A leading evolutionary thinker, biologist, and medical researcher asks the question: "Could life elsewhere be substantially different from life on Earth?"--and builds a step-by-step argument for human inevitability. 65 illustrations and photos.

Coenraad van Houten has extended his path of adult education called "Destiny Learning." Based on Rudolf Steiner's work, it is a threefold way of working with karma: understanding, transforming, and ordering. This approach opens new vistas for healing relationships and conflicts, for developing creative faculties for community building, and for forming initiatives based on freedom. The author broadens and deepens his previous work on this theme, showing that learning from destiny, as well as awakening the forces of will, are continuing processes. His practical advice can be applied directly to everyday life. Although this book develops and completes the themes of van Houten's earlier works--Practising Destiny and Awakening the Will--this book also stands on its own. In this volume, the author explains and extends crucial aspects of his threefold path of "destiny learning." Anyone who wants to take hold of personal development will find many nuggets of spiritual wisdom in this short book, which is based on a lifetime's work.

This book shows that, to understand the human condition better, we must develop a keener appreciation for the subtle interactions between nature and nurture. First, Dr. Steen confronts the dark history of eugenics, and the horrifying legacy of the Nazis. He then proceeds to illuminate the latest advances in molecular biology and behavioral genetics. He explains fascinating results that have emerged from "split-twin" experiments, in which eerie parallels were found between twins separated at birth. He clarifies how the Human Genome Project might help create a new understanding of the human condition and how it may ultimately help alleviate some of the major health and even behavioral problems facing society today

Could life elsewhere in the universe be significantly different from life on Earth? Must it rely on carbon, water, DNA, amino acids, and proteins? Could there be an alternative to DNA, or could DNA be constructed out of different components? From these building blocks Denton asks the question: Is it possible there are life forms radically different from those realized during the course of evolution on Earth? Is a Homo sapiens-like creature the only possible highly intelligent species, given the laws of biology that exist throughout the universe? The answer to his last question is yes. For life to develop beyond the most primitive stage requires an earthlike planet, with earthlike atmosphere and oceans. Shows that our biosphere is central to nature's destiny. Illustrated.

"A two-part gift book combining the mystical science of playing cards with the ancient power of the calendar to reveal the universal influences ruling each day of the year"--Provided by publisher.

The Aztec Book of Destiny summarizes traditional Mesoamerican beliefs about the spiritual nature of time and its influence on one's personality and fate. The ancient Aztec, Toltec and Maya believed that the day of birth, as defined in their sacred calendar, affects destiny; and this philosophy has guided their daily lives for more than 3000 years. This book condenses the scattered and disparate literature about these beliefs into a fun and informative narrative; but it goes far beyond what academics and popular authors have published to date. The author presents a unique perspective shaped by the wisdom of a traditional calendar-keeper he met in Mexico in 1973. The book's message is that the calendar is not simply an ancient and forgotten curiosity - it is as relevant today as in ancient times. The majority of the book projects the timeless Mesoamerican philosophy into contemporary Western society encouraging introspection and self-awareness.

A short description of the extinct animal along with a color drawing.

"An arresting vision of this relentless natural world"—New York Times Book Review A leading ecologist argues that if humankind is to survive on a fragile planet, we must understand and obey its iron laws Our species has amassed unprecedented knowledge of nature, which we have tried to use to seize control of life and bend the planet to our will. In A Natural History of the Future, biologist Rob Dunn argues that such efforts are futile. We may see ourselves as life’s overlords, but we are instead at its mercy. In the evolution of antibiotic resistance, the power of natural selection to create biodiversity, and even the surprising life of the London Underground, Dunn finds laws of life that no human activity can annul. When we create artificial islands of crops, dump toxic waste, or build communities, we provide new materials for old laws to shape. Life’s future flourishing is not in question. Ours is. As ambitious as Edward Wilson’s Sociobiology and as timely as Elizabeth Kolbert’s The Sixth Extinction, A Natural History of the Future sets a new standard for understanding the diversity and destiny of life itself.

A book-length poem about how an American Indian writer can’t bring himself to write about nature, but is forced to reckon with colonial-white stereotypes, manifest destiny, and his own identity as an young, queer, urban-dwelling poet. A Best Book of the Year at BuzzFeed, Interview, and more. Nature Poem follows Teebs—a young, queer, American Indian (or NDN) poet—who can’t bring himself to write a nature poem. For the reservation-born, urban-dwelling hipster, the exercise feels stereotypical, reductive, and boring. He hates nature. He prefers city lights to the night sky. He’d slap a tree across the face. He’d rather write a mountain of hashtag punchlines about death and give head in a pizza-parlor bathroom; he’d rather write odes to Aretha Franklin and Hole. While he’s adamant—bratty, even—about his distaste for the word “natural,” over the course of the book we see him confronting the assimilationist, historical, colonial-white ideas that collude NDN people with nature. The closer his people were identified with the “natural world,” he figures, the easier it was to mow them down like the underbrush. But Teebs gradually learns how to interpret constellations through his own lens, along with human nature, sexuality, language, music, and Twitter. Even while he reckons with manifest destiny and genocide and centuries of disenfranchisement, he learns how to have faith in his own voice.