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Racing the clock : running across a lifetime / by Heinrich, Bernd,1940-author.;
Includes bibliographical references.An award-winning, much-loved biologist turns his gaze on himself, using his long-distance running to illuminate the changes to a human body over a lifetime. Part memoir, part scientific investigation, Racing the Clock is the book biologist and natural historian Bernd Heinrich has been waiting his entire life to write. A dedicated and accomplished marathon (and ultra-marathon) runner who won his first marathon at age thirty-nine, Heinrich looks deeply at running, aging, and the body, exploring the unresolved relationship between metabolism, diet, exercise, and age. Why do some bodies age differently than others? How much control do we have over that process and what effect, if any, does being active have? Bringing to bear research from his entire career and in the spirit of his classic Why We Run, Heinrich probes the questions of how we use energy and continue to adapt to our mutable surroundings and circumstances. Beyond that, he examines how our bodies change while we age but also how we can work with, if not overcome, many of these changes-and what all this tells us about evolution and the mechanisms of life, health, and happiness. Racing the Clockoffers fascinating and surprising conclusions, all while bringing the reader along on Heinrich's compelling journey to what he says will be his final race-a fifty-kilometer race at age eighty.
Subjects: Heinrich, Bernd, 1940-; Physiology, Comparative.; Aging.; Metabolism.; Nutrition.; Running.; Human evolution.;

Kingdom of Bones : a thriller / by Rollins, James,1961-author.;
Includes bibliographical references."It begins in Africa ... A United Nations relief team in a small village in the Congo makes an alarming discovery. An unknown force is leveling the evolutionary playing field. Men, women, and children have been reduced to a dull, catatonic state. The environment surrounding them--plants and animals--has grown more cunning and predatory, evolving at an exponential pace. The insidious phenomenon is spreading from a cursed site in the jungle known to locals as the Kingdom of Bones and sweeping across Africa, threatening the rest of the world. What has made the biosphere run amok? Is it a natural event? Or more terrifyingly, did someone engineer it? Commander Gray Pierce and Sigma Force are prepared for the extraordinary and have kept the world safe, vigilance for which they have paid a tragic personal price. Yet, even these brilliant and seasoned scientific warriors do not understand what is behind this frightening development--or know how to stop it. As they race to find answers, the members of Sigma quickly realize they have become the prey. To head off global catastrophe, Sigma Force must risk their lives to uncover the shattering secret at the heart of the African continent--a truth that will illuminate who we are as a species and where we may be headed ... sooner than we know. Mother Nature--red in tooth and claw--is turning against humankind, propelling the entire world into the Kingdom of Bones."-from publisher's description.
Subjects: Thrillers (Fiction); Novels.; Antiquities; Human evolution; Scientific expeditions; Scientists; Special operations (Military science); Weapons, Ancient;

Kingdom of Bones [text (large print)] : a thriller / by Rollins, James,1961-author.;
Includes bibliographical references."It begins in Africa ... A United Nations relief team in a small village in the Congo makes an alarming discovery. An unknown force is leveling the evolutionary playing field. Men, women, and children have been reduced to a dull, catatonic state. The environment surrounding them--plants and animals--has grown more cunning and predatory, evolving at an exponential pace. The insidious phenomenon is spreading from a cursed site in the jungle known to locals as the Kingdom of Bones and sweeping across Africa, threatening the rest of the world. What has made the biosphere run amok? Is it a natural event? Or more terrifyingly, did someone engineer it? Commander Gray Pierce and Sigma Force are prepared for the extraordinary and have kept the world safe, vigilance for which they have paid a tragic personal price. Yet, even these brilliant and seasoned scientific warriors do not understand what is behind this frightening development--or know how to stop it. As they race to find answers, the members of Sigma quickly realize they have become the prey. To head off global catastrophe, Sigma Force must risk their lives to uncover the shattering secret at the heart of the African continent--a truth that will illuminate who we are as a species and where we may be headed ... sooner than we know. Mother Nature--red in tooth and claw--is turning against humankind, propelling the entire world into the Kingdom of Bones."-from publisher's description.
Subjects: Thrillers (Fiction); Large type books.; Novels.; Antiquities; Human evolution; Scientific expeditions; Scientists; Special operations (Military science); Weapons, Ancient;

The doors of Eden / by Tchaikovsky, Adrian,1972-author.;
"Four years ago, two girls went looking for monsters on Bodmin Moor. Only one came back ... Lee thought she'd lost Mal, but now she's miraculously returned. But what happened that day on the moors? And where has she been all this time? Mal's reappearance hasn't gone unnoticed by MI5 officers either, and Lee isn't the only one with questions. Julian Sabreur is investigating an attack on top physicist Kay Amal Khan. This leads Julian to clash with agents of an unknown power - and they may or may not be human. His only clue is grainy footage, showing a woman who supposedly died on Bodmin Moor. Dr Khan's research was theoretical; then she found cracks between our world and parallel Earths. Now these cracks are widening, revealing extraordinary creatures. And as the doors crash open, anything could come through."--
Subjects: Science fiction.; Missing persons; Women physicists; Extraterrestrial beings; Space and time; Human evolution; Monsters;

Guns, germs, and steel : the fates of human societies / by Diamond, Jared M.;
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Subjects: Social evolution; Civilization; Ethnology; Human beings; Culture diffusion;
© 1999., W.W. Norton & Co.,

The dog master / by Cameron, W. Bruce.;
Includes bibliographical references.
Subjects: Dogs; Domestication; Human-animal relationships; Prehistoric peoples; Social behavior in animals; Wolves as pets;

The age of wood : our most useful material and the construction of civilization / by Ennos, A. R.,author.;
Includes bibliographical references (pages 293-301) and index.A scholarly and scientific examination of the unrecognized role of trees in the planet's ecosystem reveals wood's unexpected influence on human evolution, civilization, and the global economy.
Subjects: Wood.; Trees.; Woodwork; Building, Wooden;

Elephant / by Redmond, Ian; King, Dave;
Discusses elephants, their physiology, behavior, evolution, relatives, uses by humans, and conservation.
Subjects: Elephants;
© 1993., Knopf : Distributed by Random House,

The origin of politics : human nature and the shaping of political systems / by Wade, Nicholas,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."An analysis of the ways that evolution explains why societies succeed and fail"--
Subjects: Political science; Political sociology.; State, The.;

The dawn of everything : a new history of humanity / by Graeber, David,author.; Wengrow, D.,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."A trailblazing account of human history, challenging our most fundamental assumptions about social evolution-from the development of agriculture and cities to the emergence of "the state," political violence, and social inequality-and revealing new possibilities for human emancipation"--
Subjects: Civilization; Social history.; World history.;