Science All books
Christian Rémésy
Sustainable Food
The author explains how to establish eating habits that are truly preventive.
Paul-Henri Rebut
Energy of the Stars Controlled Nuclear Fusion
Nuclear fusion can be likened to God or the devil. Out there among the stars, it is godlike, creating atoms and giving birth to life. But down below, on earth, nuclear fusion is the devil: it has been used to make bombs that can annihilate everything, including all forms of life. Now that the devil of thermonuclear destruction seems to have been locked back in its box, nuclear fusion kept under tight control in civil reactors offers the hope for long-term economic development. Isnt it the only inexhaustible, non-polluting form of energy that offers no limits except that of human technical knowledge? Paul-Henri Rebut is a member of the Academy of Science.
Michel Raymond
Why I Didn’t Invent the Wheel
Between nature and culture, a fascinating, widely accessible book about human evolution
Vilayanur S. Ramachandran, Sandra Blakeslee
Phantoms in the Brain Human Nature and the Architecture of the Mind
How do we make decisions? Why do we deceive ourselves? Why do we dream? Why may we believe in God? Why do we laugh or become depressed? Few scientists have dared address these questions that inform our daily lives with so much acumen and audacity. V.S. Ramachandran is a brilliant Sherlock Holmes of neuroscience. He reveals the strangest case studies he has encountered of patients suffering from serious neurological disorders and the insights they yield about human nature and the workings of the mind. V.S. Ramachandran is professor and director of the Center for Brain and Cognition, at the University of California.
Paul Rabinow
French DNA: Trouble in Purgatory
This book offers some surprising viewpoints: an anthropologist tells the story of the human genome sequencing project; a scholar of the humanities follows the crisis between a French laboratory, the Centre dÉtude du Polymorphisme Humain (CEPH), and a U.S. rival; an American intellectual describes the politics within the French scientific community. This exceptional survey of the most recent research trends and of the state of international competition in the field of genetic research gives us a notion of how our future health care is being prepared. Paul Rabinow teaches anthropology at the University of California at Berkeley.
Lluis Quintana-Murci
The Human People On the genetic traces of migrations, crossbreeding and adaptations
A fascinating overview of what we have learned from genomics, after two decades of amazing progress: an unprecedented leap forward in our knowledge of human diversity and its history.
France Quéré
Ethics and Life
The recent advances in life sciences have modified our knowledge about the nature of man. Genetic engineering has given us a certain power over his future. Which principles must preside over artificial procreation and organ donation? How far can we allow genetic engineering and medical experimentations to go? What are the moral and ethical barriers of human science?
Yves Quéré
A Shell in the Middle of the Ear Science, Education, and Other Shores
Written with happiness, with multiple formulations and aphorisms, this book is an invitation to meditate on the beauties and contradictions of life.
Alain Prochiantz
Biology in the Bedroom
Inspiring himself from La Philosophie dans le boudoir by Sade and the major philosophical works of the 18th century, Alain Prochiantz, who is a neurobiologist, explains by means of a dialogue, the progress of embryology and neurobiology and gives us the elements so that we can understand and measure the stakes of the recent discovery of the genes of development. Alain Prochiantz heads the Laboratory for the Development and Evolution of the Nervous System at the École normale supérieure. He is notably the author of Strategies of the Embryo, and Claude Bernard, the Physiological Revolution.
Alain Prochiantz
Darwin: 200 Years
More than an homage to a great scientist, this book, written by eminent specialists, is a perfect introduction to understanding the impact of Darwinism on contemporary thinking and science
Alain Prochiantz
The Anatomies of Thought What do squid think about ?
When we watch a squid facing up to a predator, we see it recoil, agitate the tentacles, spray a jet of ink, and then make use of the temporary blindness of the predator in order to escape to a safe hiding place. Are we able to say what it is thinking ? Evidently, we know that this behaviour is not the result of a reflex unleashed by the sight of an enemy. The mollusc is not however conscious of its acts, at least not in the sense that we, as human beings, understand this term. It is true that we are the product of a evolution of species, and that, although this may not be welcome news for everyone, we share a common ancestry with the octopus, or even the fly. Even if the structure of our cortex, and the invention of language allows us to write about octopuses (or flies), and not the other way round, the fact remains that these evolutive roots, in the same way as other animal species, including invertebrates, have something to teach us about the nature of our thoughts. Alain Prochiantz
Alain Prochiantz
A Monkey, Yourself
Based on recent data in the sequencing of genomes, an explanation of the genetic and cellular mechanisms at the origin of the unique position of our species in the animal world.