“Even-handed, up-to-date, and clearly written. . . . If you want to navigate between the Scylla and Charybdis of Neanderthal controversies, you’ll find no better guide.” —Brian Fagan, author of Cro-MagnonIn recent years, the common perception of the Neanderthal has been transformed thanks to new discoveries and paradigm-shattering scientific innovations. It turns out that the Neanderthals’ behavior was surprisingly modern: they buried the dead, cared for the sick, hunted l...

An authoritative survey of the scientific background for therapeutic cancer vaccines, the challenges to their development, and their current uses in treating cancer. The authors examine the basic issues that effect all vaccines (such as immune adjuvants and prime-boost strategies), describe the methods for antigen discovery, and review the preclinical development phases for each major vaccine strategy. They also spell out the clinical results for cancer vaccines now beginning to be used in...

"In the first complete chronological narrative of the species from emergence to extinction...archaeologist Dimitra Papagianni and science historian Michael Morse have shaped a gem." —NatureIn recent years, the common perception of the Neanderthals has been transformed, thanks to new discoveries and paradigm-shattering scientific innovations. It turns out that the Neanderthals’ behavior was surprisingly modern: they buried the dead, cared for the sick, hunted large ...

In recent years, the common perception of the Neanderthals has been transformed, thanks to new discoveries and paradigm-shattering scientific innovations. It turns out that the Neanderthals' behavior was surprisingly modern: they buried the dead, cared for the sick, hunted large animals in their prime, harvested seafood, and communicated with spoken language. Meanwhile, advances in DNA technologies are compelling us to reassess the Neanderthals' place in our own past.For hundreds o...

Drawing on startling new evidence from the mapping of the genome, an explosive new account of the genetic basis of race and its role in the human storyFewer ideas have been more toxic or harmful than the idea of the biological reality of race, and with it the idea that humans of different races are biologically different from one another. For this understandable reason, the idea has been banished from polite academic conversation. Arguing that race is more than jus...

From the most celebrated heir to Darwin comes a groundbreaking book on evolution, the summa work of Edward O. Wilson's legendary career.Sparking vigorous debate in the sciences, The Social Conquest of Earth upends “the famous theory that evolution naturally encourages creatures to put family first” (Discover). Refashioning the story of human evolution, Wilson draws on his remarkable knowledge of biology and social behavior to demonstrate that group selection, not kin selection, is ...

Are history books giving us the whole story? Or is civilization far more complex and for older than we have been taught?Our school textbooks barely mention the 6,000-year-old Sumerian civilization, yet the latest archaeological findings at sites such as Jericho and, most recently, Gobekli Tepe in Turkey, have been dated to 10,000 BC.Civilization goes back at least another 10,000 years, if we are willing to believe what our ancestors themselves claimed.The Lost C...

In the tradition of Simon Winchester and Dava Sobel, The Riddle of the Labyrinth: The Quest to Crack an Ancient Code tells one of the most intriguing stories in the history of language, masterfully blending history, linguistics, and cryptology with an elegantly wrought narrative.When famed archaeologist Arthur Evans unearthed the ruins of a sophisticated Bronze Age civilization that flowered on Crete 1,000 years before Greece's Classical Age, he discovered a cache of ancie...

The bestselling author of Misquoting Jesus, one of the most renowned and controversial Bible scholars in the world today examines oral tradition and its role in shaping the stories about Jesus we encounter in the New Testament—and ultimately in our understanding of Christianity.Throughout much of human history, our most important stories were passed down orally—including the stories about Jesus before they became written down in the Gospels. In this fascinating and deeply ...

New York Times bestselling author and Bible expert Bart Ehrman reveals how Jesus’s divinity became dogma in the first few centuries of the early church.The claim at the heart of the Christian faith is that Jesus of Nazareth was, and is, God. But this is not what the original disciples believed during Jesus’s lifetime—and it is not what Jesus claimed about himself. How Jesus Became God tells the story of an idea that shaped Christianity, and of the evolution of a b...

In The Universe, today's most influential science writers explain the science behind our evolving understanding of the universe and everything in it, including the cutting-edge research and discoveries that are shaping our knowledge.Lee Smolin reveals how math and cosmology are helping us create a theory of the whole universe.Neil Turok analyzes the fundamental laws of nature, what came before the big bang, and the possibili...

In this brilliant exploration of our cosmic environment, the renowned particle physicist and New York Times bestselling author of Warped Passages and Knocking on Heaven’s Door uses her research into dark matter to illuminate the startling connections between the furthest reaches of space and life here on Earth.Sixty-six million years ago, an object the size of a city descended from space to crash into Earth, creating a devastating cataclysm that killed of...