Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality

           
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We’ll show that human beings evolved in intimate groups where almost everything was shared— food, shelter, protection, child care, even sexual pleasure. We don’t argue that humans are natural born Marxist hippies. Nor do we hold that romantic love was unknown or unimportant in prehistoric communities. But we’ll demonstrate that contemporary culture misrepresents the link between love and sex. With and without love, a casual sexuality was the norm for our prehistoric ancestors.

Deep conflicts rage at the heart of modern sexuality. Our cultivated ignorance is devastating. The campaign to obscure the true nature of our species’ sexuality leaves half our marriages collapsing under an unstoppable tide of swirling sexual frustration, libido-killing boredom, impulsive betrayal, dysfunction, confusion, and shame. Serial monogamy stretches before (and behind) many of us like an archipelago of failure: isolated islands of transitory happiness in a cold, dark sea of disappointment. And how many of the couples who manage to stay together for the long haul have done so by resigning themselves to sacrificing their eroticism on the altar of three of life’s irreplaceable joys: family stability, companionship, and emotional, if not sexual, intimacy? Are those who innocently aspire to these joys cursed by nature to preside over the slow strangulation of their partner’s libido?

Forget what you’ve heard about human beings having descended from the apes. We didn’t descend from apes. We are apes. Metaphorically and factually, Homo sapiens is one of the five surviving species of great apes, along with chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans (gibbons are considered a “lesser ape”). We shared a common ancestor with two of these apes—bonobos and chimps—just five million years ago. That’s “the day before yesterday” in evolutionary terms. The fine print distinguishing humans from the other great apes is regarded as “wholly artificial” by most primatologists these days.

Several types of evidence suggest our pre-agricultural (prehistoric) ancestors lived in groups where most mature individuals would have had several ongoing sexual relationships at any given time. Though often casual, these relationships were not random or meaningless. Quite the opposite: they reinforced crucial social ties holding these highly interdependent communities together.

Human beings and our hominid ancestors have spent almost all of the past few million years or so in small, intimate bands in which most adults had several sexual relationships at any given time. This approach to sexuality probably persisted until the rise of agriculture and private property no more than ten thousand years ago. In addition to voluminous scientific evidence, many explorers, missionaries, and anthropologists support this view, having penned accounts rich with tales of orgiastic rituals, unflinching mate sharing, and an open sexuality unencumbered by guilt or shame.

If you spend time with the primates closest to human beings, you’ll see female chimps having intercourse dozens of times per day, with most or all of the willing males, and rampant bonobo group sex that leaves everyone relaxed and maintains intricate social networks. Explore contemporary human beings’ lust for particular kinds of pornography or our notorious difficulties with long-term sexual monogamy and you’ll soon stumble over relics of our hypersexual ancestors.

A Field Guide to Genetic Programming

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The goal of having computers automatically solve problems is central to artificial intelligence, machine learning, and the broad area encompassed by what Turing called “machine intelligence” (Turing, 1948). Machine learning pioneer Arthur Samuel, in his 1983 talk entitled “AI: Where It Has Been and Where It Is Going” (Samuel, 1983), stated that the main goal of the fields of machine learning and artificial intelligence is: “to get machines to exhibit behaviour, which if done by humans, would be assumed to involve the use of intelligence.” Genetic programming (GP) is an evolutionary computation (EC) 1 technique that automatically solves problems without requiring the user to know

or specify the form or structure of the solution in advance. At the most abstract level GP is a systematic, domain-independent method for getting computers to solve problems automatically starting from a high-level statement of what needs to be done.

Since its inception, GP has attracted the interest of myriads of people around the globe. This book gives an overview of the basics of GP, summarised important work that gave direction and impetus to the field and discusses some interesting new directions and applications. Things continue to change rapidly in genetic programming as investigators and practitioners discover new methods and applications. This makes it impossible to cover all aspects of GP, and this book should be seen as a snapshot of a particular moment in the history of the field.

New Age Pharmaceutical Biotechnology

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Biotechnology essentially and predominantly deals with the meticulous application of living organisms or their corresponding products in a variety of large-scale industrial processes. Besides, biotechnology is extremely multidisciplinary in nature ; it has its foundations and domain prominently spread in a wide spectrum of fields, such as : pharmaceutical sciences, microbiology, biology, biochemistry, molecular biology, genetics, genomics, genetic engineering, chemistry, and chemical and process engineering. Therefore, it may be genuinely and rightly regarded as a series of ‘enabling technologies’ embracing the practical application of host specific organisms and their respective cellular components to either environmental management or to manufacturing and service industries. Interestingly, from a historical aspect biotechnology could be regarded as a pragmatic, realistic, and tangible strategy to an ‘art’ more than a ‘science’, which may be enormously exemplified and duly expatiated in the commercial production of wines, beers, cheeses, and the like, whereby the modus operandi of various techniques involved were well-known and reproducible, but the exact molecular mechanisms were not known adequately.

Nevertheless, at present biotechnology is passing through an amazing growth phase whose ultimate destiny is not too far in sight. With the advent of major advances in the better in-depth knowledge of ‘microbiology’ and ‘biochemistry’, these molecular mechanisms (viz., processes) have been rendered more logically understandable. Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, based entirely on modern biotechnological techniques, as to date encompass a wider range of altogether newer medicinal compounds, e.g., antibiotics, vaccines, and monclonal antibodies (MABs) that may now be produced commercially using well-defined, optimized, and improved fermentative methodologies. In fact, genetic engineering has brought in a sea change by virtue of the directed construction of microorganisms resulting in a plethora of newer life-saving drugs.

Astrobiology A Short Introduction by William Bains

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Super Foods - 20 of the best foods for Super Health

                  
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Food is a basic necessity – it’s the fuel that keeps us going every day. But it also offers us many other benefits. Certain types of food, such as oily fish, vegetables, fruits and other plant foods, stand out in the nutritional crowd because they have special properties that make them unique in terms of how beneficial they can be to our health. And it is because of their health-enhancing qualities that we sometimes refer to these as ‘superfoods’. The nutrients contained within these foods can assist with many of the body’s natural functions – such as digestion, boosting the immune system, strengthening bones and even helping to protect
against cancer.

We’ve all heard the word ‘antioxidant’. But what exactly are dietary antioxidants, and what do they do? In short, ‘antioxidant’ is the term used to describe the group of vitamins, minerals and certain phytochemicals, found in foods, that help to protect the body from the damaging effects of oxygen free radicals. These are unstable molecules that are created naturally by the body and that can also be produced by toxins (like tobacco), pollution and radiation from sunlight and radioactive materials.

These toxins can be ‘carcinogenic’ – meaning they can alter or damage cells in  the body which can lead to the development of cancer. Antioxidants are able to ‘mop-up’ free radicals or prevent them from forming, and it is thought that they could thereby help to prevent cell damage.

Biology - A complete text book on Biology

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Alternate Link: Download for free at openstax COLLEGE

Viewed from space, Earth offers no clues about the diversity of life forms that reside there. The first forms of life on Earth are thought to have been microorganisms that existed for billions of years in the ocean before plants and animals appeared. The mammals, birds, and flowers so familiar to us are all relatively recent, originating 130 to 200 million years ago. Humans have inhabited this planet for only the last 2.5 million years, and only in the last 200,000 years have humans started looking like we do today.

nature collections - Nature's Summer Reads

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Summer means different things to different people. It can be a time to broaden horizons by travelling to new places; a time to catch up on news and ideas that have swept past this year; and of course, a time to read. Here, Nature offers the opportunity to do all these things, with a collection of the best and most popular stories published in the magazine’s award-winning News Features section in 2015. The stories include something for all tastes. One feature, on page 7, explores how advances in genetics and developmental biology have been challenging the idea that there is a clear distinction between the sexes, and finds that perhaps sex should be considered as more of a spectrum.

In medicine, the collection includes a story about a largely unrecognized, but pressing global health problem: the astonishing rise in short-sightedness that has been taking place over the past few decades, particularly in Asian countries, and how it might be curbed (page 18). Pluto was thrust into the spotlight this summer when New Horizons reached its quarry, some 4.8 billion kilometres from Earth. A profile in the collection (page 11) tells the story of two scientists, a brother and sister, who have been captivated by the planet since their youth. On page 33, a feature looks at experiments to uncover the nature of the wavefunction – the mysterious entity that lies at the heart of quantum weirdness –and page 41 captures the excitement in the science of 2D materials that has followed the discovery of graphene. Nature’s News Features editors have enjoyed publishing every one of these stories; we hope that your summer is
enriched by reading them.

The Hacker's Diet - John Walker

      
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Recently, the word “hacker” has fallen into disrepute, coming to signify in the popular media the perpetrators of various forms of computer-aided crime.
But most of the people who call themselves hackers, who have proudly borne that title since the 1950’s, are not criminals—in fact many are among the intellectual and entrepreneurial elite of their generations. The word “hacker” and the culture it connotes is too rich to sacrifice on the altar of the evening news. Bob Bickford, computer and video guru, defined the true essence of the hacker as “Any person who derives joy from discovering ways to circumvent limitations.”This book is written for successful, intelligent, and motivated people who happen to be overweight. Whether you’ve always been overweight, have been on a roller coaster of dieting and regaining, or have just recently added some excess poundage, the key resources you need to achieve and maintain whatever weight and health goals you set for yourself are the same as you need to accomplish anything else worthwhile in life. There’s an old Wall Street tale: a tyro asks an old timer, “How do you make money in the market.” The wise man answers, “Nothing could be simpler: buy low, sell high.” The beginner asks, “How can I learn to do that?” The sage responds, “Ahhhh. . . that takes a lifetime.” Simple doesn’t mean easy.

There is no magic secret to losing weight and keeping it off, just as there is no hidden key to instant wealth. Nonetheless, every year another crop of “magic diet” and “secrets of investing” books appear on already creaking shelves. The human capacity to ignore inconvenient facts and avoid unpleasantness is immense. Success in any endeavour requires coming to terms with the true nature of the task at hand and, if the goal is worth the effort, getting on with it.
“How can I lose weight?” “Simple, eat less food than your body burns.” “How can I learn to do that?” Read this book.

Mind Hacking - Sir John Hargrave

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The first few months of sobriety were unbearable, and so was I. Every day was a roulette wheel of emotion: I could be furious, anxious, sulky, moody, or depressed, often simultaneously. One thought, however, slowly began to sprout a little bud of hope. What if there was a way to reprogram my mind?

Programming is in my blood. One of my earliest memories was my father taking me to visit the computer lab at the university where he worked. In my mind, the college's mainframe computer stood illuminated by a shaft of divine light, with a choir of angelic voices. In reality, it was probably fluorescent light, and the whirr of industrial air conditioning units. But the effect on me was no less profound: somehow, that moment implanted a little seedling of geek into my tender, eight-year-old uterus. Please don't ask me why I had a uterus.

My father approached the resident computer programmer, a heavyset man with a large, walrus-like mustache. "Ronald, this is John," my father introduced me.
"Hey." Ronald looked down at me, tape reels spinning in the background. (I might be mixing up some details of this story with a series of TV commercials for Control Data Institute.) "What can I do for you?" "Can you create a punch card with John's name on it?" my father asked.

"Sure." Ronald handed me a card, a little larger than an index card, with small rectangular holes punched out. It seemed to glow in my hands, a cryptic piece of alien technology. It was mind-blowing to stand in that computer lab, among those massive, mysterious machines that required a swimming pool of coolant to keep them from overheating. I had the distinct feeling that in here was another world. I lost the punch card, but I'll never lose that memory.

When the cost of your own computer -- your very own computer! -- finally became affordable, I would pore over computer catalogs like earlier generations of kids would fantasize about Red Ryder BB Guns. I drooled over the latest machines with sexy names like "TRS-80" and "TI-99/4A," the pages of my catalogs stuck together with saliva and nerd sweat. I begged, cajoled, and badgered my parents, until they finally bought me the legendary Commodore 64, the computer that changed my life.

They didn't just buy me a computer, they let me keep it in my room. There I began programming with a vengeance. There wasn't much to do in my hometown, so I immersed myself in the secret language of computers, teaching myself the basics: flowcharts, algorithms, variables, loops. I was lucky enough to get in the first programming class taught at my middle school, and by the end of the semester, I was teaching the teachers.

Science - A Discovery in Comics - Margreet de Heer

  
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Explaining different scientific disciplines in clear, colorful chapters, this illustrated primer is a great way to introduce young readers to a complex topic. In her easily accessible style, Margreet de Heer visualizes science and makes it approachable for those with little knowledge of the subject. Touching a number of topics in various scientific disciplines--including math, chemistry, physics, biology, geology, and quantum theory--this work ponders questions such as Who exclaimed "Eureka" and why? Why did Galileo get into a fight with the Church? and What happens when you have your DNA tested? This humorous yet substantive graphic account strips the subject of unnecessary complexity, making it a perfect introduction to exploring scientific concepts.

Margreet de Heer lives and works in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, with her husband Yiri T. Kohl and two cats. A long time ago, she studied Theology at the University of Amsterdam, but through divine intervention she ended up being a comic artist. She worked at the famous comic store Lambiek from 2000 until 2005, and wrote a book about Dutch comics together with Kees Kousemaker. Since 2005, the same year she contributed to the 24 Hour Comic Day Anthology, she is a full-time comic artist producing a wide range of work, from children's comics in magazines to cartoons at business conferences. In 2007 she started making philosophical comic "reports" for newspaper Trouw. This resulted in a book edition in 2010 which was published in the US by NBM Publishing with the title 'Philosophy: a Discovery in Comics' in 2012. Margreet continued the series with a comic book about religion in 2011, followed by one about science in 2012. The latter is published in the US with the title 'Science: a Discovery in Comics', in September 2013.

How to Grow More Vegetables, Eighth Edition (and Fruits, Nuts, Berries, Grains, and Other Crops)

 

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There is an exciting challenge ahead of us. How can we revitalize our extraordinary planet, ensuring life and health for the environment, the life-forms of a myriad of ecosystems, humankind, and future generations? The answer is as close to us as the food we consume each day. We can begin to create a better world from right where we are—in home gardens and mini-farms. Millions of people in over 140 countries are already using GROW BIOINENSIVE Sustainable Mini-Farming techniques to work toward this better world.

We “farm” as we eat. If we consume food that has been grown using methods that inadvertently deplete the soil in the growing process, we are responsible for
depleting the soil. It is how we are “farming.” If, instead, we raise or request food grown in ways that heal the Earth, then we are healing the Earth and its soils. Our daily food choices make the difference. We can choose to sustain ourselves while increasing the planet’s vitality. In the process, we preserve resources, breathe cleaner air, enjoy good exercise, and eat pure food.

What are the dimensions of the challenge of raising food that sustains the soil? Current agricultural practices reportedly destroy approximately 6 pounds of soil for each pound of food produced.1 United States croplands are losing topsoil about 18 times faster than the soil formation rate. This loss is not sustainable. In fact, worldwide only about 33 to 49 years’ worth of farmable soil remains.

Why is this happening? Conventional agricultural practices often deplete the soil 18 to 80 times more rapidly than nature builds soil. This phenomenon happens when the humus (cured organic matter) in the soil is used up and not replaced, when cropping patterns are used that tend to deplete the soil’s structure, and
when minerals are removed from the soil more rapidly than they are replaced. Even organic farming probably depletes the soil 9 to 67 times faster than nature builds it, by importing organic matter and minerals from other soils, which thereby becomes increasingly depleted. The planetary result is a net reduction in overall soil quality.

In contrast, the techniques used in GROW BIOINTENSIVE Sustainable Mini-Farming can build the BIOINTENSIVE Sustainable Mini-Farming can build the soil up to 60 times faster than in nature. The overall goal of GROW BIOINTENSIVE techniques, which distinguishes these techniques from Biointensive practices, is the miniaturization of food production in a closed  system. GROW BIOINTENSIVE features the use of the following eight techniques in a closed system that does not use any chemical substances. Ten years ago, Ecology Action coined the term “GROW BIOINTENSIVE” to refer to this style of production.

Biointensive techniques include:

Deep soil preparation, which develops good soil structure. Once this structure is established, it may be maintained for several years with 2-inch-deep surface cultivation (until compaction once again necessitates deep soil preparation).

The use of compost (humus) for soil fertility and nutrients.

Close plant spacing, as in nature.

Synergistic planting of crop combinations so plants that are grown together enhance each other.

Carbon-efficient crops by which approximately 60% of the growing area is planted in dual-purpose seed and grain crops for the production of large amounts of carbonaceous material for compost and significant amounts of dietary calories.

Calorie-efficient crops by which approximately 30% of the growing area is planted in special root crops, such as potatoes, leeks, garlic, parsnips, and Jerusalem artichokes, which produce a large amount of calories for the diet per unit of area.

The Origin of Species - Charles Darwin

 

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WHEN on board H.M.S. ' Beagle,' as naturalist, I was much struck with certain facts in the distribution of the organic beings inhabiting South America, and in the geological relations of the present to the past inhabitants of that continent. These facts, as will be seen in the latter chapters of this volume, seemed to throw some light on the origin of species—that mystery of mysteries, as it has been called by one of our greatest philosophers. On my return home, it occurred to me, in 1837, that something might perhaps be made out on this question by patiently accumulating and reflecting on all sorts of facts which could possibly have any bearing on it. After five years' work I allowed myself to speculate on the subject, and drew up some short notes ; these I enlarged in 1844 into a sketch of the conclusions, which then seemed to me probable : from that period to the present day I have steadily pursued the same object. I hope that I may be excused for entering on these personal details, as I give them to show that I have not been hasty in coming to a decision.

My work is now (1859) nearly finished; but as it will take me many more years to complete it, and as my health is far from strong, I have been urged to publish this Abstract. I have more especially been induced to do this, as Mr. Wallace, who is now studying the natural history of the Malay archipelago, has arrived

at almost exactly the same general conclusions that I have on the origin of species. In 1858 he sent me a memoir on this subject, with a request that I would forward it to Sir Charles Lyell, who sent it to the Linnean Society, and it is published in the third volume of the Journal of that Society. Sir C. Lyell and Dr. Hooker, who both knew of my work—the latter having read my sketch of 1844 :— honoured me by thinking it advisable to publish, with Mr. Wallace's excellent  memoir, some brief extracts from my manuscripts.

This Abstract, which I now publish, must necessarily be imperfect. I cannot here give references and authorities for my several statements; and I must trust to the reader reposing some confidence in my accuracy. No doubt errors will have crept in, though I hope I have always been cautious in trusting to good authorities alone. I can here give only the general conclusions at which I have arrived, with a few facts in illustration, but which, I hope, in most cases will suffice. No one can feel more sensible than I do of the necessity of hereafter publishing in detail all the facts, with references, on which my conclusions have been grounded; and I hope in a future work to do this. For I am well aware that scarcely a single point is discussed in this volume on which facts cannot be adduced, often apparently leading to conclusions directly opposite to those at which I have arrived. A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question; and this is here impossible.

How To Make Your Own Perfume!

                                       
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YOU Can Finally Smell Irresistible and Save Yourself a Ton of Money...All With an Simple and Fun New Hobby! Would you like to express yourself with a unique fragrance that no one else can claim? Maybe you just wanted a new hobby to express your creativity? Perhaps you've been looking for a way to make a few dollars in your spare time? Then you definitely need...How To Make Your OWN Perfume!

NASA Astrobiology Magazines 1-3 Issues

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Issue 1 traces the roots of Astrobiology from early cave paintings, through speculations of ancient Greek philosophers on the existence of other worlds, to contributions from more modern scientists such as Huygens, Galileo, Oparin, Haldane, Miller, Urey, Franklin, Watson, Crick, and Sagan. It goes on to explain how shortly after NASA was created in 1958, the NASA Exobiology Program, a research program supporting the search for life beyond Earth, came along. It would eventually morph into the Astrobiology Program in the mid-90’s. 

 

                            Ebook Size : 37.3 MB

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Issue 2 chronicles the ups and downs of our exploration of Mars. There were early successes, followed by NASA’s first foray into life-detection with Viking. After Viking, many countries struggled to get missions to Mars. But in the '90s saw a return to form, with many successes. The story concludes with exciting missions to come in 2011 and beyond.

 

                            Ebook Size : 8.68 MB

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Issue 3 chronicles the multitude of missions that have explored the region of our solar system that rests inside the asteroid belt. Mars is not the only location in the Solar System that interests astrobiologists. From Mercury to Venus, from asteroids to comets, there are many objects near the Sun that can help astrobiologists understand life's potential in the Universe.

Edible Mushrooms, Second Edition - Clyde M Christensen

 

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Mushrooms have long been regarded all over the world as the most delectable and succulent of foods. Their peculiarly delicate flavor charmed the luxury-loving Roman aristocrats more than twenty centuries ago, as it charms people today. But most of us do not realize that the mushrooms we buy at the grocery store, either fresh or in cans, represent only one of the many edible kinds and that countless others make equally delightful eating. For edible mushrooms are to be found everywhere —in front yards, on shade trees, in parks, fields, and forests.

All too often these evanescent plants are looked upon as strange, unearthly things, to be feared and avoided, if not trodden upon and destroyed. Yet many of these same mushrooms that spring up in such prodigal abundance are both savory and delicious, eagerly sought by the epicure but to be had by anyone for the mere fun of hunting and picking them. To those who do not know them, the best are made to share the
reputation of the worst, and all are grouped together under the darkly suggestive name of toadstools, malevolent things that smack of night and thunder and pouring rain, fit company for goblins and witches!