The Trouble With Testosterone

Author: Robert M. Sapolsky
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439125058
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 292

Book Description
Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize From the man who Oliver Sacks hailed as “one of the best scientist/writers of our time,” a collection of sharply observed, uproariously funny essays on the biology of human culture and behavior. In the tradition of Stephen Jay Gould and Oliver Sacks, Robert Sapolsky offers a sparkling and erudite collection of essays about science, the world, and our relation to both. “The Trouble with Testosterone” explores the influence of that notorious hormone on male aggression. “Curious George’s Pharmacy” reexamines recent exciting claims that wild primates know how to medicate themselves with forest plants. “Junk Food Monkeys” relates the adventures of a troop of baboons who stumble upon a tourist garbage dump. And “Circling the Blanket for God” examines the neurobiological roots underlying religious belief. Drawing on his career as an evolutionary biologist and neurobiologist, Robert Sapolsky writes about the natural world vividly and insightfully. With candor, humor, and rich observations, these essays marry cutting-edge science with humanity, illuminating the interconnectedness of the world’s inhabitants with skill and flair.

Behave

Author: Robert M. Sapolsky
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0143110918
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 801

Book Description
New York Times bestseller • Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize • One of the Washington Post's 10 Best Books of the Year “It’s no exaggeration to say that Behave is one of the best nonfiction books I’ve ever read.” —David P. Barash, The Wall Street Journal "It has my vote for science book of the year.” —Parul Sehgal, The New York Times "Immensely readable, often hilarious...Hands-down one of the best books I’ve read in years. I loved it." —Dina Temple-Raston, The Washington Post From the bestselling author of A Primate's Memoir and the forthcoming Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will comes a landmark, genre-defining examination of human behavior and an answer to the question: Why do we do the things we do? Behave is one of the most dazzling tours d’horizon of the science of human behavior ever attempted. Moving across a range of disciplines, Sapolsky—a neuroscientist and primatologist—uncovers the hidden story of our actions. Undertaking some of our thorniest questions relating to tribalism and xenophobia, hierarchy and competition, and war and peace, Behave is a towering achievement—a majestic synthesis of cutting-edge research and a heroic exploration of why we ultimately do the things we do . . . for good and for ill.

Monkeyluv

Author: Robert M. Sapolsky
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0743260163
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 228

Book Description
A collection of original essays by a leading neurobiologist and primatologist share the author's insights into behavioral biology, including discussion of the physiology of genes and the factors that shape human social interaction.

Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers

Author: Robert M. Sapolsky
Publisher: Holt Paperbacks
ISBN: 1429935650
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 559

Book Description
Renowned primatologist Robert Sapolsky offers a completely revised and updated edition of his most popular work, with over 225,000 copies in print Now in a third edition, Robert M. Sapolsky's acclaimed and successful Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers features new chapters on how stress affects sleep and addiction, as well as new insights into anxiety and personality disorder and the impact of spirituality on managing stress. As Sapolsky explains, most of us do not lie awake at night worrying about whether we have leprosy or malaria. Instead, the diseases we fear-and the ones that plague us now-are illnesses brought on by the slow accumulation of damage, such as heart disease and cancer. When we worry or experience stress, our body turns on the same physiological responses that an animal's does, but we do not resolve conflict in the same way-through fighting or fleeing. Over time, this activation of a stress response makes us literally sick. Combining cutting-edge research with a healthy dose of good humor and practical advice, Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers explains how prolonged stress causes or intensifies a range of physical and mental afflictions, including depression, ulcers, colitis, heart disease, and more. It also provides essential guidance to controlling our stress responses. This new edition promises to be the most comprehensive and engaging one yet.

Junk Food Monkeys

Author: Robert M. Sapolsky
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780747258452
Category : Behaviorism (Psychology)
Languages : en
Pages : 247

Book Description

A Primate's Memoir

Author: Robert M. Sapolsky
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1416590366
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 310

Book Description
In the tradition of Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey, Robert Sapolsky, a foremost science writer and recipient of a MacArthur Genius Grant, tells the mesmerizing story of his twenty-one years in remote Kenya with a troop of savanna baboons. "I had never planned to become a savanna baboon when I grew up; instead, I had always assumed I would become a mountain gorilla,” writes Robert Sapolsky in this witty and riveting chronicle of a scientist’s coming-of-age in Africa. An exhilarating account of Sapolsky’s twenty-one-year study of a troop of rambunctious baboons in Kenya, A Primate’s Memoir interweaves serious scientific observations with wry commentary about the challenges and pleasures of living in the wilds of the Serengeti—for man and beast alike. Over two decades, Sapolsky survives culinary atrocities, gunpoint encounters, and a surreal kidnapping, while witnessing the encroachment of the tourist mentality on Africa. As he conducts unprecedented physiological research on wild primates, he becomes enamored of his subjects—unique and compelling characters in their own right—and he returns to them summer after summer, until tragedy finally prevents him. By turns hilarious and poignant, A Primate’s Memoir is a magnum opus from one of our foremost science writers.

Testosterone

Author: Rebecca M. Jordan-Young
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674242653
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 289

Book Description
An Independent Publisher Book Awards Gold Medal Winner A Progressive Book of the Year A TechCrunch Favorite Read of the Year “Deeply researched and thoughtful.” —Nature “An extended exercise in myth busting.” —Outside “A critique of both popular and scientific understandings of the hormone, and how they have been used to explain, or even defend, inequalities of power.” —The Observer Testosterone is a familiar villain, a ready culprit for everything from stock market crashes to the overrepresentation of men in prisons. But your testosterone level doesn’t actually predict your appetite for risk, sex drive, or athletic prowess. It isn’t the biological essence of manliness—in fact, it isn’t even a male sex hormone. So what is it, and how did we come to endow it with such superhuman powers? T’s story begins when scientists first went looking for the chemical essence of masculinity. Over time, it provided a handy rationale for countless behaviors—from the boorish to the enviable. Testosterone focuses on what T does in six domains: reproduction, aggression, risk-taking, power, sports, and parenting, addressing heated debates like whether high-testosterone athletes have a natural advantage as well as disagreements over what it means to be a man or woman. “This subtle, important book forces rethinking not just about one particular hormone but about the way the scientific process is embedded in social context.” —Robert M. Sapolsky, author of Behave “A beautifully written and important book. The authors present strong and persuasive arguments that demythologize and defetishize T as a molecule containing quasi-magical properties, or as exclusively related to masculinity and males.” —Los Angeles Review of Books “Provides fruitful ground for understanding what it means to be human, not as isolated physical bodies but as dynamic social beings.” —Science

Heroes, Rogues, and Lovers

Author: James M. Dabbs
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies
ISBN:
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 312

Book Description
Interweaving intimate case histories with first-hand scientific research, this book examines how testosterone, the principal male hormone, has been maligned and misunderstood, and reveals its role in human evolution and its effect upon human and animal behavior.

Testosterone

Author: Carole Hooven
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 1788403096
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 327

Book Description
*** RECOMMENDED AS ONE OF THE TIMES' BEST SCIENCE BOOKS OF 2021 'With all the talk about testosterone in sex, sports and politics, we need a good explanation of the science and its implications, and this one is outstanding.' STEVEN PINKER, bestselling author of The Blank Slate 'There are whole books written about the idea that behavioural sex differences are a societal construct and how a male hormone we know influences animal behaviour somehow doesn't influence us. Hooven's book is a riposte to that silliness - and also a defence of a hormone that isn't just about aggression.' TOM WHIPPLE, THE TIMES, BEST SCIENCE BOOKS OF 2021 'Fascinating, vital, unputdownable.' JULIE BINDEL 'The definitive book on testosterone . . . A brave and significant book . . . simply fascinating and filled with extraordinary facts.' EVENING STANDARD 'Testosterone does what all superb popular science must do: it entertains as it educates.' THE WALL STREET JOURNAL Through riveting personal stories and the latest research, Harvard evolutionary biologist Carole Hooven shows how testosterone drives the behaviour of the sexes apart and how understanding the science behind this hormone is empowering for all. The biological source of masculinity has inspired fascination, investigation and controversy since antiquity. From the eunuchs in the royal courts of ancient China to the booming market for 'elixirs' of youth in nineteenth-century Europe, humans have been obsessed with identifying and manipulating what we now know as testosterone. And the trend shows no signs of slowing down. Thanks to this history and the methods of modern science, today we have a rich body of research about testosterone's effects in both men and women. The science is clear: testosterone is a major, invisible player in our relationships, sex lives, athletic abilities, childhood play, gender transitions, parenting roles, violent crime, and so much more. But there is still a lot of pushback to the idea that it does, in fact, contribute to sex differences and significantly influence behaviour. Hooven argues that acknowledging testosterone as a potent force in society doesn't reinforce stifling gender norms or patriarchal values. Testosterone and evolution work together to produce a huge variety of human behaviour, and that includes a multitude of ways to be masculine and feminine. Understanding the science sheds light on how we work and relate to one another, how we express anger and love, and how we fight bias and problematic behaviour to build a fairer society.

Testosterone Rex: Myths of Sex, Science, and Society

Author: Cordelia Fine
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393253880
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 292

Book Description
“Beliefs about men and women are as old as humanity itself, but Fine’s funny, spiky book gives reason to hope that we’ve heard Testosterone rex’s last roar.” —Annie Murphy Paul, New York Times Book Review Many people believe that, at its core, biological sex is a fundamental force in human development. According to this false-yet-familiar story, the divisions between men and women are in nature alone and not part of culture. Drawing on evolutionary science, psychology, neuroscience, endocrinology, and philosophy, Testosterone Rex disproves this ingrained myth and calls for a more equal society based on both sexes’ full human potential.