Bestsellers

Homo sapiens emerged as a species about 200,000 years ago and soon—with fire, simple tools, and an egalitarian social system—we inhabited every continent. But now our infinitely elaborated tools and our highly non-egalitarian social system threaten sustainability....

Evolutionary theory in the theme that binds together these essays on such seemingly disparate topics as the feeding habits of flamingos, flowers and snails that change from male to female and sometimes back again, and the extinction from baseball of the .400 hitter....

Filled with fascinating insights into specific human behaviors and experiences, from the European air kiss on both cheeks to the phenomenon of love at first sight....

More than 12,000 years ago, in one of the greatest triumphs of prehistory, humans colonized North America, a continent that was then truly a new world....

In Journey of the Universe Brian Thomas Swimme and Mary Evelyn Tucker tell the epic story of the universe from an inspired new perspective....

The fascinating group of animals called dinosaurs became extinct some 65 million years ago (except for their feathered descendants). In their place evolved an enormous variety of land creatures, especially mammals, which in their way were every bit as remarkable as their Mesozoic cousins....

From a noted Cambridge zoologist, a wildly fun and scientifically sound exploration of what alien life must be like, using universal laws that govern life on Earth and in space....

Over the past 100 years, gulls have been brought ashore by modernity. They now live not only on the coasts, but in our slipstream following trawlers, barges, and garbage trucks. They are more our contemporaries than most birds, living their wild lives among us in towns and cities....

Drawing on a treasure trove of new scientific knowledge, Nick Lane expertly reconstructs evolution's history by describing its 10 greatest inventions....

We live on a planet alive with song, music, and speech. David Haskell explores how these wonders came to be. In rain forests shimmering with insect sound and swamps pulsing with frog calls we learn about evolution’s creative powers....

In these lively and fascinating essays, scientists from around the world weigh in on the latest advances in the search for intelligent life in the universe....

When we talk about human history, we often focus on great leaders, population forces, and decisive wars. But how has the earth itself determined our destiny? Our planet wobbles, driving changes in climate that forced the transition from nomadism to farming....

The compelling story of the effect of Charles Darwin's book On the Origin of Species on a diverse group of American writers, abolitionists, and social reformers in 1860....

In A History of the Human Brain, popular science writer Bret Stetka reveals how the evolution of the brain made us human—and where it may lead us to next....

Addy Pross shows how the different kind of stability that operates among replicating entities results in a tendency for certain chemical systems to become more complex ....

This is the most comprehensive and authoritative exploration of DNA's impact - practical, social, and ethical - on our society and our world....

A significant number of Americans, especially evangelical Christians, believe Earth and humankind were created in their present form sometime in the last 10,000 years or so - the rationale being that this is (presumably) the story told in the book of Genesis....

For decades Richard Dawkins has been the world's most brilliant scientific communicator, consistently illuminating the wonders of nature and attacking faulty logic....

What defines who we are? For decades, the answer has seemed obvious: our genes, the "blueprint of life." In The Master Builder, biologist Alfonso Martinez Arias argues we've been missing the bigger picture. It's not our genes that define who we are, but our cells.

The story of how our ancestors made the first tentative steps towards becoming human, how we lost our fur but gained language....