Alice M. Roberts

Alice Roberts takes us on a journey across Europe, revealing a remarkable new story of the Celts: their origins, their treasures and their enduring legacy. This is the story of a multicultural civilisation, linked by a common language. It's the story of how ideas travelled in prehistory: how technology and art spread across the continent. The Mediterranean civilisations may have achieved greater fame, but it is from the shores of prehistoric Europe that a truly epic story unfolds.

Bringing together the latest scientific discoveries and drawing on interviews with scientists from around the world, Dr. Roberts illustrates that our evolution has resulted in something that is awe-inspiring yet far from perfect. Our embryonic development is a quirky mix of new and old, with strokes of genius alongside accommodated glitches and imperfections that are all inherited from distant ancestors. For instance, our development and evolutionary past explains why, as embryos, we have what look like gills, and as adults we suffer from back pain.This is a tale of discovery, about ourselves and our environment, that explores why and how we have developed as we have, looking at the development of human physiognomy through the various lenses of embryology, genetics, anatomy, evolution, and zoology. It combines the remarkable set of skills Alice Roberts possesses as a medical doctor, anatomist, osteoarchaeologist, and writer. As Richard Dawkins put it, the reader emerges from her book "entertained and with a deeper understanding of yourself." --- From the publisher.

Alice Roberts has been travelling the world in order to understand the challenges that early humans faced as they tried to settle continents. Part detective story, part travelogue, and drawing on the latest genetic and archaeological discoveries, Alice examines how our ancestors evolved physically in response to these challenges, finding out how our colour, shape, size, diet, disease resistance and even athletic ability have been shaped by the range of environments that our ancestors had to survive.

"Understand the human body as never before, from the smallest components of a cell to complex body systems. Explore human anatomy in incredible detail and clarity through virtually life-size 3-D illustrations and scans. Discover how the body works, how it changes from infancy to old age, and what can go wrong and why"--Cover, P. .

Ten species that changed our world! For hundreds of thousands of years, our ancestors depended on wild plants and animals for survival. They were hunter-gatherers, consummate foraging experts, but taking the world as they found it. Then a revolution occurred - our ancestors' interaction with other species changed. They began to tame them. The human population boomed; civilisation began. In this book, Alice Roberts uncovers the amazing deep history of ten familiar species with incredible wild pasts: dogs, apples and wheat; cattle; potatoes and chickens; rice, maize, and horses - and, finally, humans. Alice Roberts not only reveals how becoming part of our world changed these animals and plants, but shows how they became our allies, essential to the survival and success of our own species - and to our future.