Social Science

What if you have more intelligence than you realize? What if there is a genius inside you, just waiting to be released? And what if the route to better brain power is not hard work or thousands of hours of practice but to simply swallow a pill?

In The Genius Within, bestselling author David Adam explores the ground-breaking neuroscience of cognitive enhancement that is changing the way the brain and the mind works – to make it better, sharper, more focused and, yes, more intelligent. Sharing his own experiments with revolutionary smart drugs and electrical brain stimulation, he delves into the sinister history of intelligence tests, meets savants and brain hackers and reveals how he boosted his own IQ to cheat his way into Mensa.

Going to the heart of how we consider, measure and judge mental ability, The Genius Within asks difficult questions about the science that could rank and define us, and inevitably shape our future.

Peer pressure. Eating disorders. Decisions about love, romance, and sex. Academic demands. Life goals and how to achieve them. These are just some of the challenges that girls face today―and the age at which they encounter them is getting younger and younger. As a parent, how are you guiding your daughter on her journey to womanhood? Are you equipping her to make wise choices?

Whether she’s still playing with dolls or in the midst of the often-turbulent teen years, is she truly secure in her identity as your valued and loved daughter? In the New York Times bestseller Bringing Up Girls, Dr. James Dobson will help you face the challenges of raising your daughters to become strong, healthy, and confident women who excel in life.

Yo-Yo Ma’s ear for music emerged not long after he learned to walk. By the age of seven, he was performing for President Kennedy; by fifteen he debuted at Carnegie Hall. Maya Angelou, by contrast, didn’t write her iconic memoir, I Know Why the Cage Bird Sings, until she was 40. What propels some individuals to reach extraordinary creative heights in the earliest years of life while others discover their passions decades later? Are prodigies imbued with innate talent? How often are midlife inspirations triggered by propitious events, like Julia Child’s first French meal at the age of 36? Do late bloomers reveal their talents because their skills require life experience and contemplation?

Through engaging storytelling and intriguing historical and cutting-edge scientific research, best-selling author and acclaimed journalist Claudia Kalb explores these questions to uncover what makes a prodigy and what drives a late bloomer. In this series of linked biographies, Kalb follows the journeys of thirteen remarkable individuals–from Shirley Temple to Alexander Fleming to Eleanor Roosevelt to Bill Gates–to discover the secrets behind their talents. Each possessed a unique arc of inspiration. Each–through science, art, music, theater, and politics–reached extraordinary success at different stages of life. And each offers us a chance to explore the genesis–and experience–of genius.

Here are some facts: Women live longer than men. They have stronger immune systems. They’re better at fighting cancer and surviving famine, and even see the world in a wider variety of colors. They are simply stronger than men at every stage of life. Why is this? And why are we taught the opposite?

To find out, Dr. Sharon Moalem drew on his own medical experiences – treating premature babies in the neonatal intensive care unit; recruiting the elderly for neurogenetic studies; tending to HIV-positive orphans in Thailand – and tried to understand why in every instance men were consistently less likely to thrive. The answer, he discovered, lies in our genetics: two X chromosomes offer a powerful survival advantage.

With clear, captivating prose that weaves together eye-opening research, case studies, diverse examples ranging from the behavior of honeybees to American pioneers, as well as experiences from his personal life and his own patients, Moalem explains why genetic females triumph over males when it comes to resiliency, intellect, stamina, immunity and much more. He also calls for a reconsideration of our male-centric, one-size-fits-all view of medical studies and even how we prescribe medications – a view that still sees women through the lens of men.

Revolutionary and yet utterly convincing, The Better Half will make you see humanity and the survival of our species anew.