Brave New Humans

Author: Sarah Dingle
Publisher: Hardie Grant Publishing
ISBN: 1743587503
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 402

Book Description
An astonishing real-life whodunnit and investigative exposé, Brave New Humans reveals the uncomfortable realities of assisted reproduction and its very human fallout. Journalist Sarah Dingle was 27 when she learnt that her identity was a lie. Over dinner one night, her mother casually mentioned Sarah had been conceived using a sperm donor. The man who’d raised Sarah wasn’t her father; in fact, she had no idea who her father was. Or who she really was. As the shock receded, Sarah put her professional skills to work and began to investigate her own existence. Thus began a ten-year journey to understand who she was – digging through hospital records, chasing leads and taking a DNA test – that finally led her to her biological origins. What she discovered along the way was shocking: hospital records routinely destroyed, trading of eggs and sperm, women dead, donors exploited, and hundreds of thousands of donor-conceived people globally who will never know who they are. But there’s one thing this industry hasn’t banked on: the children of the baby business taking on their makers. In a profoundly personal way, Brave New Humans shines a light on the global fertility business today – a booming and largely unregulated industry that takes a startlingly lax approach to huge ethical concerns, not least our fundamental human need to know who we are, and where we come from. Now an SBS documentary: Inconceivable: The Secret Business of Breeding Humans.

Brief Candles. Four Stories.

Author: Aldous Huxley
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
ISBN: 1479457590
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 249

Book Description
Brief Candles (1930), Aldous Huxley's fifth collection of short fiction, consists of the following four short stories: "Chawdron" "The Rest Cure" "The Claxtons" "After the Fireworks" Brief Candles takes its title from a line in William Shakespeare's Macbeth, from Macbeth's famous soliloquy: "Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

Uprooted

Author: Peter J. Boni
Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group
ISBN: 1626349088
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 313

Book Description
How a journey of self-discovery unearthed the scandalous evolution of artificial insemination By his forties, Peter J. Boni was an accomplished CEO, with a specialty in navigating high-tech companies out of hot water. Just before his fiftieth birthday, Peter’s seventy-five-year-old mother unveiled a bombshell: His deceased father was not biological. Peter was conceived in 1945 via an anonymous sperm donor. The emotional upheaval upon learning that he was “misattributed” rekindled traumas long past and fueled his relentless research to find his genealogy. Over two decades, he gained an encyclopedic knowledge of the scientific, legal, and sociological history of reproductive technology as well as its practices, advances, and consequences. Through twenty-first century DNA analysis, Peter finally quenched his thirst for his origin. In Uprooted, Peter J. Boni intimately shares his personal odyssey and acquired expertise to spotlight the free market methods of gamete distribution that conceives dozens, sometimes hundreds, of unknowing half-siblings from a single donor. This thought-provoking book reveals the inner workings—and secrets—of the multibillion-dollar fertility industry, resulting in a richly detailed account of an ethical aspect of reproductive science that, until now, has not been so thoroughly explored.

Little Humans

Author: Brandon Stanton
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
ISBN: 146687256X
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 40

Book Description
An instant New York Times Bestseller! Street photographer and storyteller extraordinaire Brandon Stanton is the creator of the wildly popular blog "Humans of New York." He is also the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Humans of New York. To create Little Humans, a 40-page photographic picture book for young children, he's combined an original narrative with some of his favorite children's photos from the blog, in addition to all-new exclusive portraits. The result is a hip, heartwarming ode to little humans everywhere.

Brave New World

Author: Aldous Huxley
Publisher: Rosetta Books
ISBN: 0795311257
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 246

Book Description
This classic novel of a perfectly engineered society is “one of the most prophetic dystopian works of the twentieth century” (The Wall Street Journal). Half a millennium from now, in the World State, the watchword is that every one belongs to every one else. No matter what class of human you are bred to be—from the intellectual Alphas to the Epsilons who provide the manual labor—you are a part of the efficient, well-oiled whole. You are nourished, secure, and blissfully serene thanks to the freely distributed drug called soma. And while sex is strongly encouraged, the old way of procreation is forbidden, eliminating even the pains of childbirth. But when a man and woman journey beyond these confines to where the “savages” reside, and bring back two outsiders, the cracks begin to show. Named as one of the 100 best English-language novels of the twentieth century by the Modern Library, Brave New World is one of the first truly dystopian novels. Influenced by the historic events of Huxley’s era yet as relevant today as ever, it is a remarkable depiction of the conflict between progress and the human spirit. “Chilling. . . . That he gave us the dark side of genetic engineering in 1932 is amazing.” —Providence Journal-Bulletin “It is a frightening experience, indeed, to discover how much of his satirical prediction of a distant future became reality in so short a time.” —The New York Times Book Review

Consumer's Guide to a Brave New World

Author: Wesley J. Smith
Publisher: Encounter Books
ISBN: 1594034265
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 239

Book Description
" Scare headlines about the first human clones appear in our newspapers. Biotech companies brag about manufacturing human embryos as "products" for use in medical treatments. Events are moving so fast—and biotechnology seems so complicated—that many of us worry we can’t keep up. But now, Wesley J. Smith provides us with a guide to the brave new world that is no longer a figment of our imagination, but a reality just around the corner of our lives. Smith unravels the mystery of stem cells and shows what’s at stake in the controversy over using them for research. He describes the emerging science of human cloning—the most radical technology in history—and shows how it moves forward inexorably against the moral consensus of the world. But at the core of this highly readable and carefully researched book is a report on the gargantuan "Big Biotech" industry and its supporters in the universities and the science and bioethics establishments. Smith reveals how the lure of huge riches, mixed with the ideology of "scientism," threatens to impose on society a "new eugenics" that would dismantle ethical norms and call into question the uniqueness and importance of all human life. "At stake," he warns, "is whether science will continue to serve society, or instead dominate it." In Consumer’s Guide to a Brave New World, Smith presents a clear-eyed vision of two potential futures. In one, we will use biotechnology as a powerful tool to treat disease and improve the quality of our lives. But in another, darker scenario, we will be steered onto the antihuman path that Aldous Huxley and other prophetic writers warned against half a century ago. "

Saturdays at Noon

Author: Rachel Marks
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 1405940085
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 432

Book Description
Discover the emotionally gripping and uplifting page-turner that will put a smile on your face 'Heart-breaking and full of hope' WOMAN & HOME 'Wonderful, compassionate, unpredictable' GRAEME SIMSION, author of THE ROSIE PROJECT 'I genuinely couldn't recommend Saturdays At Noon enough' 5***** READER REVIEW ________ EMILY JUST WANTS TO KEEP THE WORLD AWAY. After getting into trouble yet again, she's agreed to attend anger management classes. But she refuses to share her deepest secrets with a room full of strangers. JAKE JUST WANTS TO KEEP HIS FAMILY TOGETHER. He'll do anything to save his marriage and bond with his six-year-old son, Alfie. But when he's paired with spiky Emily, he wonders whether opening up will do more harm than good. The two of them couldn't be more different. Yet when Alfie, who never likes strangers, meets Emily, something extraordinary happens. COULD ONE SMALL BOY CHANGE EVERYTHING? _________ 'Totally loveable and completely unforgettable' CLAIRE POOLEY 'I loved this book' KATIE FFORDE Readers LOVE Saturdays at Noon . . . 'Such a special book . . . the characters jump off the page and pull you immediately into their world' 5***** Reader Review 'This book was FANTASTIC. When I wasn't reading it I couldn't stop thinking about it' 5***** Reader Review 'Outstanding. I have goosebumps typing this review . . . The story telling is the best I have read in a long time' 5***** Reader Review Longlisted for the Guardian's 'Not The Booker' prize!

Evolving Human Nutrition

Author: Stanley J. Ulijaszek
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521869161
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 415

Book Description
Exploration of changing human nutrition from evolutionary and social perspectives and its influence on health and disease, past and present.

Brave New Arctic

Author: Mark C. Serreze
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691202656
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 270

Book Description
In the 1990s, researchers in the Arctic noticed that floating summer sea ice had begun receding. This was accompanied by shifts in ocean circulation and unexpected changes in weather patterns throughout the world. The Arctic's perennially frozen ground, known as permafrost, was warming, and treeless tundra was being overtaken by shrubs. What was going on? Brave New Arctic is Mark Serreze's riveting firsthand account of how scientists from around the globe came together to find answers.

The Scientific American Brave New Brain

Author: Judith Horstman
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0470602813
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 225

Book Description
This fascinating and highly accessible book presents fantastic but totally feasible projections of what your brain may be capable of in the near future. It shows how scientific breakthroughs and amazing research are turning science fiction into science fact. In this brave new book, you'll explore: How partnerships between biological sciences and technology are helping the deaf hear, the blind see, and the paralyzed communicate. How our brains can repair and improve themselves, erase traumatic memories How we can stay mentally alert longer—and how we may be able to halt or even reverse Alzheimers How we can control technology with brain waves, including prosthetic devices, machinery, computers—and even spaceships or clones. Insights into how science may cure fatal diseases, and improve our intellectual and physical productivity Judith Horstman presents a highly informative and entertaining look at the future of your brain, based on articles from Scientific American and Scientific American Mind magazines, and the work of today’s visionary neuroscientists.