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Series
Summary
"For most of us, the story of mammal evolution starts after the asteroid impact that killed the dinosaurs, but over the last 20 years scientists have uncovered new fossils and used new technologies that have upended this story. In Beasts Before Us, palaeontologist Elsa Panciroli charts the emergence of the mammal lineage, Synapsida, beginning at their murky split from the reptiles in the Carboniferous period, over three-hundred million years ago....
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Bloomsbury sigma volume 13
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As of 2015, there were nearly 30 described species of tyrannosaur, but during the last decade at least one new species has been identified and named every year, greatly improving what we know about how they lived, fed, bred, and died. THE TYRANNOSAUR CHRONICLES tracks the rise of these dinosaurs, and presents the latest research into their biology, showing off more than just their impressive statistics--tyrannosaurs had feathers, and fought and even...
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Bloomsbury sigma volume 2
Summary
"All of us have lurking in our DNA a most remarkable gene. Its job is to protect us from cancer. This gene-known simply as p53-constantly scans our cells to ensure that when they grow and divide as part of the routine maintenance of our bodies, they do so without mishap. If a cell makes a mistake in copying its DNA during the process of division, p53 stops it in its tracks, sending in the repair team before allowing the cell to carry on dividing....
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Bloomsbury sigma volume 18
Summary
If you could bring back just one animal from the past, what would you choose? It can be anyone or anything from history, from the King of the Dinosaurs, T. rex, to the King of Rock 'n' Roll, Elvis Presley, and beyond. De-extinction - the ability to bring extinct species back to life - is fast becoming reality. Around the globe, scientists are trying to de-extinct all manner of animals, including the woolly mammoth, the passenger pigeon and a bizarre...
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"Catching Breath--the story of one of the world's oldest diseases--looks at the hidden biology behind the interaction of Mycobacterium tuberculosis with its human host, and shows how drug resistance, the HIV epidemic, poverty and inequality work together to ensure that TB remains one of the most serious problems in world medicine."--Jacket flap.
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"The animal world is full of mysteries. Why do dogs slurp from their drinking bowls while cats lap up water with a delicate flick of the tongue? How does a tiny turtle hatchling from Florida circle the entire North Atlantic before returning to the very beach where it was hatched? And how can a Komodo dragon kill a water buffalo with a bite that is only as strong as a domestic cat's? These puzzles-- and my more besides-- are all explained by physics....
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Bloomsbury sigma volume 34
Summary
"Mark Lynas was one of the original GM field wreckers. Back in the 1990s--working undercover with his colleagues in the environmental movement--he would descend on trial sites of genetically modified crops at night and hack them to pieces. Two decades later, most people around the world--from New York to China--still think that 'GMO' foods are bad for their health or likely to damage the environment. But Mark has changed his mind. This book explains...
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"The question of how and why organisms age has teased scientists for centuries. There are myriad competing theories, from the idea that aging is a simple wear and tear process, like the rusting of a car, to the belief that aging and death are genetically programmed and controlled. In fact, there is no clearly defined limit to life, and no single, predictable program playing itself out: different things are happening within and between tissues, and...
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Bloomsbury sigma volume 45
Summary
Explores how scientists create superheavy elements, using giant machines to try to make single atoms of mysterious artefacts that have never existed on Earth. From the first elements past uranium and their role in the devlopment of the atomic bomb to the latest discoveries stretching the chemical world, Superheavy reveals the hidden stories lurking at the edge of the periodic table.
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For the last three billion years or so, life on Earth was shaped by natural forces. Evolution tended to happen slowly, with species crafted across millennia. Then, a few hundred thousand years ago, along came a bolshie, big-brained, bipedal primate we now call Homo sapiens, and with that, the Earth's natural history came to an abrupt end. We are now living through the post-natural phase, where humans have become the leading force shaping evolution....
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Bloomsbury sigma volume 35
Summary
Seventy percent of the earth's surface is covered by water. This vast aquatic realm is inhabited by a multitude of strange creatures and reigning supreme among them are the fish. There are giants that live for centuries and thumb-sized tiddlers that survive only weeks; they can be pancake-flat or inflatable balloons; they can shout with colors or hide in plain sight, cheat and dance, remember and say sorry; some rarely budge while others travel the...
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The traces of much of human history - and that which preceded it - lie beneath the ocean surface. This is fertile ground for speculation, even myth-making, but also a topic on which geologists and climatologists have increasingly focused on in recent decades. This is the first book to present the science of submergence in a popular format. Patrick Nunn sifts the fact from the fiction, using the most up-to-date research to work out which submerged...
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In today's society it is generally the written word that holds the authority. We are more likely to trust the words found in a history textbook over the version of history retold by a friend; after all, human memory is unreliable, and how can you be sure your friend hasn't embellished the facts? But before humans were writing down their knowledge, they were telling it to each other in the form of stories. "The Edge of Memory" celebrates the predecessor...
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"Immune explores the incredible arsenal that lives within us - how it knows what to attack and what to defend, and how it kills everything from the common cold virus to plague bacteria. We see what happens when the immune system turns on us, and how life is impossible without its protection. We learn how diseases try to evade the immune system and exploit its vulnerabilities, and we discover how scientists are designing new drugs to harness the power...
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Bloomsbury sigma volume 23
Summary
"In 2012, Vanessa Potter, a married advertising film producer with two young children, was stricken by Neuromyelitis Optica Spectrum Disorder (NMOSD), a rare illness that resulted in sudden blindness and paralysis. She was hospitalized for two weeks. Over the next five months at home, she regained mobility but recovering her sight was more problematic. At first what she saw was monochromatic. As color reappeared, she encountered synesthesia (experiencing...