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Life on the Edge
- The Coming of Age of Quantum Biology
- Narrated by: Pete Cross
- Length: 12 hrs and 40 mins
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Publisher's summary
Life is the most extraordinary phenomenon in the known universe; but how did it come to be? Even in an age of cloning and artificial biology, the remarkable truth remains: Nobody has ever made anything living entirely out of dead material. Life remains the only way to make life. Are we still missing a vital ingredient in its creation? Jim Al-Khalili and Johnjoe Macfadden reveal the hitherto missing ingredient to be quantum mechanics and the strange phenomena that lie at the heart of this most mysterious of sciences. As they brilliantly demonstrate here, life lives on the quantum edge.
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- The Unofficial Guide to Earth's Stupidest Show
- By: Matt Brady
- Narrated by: Joe Hempel
- Length: 10 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Blending biology, chemistry, and physics basics with accessible - and witty-prose, The Science of Rick and Morty equips you with the scientific foundation to thoroughly understand Rick's experiments from the show, such as how we can use dark matter and energy, just what is intelligence hacking, and whether or not you can really control a cockroach's nervous system with your tongue. Perfect for longtime and new fans of the show, this is the ultimate segue into discovering more about our complicated and fascinating universe.
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Some good science in here?
- By Darin Harbert on 02-06-20
By: Matt Brady
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Science and the Akashic Field
- An Integral Theory of Everything
- By: Ervin Laszlo
- Narrated by: Tom Pile
- Length: 6 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Mystics and sages have long maintained that there exists an interconnecting cosmic field at the roots of reality that conserves and conveys information, a field known as the Akashic record. Recent discoveries in vacuum physics show that this Akashic field is real and has its equivalent in science's zero-point field that underlies space itself. This field consists of a subtle sea of fluctuating energies from which all things arise: atoms and galaxies, stars and planets, living beings, and even consciousness.
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A must-read about ultimate nature of reality
- By Alexandra Hopkins on 04-15-18
By: Ervin Laszlo
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13 Things That Don't Make Sense
- The Most Baffling Scientific Mysteries of Our Time
- By: Michael Brooks
- Narrated by: James Adams
- Length: 8 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Science starts to get interesting when things don't make sense. Science's best-kept secret is that there are experimental results and reliable data that the most brilliant scientists can neither explain nor dismiss. If history is any precedent, we should look to today's inexplicable results to forecast the future of science. Michael Brooks heads to the scientific frontier to meet 13 modern-day anomalies and discover tomorrow's breakthroughs.
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10 interesting chapters-read epiloge first
- By Stephen on 06-10-09
By: Michael Brooks
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The Amazing Story of Quantum Mechanics
- A Math-Free Exploration of the Science That Made Our World
- By: James Kakalios
- Narrated by: Peter Berkrot
- Length: 9 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Amazing Story of Quantum Mechanics, James Kakalios uses examples from comics and magazines to explain how breakthroughs in quantum mechanics led to such technologies as the World Wide Web, pocket-sized computers, mobile phones, and MRI machines.....
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The exhibits are missing from Audible
- By David on 12-13-10
By: James Kakalios
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How to Speak Science
- Gravity, Relativity, and Other Ideas That Were Crazy Until Proven Brilliant
- By: Bruce Benamran, Stephanie Delozier Strobel
- Narrated by: Braden Wright
- Length: 13 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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As smartphones, supercomputers, supercolliders, and AI propel us into an ever more unfamiliar future, How to Speak Science takes us on a rollicking historical tour of the greatest discoveries and ideas that make today's cutting-edge technologies possible. Wanting everyone to be able to "speak" science, YouTube science guru Bruce Benamran explains - as accessibly and wittily as in his acclaimed videos - the fundamental ideas of the physical world: matter, life, the solar system, light, electromagnetism, thermodynamics, special and general relativity, and much more.
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Wowzers!
- By Ralph Temblador on 02-15-21
By: Bruce Benamran, and others
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A Little History of the World
- By: E. H. Gombrich
- Narrated by: Ralph Cosham
- Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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E. H. Gombrich's world history, an international best seller now available in English for the first time, is a text dominated not by dates and facts but by the sweep of experience across the centuries, a guide to humanity's achievements, and an acute witness to its frailties.
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an enlightening book; very well read
- By A.B.Oxford on 06-03-06
By: E. H. Gombrich
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Sync
- How Order Emerges from Chaos in the Universe, Nature, and Daily Life
- By: Steven Strogatz
- Narrated by: Kevin T. Collins
- Length: 13 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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At once elegant and riveting, Sync tells the story of the dawn of a new science. Steven Strogatz, a leading mathematician in the fields of chaos and complexity theory, explains how enormous systems can synchronize themselves, from the electrons in a superconductor to the pacemaker cells in our hearts. He shows that although these phenomena might seem unrelated on the surface, at a deeper level there is a connection, forged by the unifying power of mathematics.
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Engaging, but maybe better suited for non-audio
- By Ryan on 05-26-12
By: Steven Strogatz
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At the Edge of Uncertainty
- 11 Discoveries Taking Science by Surprise
- By: Michael Brooks
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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The atom, the big bang, DNA, natural selection - all are ideas that have revolutionized science; and all were dismissed out of hand when they first appeared. The surprises haven't stopped in recent years, and in At the Edge of Uncertainty, best-selling author Michael Brooks investigates the new wave of radical insights that are shaping the future of scientific discovery.
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All smoke, no fire
- By Kenton on 07-25-15
By: Michael Brooks
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Beyond Biocentrism
- Rethinking Time, Space, Consciousness, and the Illusion of Death
- By: Robert Lanza, Bob Berman
- Narrated by: Peter Ganim
- Length: 7 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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In Beyond Biocentrism, acclaimed biologist Robert Lanza and astronomer Bob Berman take the listener on an intellectual thrill ride as they reexamine everything we thought we knew about life, death, the universe, and the nature of reality itself. The first step is acknowledging that our existing model of reality is looking increasingly creaky in the face of recent scientific discoveries.
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Here's the thing
- By Mikal on 11-09-18
By: Robert Lanza, and others
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The Island of Knowledge
- The Limits of Science and the Search for Meaning
- By: Marcelo Gleiser
- Narrated by: William Neenan
- Length: 10 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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How much can we know about the world? In this audiobook physicist Marcelo Gleiser traces our search for answers to the most fundamental questions of existence, the origin of the universe, the nature of reality, and the limits of knowledge. In so doing he reaches a provocative conclusion: Science, like religion, is fundamentally limited as a tool for understanding the world. As science and its philosophical interpretations advance, we face the unsettling recognition of how much we don't know.
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Island of knowledge
- By Joshua Kring on 07-26-15
By: Marcelo Gleiser
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Complicated in its simplicity
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In an unprecedented collaboration between three of today’s most powerful minds, Deepak Chopra, M.D., teams up with physicist Jack Tuszynski, Ph.D., and endocrinologist Brian Fertig, M.D., to bring listeners a visionary work that delves into the innovative world of quantum science and shows how unlocking its secrets can revolutionize how we live and age—and, ultimately, how we can eradicate disease. The key is the quantum body.
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Life Changing!
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A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth
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In the beginning, Earth was an inhospitably alien place—in constant chemical flux, covered with churning seas, crafting its landscape through incessant volcanic eruptions. Amid all this tumult and disaster, life began. The earliest living things were no more than membranes stretched across microscopic gaps in rocks, where boiling hot jets of mineral-rich water gushed out from cracks in the ocean floor. In A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth, Henry Gee zips through the last 4.6 billion years with infectious enthusiasm and intellectual rigor.
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incredibly annoying
- By A reader on 12-22-21
By: Henry Gee
What listeners say about Life on the Edge
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Gary
- 09-09-15
More woo than new
I have a problem with most of the new science books that I've been reading lately. They really aren't saying anything new and when they do they seem to enter into woo woo land. The authors demonstrate nicely how certain biological processes such as the internal magnetic compass of a certain kind of Robin, the photosynthesis in plants, the universal energy currency of life: ATP, the enzyme process, and how the sense of smell can all be thought best in terms of quantum mechanics.
Those examples make up the first half of the book. My problem with the book is the second half. All objective knowledge can be broken down into the subatomic quantum mechanical level, but that doesn't mean they should be. The authors go off the rails and enter the land of woo with ascribing the origins of life, the genetic code in general and mutations in particular, and our consciousness as best understood by quantum mechanical processes. As much as the next person, I love the mysteries of the quantum world, but I don't want to reduce the process understudy down to that level unless it is absolutely necessary. I really get tired at how many authors (including these) refer to the problem of consciousness as the "hard problem". There have been many strides lately on understanding consciousness, but mixing it with the woo woo of physics the way a Depak Chopra would is never the right approach.
It is a pity. This book had a lot going for it in the beginning, because the authors as biologist really know how to explain the physics. The authors tell the listener in very clear terms what Feynman meant by "all the mysteries of physics are contained within the double slit experiment". (Everyone who reads books like this one should take the time and trouble and look up the Feynman Lectures on the Character of Physical Law on Youtube, seven of the happiest hours I ever spent). This book explains the double split experiment, the particle/wave duality, the measurement problem, and more specifically for the book, quantum tunneling, entanglement, coherence, and superposition. Also, the authors really knew how to explain the steps in the scientific process a biologist needs in order to reach coherent, consistent, and non-contradictory conclusions.
I'm still looking for new popular science books that teach me things I don't already know and which don't enter into the land of woo.
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57 people found this helpful
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- Michael Gallagher
- 08-24-15
Finally, applied quantum mechanics for biology
Story most compelling. Written so that a classical biologist could understand. Coherent arguments more than plausible. Implications far reaching. Schroedinger's "What is life" under appreciated. Than you.
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9 people found this helpful
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- David A. Donnelly
- 04-20-16
Thoroughly enjoyable and highly interesting
Good writing is getting more difficult to find, especially in popular science, but not this one. The subject matter has not been explored elsewhere (yet) except for the explanations of the quantum mechanics but the experiments used to probe the specific features as well as those upon which this theory is built. A few of the ideas have been tested at least once (which means many runs of each experiment.) The narrator of the audio book was good but seemed to be doing more reading than comprehending. It may not be true, and his job is to strictly repeat what is on the written page, but he sounded bored in spots. Still, it was fascinating stuff and thoroughly enjoyable.
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- tm
- 10-13-15
Great into to quant bio
Excellent The book was packed with information yet not overwhelming for the layman. Highly recommended.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Tristan
- 01-18-16
Good content. Needed another edit.
I can't write a bad review since this book introduced me to exciting, novel concepts. The amount of quantum effects that are relied on in biological systems throughout the body hints at the possibility that many, many more will be found over time. My favourite? Electrons in photosynthesis acting like little quantum computers to find the most efficient path. Also, evidence of quantum effects used by neurones are provocative indeed, although the ones found so far wouldn't seem to contribute to consciousness in any sensible way.
But one more edit would have done this book a lot of good. They struggle with the order in which they explain key concepts, which means the early chapters are burdened with long tangents and scattered organization. The later chapters are less burdened since they've explained most of the ground work by then, but clarity and directness are never these authors' strongpoints.
The biggest burden this book carries, however, is the idea that quantum particles are literally particles, which makes things seem more mystical than they need to. Mainstream physicists dropped this idea long ago in favour of "fields." So, for example, it may not surprise readers that a magnetic field can interact with something on either side of a wall. Talk about the same phenomena as a "particle," however, and suddenly it's like we're reading about magic.
They write one thing which is alarmingly misleading. They claim that even if a detector in a 2-slit experiment hypothetically didn't interact with the particles at all, it would still remove the interference pattern. How do they know what would be true in this hypothetical reality?
In fact, it is specifically the interaction of the measuring device that causes the interference pattern to disappear. To suggest otherwise implies that "measuring" mystically causes wave-functions to collapse through the conscious act of observing rather than the physical interaction of the measuring device. Tisk tisk.
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- Coeus_01
- 10-07-18
A Good Review with Decent Quantum Relevant Insight
This is a good review of biology from molecular and quantum perspectives. The authors made a great effort in connecting or trying to connect biological functionalities with today's understanding of quantum mechanics and (potential) applications, though some are quite convincing based on existing scientific evidence, some are not yet at the current time... Nonetheless, my hats off to the authors and hope to see more and/or updated version.
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- Kindle Customer
- 01-28-18
Excellent book, well narrated
It is early in the game of attempting to bridge biology with quantum physics. This book is a great introduction and update on the current state of this complex subject
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- William
- 04-24-16
An overreach
Really tried to find this book interesting. Intro chapters assume you don't know high school biology. Readers who do will find this part condescending. The interesting bits of quantum biology turn out to be a small part of the book. I suspect quantum physicists would dislike it. By the end the authors wax autobiographical and visionary with hubris waiting in the wings. Why did they attempt an (educated?) lay book on quantum biology, had they run out of grant money? Both the words and delivery are condescending. It's too bad as the topic sounded very interesting.
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- Nat
- 04-04-16
Brilliant Explanations
I love it when I find a book that explains new concepts like this one. These books are few and far between. However, Life on the Edge stands out for the quality of its explanations of both the new quantum biological phenomena and the long-known quantum phenomena that I supposedly learned in college.
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- eclectic reader
- 07-17-19
A whole new perspective on biology
While my profession involved understanding biology and physiology it never entered my mind that quantum physics was involved. The importance of quantum phenomena for enzymes, DNA replication, and smell opened my eyes. I have been fascinated by descriptions of elementary particles for years. It had always seemed irrelevant for day to day life. I now see it plays a role in many things we are just beginning to understand.
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