A meme is an idea, behavior, or style that spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture and often carries symbolic meaning representing a particular phenomenon or theme. A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols, or practices, that can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals, or other imitable phenomena with a mimicked theme. Supporters of the concept regard memes as cultural analogues to genes in that they self-replicate, mutate, and respond to selective pressures. In popular language, a meme may refer to an Internet meme, typically an image, that is remixed, copied, and circulated in a shared cultural experience online.
Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters is a 1999 popular science book by the science writer Matt Ridley, published by Fourth Estate. The chapters are numbered for the pairs of human chromosomes, one pair being the X and Y sex chromosomes, so the numbering goes up to 22 with Chapter X and Y couched between Chapters 7 and 8.
Evolutionary medicine or Darwinian medicine is the application of modern evolutionary theory to understanding health and disease. Modern biomedical research and practice have focused on the molecular and physiological mechanisms underlying health and disease, while evolutionary medicine focuses on the question of why evolution has shaped these mechanisms in ways that may leave us susceptible to disease. The evolutionary approach has driven important advances in the understanding of cancer, autoimmune disease, and anatomy. Medical schools have been slower to integrate evolutionary approaches because of limitations on what can be added to existing medical curricula. The International Society for Evolution, Medicine and Public Health coordinates efforts to develop the field. It owns the Oxford University Press journal Evolution, Medicine and Public Health and The Evolution and Medicine Review.
Diane Rehm is an American journalist and the host of Diane Rehm: On My Mind podcast, produced at WAMU, which is licensed to American University in Washington, D.C.. She also hosts a monthly book club series, Diane Rehm Book Club, at WAMU. Rehm is the former American public radio talk show host of The Diane Rehm Show, which was distributed nationally and internationally by National Public Radio. The show was produced at WAMU.
Evolutionary ethics is a field of inquiry that explores how evolutionary theory might bear on our understanding of ethics or morality. The range of issues investigated by evolutionary ethics is quite broad. Supporters of evolutionary ethics have argued that it has important implications in the fields of descriptive ethics, normative ethics, and metaethics.
Randolph Martin Nesse is an American physician, scientist and author who is notable for his role as a founder of the field of evolutionary medicine and evolutionary psychiatry.
Enquiry into the evolution of ageing, or aging, aims to explain why a detrimental process such as ageing would evolve, and why there is so much variability in the lifespans of organisms. The classical theories of evolution suggest that environmental factors, such as predation, accidents, disease, and/or starvation, ensure that most organisms living in natural settings will not live until old age, and so there will be very little pressure to conserve genetic changes that increase longevity. Natural selection will instead strongly favor genes which ensure early maturation and rapid reproduction, and the selection for genetic traits which promote molecular and cellular self-maintenance will decline with age for most organisms.
The evolutionary psychology of religion is the study of religious belief using evolutionary psychology principles. It is one approach to the psychology of religion. As with all other organs and organ functions, the brain's functional structure is argued to have a genetic basis, and is therefore subject to the effects of natural selection and evolution. Evolutionary psychologists seek to understand cognitive processes, religion in this case, by understanding the survival and reproductive functions they might serve.
Thomas Hager is an American author of popular science and narrative nonfiction.
Stuart J. Firestein is the chair of the Department of Biological Sciences at Columbia University, where his laboratory is researching the vertebrate olfactory receptor neuron. He has published articles in Wired magazine, Huffington Post, and Scientific American. Firestein has been elected as a fellow by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) for his meritorious efforts to advance science. He is an adviser to the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation program for the Public Understanding of Science. Firestein's writing often advocates for better science writing. In 2012 he released the book Ignorance: How it Drives Science, and in 2015, Failure: Why Science Is So Successful.
Lisa Genova is an American neuroscientist and author. She self-published her debut novel, Still Alice (2007), about a Harvard University professor who suffers early-onset Alzheimer's disease. The book gained popularity and was acquired by Simon & Schuster; it was published in January 2009 by Pocket Books. There are over 2.6 million copies in print, and it has been translated into 37 languages. It was chosen as one of the thirty titles for World Book Night 2013. The book was adapted into a 2014 film, which won the Academy Award for Best Actress for Julianne Moore's highly acclaimed performance as Alice Howland.
Sharon Moalem is a Canadian–American physician, scientist, and author. Dr. Moalem is an expert in the fields of rare diseases, sex differentiation, neurogenetics, biotechnology and has been described as a polymath. He is the author of the New York Times bestselling book Survival of the Sickest, as well as How Sex Works, Inheritance and The Better Half. His clinical genetics research led to the discovery of three rare genetic syndromes, hypotrichosis-lymphedema-telangiectasia-renal defect syndrome, a form of SRY-negative XX male sex reversal as well as a nephronopthisis associated ciliopathy. His research led to the discovery of a new class of antibiotics that specifically target superbug microorganisms such as Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). Moalem was the first to propose that the progressive neurodegeneration associated with dementia and Alzheimer's disease might be caused or exacerbated by an excessive amount of the metal iron in the brain. Moalem has cofounded two biotechnology companies and has been awarded 25 patents for his inventions in biotechnology and human health.
How Sex Works: Why We Look, Smell, Taste, Feel, and Act the Way We Do is a 2009 book by evolutionary biologist and New York Times bestselling author Sharon Moalem, published by HarperCollins. The book examines the scientific reasons people are attracted to one another including the evolutionary underpinnings of sexual attraction, monogamy, and sexual orientation.
In The Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette (Doubleday), 2014, is a nonfiction book written by the author and historian Hampton Sides. The book tells the true story of the 1879–1881 arctic voyage of the USS Jeannette and the crew's struggle to survive after having to abandon their ship in the polar ice.
Barbara N. Horowitz, M.D., is a cardiologist, academic and author. She is a professor of medicine in the Division of Cardiology at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and a visiting professor in the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University and has been on the faculty of Harvard Medical School since 2020. Horowitz is a New York Times bestselling author of the book Zoobiquity on the subject of a cross-species approach to medicine which includes veterinary and evolutionary perspectives. In 2019, Horowitz and Bowers co-authored their second book, Wildhood.
Ellen Rose Meara is a professor at The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, part of Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, United States. Her research is in the fields of health economics and health policy. She is also a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research and an adjunct professor in economics at Dartmouth College.
Recent human evolution refers to evolutionary adaptation, sexual and natural selection, and genetic drift within Homo sapiens populations, since their separation and dispersal in the Middle Paleolithic about 50,000 years ago. Contrary to popular belief, not only are humans still evolving, their evolution since the dawn of agriculture is faster than ever before. It has been proposed that human culture acts as a selective force in human evolution and has accelerated it; however, this is disputed. With a sufficiently large data set and modern research methods, scientists can study the changes in the frequency of an allele occurring in a tiny subset of the population over a single lifetime, the shortest meaningful time scale in evolution. Comparing a given gene with that of other species enables geneticists to determine whether it is rapidly evolving in humans alone. For example, while human DNA is on average 98% identical to chimp DNA, the so-called Human Accelerated Region 1 (HAR1), involved in the development of the brain, is only 85% similar.
Peter Attia is a Canadian-American author, physician, and researcher known for his work in longevity medicine.
Anthony William Coviello, known professionally as Anthony William or the Medical Medium, is a self-proclaimed medium who offers pseudoscientific health advice based on alleged communication with a spirit. He authors books and offers advice online on forums such as Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop column and his own website. William believes that the Epstein-Barr virus is responsible for multiple ailments, including cancer. He claims to be the originator of the lemon juice in water morning detox as well as celery juicing, which he claims can offer many health benefits. Critics allege that he is practicing medicine without a license and that he has, at times, improperly solicited positive Amazon reviews for his books.
Lifespan: Why We Age – and Why We Don't Have To is a book by David A. Sinclair.
