Being Human: Life Lessons from the frontiers of Science
Robert Sapolsky, The Great Courses
Audiobook
Self help book
Basically a collection of lectures by Robert from his experiences and lots of overlap from his different novels like Behave and Why Zebra do not gets ulcers to name a few.
The first topic is of course what is so special about Being Human! You have gang wars and baboon with predominantly female leaders leading to peace!
Then you have tool making as DISCOVERED by Jane Goodall!
Even here the girls shine while boys play around!
Humans are prosocial but in a recent studies; so are Chimpanzees!
Vasopressin and monogamy! Then you have oxytocin and its affect on human behaviour! Pretty interesting stuff!
He tells about the most exciting realm of biology called Reductionism!
Second lecture is Junk food monkeys!
Becoming a farmer from Hunter Gatherer reduced life and height! then the worst was to get the westernized diet away from the more healthy traditional diet!
The study presented was a company of baboons who had a naturally predominantly vegan diet and were healthy! Till they chanced upon the garbage of the national park and got free JUNK FOOD!
Life was never the same again!
Lecture three is called The Burden of Being Burden free
Here comes the context of his novel Why Zebra where he tells about how acute stress is good! So this lecture is basically a summary of his novel Why Zebra don’t get ulcers! Including the mentioning of Norwegian military recruits and stress!
Bugs in the brain in the fourth lecture which is about ; well bugs in the brain!
Lecture 5
Being poor and autopsy and SIDS! This has been elaborated in his other novels also and is an extension of the disease Sudden infant death syndrome which was attributed to an enlarged Thymus which lead to radiation which lead to Thyroid cancer! Finally it was concluded tha the Thymus is normal!
Lecture 6
Why we dream and the role of PFC and dream
The role of Limbic system in dreams!
Lecture 7
Pleasures and pain of maybe talks about PFC and dopamine
Dopamine increases not when you get the reward but in the anticipation of reward
So Dopamine is not about happiness but the pursuit of happiness
Lecture 8
How the other half heals
MS and RA and the concept of hospitalism! How some diseases affect the poor while some are selective to the rich!
Lecture 9
Why we want the bodies back
An emotional rendition of how in many cultures the bodies are sacred
The last three lectures like the brain and bad mood, metaphors and sushi and middle age tells about the complexity of the brain and the inability to adapt after a certain age!
It was like a special class on brain function and since I am currently also currently listening to his other novels; all the topics went into the brain pretty easily!
An amazing series of being not only a Human but also an Intelligent One!
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