The first robot to walk the earth was a bronze giant called Talos. This wondrous machine was created not by MIT Robotics Lab, but by Hephaestus, the Greek god of invention. More than 2,500 years ago, long before medieval automata, and centuries before technology made self-moving devices possible, Greek mythology was exploring ideas about creating artificial life--and grappling with still-unresolved ethical concerns about biotechne, "life through craft."...

Adrienne Mayor's books include The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithradates, Rome's Deadliest Enemy, which was a finalist for the National Book Award, and Fossil Legends of the First Americans (both Princeton). She is a research scholar in classics and the history of science at Stanford University. The fascinating story of how the fossils of dinosaurs, mammoths, and other extinct animals influenced some of the most spectacular creatures of...

"Finalist for the 2009 National Book Award, Nonfiction" "Winner of the 2010 Gold Medal in Biography, Independent Publisher Book Awards" "One of The Washington Post critics' Holiday Guide's "Best Books of 2009"" "Honorable Mention for the 2010 PROSE Award in Biography & Autobiography, Association of American Publishers" Adrienne Mayor is the author of Greek Fire, Poison Arrows, and Scorpion Bombs: Biological and Chemical Warfare in the Ancient World...

"The burnt-red badlands of Montana's Hell Creek are a vast graveyard of the Cretaceous dinosaurs that lived 68 million years ago. Those hills were, much later, also home to the Sioux, the Crows, and the Blackfeet, the first people to encounter the dinosaur fossils exposed by the elements. What did Native Americans make of these stone skeletons, and how did they explain the teeth and claws of gargantuan animals no one had seen alive? Did they speculate...

Introduces children to the gods of ancient worlds, including Greek, Norse, Chinese, American Indian, African cultures, and more. Includes facts, colorful illustrations, quizzes, suggested activities, and an interactive glossary.