The Ancestor's Tale

The Ancestor's Tale PDF

Author: Richard Dawkins

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 696

ISBN-13: 9780618619160

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A renowned biologist provides a sweeping chronicle of more than four billion years of life on Earth, shedding new light on evolutionary theory and history, sexual selection, speciation, extinction, and genetics.

The Ancestor's Tale

The Ancestor's Tale PDF

Author: Richard Dawkins

Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson

Published: 2010-12-16

Total Pages: 573

ISBN-13: 0297865412

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One of the most brilliant scientists of our age gives us his definitive work: a synthesis of his comprehensive vision of life. THE ANCESTOR'S TALE is a pilgrimage back through time; a journey on which we meet up with fellow pilgrims as we and they converge on our common ancestors. Chimpanzees join us at about 6 million years in the past, orang utans at 14 million years, as we stride on together, a growing band. The journey provides the setting for a collection of some 40 tales. Each explores an aspect of evolutionary biology through the stories of characters met along the way. The tales are interspersed with prologues detailing the journey, route maps showing joining lineages, and life-like reconstructions of our common ancestors. THE ANCESTOR'S TALE represents a pilgrimage on an unimaginable scale: our goal is four billion years away, and the number of pilgrims joining us grows vast - ultimately encompassing all living creatures. At the end of the journey lies something remarkable in its simplicity and transformative power: the first, humble, replicating molecules.

The Ancestor

The Ancestor PDF

Author: Danielle Trussoni

Publisher: HarperCollins

Published: 2020-04-07

Total Pages: 384

ISBN-13: 0062912798

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"A lushly written, dream-like modern gothic with as many dark turns and twists as the Montebianco family tree has branches. Welcome to the family." – Paul Tremblay, bestselling author of Survivor Song After a DNA test reveals that Alberta “Bert” Monte is the sole heir of a wealthy noble family in the Italian Alps, she leaves New York to visit the family estate: Montebianco Castle, a centuries-old compound isolated in the mountains. What appeared to be a fairy tale inheritance, however, soon turns into a nightmare as Bert begins to uncover the dark legacy of her family: the truth about the abandoned village at the base of the castle; the whispers of stolen children; and the rumors of a legendary monster in the mountains. As Bert unravels the truth, she learns that her true inheritance lies not in a noble title or ancestral treasures, but in her very genes, and now she must choose between preserving a secret centuries in the keeping or abandoning it forever. “Vivid and uncanny…makes the most of Trussoni’s signature blend of science, myth, and mystery.” —Deborah Harkness, bestselling author of A Discovery of Witches "Inventive and entertaining." — People “A Gothic Extravaganza.” —Kirkus

Ancestor

Ancestor PDF

Author: Scott Sigler

Publisher: Crown

Published: 2010-06-22

Total Pages: 434

ISBN-13: 0307589358

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“The ancestors are out there…you have to believe me.” From acclaimed author Scott Sigler—New York Times bestselling creator of Infected and Contagious—comes a tale of genetic experimentation’s worst nightmare come true. Every five minutes, a transplant candidate dies while waiting for a heart, a liver, a kidney. Imagine a technology that could provide those life-saving transplant organs for a nominal fee ... and imagine what a company would do to get a monopoly on that technology. On a remote island in the Canadian Arctic, PJ Colding leads a group of geneticists who have discovered this holy grail of medicine. By reverse-engineering the genomes of thousands of mammals, Colding's team has dialed back the evolutionary clock to re-create humankind’s common ancestor. The method? Illegal. The result? A computer-engineered living creature, an animal whose organs can be implanted in any person, and with no chance of transplant rejection. There's just one problem: these ancestors are not the docile herd animals that Colding's team envisioned. Instead, Colding’s work has given birth to something big, something evil. With these killer creatures on the prowl, Colding and the woman he loves must fight to survive — even as government agents close in to shut the project down, and the deep-pocketed company backing this research proves to have its own cold-blooded agenda. As the creators become the prey in the ultimate battle for survival, Scott Sigler takes readers on the ultimate thrill-ride—and offers a chilling cautionary account of what can happen when hubris, greed, and madness drive scientific experimentation past the brink of reason.

Ancestor Approved

Ancestor Approved PDF

Author: Cynthia Leitich Smith

Publisher: HarperCollins

Published: 2021-02-09

Total Pages: 249

ISBN-13: 0062869965

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Edited by award-winning and bestselling author Cynthia Leitich Smith, this collection of intersecting stories by both new and veteran Native writers bursts with hope, joy, resilience, the strength of community, and Native pride. Native families from Nations across the continent gather at the Dance for Mother Earth Powwow in Ann Arbor, Michigan. In a high school gym full of color and song, people dance, sell beadwork and books, and celebrate friendship and heritage. Young protagonists will meet relatives from faraway, mysterious strangers, and sometimes one another (plus one scrappy rez dog). They are the heroes of their own stories. Featuring stories and poems by: Joseph Bruchac Art Coulson Christine Day Eric Gansworth Carole Lindstrom Dawn Quigley Rebecca Roanhorse David A. Robertson Andrea L. Rogers Kim Rogers Cynthia Leitich Smith Monique Gray Smith Traci Sorell, Tim Tingle Erika T. Wurth Brian Young In partnership with We Need Diverse Books

Die Free

Die Free PDF

Author: Cheryl Wills

Publisher: Hillcrest Publishing Group

Published: 2011-01-03

Total Pages: 222

ISBN-13: 1935098403

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When award-winning television news anchor Cheryl Wills discovers that her great-great-great grandfather, Sandy Wills, was a runaway slave who joined the historic fight for freedom in the American Civil War, she embarks on a gut-wrenching search to learn more. Cheryl¿s journey leads her to a courageous ancestor who demonstrated the same courage that she knew in her beloved father, an intrepid New York City firefighter, who died when she was thirteen. Her father never knew his family¿s notable legacy. Told with deep love and brow-raising honesty, "Die Free" stretches from Haywood County, Tennessee, in the 1860s to New York City in the twentieth century. Cheryl shares the unvarnished truth about the Wills¿ family roots, ever entwined in passion, music, and faith. Cheryl also exhumes the spirit of her great-great- great grandmother Emma Wills, an illiterate lionhearted widow, who was discriminated against as she fought to obtain her husband¿s Civil War pension and unwittingly dictated her historic life, from slavery to freedom, in sworn depositions to a lawyer. The century-old pension papers become the Holy Grail for the newscaster who nails a scoop that has forever changed her life and that of future generations. A lesson in the pruning of one¿s imagination, "Die Free" takes readers on a haunting yet exhilarating ride through the side door of American history.

Ancestor Stones

Ancestor Stones PDF

Author: Aminatta Forna

Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic

Published: 2014-03-18

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 0802191967

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From the award-winning author: A “wonderfully ambitious” novel of West Africa, told through the struggles and dreams of four extraordinary women (The Guardian). When a cousin offers Abie her family’s plantation in the West African village of Rofathane in Sierra Leone, she leaves her husband, children, and career in London to reclaim the home she left behind long ago. With the help of her four aunts—Asana, Mariama, Hawa, and Serah—Abie begins a journey to uncover the past of her family and her home country, buried among the neglected coffee plants. From rivalries between local chiefs and religious leaders to arranged marriages, manipulative unions, traditional desires, and modern advancements, Abie’s aunts weave a tale of a nation’s descent into chaos—and their own individual struggles to claim their destiny. Hailed by Marie Claire as “a fascinating evocation of the experience of African women, and all that has been gained—and lost—with the passing of old traditions,” Ancestor Stones is a powerful exploration of family, culture, heritage, and hope. “This is [Forna’s] first novel, but it is too sophisticated to read like one.” —The Guardian

Unweaving the Rainbow

Unweaving the Rainbow PDF

Author: Richard Dawkins

Publisher: HMH

Published: 2000-04-05

Total Pages: 355

ISBN-13: 0547347359

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From the New York Times–bestselling author of Science in the Soul. “If any recent writing about science is poetic, it is this” (The Wall Street Journal). Did Sir Isaac Newton “unweave the rainbow” by reducing it to its prismatic colors, as John Keats contended? Did he, in other words, diminish beauty? Far from it, says acclaimed scientist Richard Dawkins; Newton’s unweaving is the key too much of modern astronomy and to the breathtaking poetry of modern cosmology. Mysteries don’t lose their poetry because they are solved: the solution often is more beautiful than the puzzle, uncovering deeper mysteries. With the wit, insight, and spellbinding prose that have made him a bestselling author, Dawkins takes up the most important and compelling topics in modern science, from astronomy and genetics to language and virtual reality, combining them in a landmark statement of the human appetite for wonder. This is the book Dawkins was meant to write: A brilliant assessment of what science is (and isn’t), a tribute to science not because it is useful but because it is uplifting. “A love letter to science, an attempt to counter the perception that science is cold and devoid of aesthetic sensibility . . . Rich with metaphor, passionate arguments, wry humor, colorful examples, and unexpected connections, Dawkins’ prose can be mesmerizing.” —San Francisco Chronicle “Brilliance and wit.” —The New Yorker

Reunion

Reunion PDF

Author: Ryan Littrell

Publisher: Ryan Littrell

Published: 2012-10

Total Pages: 275

ISBN-13: 098834100X

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An anonymous letter, found at the bottom of a box of black-and-white pictures, reveals the first clues about the author's grandmother's family story, and soon those clues lead him to a country graveyard and a long-lost cousin. As one hint leads to the next, from the 19th century back into the 18th, he discovers his family's place in a people's tragic struggle.

The Selfish Gene

The Selfish Gene PDF

Author: Richard Dawkins

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 1989

Total Pages: 372

ISBN-13: 9780192860927

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Science need not be dull and bogged down by jargon, as Richard Dawkins proves in this entertaining look at evolution. The themes he takes up are the concepts of altruistic and selfish behaviour; the genetical definition of selfish interest; the evolution of aggressive behaviour; kinshiptheory; sex ratio theory; reciprocal altruism; deceit; and the natural selection of sex differences. 'Should be read, can be read by almost anyone. It describes with great skill a new face of the theory of evolution.' W.D. Hamilton, Science