Physical Anatomy

We humans like to think of ourselves as highly evolved creatures. But if we are supposedly evolution's greatest creation, why do we have such bad knees? Why do we catch head colds so often - 200 times more often than a dog does? How come our wrists have so many useless bones? And are we really supposed to swallow and breathe through the same narrow tube? Surely there's been some kind of mistake. As professor of biology Nathan H. Lents explains in Human Errors, our evolutionary history is nothing if not a litany of mistakes, each more entertaining and enlightening than the last.

For half a century, we have been trained to believe that our right brain hemisphere is our emotional brain, while our left brain houses our rational thinking. Now neuroscience shows that it's not that simple: In fact, our emotional limbic tissue is evenly divided between our two hemispheres. Consequently, each hemisphere has both an emotional brain and a thinking brain. In this groundbreaking new book, Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor presents these four distinct modules of cells as four characters that make up who we are.

With his expert teachings, philosophical insights, and pragmatic imagery, world-class yoga instructor Tias Little turns the anatomy of the physical body into a tool for navigating the subtle body. If you spend considerable time doing yoga, you begin to see that it is about much more than just the body - the practice of yoga in fact reveals that the body is in no way separate from the pyschospiritual forces that animate it. Tias Little here provides a way to understand these forces as they relate to an integrated yoga of body, mind, and spirit.

A true scientific pause-resister that traces a remarkable scientific breakthrough (the isolation of endorphins in the brain) as dedicated scientists race - not only with their fellow scientists - but against time and the profit hungry giant pharmaceutical companies. This audiobook chronicles the fascinating discovery of endorphins, the body's natural painkiller.

A political journalist and activist, Cousins was also a professor of medical humanities at UCLA, where he studied the biochemistry of human emotions and their relationship to healing. When Cousins was hospitalized with a debilitating collagen illness, he decided to take his health into his own hands. Cousins and his doctor combated the disease together by creating a regimen of laughter and vitamin C specifically calibrated to his needs. Against all odds, the treatment worked, proving to Cousins that a positive attitude was key to his improvement.

When neuroscientist Susan Barry was 50 years old, she took an unforgettable trip to Manhattan. As she emerged from the dim light of the subway into the sunshine, she saw a view of the city that she had witnessed many times in the past but now saw in an astonishingly new way. Skyscrapers on street corners appeared to loom out toward her like the bows of giant ships. Tree branches projected upward and outward, enclosing and commanding palpable volumes of space.

Many of us don't see much connection between spiritual and physical health. We say grace before digging into greasy, fatty meals we know are bad for us. We read Scripture on our phones before switching to social media feeds that hijack the neural circuitry in our brains. Or we take our physical health too seriously, distancing ourselves from the sick and the needy whom Jesus embraced.

In Ancestors in Our Genome, molecular anthropologist Eugene E. Harris presents us with a complete and up-to-date account of the evolution of the human genome and our species. Written from the perspective of population genetics, and in simple terms, the book traces human origins back to their source among our earliest human ancestors, and explains many of the most intriguing questions that genome scientists are currently working to answer.

One step out of line and Becky Vilhauser, first most popular girl in school, will make her life a living hell. So when former loner Logan McDonough shows up one September hotter, smarter, and more mysterious than ever, Anika knows she can't get involved. It would be insane to throw away her social safety for a nerd. So what if that nerd is now a black-leather-jacket-wearing dreamboat, and his loner status is clearly the result of his troubled home life?

A comprehensive resource for yoga teachers, pilates instructors, and movement therapists—exercises, ergonomic adjustments, and daily-living activities for back pain, scoliosis, disc disease, and 18 other spinal conditions.

Weißt du, was dein Körper jeden Tag, jede Minute, ja, jede Sekunde leistet? Stimmt, manchmal kann er auch ganz schön lästig sein: etwa wenn der Schädel brummt, alle Muskeln schmerzen oder dir – ganz peinlich – ein lauter Pups entfährt. Im Großen und Ganzen ist er aber wirklich voll in Ordnung! Er möchte nur sorgsam behandelt werden, denn wenn es ihm gut geht, geht es auch dir gut.

Dieses Hörbuch klärt interessierte Laien über erstaunliche Fakten und Prozesse bei Medizin und Gesundheit auf. Warum würden wir ohne Schlaf sterben? Wie kommt es zum Jojo-Effekt? Wieso haben alle unsere Körperzellen im Grunde ihre eigene Nase? Warum altern wir und lässt sich das wirklich aufhalten? Wie entwickelt sich das Denken? Und warum kann ein Placebo bei der Heilung so effektiv sein wie eine Operation? Diesen und weiteren Fragen rund um verschiedene Vorgänge im menschlichen Körper geht die Autorin nach.