the recent renewal of the idea of catastrophism.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Obscurity to Enlightenment - A Mystery Revealed
- By Dipam on 03-18-21
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Work
- A Deep History, from the Stone Age to the Age of Robots
- By: James Suzman
- Narrated by: Nicholas Guy Smith
- Length: 13 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 319
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 268
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 267
Work defines who we are. It determines our status and dictates how, where, and with whom we spend most of our time. It mediates our self-worth and molds our values. But are we hardwired to work as hard as we do? Did our Stone Age ancestors also live to work and work to live? And what might a world where work plays a far less important role look like? To answer these questions, James Suzman charts a grand history of "work" from the origins of life on Earth to our ever more automated present, challenging some of our deepest assumptions about who we are.
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2 out of 5 stars
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if you like Jared Diamond's work, you'll like this
- By Mark on 04-09-22
By: James Suzman
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Paleontology
- A Brief History of Life
- By: Ian Tattersall
- Narrated by: Brett Barry
- Length: 6 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 112
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 71
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 72
Ian Tattersall, a highly esteemed figure in the fields of anthropology, archaeology, and paleontology, leads a fascinating tour of the history of life and the evolution of human beings. Starting at the very beginning, Tattersall examines patterns of change in the biosphere over time, and the correlations of biological events with physical changes in the Earth's environment.
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5 out of 5 stars
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great summary of where we are with understanding
- By david on 06-25-11
By: Ian Tattersall
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Radical Abundance
- How a Revolution in Nanotechnology Will Change Civilization
- By: K. Eric Drexler
- Narrated by: Tim Pabon
- Length: 11 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 129
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 107
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 107
K. Eric Drexler is the founding father of nanotechnology - the science of engineering on a molecular level. In Radical Abundance, he shows how rapid scientific progress is about to change our world. Thanks to atomically precise manufacturing, we will soon have the power to produce radically more of what people want, and at a lower cost. The result will shake the very foundations of our economy and environment.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Drexler Rehashes the Past
- By David on 10-19-13
By: K. Eric Drexler
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The Blind Watchmaker
- Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design
- By: Richard Dawkins
- Narrated by: Richard Dawkins, Lalla Ward
- Length: 14 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,790
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,414
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,385
The Blind Watchmaker, knowledgably narrated by author Richard Dawkins, is as prescient and timely a book as ever. The watchmaker belongs to the 18th-century theologian William Paley, who argued that just as a watch is too complicated and functional to have sprung into existence by accident, so too must all living things, with their far greater complexity, be purposefully designed. Charles Darwin's brilliant discovery challenged the creationist arguments; but only Richard Dawkins could have written this elegant riposte.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Challenging textbook more than an enjoyable listen
- By Eric on 01-15-12
By: Richard Dawkins
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On the Future
- Prospects for Humanity
- By: Martin Rees
- Narrated by: Martin Rees, Samuel West
- Length: 5 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 153
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 130
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 129
Humanity has reached a critical moment. Our world is unsettled and rapidly changing, and we face existential risks over the next century. Various outcomes - good and bad - are possible. Yet our approach to the future is characterized by short-term thinking, polarizing debates, alarmist rhetoric, and pessimism. In this short, exhilarating book, renowned scientist and best-selling author Martin Rees argues that humanity’s prospects depend on our taking a very different approach to planning for tomorrow.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Science, the future, and great wisdom
- By Philomath on 10-29-18
By: Martin Rees
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Unbound
- How Eight Technologies Made Us Human, Transformed Society, and Brought Our World to the Brink
- By: Richard L. Currier
- Narrated by: Noah Michael Levine
- Length: 10 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 240
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 213
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 212
Although we usually think of technology as something unique to modern times, our ancestors began to create the first technologies millions of years ago in the form of prehistoric tools and weapons. Over time, eight key technologies gradually freed us from the limitations of our animal origins.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Good facts, not much else
- By Joel B. Gordon on 10-30-16
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Ancient Bones
- Unearthing the Astonishing New Story of How We Became Human
- By: Madelaine Böhme
- Narrated by: Aimée Ayotte
- Length: 7 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 43
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 38
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 38
Africa has long been considered the cradle of life - where life and humans evolved - but somewhere west of Munich, Germany, paleoclimatologist and paleontologist Madelaine Böhme and her team make a discovery that is beyond anything they ever imagined: the 12-million-year-old bones of an ancient ape - Danuvius guggenmos - which makes headlines around the world and defies prevailing theories of human history and where human life began.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Brave Attempt
- By Bill Treat on 10-15-22
By: Madelaine Böhme
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The Story of the Human Body
- Evolution, Health, and Disease
- By: Daniel Lieberman
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 14 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,699
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,455
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,455
In this landmark book of popular science, Daniel E. Lieberman - chair of the department of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University and a leader in the field - gives us a lucid and engaging account of how the human body evolved over millions of years, even as it shows how the increasing disparity between the jumble of adaptations in our Stone Age bodies and advancements in the modern world is occasioning this paradox: greater longevity but increased chronic disease.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Could Have Been Good, but...
- By Trebla on 04-08-18
By: Daniel Lieberman
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Know This
- Today's Most Interesting and Important Scientific Ideas, Discoveries, and Developments
- By: John Brockman
- Narrated by: Gabra Zackman, Dan John Miller
- Length: 14 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 230
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 202
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 199
Scientific developments radically alter our understanding of the world. Whether it's technology, climate change, health research, or the latest revelations of neuroscience, physics, or psychology, science has, as Edge editor John Brockman says, "become a big story, if not the big story". In that spirit this new addition to Edge.org's fascinating series asks a powerful and provocative question: What do you consider the most interesting and important recent scientific news?
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1 out of 5 stars
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Pete and Repeat and Re-repeat
- By Daniel L on 02-25-18
By: John Brockman
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- How Everyday Spaces Structure Our Lives, Behaviour, and Well-Being
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What makes everyday spaces work, how do they shape us, and what do they say about us? The spaces we live in - whether public areas, housing, offices, hospitals or cities - mediate community, creativity and our very identity, making us who we are. Using insights from environmental psychology, design, and architecture, The Shaping of Us reveals the often imperceptible ways in which our surroundings influence our behaviour.
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In 2012, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was clinging to power in a vicious civil war. When intelligence revealed that the dictator might resort to using chemical weapons, Pres. Obama warned that doing so would cross “a red line”. Assad did it anyway, killing hundreds of civilians and forcing Obama to decide if he would mire America in another unpopular war. When Russia offered to broker the removal of Syria’s chemical weapons, Obama leapt at the out. So begins an electrifying race to find, remove, and destroy 1,300 tons of chemical weapons in the midst of a raging civil war.
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3 out of 5 stars
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An excellent story for Three Quarters of the Book
- By D. MacLean on 05-11-21
By: Joby Warrick
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Bachelor Nation
- Inside the World of America's Favorite Guilty Pleasure
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For 15 years and 35 seasons, the Bachelor franchise has been a mainstay in American TV viewers' lives. Since it premiered in 2002, the show's popularity and relevance has only grown - more than eight million viewers tuned in to see the conclusion of the most recent season of The Bachelor. The iconic reality television show's reach and influence into the cultural zeitgeist is undeniable. Bachelor Nation is the first behind-the-scenes, unauthorized look into the reality television phenomenon.
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2 out of 5 stars
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So disappointing!!!
- By Ashton T. on 03-15-18
By: Amy Kaufman
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New Yorkers
- A City and Its People in Our Time
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- Length: 14 hrs and 7 mins
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Over the last 20 years, New York City has been convulsed by enormous challenges: terrorist attack, blackout, hurricane, recession, pandemic. New Yorkers is a grand portrait of the irrepressible city and a hymn to the vitality and resilience of its people. Craig Taylor spent years meeting New Yorkers - rich and poor, old and young, native and immigrant - and getting them to share indelible true tales.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The domestic cat—your cat—has, from its evolutionary origins in Africa, been transformed in comparatively little time into one of the most successful and diverse species on the planet. Jonathan Losos, writing as both a scientist and a cat lover, explores how researchers today are unraveling the secrets of the cat, past and present, using all the tools of modern technology, from GPS tracking (you’d be amazed where those backyard cats roam) and genomics (what is your so-called Siamese cat . . . really?) to forensic archaeology.
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A delight for cat lovers of all stripes
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An excellent story for Three Quarters of the Book
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It is well documented that our health-care system has grave problems, but how, in only a matter of decades, did things get this bad? Dr. Elisabeth Rosenthal doesn't just explain the symptoms; she diagnoses and treats the disease itself. Rosenthal spells out in clear and practical terms exactly how to decode medical doublespeak, avoid the pitfalls of the pharmaceuticals racket, and get the care you and your family deserve. She takes you inside the doctor-patient relationship, explaining step by step the workings of a profession sorely lacking transparency.
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Not well balanced
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The Intimate City
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 11
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 9
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As New York came to a halt with COVID, Michael Kimmelman composed an email to a group of architects, historians, writers, and friends, inviting them to take a walk. Wherever they liked, he wrote—preferably someplace meaningful to them, someplace that illuminated the city and what they loved about it. At first, the goal was distraction. At a scary moment when everything seemed uncertain, walking around New York served as a reminder of all the ways the city was still a rock, joy, and inspiration.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Excellent Book. Flawed audiobook presentation
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The Secret Token
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 138
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In 1587, 115 men, women, and children arrived at Roanoke Island on the coast of North Carolina to establish the first English settlement in the New World. But when the new colony's leader returned to Roanoke from a resupply mission, his settlers had vanished, leaving behind only a single clue - a "secret token" etched into a tree. What happened to the Lost Colony of Roanoke? That question has consumed historians, archeologists, and amateur sleuths for 400 years. In The Secret Token, Andrew Lawler sets out on a quest to determine the fate of the settlers.
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1 out of 5 stars
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trying to capitalize on race relations
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Inferior
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- By: Angela Saini
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 257
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 227
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 224
Whether looking at intelligence or emotion, cognition or behavior, science has continued to tell us that men and women are fundamentally different. Biologists claim that women are better suited to raising families or are, more gently, uniquely empathetic. Men, on the other hand, continue to be described as excelling at tasks that require logic, spatial reasoning, and motor skills. But a huge wave of research is now revealing an alternative version of what we thought we knew.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Amazing
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By: Angela Saini
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Fantasyland
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,496
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A razor-sharp thinker offers a new understanding of our post-truth world and explains the American instinct to believe in make-believe, from the Pilgrims to P. T. Barnum to Disneyland to zealots of every stripe...to Donald Trump. In this sweeping, eloquent history of America, Kurt Andersen demonstrates that what's happening in our country today - this strange, post-factual, "fake news" moment we're all living through - is not something entirely new, but rather the ultimate expression of our national character and path.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Bland Title For An Amazing Book!
- By David Larson on 09-07-17
By: Kurt Andersen
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Pure Invention
- How Japan's Pop Culture Conquered the World
- By: Matt Alt
- Narrated by: Matt Alt
- Length: 11 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 246
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 213
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 212
Japan is the forge of the world’s fantasies: karaoke and the Walkman, manga and anime, Pac-Man and Pokémon, online imageboards and emojis. But as Japan media veteran Matt Alt proves in this brilliant investigation, these novelties did more than entertain. They paved the way for our perplexing modern lives.
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3 out of 5 stars
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great book ruined by ending
- By Grant Holder on 06-07-22
By: Matt Alt
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The World in Six Songs
- How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature
- By: Daniel J. Levitin
- Narrated by: Daniel J. Levitin
- Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 18
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 16
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 16
Daniel J. Levitin's astounding debut best seller, This Is Your Brain on Music, enthralled and delighted audiences as it transformed our understanding of how music gets in our heads and stays there. Now in his second New York Times best seller, his genius for combining science and art reveals how music shaped humanity across cultures and throughout history.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Scattershot Analysis, Hit or Miss
- By Dubi on 03-22-24
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Numbers Don't Lie
- 71 Stories to Help Us Understand the Modern World
- By: Vaclav Smil
- Narrated by: Ben Prendergast
- Length: 6 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 573
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 445
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 444
Vaclav Smil's mission is to make facts matter. An environmental scientist, policy analyst, and a hugely prolific author, he is Bill Gates' go-to guy for making sense of our world. In Numbers Don't Lie, Smil answers questions such as: What's worse for the environment - your car or your phone? How much do the world's cows weigh (and what does it matter)? And what makes people happy?
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3 out of 5 stars
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Strange book
- By Stephen on 05-25-21
By: Vaclav Smil
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DNA
- The Story of the Genetic Revolution
- By: James D. Watson, Andrew Berry, Kevin Davies
- Narrated by: Jonathan Cowley
- Length: 19 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 117
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 98
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 98
James D. Watson, the Nobel laureate whose pioneering work helped unlock the mystery of DNA's structure, charts the greatest scientific journey of our time, from the discovery of the double helix to today's controversies to what the future may hold. Updated to include new findings in gene editing, epigenetics, and agricultural chemistry as well as two entirely new chapters on personal genomics and cancer research. This is the most comprehensive and authoritative exploration of DNA's impact on our society and our world.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent review of Genetics Research
- By Bill on 11-26-18
By: James D. Watson, and others
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The Ends of the World
- Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and Our Quest to Understand Earth's Past Mass Extinctions
- By: Peter Brannen
- Narrated by: Adam Verner
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,932
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,733
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,724
Our world has ended five times: It has been broiled, frozen, poison gassed, smothered, and pelted by asteroids. In The Ends of the World, Peter Brannen dives into deep time, exploring Earth's past dead ends, and in the process offers us a glimpse of our possible future. Many scientists now believe that the climate shifts of the 21st century have analogs in these five extinctions.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Kid's Science Book FOR ADULTS!!
- By aaron on 06-15-17
By: Peter Brannen
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The River of Consciousness
- By: Oliver Sacks
- Narrated by: Dan Woren, Kate Edgar
- Length: 5 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 264
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 225
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 219
A collection of essays that displays Oliver Sacks' passionate engagement with the most compelling and seminal ideas of human endeavor: evolution, creativity, memory, time, consciousness, and experience. The River of Consciousness is one of two books Sacks was working on up to his death, and it reveals his ability to make unexpected connections, his sheer joy in knowledge, and his unceasing, timeless project to understand what makes us human.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Important but Less Interesting
- By Michael on 11-16-17
By: Oliver Sacks
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Rationality
- What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters
- By: Steven Pinker
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 11 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,065
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 884
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 869
In the 21st century, humanity is reaching new heights of scientific understanding - and at the same time appears to be losing its mind. How can a species that developed vaccines for COVID-19 in less than a year produce so much fake news, medical quackery, and conspiracy theorizing? Pinker rejects the cynical cliché that humans are an irrational species - cavemen out of time saddled with biases, fallacies, and illusions.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Steven Pinker's Frozen Worldview from the 90s
- By Ryan Booth on 11-12-21
By: Steven Pinker
What listeners say about Size
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Shayne Rollins
- 02-10-24
Average
In other books Vaclav has opened my mind to unforseen consequences using thoroughly researched data. Although this is informative it isn't either Energy and Civilization or How the World Really Works.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Rurik McKaiser
- 05-21-23
Worth a read
Whilst I found the book quite stimulating, it is not really what I expected. I thought it would be as good as the previous book of his that I read... and sadly not.
AND let me be quick to add that it was stimulating.
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1 person found this helpful