Dancing Cockatoos and the Dead Man Test
How Behavior Evolves and Why It Matters
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Dancing Cockatoos and the Dead Man Test
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Narrated by:
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Jaime Lamchick
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By:
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Marlene Zuk
About this listen
Longlisted for the 2023 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award
A lively exploration of animal behavior in all its glorious complexity, whether in tiny wasps, lumbering elephants, or ourselves.
For centuries, people have been returning to the same tired nature-versus-nurture debate, trying to determine what we learn and what we inherit. In Dancing Cockatoos and the Dead Man Test, biologist Marlene Zuk goes beyond the binary and instead focuses on interaction, or the way that genes and environment work together. Driving her investigation is a simple but essential question: How does behavior evolve?
Drawing from a wealth of research, including her own on insects, Zuk answers this question by turning to a wide range of animals and animal behavior. There are stories of cockatoos that dance to rock music, ants that heal their injured companions, dogs that exhibit signs of obsessive-compulsive disorder, and so much more.
For insights into animal intelligence, mating behavior, and an organism’s ability to fight disease, she explores the behavior of smart spiders, silent crickets, and crafty crows. In each example, she clearly demonstrates how these traits were produced by the complex and diverse interactions of genes and the environment and urges us to consider how that same process evolves behavior in us humans.
Filled with delightful anecdotes and fresh insights, Dancing Cockatoos and the Dead Man Test helps us see both other animals and ourselves more clearly, demonstrating that animal behavior can be remarkably similar to human behavior, and wonderfully complicated in its own right.
©2022 Marlene Zuk (P)2022 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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[Zuk] watches and writes with a sense of wonder, curiosity, and the abiding recognition that our own human lives only make sense in light of the behavior of other species…Zuk’s lovely book feels like a cabinet of curiosities whose details remind us to pay attention to the behaviors around us every day.—Rob Dunn, Science
Zuk has a knack for weaving in complex scientific theories without ever slowing down the pace, and her vivid descriptions render her wonder contagious…This one's full of fun.—Publishers Weekly
Consistently entertaining…Fascinating stories from a knowledgeable, humorous guide. Another winner from Zuk.—Kirkus Reviews
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- By: Marc Bekoff, Jessica Pierce
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 6 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 83
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 60
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 59
Scientists have long counseled against interpreting animal behavior in terms of human emotions, warning that such anthropomorphizing limits our ability to understand animals as they really are. Yet what are we to make of a female gorilla in a German zoo who spent days mourning the death of her baby? Or a wild female elephant who cared for a younger one after she was injured by a rambunctious teenage male?
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5 out of 5 stars
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What Some Of Us Have Always Known...
- By Douglas on 12-12-13
By: Marc Bekoff, and others
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Why Evolution Is True
- By: Jerry A. Coyne
- Narrated by: Victor Bevine
- Length: 9 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,924
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,440
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,436
Why evolution is more than just a theory: it is a fact. In all the current highly publicized debates about creationism and its descendant "intelligent design", there is an element of the controversy that is rarely mentioned: the evidence, the empirical truth of evolution by natural selection.
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5 out of 5 stars
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As great as everyone says it is
- By Joseph on 12-01-10
By: Jerry A. Coyne
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Domesticated
- Evolution in a Man-Made World
- By: Richard C. Francis
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 13 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 199
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 184
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 179
Without our domesticated plants and animals, human civilization as we know it would not exist. We would still be living at subsistence level as hunter-gatherers if not for domestication. It is no accident that the cradle of civilization - the Middle East - is where sheep, goats, pigs, cattle, and cats commenced their fatefully intimate associations with humans.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Well, what did you expect?
- By Mark on 03-25-16
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The Creative Spark
- How Imagination Made Humans Exceptional
- By: Agustín Fuentes
- Narrated by: Agustín Fuentes
- Length: 10 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 150
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 127
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 125
In the tradition of Jared Diamond's million-copy-selling classic Guns, Germs, and Steel, a bold new synthesis of paleontology, archaeology, genetics, and anthropology that overturns misconceptions about race, war and peace, and human nature itself, answering an age-old question: What made humans so exceptional among all the species on Earth? Creativity. It is the secret of what makes humans special, hiding in plain sight.
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4 out of 5 stars
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What's new?
- By Mark on 05-02-17
By: Agustín Fuentes
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Blueprint
- The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society
- By: Nicholas A. Christakis
- Narrated by: Nicholas A. Christakis
- Length: 14 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 908
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 776
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 768
For too long, scientists have focused on the dark side of our biological heritage: our capacity for aggression, cruelty, prejudice, and self-interest. But natural selection has given us a suite of beneficial social features, including our capacity for love, friendship, cooperation, and learning. Beneath all our inventions - our tools, farms, machines, cities, nations - we carry with us innate proclivities to make a good society.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Many interesting thoughts
- By Jonas Blomberg Ghini on 06-01-19
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Superlative
- The Biology of Extremes
- By: Matthew D. LaPlante
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 9 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 92
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 78
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 78
The world's largest land mammal could help us end cancer. The fastest bird is showing us how to solve a century-old engineering mystery. The oldest tree is giving us insights into climate change. The loudest whale is offering clues about the impact of solar storms. For a long time, scientists ignored superlative life forms as outliers. Increasingly, though, researchers are coming to see great value in studying plants and animals that exist on the outermost edges of the bell curve.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fascinating survey of amazing biology
- By Nerd's-eye view on 12-06-19
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How to Build a Dinosaur
- Extinction Doesn't Have to Be Forever
- By: Jack Horner, James Gorman
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 6 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 103
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 61
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 61
In movies, in novels, in comic strips, and on television, we've all seen dinosaurs - or at least somebody's educated guess of what they would look like. But what if it were possible to build, or grow, a real dinosaur without finding ancient DNA? Jack Horner, the scientist who advised Steven Spielberg on the blockbuster film Jurassic Park and a pioneer in bringing paleontology into the 21st century, teams up with the editor of the New York Times's Science Times section to reveal exactly what's in store.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Good book but misplaced title
- By Robert on 06-19-15
By: Jack Horner, and others
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Genesis
- The Deep Origin of Societies
- By: Edward O. Wilson
- Narrated by: Jonathan Hogan
- Length: 3 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 83
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 68
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 66
Asserting that religious creeds and philosophical questions can be reduced to purely genetic and evolutionary components, and that the human body and mind have a physical base obedient to the laws of physics and chemistry, Genesis demonstrates that the only way for us to fully understand human behavior is to study the evolutionary histories of nonhuman species. Of these, Wilson demonstrates that at least 17 - among them the African naked mole rat and the sponge-dwelling shrimp - have been found to have advanced societies based on altruism and cooperation.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Simply awful
- By Mike A Klotz on 02-07-20
By: Edward O. Wilson
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Cat Sense
- How the New Feline Science Can Make You a Better Friend to Your Pet
- By: John Bradshaw
- Narrated by: Graeme Malcolm
- Length: 11 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 273
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 234
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 235
Cats have been popular household pets for thousands of years, and their numbers only continue to rise. Today there are three cats for every dog on the planet, and yet cats remain more mysterious, even to their most adoring owners. In Cat Sense, renowned anthrozoologist John Bradshaw takes us further into the mind of the domestic cat than ever before, using cutting-edge scientific research to explain the true nature - and needs - of our feline friends. Tracing the cat’s evolution from solitary hunter to domesticated companion, Bradshaw shows that cats remain independent, predatory, and wary of social contact.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Not what I had expected
- By Terry on 03-11-14
By: John Bradshaw
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The Ancestor's Tale
- A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution
- By: Richard Dawkins
- Narrated by: Richard Dawkins, Lalla Ward
- Length: 8 hrs and 55 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 573
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 499
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 491
In The Ancestor's Tale, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins offers a masterwork: an exhilarating reverse tour through evolution, from present-day humans back to the microbial beginnings of life four billion years ago. Throughout the journey, Dawkins spins entertaining, insightful stories and sheds light on topics such as speciation, sexual selection, and extinction. The Ancestor's Tale is at once an essential education in evolutionary theory and riveting in its telling.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Please do an unabridged version!
- By MovieExpertise on 09-29-16
By: Richard Dawkins
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Dog Sense
- How the New Science of Dog Behavior Can Make You a Better Friend to Your Pet
- By: John Bradshaw
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 10 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 289
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 236
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 233
Dogs have been mankind's faithful companions for tens of thousands of years, yet today they are regularly treated as either pack-following wolves or furry humans. The truth is, dogs are neither - and our misunderstanding has put them in serious crisis. What dogs really need is a spokesperson, someone who will assert their specific needs.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Good book
- By Fair Oaks on 08-31-11
By: John Bradshaw
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The Blind Watchmaker
- Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design
- By: Richard Dawkins
- Narrated by: Richard Dawkins, Lalla Ward
- Length: 14 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,822
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,442
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,413
The Blind Watchmaker, knowledgably narrated by author Richard Dawkins, is as prescient and timely a book as ever. The watchmaker belongs to the 18th-century theologian William Paley, who argued that just as a watch is too complicated and functional to have sprung into existence by accident, so too must all living things, with their far greater complexity, be purposefully designed. Charles Darwin's brilliant discovery challenged the creationist arguments; but only Richard Dawkins could have written this elegant riposte.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Challenging textbook more than an enjoyable listen
- By Eric on 01-15-12
By: Richard Dawkins
-
Intelligence in Nature
- An Inquiry into Knowledge
- By: Jeremy Narby
- Narrated by: James Patrick Cronin
- Length: 4 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 209
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 182
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 180
Anthropologist Jeremy Narby has altered how we understand the Shamanic cultures and traditions that have undergone a worldwide revival in recent years. Now, in one of his most extraordinary journeys, Narby travels the globe - from the Amazon Basin to the Far East - to probe what traditional healers and pioneering researchers understand about the intelligence present in all forms of life. Intelligence in Nature presents overwhelming illustrative evidence that independent intelligence is not unique to humanity alone.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Favorite part was untrue :(
- By Al A'scgh on 08-13-18
By: Jeremy Narby
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How Language Began
- The Story of Humanity's Greatest Invention
- By: Daniel L. Everett
- Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
- Length: 13 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 306
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 257
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 257
Mankind has a distinct advantage over other terrestrial species: we talk to one another. But how did we acquire the most advanced form of communication on Earth? Daniel L. Everett, a "bombshell" linguist and "instant folk hero" (Tom Wolfe, Harper's), provides in this sweeping history a comprehensive examination of the evolutionary story of language, from the earliest speaking attempts by hominids to the more than 7,000 languages that exist today.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Hard to endure
- By Michael D. Busch on 09-09-18
-
Before the Dawn
- Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors
- By: Nicholas Wade
- Narrated by: Alan Sklar
- Length: 12 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 934
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 524
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 525
Just in the last three years a flood of new scientific findings, driven by revelations discovered in the human genome, has provided compelling new answers to many long-standing mysteries about our most ancient ancestors, the people who first evolved in Africa and then went on to colonize the whole world. Nicholas Wade weaves this host of news-making findings together for the first time into an intriguing new history of the human story before the dawn of civilization.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Amazing information
- By Albert on 06-15-07
By: Nicholas Wade
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Evolution
- What the Fossils Say and Why it Matters: Adapted for Audio
- By: Donald R. Prothero
- Narrated by: John Bishop
- Length: 7 hrs and 14 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 93
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 86
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 86
Over the past 20 years, paleontologists have made tremendous fossil discoveries, including fossils that mark the growth of whales, manatees, and seals from land mammals and the origins of elephants, horses, and rhinos. Today there exists an amazing diversity of fossil humans, suggesting we walked upright long before we acquired large brains, and new evidence from molecules that enable scientists to decipher the tree of life as never before.
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2 out of 5 stars
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NOT WORTH THE PRICE OF ADDMISSION
- By CRAIG on 12-25-14
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In this tour of the animal kingdom, evolutionary biologist Lee Alan Dugatkin reveals a new field of study, uncovering social networks that existed long before the dawn of human social media. He accessibly describes the latest findings from animal behavior, evolution, computer science, psychology, anthropology, genetics, and neurobiology, and incorporates interviews and insights from researchers he finds swimming with manta rays, avoiding pigeon poop, and stopping monkeys from stealing iPads.
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Can beliefs make you sick? Consider "The June Bug" incident from a US textile factory in the early 1960s. Many employees began to feel dizzy, had an upset stomach, and vomited. Some were even hospitalized. The illness was attributed to a mysterious bug biting workers. However, when the CDC investigated this outbreak, no bugs or any other cause of the illnesses could be identified. Instead, it appears to be an illness caused by the mind -- that is, sickness due to expectation.
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Excellent Discussion Of An Important Topic.
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The Universe in a Box
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In The Universe in a Box, cosmologist Andrew Pontzen explains how physicists model the universe’s most exotic phenomena, from black holes and colliding galaxies to dark matter and quantum entanglement, enabling them to study the evolution of virtual worlds and to shed new light on our reality.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Americans hold marriage in such high esteem that we push people toward it, reward them for taking part in it, and fetishize its benefits to the point that we routinely ignore or excuse bad behavior and societal ills in the name of protecting and promoting it. Through revealing storytelling, Zug builds a compelling case that when marriage is touted as “the solution” to such problems, it absolves the government, and society, of the responsibility for directly addressing them.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent!
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1 out of 5 stars
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With stories that entertain as much as they inform, renowned evolutionist David Sloan Wilson outlines the basic principles of evolution and shows how, when properly understood, they can illuminate the length and breadth of creation, from the origin of life to the nature of religion.
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Everything evolves - really
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Elemental
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It is rare for life to change Earth, yet three organisms have profoundly transformed our planet over the long course of its history. Elemental reveals how microbes, plants, and people used the fundamental building blocks of life to alter the climate, and with it, the trajectory of life on Earth in the past, present, and future. Taking listeners from the deep geologic past to our current era of human dominance, Stephen Porder focuses on five of life’s essential elements—hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus.
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You Can't Go Wrong Doing Right
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Called "a world-class power broker" by the Washington Post, Robert Brown has been a sought-after counselor for an impressive array of the famous and powerful, including every American president since John F. Kennedy. But as a child born into poverty in the 1930s, Robert was raised by his grandmother to think differently about success. For example, "The best way to influence others is to be helpful", she told him. And, "You can’t go wrong by doing right." Fueled by these lessons, Brown went on to play a pivotal, mostly unseen role alongside the powerful of our time.
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Remarkable, Amazing, Reviving
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The Nature of Drugs Vol. 1
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 23
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Transcribed from the original lectures recorded at San Francisco State University in 1987, The Nature of Drugs series highlights Shulgin’s engaging lecture style peppered with illuminating anecdotes and amusing asides. Ostensibly taught as an introductory course on drugs and biochemistry, these books serve as both a historical record of Shulgin’s teaching style and the culmination of his philosophy on drugs, psychopharmacology, states of consciousness, and societal and individual freedoms pertaining to their use, both medicinal and exploratory.
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Where's volume two
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Birds and Us
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Since the dawn of human history, birds have stirred our imagination, inspiring and challenging our ideas about science, faith, art, and philosophy. We have worshipped birds as gods, hunted them for sustenance, adorned ourselves with their feathers, studied their wings to engineer flight, and, more recently, attempted to protect them. In Birds and Us, award-winning writer and ornithologist Tim Birkhead takes us on a dazzling epic journey through our mutual history with birds.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Why birds ate important
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The Blind Spot
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 10
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 10
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Story4 out of 5 stars 10
The Blind Spot goes where no science book goes, urging us to create a new scientific culture that views ourselves both as an expression of nature and as a source of nature's self-understanding, so that humanity can flourish in the new millennium.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Good book.
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By: Adam Frank, and others
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Wonderful Life
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High in the Canadian Rockies is a small limestone quarry formed 530 million years ago called the Burgess Shale. It holds the remains of an ancient sea where dozens of strange creatures lived—a forgotten corner of evolution preserved in awesome detail. In this book, Stephen Jay Gould explores what the Burgess Shale tells us about evolution and the nature of history.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Science made interesting
- By An Old Crow on 09-13-23
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The Loneliest Polar Bear
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 13
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 12
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Six days after giving birth, a polar bear named Aurora got up and walked away from her den at the Columbus Zoo, leaving her tiny squealing cub to fend for herself. Hours later, Aurora still hadn’t returned. The cub was furless and blind, and with her temperature dropping dangerously, the zookeepers entrusted with her care felt they had no choice: They would have to raise one of the most dangerous predators in the world by hand. Over the next few weeks, a group of veterinarians and zookeepers worked around the clock to save the cub, whom they called Nora.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Heartwarming and heartbreaking
- By Amazon Customer on 05-22-23
By: Kale Williams
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The World of Sugar
- How the Sweet Stuff Transformed Our Politics, Health, and Environment over 2,000 Years
- By: Ulbe Bosma
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 13 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 15
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 13
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Story4 out of 5 stars 13
For most of history, humans did without refined sugar. Granulated sugar was first produced in India around the sixth century BC, yet for almost 2,500 years afterward sugar remained marginal in the diets of most people. Then, suddenly, it was everywhere. How did sugar find its way into almost all the food we eat, fostering illness and ecological crisis along the way? The World of Sugar begins with the earliest evidence of sugar production.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Important work well-told
- By Amazon Customer on 11-05-23
By: Ulbe Bosma
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The Blue Machine
- How the Ocean Works
- By: Helen Czerski
- Narrated by: Helen Czerski
- Length: 14 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 58
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 47
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 47
All of Earth’s oceans, from the equator to the poles, are a single engine powered by sunlight, driving huge flows of energy, water, life, and raw materials. In The Blue Machine, physicist and oceanographer Helen Czerski illustrates the mechanisms behind this defining feature of our planet, voyaging from the depths of the ocean floor to tropical coral reefs, estuaries that feed into shallow coastal seas, and Arctic ice floes. Timely, elegant, and passionately argued, The Blue Machine presents a fresh perspective on what it means to be a citizen of an ocean planet.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Wonderful knowledge locked into much detail
- By S Bell on 11-07-23
By: Helen Czerski
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The Patriarchs
- The Origins of Inequality
- By: Angela Saini
- Narrated by: Sohm Kapila
- Length: 10 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 37
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 31
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Story5 out of 5 stars 31
For fans of Sapiens and The Dawn of Everything, a groundbreaking exploration of gendered oppression—its origins, its histories, our attempts to understand it, and our efforts to combat it.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Patriarchys over time and space
- By Lynda Dickson on 12-22-23
By: Angela Saini
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The Secrets of Alchemy
- By: Lawrence M. Principe
- Narrated by: Gary Tiedemann
- Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 18
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 15
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Story5 out of 5 stars 15
In The Secrets of Alchemy, Lawrence M. Principe, one of the world's leading authorities on the subject, brings alchemy out of the shadows and restores it to its important place in human history and culture. By surveying what alchemy was and how it began, developed, and overlapped with a range of ideas and pursuits, Principe illuminates the practice. He vividly depicts the place of alchemy during its heyday in early modern Europe, and then explores how alchemy has fit into wider views of the cosmos and humanity.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Brilliant well-researched and witty
- By bukalemun on 12-14-23
What listeners say about Dancing Cockatoos and the Dead Man Test
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Jeremy Proctor
- 02-13-23
Good information, but reader distracts from it.
Good information for anyone looking to learn about behavioral science. The reader though, sounded like someone reading a children's book and could be distracting from the information at times.
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