-
Madness and Memory
- The Discovery of Prions - A New Biological Principle of Disease
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 10 hrs
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy for $24.95
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
The Family That Couldn't Sleep
- A Medical Mystery
- By: D.T. Max
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For 200 years, a noble Venetian family has suffered from an inherited disease that strikes their members in middle age, stealing their sleep, eating holes in their brains, and ending their lives in a matter of months. In Papua New Guinea, a primitive tribe is nearly obliterated by a sickness whose chief symptom is uncontrollable laughter. Across Europe, millions of sheep rub their fleeces raw before collapsing. What these strange conditions share is their cause: prions.
-
-
A great scientific mystery
- By David on 11-04-06
By: D.T. Max
-
The Double Helix
- A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA
- By: James D. Watson
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner, Roger Clark
- Length: 4 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
By identifying the structure of DNA, the molecule of life, Francis Crick and James Watson revolutionized biochemistry and won themselves a Nobel Prize. At the time, Watson was only 24, a young scientist hungry to make his mark. His uncompromisingly honest account of the heady days of their thrilling sprint against other world-class researchers to solve one of science's greatest mysteries gives a dazzlingly clear picture of a world of brilliant scientists with great gifts, very human ambitions, and bitter rivalries.
-
-
Documents more than it intended
- By Regina on 04-18-14
By: James D. Watson
-
The Emperor of All Maladies
- A Biography of Cancer
- By: Siddhartha Mukherjee
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 22 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Emperor of All Maladies reveals the many faces of an iconic, shape-shifting disease that is the defining plague of our generation. The story of cancer is a story of human ingenuity, resilience, and perseverance but also of hubris, arrogance, paternalism, and misperception, all leveraged against a disease that, just three decades ago, was thought to be easily vanquished in an all-out "war against cancer".
-
-
Incredible
- By S.R.E. on 03-02-16
-
The Code Breaker
- Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race
- By: Walter Isaacson
- Narrated by: Kathe Mazur, Walter Isaacson
- Length: 16 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The bestselling author of Leonardo da Vinci and Steve Jobs returns with a “compelling” (The Washington Post) account of how Nobel Prize winner Jennifer Doudna and her colleagues launched a revolution that will allow us to cure diseases, fend off viruses, and have healthier babies.
-
-
Except for the author, this book is good!
- By Johan on 03-14-21
By: Walter Isaacson
-
An Elegant Defense
- The Extraordinary New Science of the Immune System: A Tale in Four Lives
- By: Matt Richtel
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 12 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A magnificently reported and soulfully crafted exploration of the human immune system - the key to health and wellness, life and death. An epic, first-of-its-kind audiobook, entwining leading-edge scientific discovery with the intimate stories of four individual lives, by the Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times journalist.
-
-
Thoroughly researched
- By Dayle on 06-23-19
By: Matt Richtel
-
Parasite Rex
- Inside the Bizarre World of Nature's Most Dangerous Creatures
- By: Carl Zimmer
- Narrated by: Charles Constant
- Length: 9 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For centuries, parasites have lived in nightmares, horror stories, and the darkest shadows of science. In Parasite Rex, Carl Zimmer takes listeners on a fantastic voyage into the secret universe of these extraordinary life forms that are not only among the most highly evolved on Earth, but make up the majority of life's diversity. Traveling from the steamy jungles of Costa Rica to the parasite-riddled war zone of southern Sudan, Zimmer introduces an array of amazing creatures that invade their hosts, prey on them from within, and control their behavior.
-
-
Fascinating, Repetitive and reading disaster
- By Spiral, on 04-02-20
By: Carl Zimmer
-
The Family That Couldn't Sleep
- A Medical Mystery
- By: D.T. Max
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For 200 years, a noble Venetian family has suffered from an inherited disease that strikes their members in middle age, stealing their sleep, eating holes in their brains, and ending their lives in a matter of months. In Papua New Guinea, a primitive tribe is nearly obliterated by a sickness whose chief symptom is uncontrollable laughter. Across Europe, millions of sheep rub their fleeces raw before collapsing. What these strange conditions share is their cause: prions.
-
-
A great scientific mystery
- By David on 11-04-06
By: D.T. Max
-
The Double Helix
- A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA
- By: James D. Watson
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner, Roger Clark
- Length: 4 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
By identifying the structure of DNA, the molecule of life, Francis Crick and James Watson revolutionized biochemistry and won themselves a Nobel Prize. At the time, Watson was only 24, a young scientist hungry to make his mark. His uncompromisingly honest account of the heady days of their thrilling sprint against other world-class researchers to solve one of science's greatest mysteries gives a dazzlingly clear picture of a world of brilliant scientists with great gifts, very human ambitions, and bitter rivalries.
-
-
Documents more than it intended
- By Regina on 04-18-14
By: James D. Watson
-
The Emperor of All Maladies
- A Biography of Cancer
- By: Siddhartha Mukherjee
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 22 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Emperor of All Maladies reveals the many faces of an iconic, shape-shifting disease that is the defining plague of our generation. The story of cancer is a story of human ingenuity, resilience, and perseverance but also of hubris, arrogance, paternalism, and misperception, all leveraged against a disease that, just three decades ago, was thought to be easily vanquished in an all-out "war against cancer".
-
-
Incredible
- By S.R.E. on 03-02-16
-
The Code Breaker
- Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race
- By: Walter Isaacson
- Narrated by: Kathe Mazur, Walter Isaacson
- Length: 16 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The bestselling author of Leonardo da Vinci and Steve Jobs returns with a “compelling” (The Washington Post) account of how Nobel Prize winner Jennifer Doudna and her colleagues launched a revolution that will allow us to cure diseases, fend off viruses, and have healthier babies.
-
-
Except for the author, this book is good!
- By Johan on 03-14-21
By: Walter Isaacson
-
An Elegant Defense
- The Extraordinary New Science of the Immune System: A Tale in Four Lives
- By: Matt Richtel
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 12 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A magnificently reported and soulfully crafted exploration of the human immune system - the key to health and wellness, life and death. An epic, first-of-its-kind audiobook, entwining leading-edge scientific discovery with the intimate stories of four individual lives, by the Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times journalist.
-
-
Thoroughly researched
- By Dayle on 06-23-19
By: Matt Richtel
-
Parasite Rex
- Inside the Bizarre World of Nature's Most Dangerous Creatures
- By: Carl Zimmer
- Narrated by: Charles Constant
- Length: 9 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For centuries, parasites have lived in nightmares, horror stories, and the darkest shadows of science. In Parasite Rex, Carl Zimmer takes listeners on a fantastic voyage into the secret universe of these extraordinary life forms that are not only among the most highly evolved on Earth, but make up the majority of life's diversity. Traveling from the steamy jungles of Costa Rica to the parasite-riddled war zone of southern Sudan, Zimmer introduces an array of amazing creatures that invade their hosts, prey on them from within, and control their behavior.
-
-
Fascinating, Repetitive and reading disaster
- By Spiral, on 04-02-20
By: Carl Zimmer
-
Immune
- A Journey into the Mysterious System That Keeps You Alive
- By: Philipp Dettmer
- Narrated by: Steve Taylor
- Length: 10 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
You wake up and feel a tickle in your throat. Your head hurts. You’re mildly annoyed as you get the kids ready for school and dress for work yourself. Meanwhile, an epic war is being fought, just below your skin. Millions are fighting and dying for you to be able to complain as you head out the door. So what, exactly, is your immune system? In Immune, Philipp Dettmer, the brains behind the most popular science channel on YouTube, takes listeners on a journey through the fortress of the human body and its defenses.
-
-
Steve Taylor for the win
- By Bay Area Engineer on 11-02-21
By: Philipp Dettmer
-
Gene Machine
- The Race to Decipher the Secrets of the Ribosome
- By: Venki Ramakrishnan
- Narrated by: Matthew Waterson
- Length: 8 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Everyone has heard of DNA. But by itself, DNA is just an inert blueprint for life. It is the ribosome - an enormous molecular machine made up of a million atoms - that makes DNA come to life, turning our genetic code into proteins and therefore into us. Gene Machine is an insider account of the race for the structure of the ribosome, a fundamental discovery that both advances our knowledge of all life and could lead to the development of better antibiotics against life-threatening diseases.
-
-
biochemistry+autobiography+science politics
- By Irina Bataeva on 02-15-19
-
Mountains Beyond Mountains
- The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World
- By: Tracy Kidder
- Narrated by: Paul Michael
- Length: 10 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Pulitzer Prize-winner Tracy Kidder tells the true story of a socially conscious genius who uses his intellectual and personal gifts to solve global health problems.
-
-
A Great Book
- By MikeInOhio on 11-22-03
By: Tracy Kidder
-
The Demon in the Freezer
- A True Story
- By: Richard Preston
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 8 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The first major bioterror event in the United States - the anthrax attacks in October 2001 - was a clarion call for scientists who work with "hot" agents to find ways of protecting civilian populations against biological weapons. In The Demon in the Freezer, his first nonfiction book since The Hot Zone, a number-one New York Times best seller, Richard Preston takes us into the heart of USAMRIID, the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Maryland.
-
-
Pretty interesting listening in a horrific way
- By S A on 09-19-03
By: Richard Preston
-
The Disordered Mind
- What Unusual Brains Tell Us About Ourselves
- By: Eric R. Kandel
- Narrated by: David Stifel
- Length: 9 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Eric R. Kandel, the winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, is one of the pioneers of modern brain science. His work continues to shape our understanding of how learning and memory work and to break down age-old barriers between the sciences and the arts. In his seminal new audiobook, The Disordered Mind, Kandel draws on a lifetime of pathbreaking research and the work of many other leading neuroscientists to take us on an unusual tour of the brain. He confronts one of the most difficult questions we face: How does our mind, our individual sense of self, emerge from the physical matter of the brain?
-
-
The Brain and how it forms our reality.
- By Mads Miller on 02-20-19
By: Eric R. Kandel
-
The American Plague
- The Untold Story of Yellow Fever, The Epidemic That Shaped Our History
- By: Molly Caldwell Crosby
- Narrated by: Paul Woodson
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1900, the U.S. sent three doctors to Cuba to discover how yellow fever was spread. There, they launched one of history's most controversial human studies. Compelling and terrifying, The American Plague depicts the story of yellow fever and its reign in this country - and in Africa, where even today it strikes thousands every year. With "arresting tales of heroism," it is a story as much about the nature of human beings as it is about the nature of disease.
-
-
Yellow Fever in Memphis
- By Kevin P Key on 04-13-20
-
The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons
- The History of the Human Brain as Revealed by True Stories of Trauma, Madness, and Recovery
- By: Sam Kean
- Narrated by: Henry Leyva
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Early studies of the human brain used a simple method: Wait for misfortune to strike - strokes, seizures, infectious diseases, horrendous accidents - and see how victims coped. In many cases their survival was miraculous, if puzzling. Observers were amazed by the transformations that took place when different parts of the brain were destroyed, altering victims' personalities. With the lucid, masterful explanations and razor-sharp wit his fans have come to expect, Kean explores the brain's secret passageways.
-
-
Detailed but not overly Technical
- By Michael on 05-06-15
By: Sam Kean
-
This Is Your Brain on Parasites
- How Tiny Creatures Manipulate Our Behavior and Shape Society
- By: Kathleen McAuliffe
- Narrated by: Nicol Zanzarella
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A riveting investigation of the myriad ways that parasites control how other creatures - including humans - think, feel, and act. These tiny organisms can live only inside another animal, and, as McAuliffe reveals, they have many evolutionary motives for manipulating their host's behavior. Far more often than appreciated, these puppeteers orchestrate the interplay between predator and prey.
-
-
A parasitologist view of the world
- By Colin Mc on 10-25-16
-
The Great Mortality
- An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time
- By: John Kelly
- Narrated by: Matthew Lloyd Davies
- Length: 12 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
La moria grandissima began its terrible journey across the European and Asian continents in 1347, leaving unimaginable devastation in its wake. Five years later, 25 million people were dead, felled by the scourge that would come to be called the Black Death. The Great Mortality is the extraordinary epic account of the worst natural disaster in European history - a drama of courage, cowardice, misery, madness, and sacrifice that brilliantly illuminates humankind's darkest days when an old world ended and a new world was born.
-
-
OUTSTANDING
- By brooke browning on 08-04-19
By: John Kelly
-
Spillover
- By: David Quammen
- Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
- Length: 20 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The emergence of strange new diseases is a frightening problem that seems to be getting worse. In this age of speedy travel, it threatens a worldwide pandemic. We hear news reports of Ebola, SARS, AIDS, and something called Hendra killing horses and people in Australia - but those reports miss the big truth that such phenomena are part of a single pattern. The bugs that transmit these diseases share one thing: they originate in wild animals and pass to humans by a process called spillover. David Quammen tracks this subject around the world.
-
-
Wonderful, factual, and engaging
- By Tyler S on 06-12-15
By: David Quammen
-
Viruses, Plagues, and History
- Past, Present, and Future
- By: Michael B. A. Oldstone
- Narrated by: L.J. Ganser
- Length: 13 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The story of viruses and humanity is a story of fear and ignorance, of grief and heartbreak, and of great bravery and sacrifice. Michael Oldstone tells all these stories as he illuminates the history of the devastating diseases that have tormented humanity, focusing mostly on the most famous viruses. For this revised edition, Oldstone includes discussions of new viruses like SARS, bird flu, virally caused cancers, chronic wasting disease, and West Nile. Viruses, Plagues, and History paints a sweeping portrait of humanity's long-standing conflict with our unseen viral enemies.
-
-
very detailed, but very statistical
- By ekhensel15 on 01-12-19
-
p53: The Gene That Cracked the Cancer Code
- By: Sue Armstrong
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Jasicki
- Length: 9 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
p53: The Gene That Cracked the Cancer Code reveals the tale of the search for this gene, as well as the excitement of the hunt for new cures - the hype, the lost opportunities, the blind alleys, and the thrilling breakthroughs. As the long-anticipated revolution in cancer treatment tailored to each individual patient's symptoms starts to take off at last, p53 is still at the forefront of the game. This is a timely tale of scientific discovery and advances in our understanding of a disease that still affects more than one in three of us at some point in our lives.
-
-
Excellent story! Unfortunate narration at start
- By Adriana on 12-25-14
By: Sue Armstrong
Publisher's Summary
In 1997, Stanley B. Prusiner received a Nobel Prize, the world's most prestigious award for achievement in physiology or medicine. That he was the sole recipient of the award for the year was entirely appropriate. His struggle to identify the agent responsible for ravaging the brains of animals suffering from scrapie and mad cow disease, and of humans with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, had been waged largely alone and, in some cases, in the face of strenuous disagreement.
In this book, Prusiner tells the remarkable story of his discovery of prions - infectious proteins that replicate and cause disease but surprisingly contain no genetic material - and reveals how superb and meticulous science is actually practiced with talented teams of researchers who persevere. He recounts the frustrations and rewards of years of research and offers fascinating portraits of his peers as they raced to discover the causes of fatal brain diseases. Prusiner's hypothesis, once considered heresy, now stands as accepted science and the basis for developing diagnoses and eventual cures. He closes with a meditation on the legacy of his discovery: What will it take to cure Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Lou Gehrig's, and other devastating diseases of the brain?
More from the same
What listeners say about Madness and Memory
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- jaime gonzalez
- 05-28-21
Prions a ground breaking discovery
Fascinating review of a Nobel laureate’s journey to the discovery of prions.Highly recommend the book.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Amazon Customer
- 04-10-22
excellent and riveting story.
the fascinating and some controversial story of the prion, a Class of proteins that lack genetic material and yet still spread like a virus, appear sporadically and are the cause of a small number of rare genetic disease. How can this be,? well, listen on and find out in the author's own words how he an his team turned our conventional understanding of the germ theory of disease on its head and discovered a whole new disease process. A process who's understanding affects more people than you think. Anyone with a neurodegenerative disorder now benefits from a whole new understanding of their disease thanks to Prusiner and his colleagues.