Non-Fiction

Our perceptions become our perspectives, and our perspectives can become so rigid that they create problems in our lives. Mind Files: Perception, Perspective & Problems takes a look at the mind’s process of using the past as a reference in understanding what we are currently experiencing and how that process interferes not only with the present, but the future as well. Delve into the filing cabinets of your mind, and gain insight as to how the conclusions you formed at the end of emotionally painful ...

A groundbreaking book about how ancient DNA has profoundly changed our understanding of human history. Geneticists like David Reich have made astounding advances in the field of genomics, which is proving to be as important as archeology, linguistics, and written records as a means to understand our ancestry. In Who We Are and How We Got Here, Reich allows readers to discover how the human genome provides not only all the information a human embryo needs to develop but also the hidden story of our species. ...

An in-depth look at virtual reality and how it can be harnessed to improve our everyday lives. Virtual reality is able to effectively blur the line between reality and illusion, pushing the limits of our imagination and granting us access to any experience imaginable. With well-crafted simulations, these experiences, which are so immersive that the brain believes they’re real, are already widely available with a VR headset and will only become more accessible and commonplace. But how does this new medium affect its users, and ...

  The Terrifying True Story of the Origins of the Ebola Virus The Gaia hypothesis proposes that Earth, and the organisms on it, form a self-regulating system that maintains the conditions necessary for life. That the planet is alive, in other words, in much the same way that we are. And just as we have mechanisms to fight off infections, the Earth has tools to protect its well-being. Are viruses, such as Ebola, Marburg, and HIV, acting as “the Earth’s own antibodies, protecting the environment from encroachment ...

One day in 2002 the fifty-year old body of former Pittsburgh Steeler and hall of famer Mike Webster was laid on a cold table in front of pathologist Dr. Bennet Omalu. Webster’s body looked to Omalu like the body of a much older man, and the circumstances of his behavior prior to his death were clouded in mystery. But when Omalu cut into Webster’s brain, it appeared to be normal. Something didn’t add up. It was at this moment, Omalu studying slides of Webster’s brain ...

The mystery of Earth’s invisible, life-supporting power. Alanna Mitchell’s globe-trotting history of the science of electromagnetism and the Earth’s magnetic field–right up to the latest indications that the North and South Poles may soon reverse, with apocalyptic results–will soon change the way you think about our planet. Award-winning journalist Alanna Mitchell’s science storytelling introduce intriguing characters–from the thirteenth-century French investigations into magnetism and the Victorian-era discover that electricity and magnetism emerge from the same fundamental force to the latest research. No one has ever told ...

In the chaotic last days of the war, a small troop of battle-weary American soldiers captures a German spy and makes an astonishing find—his briefcase is empty but for photos of beautiful white horses that have been stolen and kept on a secret farm behind enemy lines. Hitler has stockpiled the world’s finest purebreds in order to breed the perfect military machine—an equine master race. But with the starving Russian army closing in, the animals are in imminent danger of being slaughtered for food. With ...

A landmark volume in science writing by one of the great minds of our time, Stephen Hawking’s book explores such profound questions as: How did the universe begin—and what made its start possible? Does time always flow forward? Is the universe unending—or are there boundaries? Are there other dimensions in space? What will happen when it all ends? Told in language we all can understand, A Brief History of Time plunges into the exotic realms of black holes and quarks, of antimatter and “arrows of time,” of ...