The First History of Man
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Narrated by:
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John Bershof MD
About this listen
To paraphrase the great sci-fi writer Stephen King: Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your heart, kill your darlings. Translation: stay on point and mercilessly avoid side stories and anecdotes. With much respect for Mr. King, The History of Man Series is precisely that, a great deal about all those little darlings, a style of writing termed “jumping off” described below.
The First History of Man uses infection in general—bacteria, viruses, fungus, parasites, epidemics & pandemics, COVID-19—to lay the foundation for the next five books, narratives and stories that delve deeper into human infectious diseases. This first volume jumps off into accounts of the Big Bang Theory—the real one, but also the sitcom—the origin of the Universe, from atoms to DNA to us and how exactly it happened. In our journey we’ll explore Einstein and Newton who were probably aliens (he said jokingly), the Roman Empire, British history and all those wives of King Henry VIII, the why and how of the Protestant Reformation, why Pluto lost its planet status in our solar system, what exactly is the sweet spot of a solar system, all the while digging up some archeology, and even paying a visit with Dr. Livingstone, I presume. We’ll trudge from the top of Everest, the highest point on Earth, to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the lowest point on Earth, and LUA in between, the Last Universal Ancestor that gave rise to all life on Earth.
The History of Man Series is written in a jumping off style, using medicine, disease, and health themes, fleeced of the normal jargon that all too often accompanies science narratives, as the foundation to jump off into history, world history, human history, American history, ancient history, biographies, celebrities and the rich & famous, the body, aging & longevity, science, biology & nature, physics, even some math thrown in, anatomy, a travel book of geology, geography, continents, Europe, Asia, Africa, America, South America, Australia, even the North Pole & South Pole, astronomy, the Universe & cosmos, war, politics, nature, art, music, romance, folklore, religion, the Bible, mythology, sports & athletes, weather, climate change and global warming, and maybe even some non-prescriptive self-help commentaries tossed in for good measure. For the print and eBook versions, comics interspersed to add some humor. And to add yet another twist to the writing style, another layer, each book showcases some personal anecdotes Dr. Bershof experienced during his life in medicine, a few biography sketches of suspense & thrillers that reveal a glimpse how the mind of a doctor works … or doesn’t work.
We’ll cherish all the darlings we encounter on our travels as they tell the tale of the humanity that remains eternal in all of us, in all its splendor and all its tragedy. All human activity and that of the Universe lies within our scope. Unlike Bryson’s wonderful book A Shorty History of Nearly Everything, a must listen, this series makes no apologies for being a tome about nearly everything.
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Story
Science starts to get interesting when things don't make sense. Science's best-kept secret is that there are experimental results and reliable data that the most brilliant scientists can neither explain nor dismiss. If history is any precedent, we should look to today's inexplicable results to forecast the future of science. Michael Brooks heads to the scientific frontier to meet 13 modern-day anomalies and discover tomorrow's breakthroughs.
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10 interesting chapters-read epiloge first
- By Stephen on 06-10-09
By: Michael Brooks
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Life's Engines
- How Microbes Made Earth Habitable
- By: Paul G. Falkowski
- Narrated by: Nick Sullivan
- Length: 7 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Paul Falkowski looks "under the hood" of microbes to find the engines of life, the actual working parts that do the biochemical heavy lifting for every living organism on Earth. With insight and humor, he explains how these miniature engines are built - and how they have been appropriated by and assembled like Lego sets within every creature that walks, swims, or flies. Falkowski shows how evolution works to maintain this core machinery of life, and how we and other animals are veritable conglomerations of microbes.
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Best Science Book Ever Written. Period.
- By serine on 07-28-15
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A Series of Fortunate Events
- Chance and the Making of the Planet, Life, and You
- By: Sean B. Carroll
- Narrated by: Sean B. Carroll
- Length: 4 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Why is the world the way it is? How did we get here? Does everything happen for a reason, or are some things left to chance? Philosophers and theologians have pondered these questions for millennia, but startling scientific discoveries over the past half century are revealing that we live in a world driven by chance. A Series of Fortunate Events tells the story of the awesome power of chance and how it is the surprising source of all the beauty and diversity in the living world.
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We are for a short time.
- By Anonymous User on 10-14-20
By: Sean B. Carroll
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The Second Book of General Ignorance
- Everything You Think You Know Is (Still) Wrong
- By: John Lloyd, John Mitchinson
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 10 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Just when you thought that it was safe to start showing off again, John Lloyd and John Mitchinson are back with another busload of mistakes and misunderstandings. Here is a new collection of simple, perfectly obvious questions you'll be quite certain you know the answers to. Whether it's history, science, sports, geography, literature, language, medicine, the classics, or common wisdom, you'll be astonished to discover that everything you thought you knew is still hopelessly wrong.
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It's all stuff from QI
- By Bonnie Kennedy on 04-07-21
By: John Lloyd, and others
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Creation
- How Science Is Reinventing Life Itself
- By: Adam Rutherford
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 6 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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What is life? Humans have been asking this question for thousands of years. But as technology has advanced and our understanding of biology has deepened, the answer has evolved. For decades, scientists have been exploring the limits of nature by modifying and manipulating DNA, cells, and whole organisms to create new ones that could never have previously existed on their own.
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The Goldilocks book on what is life
- By Gary on 07-11-13
By: Adam Rutherford
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Life’s Ratchet
- How Molecular Machines Extract Order from Chaos
- By: Peter M. Hoffman
- Narrated by: Paul Hodgson
- Length: 9 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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The cells in our bodies consist of molecules, made up of the same carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen atoms found in air and rocks. But molecules, such as water and sugar, are not alive. So how do our cells - assemblies of otherwise "dead" molecules - come to life, and together constitute a living being? In Life’s Ratchet, physicist Peter M. Hoffmann locates the answer to this age-old question at the nanoscale.
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For biologists to learn single molecule biophysics
- By A Synthetic Biologist on 09-04-14
By: Peter M. Hoffman
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Life on the Edge
- The Coming of Age of Quantum Biology
- By: Johnjoe McFadden, Jim Al-Khalili
- Narrated by: Pete Cross
- Length: 12 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Life is the most extraordinary phenomenon in the known universe; but how did it come to be? Even in an age of cloning and artificial biology, the remarkable truth remains: Nobody has ever made anything living entirely out of dead material. Life remains the only way to make life. Are we still missing a vital ingredient in its creation?
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More woo than new
- By Gary on 09-09-15
By: Johnjoe McFadden, and others
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The Equations of Life
- How Physics Shapes Evolution
- By: Charles S. Cockell
- Narrated by: Ian Porter
- Length: 11 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Equations of Life, biologist Charles S. Cockell makes the forceful argument that the laws of physics narrowly constrain how life can evolve, making evolution's outcomes predictable. If we were to find something very much like a lady bug eating something very much like an aphid on a distant planet, we shouldn't be surprised. The forms of life are guided by a limited set of rules, and, as a result, there is a narrow set of solutions to the challenges of existence.
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Too many equations, not enough insights
- By Alec Drumm on 09-24-18
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How to Speak Science
- Gravity, Relativity, and Other Ideas That Were Crazy Until Proven Brilliant
- By: Bruce Benamran, Stephanie Delozier Strobel
- Narrated by: Braden Wright
- Length: 13 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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As smartphones, supercomputers, supercolliders, and AI propel us into an ever more unfamiliar future, How to Speak Science takes us on a rollicking historical tour of the greatest discoveries and ideas that make today's cutting-edge technologies possible. Wanting everyone to be able to "speak" science, YouTube science guru Bruce Benamran explains - as accessibly and wittily as in his acclaimed videos - the fundamental ideas of the physical world: matter, life, the solar system, light, electromagnetism, thermodynamics, special and general relativity, and much more.
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Wowzers!
- By Ralph Temblador on 02-15-21
By: Bruce Benamran, and others
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The Science of Discworld
- A Novel
- By: Terry Pratchett, Ian Stewart, Jack Cohen
- Narrated by: Michael Fenton Stevens, Stephen Briggs
- Length: 13 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Not just another science audiobook and not just another Discworld novella, The Science of Discworld is a creative, mind-bending mash-up of fiction and fact, that offers a wizard’s-eye view of our world that will forever change how you look at the universe.
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Not the best Pratchett, but gets there in the end
- By Rachel on 07-30-14
By: Terry Pratchett, and others
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The Lives of a Cell
- Notes of a Biology Watcher
- By: Lewis Thomas
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 4 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Lives of a Cell, Dr. Lewis Thomas opens up to the listener a universe of knowledge and perception that is perhaps not wholly unfamiliar to the research scientist; but the world he explores is also one of men and women, of complex interrelationships, old ironies, peculiar powers, and intricate languages that give identity to the alienated and direction to the dependent. This remarkable work offers a subtle, bold vision of humankind and the world around us - a sense of what gives life - from a writer who seems to draw grace and strength from the very substance of his subject.
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So enlightening and enjoyable!
- By Flora on 03-15-18
By: Lewis Thomas
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Origins
- The Scientific Story of Creation
- By: Jim Baggott
- Narrated by: Neil Scott-Barbour
- Length: 16 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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What is the nature of the material world? How does it work? What is the universe and how was it formed? What is life? Where do we come from and how did we evolve? How and why do we think? What does it mean to be human? How do we know? There are many different versions of our creation story. This book tells the version according to modern science. It is a unique account, starting at the Big Bang and travelling right up to the emergence of humans as conscious intelligent beings, 13.8 billion years later.
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Interesting book, but WOW, the narrator ...
- By UH on 01-10-17
By: Jim Baggott
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The Complete (Short) Guide to Absolutely Everything
- Adventures in Math and Science
- By: Adam Rutherford, Hannah Fry
- Narrated by: Hannah Fry, Adam Rutherford
- Length: 7 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Geneticist Adam Rutherford and mathematician Hannah Fry guide listeners through time and space, through our bodies and brains, showing how emotions shape our view of reality, how our minds tell us lies, and why a mostly bald and curious ape decided to begin poking at the fabric of the universe.
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Humour and understandability.
- By Chris B on 09-08-24
By: Adam Rutherford, and others
What listeners say about The First History of Man
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- alicia
- 06-18-21
Captivating and inspiring
Fascinating book that is well written and thought out! If you like non-fiction it’s a must read.
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- Amazon Customer
- 01-29-23
If you want something unlike other books you've read.
This is a new type of book for me. It's like reading a novel and science article at the same time. I never thought I would read a book that had as much information as a textbook, but without knowing you are learning . You are entertained by the storyline so you don't realize until the end of each chapter that you've retained a lot of new and interesting information. It is a story, but an informative one. Reading this book will bring new and interesting topics into your daily conversations I am sure.
You can also really hear the author, Dr Bershof, in the pages - he is a surgeon turned author and even a bit of a comic- so you can get a glimpse of how his mind works. He is the sort of person who seems to want to get to the root of why and how the world around us came to be. He seeks and answers the questions around us that the general population seems to just accept as fact. Giving information on a broad spectrum of topics that anyone person can follow and enjoy.
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- Heather Richie
- 06-18-21
Must Read/Listen
A great take on medicine & history. Fascinating!!! Cannot wait for the next one…What fitting read/listen esp during a pandemic.
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