Most Delicious Poison

Author : Noah Whiteman
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 307 pages
File Size : 54,9 Mb
Release : 2023-11-02
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780861544523

Get Book

Most Delicious Poison by Noah Whiteman Pdf

A deadly secret lurks within our kitchens, medicine cabinets and gardens... Digitalis purpurea. The common foxglove. Vision blurs as blood pressure drops precipitously. The heartbeat slows until, finally, it stops. Atropa belladonna. Deadly nightshade. Eyes darken as strange shapes flutter across your vision. The heart begins to race and soon the entire body is overcome with convulsions. Papaver somniferum. The opium poppy. Pupils constrict to a pinprick as the senses dull. Gradually, breathing shudders to a halt. Scratch the surface of a coffee bean, a chilli flake or an apple seed and find a bevy of strange chemicals – biological weapons in a war raging unseen. Here, beetles, birds, bats and butterflies must navigate a minefield of specialised chemicals and biotoxins, each designed to maim and kill. And yet these chemicals, evolved to repel marauding insects and animals, have now become an integral part of our everyday lives. Some we use to greet our days (caffeine) and titillate our tongues (capsaicin), others to bend our minds (psilocybin) and take away our pains (opioids). Inspired by his father’s love of the natural world and his eventual spiral into the depths of addiction, evolutionary biologist Noah Whiteman explores how we came to use – and abuse – these chemicals. Delving into the mysterious origins of plant and fungal toxins, and their unique human history, Most Delicious Poison provides a kaleidoscopic tour of nature’s most delectable and dangerous poisons. ***** 'Deeply researched and fascinating.' —JENNIFER DOUDNA, WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN CHEMISTRY 'Magisterial, fascinating and gripping.' —NEIL SHUBIN, AUTHOR OF YOUR INNER FISH 'Exuberant, poignant and mind-blowing.' —DANIEL E. LIEBERMAN, AUTHOR OF EXERCISED

Author : Noah Whiteman
Publisher : Little, Brown Spark
Page : 287 pages
File Size : 47,5 Mb
Release : 2023-10-24
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780316386777

Get Book

Most Delicious Poison by Noah Whiteman Pdf

An evolutionary biologist tells the story of nature’s toxins and why we are attracted—and addicted—to them, in this “magisterial, fascinating, and gripping tour de force” (Neil Shubin). A deadly secret lurks within our spice racks, medicine cabinets, backyard gardens, and private stashes. Scratch beneath the surface of a coffee bean, a red pepper flake, a poppy seed, a mold spore, a foxglove leaf, a magic-mushroom cap, a marijuana bud, or an apple seed, and we find a bevy of strange chemicals. We use these to greet our days (caffeine), titillate our tongues (capsaicin), recover from surgery (opioids), cure infections (penicillin), mend our hearts (digoxin), bend our minds (psilocybin), calm our nerves (CBD), and even kill our enemies (cyanide). But why do plants and fungi produce such chemicals? And how did we come to use and abuse some of them? Based on cutting-edge science in the fields of evolution, chemistry, and neuroscience, Most Delicious Poison reveals: The origins of toxins produced by plants, mushrooms, microbes, and even some animals The mechanisms that animals evolved to overcome them How a co-evolutionary arms race made its way into the human experience And much more This perpetual chemical war not only drove the diversification of life on Earth, but also is intimately tied to our own successes and failures. You will never look at a houseplant, mushroom, fruit, vegetable, or even the past five hundred years of human history the same way again.

Author : Noah Whiteman
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 47,5 Mb
Release : 2024-10-03
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 0861548876

Get Book

Most Delicious Poison by Noah Whiteman Pdf

Author : William Shakespeare
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 452 pages
File Size : 40,6 Mb
Release : 1821
Category : Theatre
ISBN : UFL:31262055157076

Get Book

Julius Cæsar. Antony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare Pdf

Author : William Shakespeare,Samuel Johnson,George Steevens
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 646 pages
File Size : 51,5 Mb
Release : 1813
Category : Electronic
ISBN : UGA:32108008119227

Get Book

Antony and Cleopatra ; King Lear by William Shakespeare,Samuel Johnson,George Steevens Pdf

Author : William Shakespeare
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 640 pages
File Size : 43,7 Mb
Release : 1813
Category : Electronic
ISBN : ZBZH:ZBZ-00080110

Get Book

“The” Plays of William Shakspeare ... by William Shakespeare Pdf

Author : R M Christofides
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 242 pages
File Size : 44,6 Mb
Release : 2012-06-14
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781441101303

Get Book

Shakespeare and the Apocalypse by R M Christofides Pdf

By connecting Shakespeare's language to the stunning artwork that depicted the end of the world, this study provides not only provides a new reading of Shakespeare but illustrates how apocalyptic art continues to influence popular culture today. Drawing on extant examples of medieval imagery, Roger Christofides uses poststructuralist and psychoanalytic accounts of how language works to shed new light on our understanding of Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, and King Lear. He then links Shakespeare's dependence on his audience to appreciate the allusions made to the religious paintings to the present day. For instance, popular television series like Battlestar Galactica, seminal horror movies such as An American Werewolf in London and Carrie and recent novels like Cormac McCarthy's The Road. All draw on imagery that can be traced directly back to the depictions of the Doom, an indication of the cultural power these vivid imaginings of the end of the world have in Shakespeare's day and now.

Author : William Cane,Anna Gabrielle
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
Page : 313 pages
File Size : 54,9 Mb
Release : 2022-11-15
Category : Art
ISBN : 9781538161371

Get Book

Every Picture Hides a Story by William Cane,Anna Gabrielle Pdf

Each year 11 million people trek to the Louvre to gawk at the Mona Lisa. Many visitors clutch guide books in hand describing the painting. For some, it’s the experience of a lifetime, one they’ll talk about with friends and family for decades. Yet some modern researchers say that the vast majority of people will never recognize the hidden messages in this painting. That’s because those hidden messages are subliminal. Buried below the threshold of conscious awareness, Da Vinci used techniques people never notice. Not only don’t people know what they’re seeing, they would be shocked to find out. A surprisingly large number of famous paintings fall into the same category. That is, they employ subliminal techniques to enhance the effectiveness of the work or to encode messages within portraits and landscapes. No book, however, has ever attempted to provide an overview of the technical sophistication and arcane methods that artists worldwide have used to conceal secret meaning in their work. Every Picture Hides a Story is the first book to expose the subliminal content in the world’s greatest paintings. Titillating, subversive, and building on the groundbreaking work of pioneers of art criticism, this book will enable readers to view art masterpieces with greater understanding. And their enjoyment of these works will be exponentially enhanced. This full-color book contains 86 images of the paintings and their details.

Author : Shane M. Chartrand
Publisher : House of Anansi
Page : 323 pages
File Size : 47,8 Mb
Release : 2019-10-01
Category : Cooking
ISBN : 9781487006051

Get Book

tawâw by Shane M. Chartrand Pdf

tawâw [pronounced ta-WOW]: Come in, you’re welcome, there’s room. Acclaimed chef Shane M. Chartrand’s debut cookbook explores the reawakening of Indigenous cuisine and what it means to cook, eat, and share food in our homes and communities. Born to Cree parents and raised by a Métis father and Mi’kmaw-Irish mother, Shane M. Chartrand has spent the past ten years learning about his history, visiting with other First Nations peoples, gathering and sharing knowledge and stories, and creating dishes that combine his interests and express his personality. The result is tawâw: Progressive Indigenous Cuisine, a book that traces Chartrand’s culinary journey from his childhood in Central Alberta, where he learned to raise livestock, hunt, and fish on his family’s acreage, to his current position as executive chef at the acclaimed SC Restaurant in the River Cree Resort & Casino in Enoch, Alberta, on Treaty 6 Territory. Containing over seventy-five recipes — including Chartrand’s award-winning dish “War Paint” — along with personal stories, culinary influences, and interviews with family members, tawâw is part cookbook, part exploration of ingredients and techniques, and part chef’s personal journal.

Author : William Shakespeare
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 424 pages
File Size : 45,5 Mb
Release : 1809
Category : Electronic
ISBN : BL:A0027005794

Get Book

The Plays of William Shakespeare ... With the Corrections and Illustrations of Various Commentators ... Revised and Augmented by Isaac Reed, Etc by William Shakespeare Pdf

Author : William Shakespeare
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 422 pages
File Size : 45,6 Mb
Release : 1809
Category : Electronic
ISBN : OXFORD:555077509

Get Book

The plays of William Shakspeare, with the corrections and illustr. of various commentators, to which are added notes by S. Johnson and G. Steevens, revised and augmented by I. Reed, with a glossarial index by William Shakespeare Pdf

Author : Judith A. Mabary
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
Page : 408 pages
File Size : 41,9 Mb
Release : 2022-10-24
Category : Music
ISBN : 9781000687002

Get Book

Legacies of Power in American Music by Judith A. Mabary Pdf

This volume honors and extends the contributions of educator and scholar Dr. Michael J. Budds to the field of musicology, particularly the study of American music. As the longtime editor of two book series for the College Music Society, Budds nurtured a wide range of scholarship in American music and had a lasting impact on the field. This book brings together scholars who worked with Budds as a colleague, editor, or mentor to carry on his legacy of passionate engagement with America’s rich and varied musical heritage. Ranging through jazz, gospel, Americana, and film music to American classical, and addressing music’s social contexts and analytical structure, the research gathered here attests to the diversity of the mosaic that is American music and the numerous scholarly approaches that have been taken to the subject.

Author : Haruo Shirane
Publisher : Columbia University Press
Page : 601 pages
File Size : 44,8 Mb
Release : 2012
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 9780231157308

Get Book

Traditional Japanese Literature by Haruo Shirane Pdf

Traditional Japanese Literature features a rich array of works dating from the very beginnings of the Japanese written language through the evolution of Japan's noted aristocratic court and warrior cultures. It contains stunning new translations of such canonical texts as The Tales of the Heike as well as works and genres previously ignored by scholars and unknown to general readers.

Author : William Shakespeare
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 370 pages
File Size : 47,6 Mb
Release : 1870
Category : Drama
ISBN : UOM:39015082524888

Get Book

Antony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare Pdf

Updated edition of one of Shakespeare's most remarkable tragedies, Antony and Cleopatra.

Author : Eleanor Herman
Publisher : St. Martin's Press
Page : 256 pages
File Size : 55,9 Mb
Release : 2018-06-12
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9781250140876

Get Book

The Royal Art of Poison by Eleanor Herman Pdf

One of Washington Independent Review of Books' 50 Favorite Books of 2018 • A Buzzfeed Best Book of 2018 "Morbidly witty." —Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times "You’ll be as appalled at times as you are entertained." —Bustle, one of The 17 Best Nonfiction Books Coming Out In June 2018 "A heady mix of erudite history and delicious gossip." —Aja Raden, author of Stoned In the Washington Post roundup, "What your favorite authors are reading this summer," A.J. Finn says, “I want to read The Royal Art of Poison, Eleanor Herman’s history of poisons." Hugely entertaining, a work of pop history that traces the use of poison as a political—and cosmetic—tool in the royal courts of Western Europe from the Middle Ages to the Kremlin today The story of poison is the story of power. For centuries, royal families have feared the gut-roiling, vomit-inducing agony of a little something added to their food or wine by an enemy. To avoid poison, they depended on tasters, unicorn horns, and antidotes tested on condemned prisoners. Servants licked the royal family’s spoons, tried on their underpants and tested their chamber pots. Ironically, royals terrified of poison were unknowingly poisoning themselves daily with their cosmetics, medications, and filthy living conditions. Women wore makeup made with mercury and lead. Men rubbed turds on their bald spots. Physicians prescribed mercury enemas, arsenic skin cream, drinks of lead filings, and potions of human fat and skull, fresh from the executioner. The most gorgeous palaces were little better than filthy latrines. Gazing at gorgeous portraits of centuries past, we don’t see what lies beneath the royal robes and the stench of unwashed bodies; the lice feasting on private parts; and worms nesting in the intestines. In The Royal Art of Poison, Eleanor Herman combines her unique access to royal archives with cutting-edge forensic discoveries to tell the true story of Europe’s glittering palaces: one of medical bafflement, poisonous cosmetics, ever-present excrement, festering natural illness, and, sometimes, murder.