A Nobel Prize-winning scientist reveals biology's most transformative achievements in decades--a narrative that reads like a Double Helix for the dawning of the RNA age.

Delving into the heart of cellular function and the role of RNA in genetic expression, The Catalyst invites readers on a journey through the microscopic world where life's deepest secrets are being unlocked. Tom Cech masterfully intertwines the story of scientific discovery with the broader implications of RNA research, which has the potential to revolutionize our understanding of health and disease.

Eve is an ambitious, eye-opening, myth-busting and groundbreaking history of the evolution of the female body, by a brilliant new researcher and writer, Cat Bohannon. This book delves into questions scientists should have been addressing for decades, such as:

• Why do women live longer than men?

• Why do women have menopause?

• Why are women more likely to get Alzheimer’s?

• Why do girls score better at every academic subject than boys until puberty, when suddenly their scores plummet?

• Does the female brain really exist?

With boundless curiosity and sharp wit, Bohannon covers the past 200 million years to explain the specific science behind the development of the female sex. Eve is not only a sweeping revision of human history, it’s an urgent and necessary corrective for a world that has focused primarily on the male body for far too long. Bohannon’s findings, including everything from the way C-sections in the industrialized world are rearranging women’s pelvic shape to the surprising similarities between pus and breast milk, will completely change what you think you know about evolution and why Homo sapiens have become such a successful and dominant species, from tool use to city building to the development of language.

A 21st-century update of Our Bodies, Ourselves, Eve offers a true paradigm shift in our thinking about what the female body is and why it matters.

Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake is a fascinating journey into the world of fungi, an essential but often overlooked kingdom of life. Sheldrake, a biologist and mycologist, explores how these extraordinary organisms live, grow, and interact with their environment, offering insights into their crucial role in our ecosystems.

Through his engaging narrative, Sheldrake brings to light the complex and often hidden networks that fungi create, revealing how they can teach us about connectivity and symbiosis. He delves into the various ways fungi can be utilized for ecological and biotechnological purposes, from decomposing matter to creating new materials.

With a blend of rigorous science and captivating storytelling, Entangled Life not only expands our understanding of fungi but also challenges our perception of life itself. It's a compelling read for anyone interested in the natural world and the untapped potential of these enigmatic life forms.

How much light is too much light? Satellite pictures show our planet as a brightly glowing orb, and in our era of constant illumination, light pollution has become a major issue. The world's flora and fauna have evolved to operate in the natural cycle of day and night. But in the last 150 years, we have extended our day—and in doing so have forced out the inhabitants of the night and disrupted the circadian rhythms necessary to sustain all living things, including ourselves.

The Darkness Manifesto depicts the domino effect of diminishing darkness: insects, dumbfounded by streetlamps, failing to reproduce; birds blinded and bewildered by artificial lights; and bats starving as they wait in vain for food insects that only come out in the dark of night. For humans, light-induced sleep disturbances impact our hormones and weight, and can contribute to mental health problems like chronic stress and depression. The streetlamps, floodlights, and neon signs of cities are altering entire ecosystems, and scientists are only just beginning to understand the long-term effects. The light bulb—long the symbol of progress and development—needs to be turned off.

Educational, eye-opening, and ultimately encouraging, The Darkness Manifesto outlines simple steps that we can take to benefit ourselves and the planet. In order to ensure a bright future, we must embrace the darkness.

Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art is not just a book about breathing; it is a journey into the scientific, cultural, spiritual, and evolutionary history of this most fundamental practice. Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Big Magic and Eat Pray Love, describes it as a long overdue look at the importance of this simple act.

Journalist James Nestor takes readers around the world to uncover the mysteries of breath. From ancient burial sites and secret Soviet facilities to New Jersey choir schools and the streets of São Paulo, Nestor seeks out those who are uncovering the hidden science behind ancient breathing practices such as Pranayama, Sudarshan Kriya, and Tummo.

As it turns out, the way we breathe affects everything from athletic performance to the health of our internal organs. Nestor's exploration reveals that slight adjustments to our breathing can have profound impacts on our health, including halting snoring, asthma, autoimmune diseases, and even correcting scoliotic spines.

With insights drawn from medical texts spanning thousands of years and cutting-edge studies in pulmonology, psychology, biochemistry, and human physiology, Breath challenges the conventional wisdom about the biological function that we thought we knew so well. After reading this book, you might just find yourself breathing in a whole new way.

The Story of the Human Body offers a fascinating exploration of how the human body has evolved over millions of years. Daniel E. Lieberman, a leader in the field of human evolutionary biology, presents a lucid and engaging account of the evolutionary transformations that have shaped our bodies.

The book delves into the rise of bipedalism, the shift to a non-fruit-based diet, and the advent of hunting and gathering, which led to our superlative endurance athleticism. Lieberman also discusses the development of our large brains and the emergence of cultural proficiencies.

Moreover, the book examines how cultural evolution differs from biological evolution and how it has further transformed our bodies during the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions. While these changes have brought numerous benefits, they've also created conditions to which our bodies are not entirely adapted, leading to increased incidences of obesity and new, avoidable diseases like type 2 diabetes.

Lieberman introduces the concept of "dysevolution," where only the symptoms of chronic illnesses are treated rather than their causes. He advocates for using evolutionary information to help create a healthier environment.

Skin: A Natural History explores the evolution of three unique attributes of human skin: its naked sweatiness, its distinctive sepia rainbow of colors, and its remarkable range of decorations.

Nina G. Jablonski examines the modern human obsession with age-related changes in skin, especially wrinkles. She delves into our use of cosmetics, body paint, tattooing, and scarification, revealing how skin serves as a canvas for self-expression.

This work provides a fascinating look at skin's structure and functions and tours its three-hundred-million-year evolution. It also touches on the importance of touch and how skin reflects and affects emotions, placing the rich cultural canvas of skin within its broader biological context.

A sex guide for all living things and a hilarious natural history in the form of letters to and answers from the preeminent sexpert in all creation. Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation is a unique guidebook to sex. It reveals, for example, when necrophilia is acceptable and who should commit bestiality with whom.

It discloses the best time to have a sex change, how to have a virgin birth, and when to eat your lover. It also advises on more mundane matters — such as male pregnancy and the joys of a detachable penis.

Entertaining, funny, and marvelously illuminating, the book comprises letters from all creatures worried about their bizarre sex lives to the wise Dr. Tatiana (a.k.a. Olivia Judson), the only sex columnist in creation with a prodigious knowledge of evolutionary biology.

Fusing natural history with advice to the lovelorn, blending wit and rigor, she is able to reassure her anxious correspondents that although the acts they describe might sound appalling and unnatural, they are all perfectly normal — so long as you are not a human. In the process, she explains the science behind it all, from Darwin's theory of sexual selection to why sexual reproduction exists at all.

Applying human standards to the natural world, in the end she reveals the wonders of both. Delightful . . . Easy to understand and hard to resist, it's sex education at its prime — accurate, comprehensive, and hilarious.

Darwin's theory of natural selection issued a profound challenge to orthodox thought and belief: no being or species has been specifically created; all are locked into a pitiless struggle for existence, with extinction looming for those not fitted for the task.

Yet The Origin of Species (1859) is also a humane and inspirational vision of ecological interrelatedness, revealing the complex mutual interdependencies between animal and plant life, climate, and physical environment, and—by implication—within the human world. Written for the general reader, in a style which combines the rigour of science with the subtlety of literature, The Origin of Species remains one of the founding documents of the modern age.