Are plants intelligent? Can they solve problems, communicate, and navigate their surroundings? Or are they passive, incapable of independent action or social behavior? Philosophers and scientists have pondered these questions since ancient Greece, most often concluding that plants are unthinking and inert: they are too silent, too sedentary -- just too different from us. Yet discoveries over the past fifty years have challenged these ideas, shedding new light on the extraordinary capabilit...

Are plants intelligent? Can they solve problems, communicate, and navigate their surroundings? Or are they passive, incapable of independent action or social behavior? Philosophers and scientists have pondered these questions since ancient Greece, most often concluding that plants are unthinking and inert: they are too silent, too sedentary—just too different from us. Yet discoveries over the past fifty years have challenged these ideas, shedding new light on the extraordinary capabilities...

This audiobook narrated by pioneering NASA scientist Kevin Peter Hand takes you inside the epic quest to find life on the water-rich moons at the outer reaches of the solar systemWhere is the best place to find life beyond Earth? We often look to Mars as the most promising site in our solar system, but recent scientific missions have revealed that some of the most habitable real estate may actually lie farther away. Beneath the frozen crusts of sev...

An engaging exploration of the wondrous social webs that permeate life in animal societies around the world.It's all about who you know. Whether vampire bats sharing blood meals for survival, field crickets remembering champion fighters, macaque monkeys forming grooming pacts after a deadly hurricane, or great tit birds learning the best way to steal milk—it pays to be well connected.In this tour of the animal kingdom, evolutionary biologist Lee Alan Dugatk...

How did the human mind emerge from the collection of neurons that makes up the brain? How did the brain acquire self-awareness, functional autonomy, language, and the ability to think, to understand itself and the world? In this volume in the Essential Knowledge series, Zoltan Torey offers an accessible and concise description of the evolutionary breakthrough that created the human mind. Drawing on insights from evolutionary biology, neuroscience, and linguistics, Torey reconstructs the se...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The internationally bestselling author of The Happiness Advantage and Big Potential illuminates how harnessing our beliefs can influence our success in the real world.Same world. Different beliefs. Different outcomes.The greatest predictor of your future is the beliefs you hold about the world. In this extraordinary book, world-renowned researcher and author Shawn Achor illuminates how beliefs ...

There is an ancient Chinese proverb that states, "Two tigers cannot share the same mountain." However, in East Asia, there are three tigers on that mountain: China, Japan, and Korea, and they have a long history of turmoil and tension with each other.In his latest entertaining and thought provoking narrative travelogue, Michael Booth sets out to discover how deep, really, is the enmity between these three "tiger" nations, and what prevents them from making peace. Currently China's ...

For over half a century, DNA has dominated science and the popular imagination as the "secret of life." But over the last several decades, a quiet revolution has taken place. In a series of breathtaking discoveries, the biochemist Thomas R. Cech and a diverse cast of brilliant scientists have revealed that RNA—long overlooked as the passive servant of DNA—sits at the center of biology's greatest mysteries: How did life begin? What makes us human? Why do we get sick and grow old? In The...

The world is increasingly confronted with new challenges related to climate change, globalization, disease, and technology. Governments are faced with having to decide how much risk is worth taking, how much destruction and death can be tolerated, and how much money should be invested in the hopes of avoiding catastrophe. Lacking full information, should decision-makers focus on avoiding the most catastrophic outcomes? When should extreme measures be taken to prevent as much destruction as...

**“Solomon-Simmons’s extraordinary lawyering, activism, and engagement on how we repair harms long unaddressed are at the forefront of urgent and critical issues in this country. Redeem a Nation tells an American story we cannot ignore.”—Bryan Stevenson, New York Times bestselling author of Just MercyWe all feel it, the teetering toward a place in America from which there is no return. The battle to remain hopeful in spite of injustice after injustice. In...

A neuroscientist reveals the hidden calculations that shape our daily decisions―and how to make more fulfilling, impactful choices in our work, relationships, and lives.Amid the many competing priorities of our busy lives, it can feel difficult to make the right decisions―ones that feel aligned with the things we care about. Change can feel almost impossible. In this book, award-winning researcher Emily Falk reveals how we can transform our relationship with the da...

"A vital book about the ridiculously cozy relationship between corporate wealth and government power and how it only seems to be getting worse" (William Cohan, author of Money and Power).In the United States today we have good reasons to be afraid. Our Bill of Rights has been rendered powerless by ubiquitous surveillance and our freedoms are impaired by government control of information, systemic financial corruption, and unfettered corporate influence in ...