Weird Biology

From entomologist Barrett Klein comes a buzz-worthy exploration of the many ways insects have affected human society, history, and culture Insects surround us. They fuel life on Earth through their roles as pollinators, predators, and prey, but rarely do we consider the outsize influence they...

In recent years, scientists have hypothesized life-forms that can only be called "weird": organisms that live off acid rather than water, microbes that thrive at temperatures and pressure levels so extreme that their cellular structures should break down, perhaps even organisms that reproduce without DNA. Some of these strange life-forms, unrelated to all life we know, might be nearby: on rock surfaces in the American southwest, hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor, or even in our own bodies. Some, stranger still, might live in Martian permafrost, swim in the dark oceans of Jupiter's moons, or survive in the exotic ices on comets.

A rollicking, myth-busting history of sex that moves from historical attempts at birth control to Hildegard von Bingen’s treatise on the female orgasm, demystifying plenty of urban legends along the way. Roman physicians told female patients they should sneeze out as much semen as possible...

Book # 5 in the Strangest Animals series. Describes some of the most unusual mammals from around the globe.