Brainscapes

Author: Rebecca Schwarzlose

Category: Science & Natural World

Regular price: $19.99

Deal price: $1.99

Deal starts: July 24, 2024

Deal ends: July 24, 2024

Description:

An exploration of how perception, thought, and action are products of maps etched into your brain—and how technology can use them to read your mind.Your brain is a collection of maps. That is no metaphor: scrawled across your brain’s surfaces are actual maps of the sights, sounds, and actions that hold the key to your survival. Scientists first began uncovering these maps over a century ago, but we are only now beginning to unlock their secrets—and comprehend their profound impact on our lives. Brain maps distort our experience of the world, shape how we think and imagine, and open the door to mind-reading technologies. Their idiosyncrasies shine a light on our past and offer clues to our possible futures. In Brainscapes, Rebecca Schwarzlose combines unforgettable real-life stories, cutting-edge research, and vivid illustrations to reveal brain maps’ surprising lessons about our place in the world—and about the world’s place within us.Praise for Brainscapes“A profoundly illuminating account of how the brain works. . . . Rebecca Schwarzlose is a neuroscientist with a novelist’s literary flair.” —Cass R. Sunstein, author of Too Much Information“Deeply enjoyable and thoroughly researched. . . . Schwarzlose’s presentation of cutting-edge science is consistently accessible and precise.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)“Brainscapes will change how you think about the brain and how you understand your own mind.” —Tali Sharot, author of The Influential Mind

Cosmos

Author: Carl Sagan

Category: Science & Natural World

Regular price: $14.99

Deal price: $6.99

Deal starts: July 22, 2024

Deal ends: July 22, 2024

Description:

Renowned astronomer Carl Sagan’s classic bestseller that “dives into the past, present, and future of science, dealing with the mind-staggering enormity of the cosmos in which we exist” (Associated Press)—with an Introduction by Ann Druyan and a Foreword by Neil deGrasse Tyson

 

“Sagan dazzles the mind with the miracle of our survival, framed by the stately galaxies of space.”—

Cosmopolitan

 

THE INSPIRATION FOR THE FOX MINISERIES

COSMOS: POSSIBLE WORLDS

, HOSTED BY NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON AND STARRING SETH MACFARLANE AND SIR PATRICK STEWART

In clear-eyed prose, Carl Sagan reveals a jewel-like blue world inhabited by a life form that is just beginning to discover its own identity and to venture into the vast ocean of space. Featuring full-color illustrations,

Cosmos

retraces the fourteen billion years of cosmic evolution that have transformed matter into consciousness, exploring such topics as the origin of life, the human brain, Egyptian hieroglyphics, spacecraft missions, the death of the Sun, the evolution of galaxies, and the forces and individuals who helped shape modern science.

Awakenings

Author: Oliver Sacks

Category: Science & Natural World

Regular price: $11.99

Deal price: $1.99

Deal starts: July 20, 2024

Deal ends: July 20, 2024

Description:

The classic account of survivors of the sleeping-sickness during the great epidemic just after World War I—and their return to the world after decades of “sleep.” •  From the distinguished neurologist and the bestselling author of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat“One of the most beautifully composed and moving works of our time." —The Washington PostAwakenings—which inspired the major motion picture starring Robert DeNiro and Robin Williams—is the remarkable story of a group of patients who contracted sleeping-sickness during the great epidemic just after World War I. Frozen for decades in a trance-like state, these men and women were given up as hopeless until 1969, when Dr. Oliver Sacks gave them the then-new drug L-DOPA, which had an astonishing, explosive, "awakening" effect. Dr. Sacks recounts the moving case histories of his patients, their lives, and the extraordinary transformations which went with their reintroduction to a changed world.

Fungi

Author: Lynne Boddy

Category: Science & Natural World

Regular price: $14.99

Deal price: $2.99

Deal starts: July 20, 2024

Deal ends: July 20, 2024

Description:

Discover the fascinating stories behind 300 species of fungi and understand the world of mushrooms like never before!Did you know that fungi put the fizz in champagne and the flavor in chocolate? Fungi is everywhere we look: in a forest, under the sea, and in the kitchen. In this beautiful book, leading fungal biologists Lynne Boddy and Ali Ashby bring you closer to 300 species of mushrooms and lichens through fascinating facts, mushroom datasets, and detailed illustrations. Discover some of the fastest speeds in nature, specimens that glow in the dark, and fungi that clean up oil spills.Dive deep into this fun funghi book to further explore:- The latest scientific research on this cutting-edge topic.- A global spotters guide compiled by experts.- Detailed illustrations that bring mushrooms, their habitats, and their habits to life.- A beautiful, high-specification, lifestyle design package to a core reference topic that is currently trending.Humans have had a close relationship with mushrooms for thousands of years – from using the shiitake for healing, to telling stories of enchanted fairy rings, and cooking gourmet dishes with rare specimens. Bringing together technology, medicine, food, culture, and nature, this fascinating book will open your eyes to the wonders of the hidden kingdom all around us.With tips for mushroom spotting in any habitat, species identification notes, a grow-your-own guide and more, this book is the ultimate fungi-lover's companion.

Being a Dog

Author: Alexandra Horowitz

Category: Science & Natural World

Regular price: $17.99

Deal price: $3.99

Deal starts: July 17, 2024

Deal ends: July 17, 2024

Description:

From the #1 bestselling author of

Inside of a Dog

and

The Year of the Puppy

—“an incredible journey into the olfactory world of man’s best friend” (

O, The Oprah Magazine

), Alexandra Horowitz’s follow-up to her

New York Times

bestseller explains how dogs experience the world through their most spectacular organ—the nose.

In her “fascinating book…Horowitz combines the expertise of a scientist with an easy, lively writing style” (

The New York Times Book Review

) as she imagines what it is like to be a dog. Guided by her own dogs, Finnegan and Upton, Horowitz sets off on a quest through the cutting-edge science behind the olfactory abilities of the dog. In addition to speaking to cognitive researchers and smell experts, Horowitz visits detection-dog trainers and training centers; she meets researchers working with dogs to detect cancerous cells and anticipate epileptic seizure or diabetic shock; and she even attempts to smell-train her own nose. As we come to understand how rich, complex, and exciting the world around us is to the canine nose, Horowitz changes our perspective on dogs forever. Readers will finish this book feeling that they have broken free of their human constraints and understanding smell as never before; that they have, for however fleetingly,

been

a dog. And, as

The Boston Globe

says about

Being a Dog

, “becoming more doglike, not surprisingly, can make anyone’s life a little more vivid.”

The Sixth Extinction

Author: Elizabeth Kolbert

Category: Science & Natural World

Regular price: $11.99

Deal price: $2.99

Deal starts: July 17, 2024

Deal ends: July 17, 2024

Description:

ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW'S 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEARA major book about the future of the world, blending intellectual and natural history and field reporting into a powerful account of the mass extinction unfolding before our eyesOver the last half a billion years, there have been five mass extinctions, when the diversity of life on earth suddenly and dramatically contracted. Scientists around the world are currently monitoring the sixth extinction, predicted to be the most devastating extinction event since the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs. This time around, the cataclysm is us. In The Sixth Extinction, two-time winner of the National Magazine Award and New Yorker writer Elizabeth Kolbert draws on the work of scores of researchers in half a dozen disciplines, accompanying many of them into the field: geologists who study deep ocean cores, botanists who follow the tree line as it climbs up the Andes, marine biologists who dive off the Great Barrier Reef. She introduces us to a dozen species, some already gone, others facing extinction, including the Panamian golden frog, staghorn coral, the great auk, and the Sumatran rhino. Through these stories, Kolbert provides a moving account of the disappearances occurring all around us and traces the evolution of extinction as concept, from its first articulation by Georges Cuvier in revolutionary Paris up through the present day. The sixth extinction is likely to be mankind's most lasting legacy; as Kolbert observes, it compels us to rethink the fundamental question of what it means to be human.