Art Biology

Since the late 1980s the dominant theory of human origins has been that a "cognitive revolution" (c. 50,000 years ago) led to the advent of our species, Homo sapiens. As a result of this revolution our species spread and eventually replaced all existing archaic Homo species, ultimately leading to the superiority of modern humans. Or so we thought. As Clive Finlayson explains, the latest advances in genetics prove that there was significant interbreeding between modern humans and the Neanderthals.

– Don’t sit to defecate. Sitting causes a muscle to constrict your colon so your poop can’t come out easily. We’ll tell you how to relax it. – Read about the 100 trillion aliens living in your gut and without their help digesting food, you’d starve. – Did you know that wombat dung comes out in cubes, and swallowing a pill containing someone else’s excrement could save your life, and that the astronauts’ own poop will protect them on their long journey to Mars? – Find out why Elvis died while sitting on the toilet, and that Martin Luther’s bowel movement inspired a new ...

Survival of the Beautiful is a revolutionary new examination of the interplay of beauty, art, and culture in evolution. Taking inspiration from Darwin's observation that animals have a natural aesthetic sense, philosopher and musician David Rothenberg probes why animals, humans included, have innate appreciation for beauty - and why nature is, indeed, beautiful.

A luminous, true story, Name All the Animals is an unparalleled account of grief and secret love: the tale of a family clinging to the memory of a lost child, and a young woman struggling to define herself in the wake of his loss.