"Blue-blooded crabs? Platypus that sting? One-hundred-year old reptiles? Meet some of nature's longest-surviving species! Discover the stories of these incredible animals and find out how they help scientists piece together evolutionary history."--

Who would have predicted that a hot spot left over from the Big Bang would eventually lead to our galaxy, the solar system, the Earth, - and to us? Origins explores how the universe and our planet began amid chaos and eventually gave birth to the first stirrings of life. Join cutting-dege scientists on a voyage deep into the Earth to find analogs to the earliest life on our planet, and travel a million miles from Earth with a space probe designed...

"This unrivaled illustrated guide to human evolution brings you face-to-face with your ancient ancestors. Traveling back in time almost eight million years, the book charts the development of our species, Homo sapiens, from tree-dwelling primates to modern humans. Evolution investigates each of our ancestors in detail and in context, from the anatomy of their bones to the environment they lived in. Key fossil finds are showcased on double-page feature...

"The Physics of Life illuminates the meaning of evolution in its broadest scientific sense and empowers the reader with a new view of the intertwined movement of all life -- evolution is more than biological. The same physical effect is present in all patterns and flows -- from population growth, to air traffic, to government expansion, to the urge for better ideas. Evolution is everywhere, and the same elegant principles of physics apply to all things....

In Kindred, Neanderthal expert Rebecca Wragg Sykes shoves aside the cliché of the shivering ragged figure in an icy wasteland, and reveals the Neanderthal you don't know, our ancestor who lived across vast and diverse tracts of Eurasia and survived through hundreds of thousands of years of massive climate change. This book sheds new light on where they lived, what they ate, and the increasingly complex Neanderthal culture that researchers have discovered....

An exciting and dramatic story about how life began and developed on Planet Earth. "The authors explain how the first living cell was created, and how the cells multiply and create jellyfish and worms, and then fish with bendy necks, which drag themselves out of the water into swampy forests. They tell the story of the biggest creatures that have ever walked on land-- the dinosaurs. Long after that, hairy creatures who have babies, not eggs, take...