Hurricane Lizards and Plastic Squid

Hurricane Lizards and Plastic Squid
Author: Thor Hanson
Publisher: Basic Books
Total Pages: 274
Release: 2021-09-28
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1541672410

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*A New York Times Editor's Choice pick *Shortlisted for the 2022 Pacific Northwest Book Awards A beloved natural historian explores how climate change is driving evolution In Hurricane Lizards and Plastic Squid, biologist Thor Hanson tells the remarkable story of how plants and animals are responding to climate change: adjusting, evolving, and sometimes dying out. Anole lizards have grown larger toe pads, to grip more tightly in frequent hurricanes. Warm waters cause the development of Humboldt squid to alter so dramatically that fishermen mistake them for different species. Brown pelicans move north, and long-spined sea urchins south, to find cooler homes. And when coral reefs sicken, they leave no territory worth fighting for, so aggressive butterfly fish transform instantly into pacifists. A story of hope, resilience, and risk, Hurricane Lizards and Plastic Squid is natural history for readers of Bernd Heinrich, Robin Wall Kimmerer, and David Haskell. It is also a reminder of how unpredictable climate change is as it interacts with the messy lattice of life.

The Triumph of Seeds

The Triumph of Seeds
Author: Thor Hanson
Publisher: Basic Books
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2015-03-24
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 0465048722

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As seen on PBS's American Spring LIVE, the award-winning author of Buzz and Feathers presents a natural and human history of seeds, the marvels of the plant kingdom. "The genius of Hanson's fascinating, inspiring, and entertaining book stems from the fact that it is not about how all kinds of things grow from seeds; it is about the seeds themselves." -- Mark Kurlansky, New York Times Book Review We live in a world of seeds. From our morning toast to the cotton in our clothes, they are quite literally the stuff and staff of life: supporting diets, economies, and civilizations around the globe. Just as the search for nutmeg and pepper drove the Age of Discovery, coffee beans fueled the Enlightenment and cottonseed sparked the Industrial Revolution. Seeds are fundamental objects of beauty, evolutionary wonders, and simple fascinations. Yet, despite their importance, seeds are often seen as commonplace, their extraordinary natural and human histories overlooked. Thanks to this stunning new book, they can be overlooked no more. This is a book of knowledge, adventure, and wonder, spun by an award-winning writer with both the charm of a fireside story-teller and the hard-won expertise of a field biologist. A fascinating scientific adventure, it is essential reading for anyone who loves to see a plant grow.

Buzz

Buzz
Author: Thor Hanson
Publisher: Basic Books
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2018-07-10
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0465098800

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As seen on PBS's American Spring LIVE, the award-winning author of The Triumph of Seeds and Feathers presents a natural and cultural history of bees: the buzzing wee beasties that make the world go round. Bees are like oxygen: ubiquitous, essential, and, for the most part, unseen. While we might overlook them, they lie at the heart of relationships that bind the human and natural worlds. In Buzz, the beloved Thor Hanson takes us on a journey that begins 125 million years ago, when a wasp first dared to feed pollen to its young. From honeybees and bumbles to lesser-known diggers, miners, leafcutters, and masons, bees have long been central to our harvests, our mythologies, and our very existence. They've given us sweetness and light, the beauty of flowers, and as much as a third of the foodstuffs we eat. And, alarmingly, they are at risk of disappearing. As informative and enchanting as the waggle dance of a honeybee, Buzz shows us why all bees are wonders to celebrate and protect. Read this book and you'll never overlook them again.

Hurricane Lizards and Plastic Squid

Hurricane Lizards and Plastic Squid
Author: THOR. HANSON
Publisher:
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2022-02-03
Genre:
ISBN: 9781785788475

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Hurricane Lizards and Plastic Squidis the first major book by a biologist to focus on the fascinating story of how the natural world is adjusting, adapting, and sometimes measurably evolving in response to climate change. Lyrical and thought-provoking, this book broadens the climate focus from humans to the wider lattice of life. Bestselling nature writer Thor Hanson - author of Buzz (a Radio 4 'Book of the Week') - shows us how Caribbean lizards have grown larger toe pads to grip trees more tightly during frequent hurricanes; and how the 'plasticity' of squid has allowed them to change their body size and breeding habits to cope with altered sea temperatures. Plants and animals have a great deal to teach us about the nature of what comes next, because for many of them, and also for many of us, that world is already here.

In Oceans Deep

In Oceans Deep
Author: Bill Streever
Publisher: Little, Brown
Total Pages: 260
Release: 2019-07-02
Genre: Science
ISBN: 031655135X

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In this masterful account in the spirit of Bill Bryson and Ian Frazier, a longtime deep-sea diver masterfully weaves together the science and history of Earth's last remaining frontier: the sea. In an age of unprecedented exploration and innovation, our oceans remain largely unknown, and endlessly fascinating: full of mystery, danger, beauty, and inspiration. In Oceans Deep celebrates the daring pioneers who tested the limits of what the human body can endure under water: free divers able to reach 300 feet on a single breath; engineers and scientists who uncovered the secrets of decompression; teenagers who built their own diving gear from discarded boilers and garden hoses in the 1930s; saturation divers who lived under water for weeks at a time in the 1960s; and the trailblazing men who voluntarily breathed experimental gases at pressures sufficient to trigger insanity. Tracing both the little-known history and exciting future of how we travel and study the depths, Streever's captivating journey includes seventeenth-century leather-hulled submarines, their nuclear-powered descendants, a workshop where luxury submersibles are built for billionaire clients, and robots capable of roving unsupervised between continents, revolutionizing access to the ocean. In this far-flung trip to the wild, night-dark place of shipwrecks, trapped submariners, oil wells, innovative technologies, and people willing to risk their lives while challenging the deep, we discover all the adventures our seas have to offer -- and why they are in such dire need of conservation.

Never Home Alone

Never Home Alone
Author: Rob Dunn
Publisher: Basic Books
Total Pages: 380
Release: 2018-11-06
Genre: Science
ISBN: 154164574X

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A natural history of the wilderness in our homes, from the microbes in our showers to the crickets in our basements Even when the floors are sparkling clean and the house seems silent, our domestic domain is wild beyond imagination. In Never Home Alone, biologist Rob Dunn introduces us to the nearly 200,000 species living with us in our own homes, from the Egyptian meal moths in our cupboards and camel crickets in our basements to the lactobacillus lounging on our kitchen counters. You are not alone. Yet, as we obsess over sterilizing our homes and separating our spaces from nature, we are unwittingly cultivating an entirely new playground for evolution. These changes are reshaping the organisms that live with us -- prompting some to become more dangerous, while undermining those species that benefit our bodies or help us keep more threatening organisms at bay. No one who reads this engrossing, revelatory book will look at their homes in the same way again.

A Natural History of the Future

A Natural History of the Future
Author: Rob Dunn
Publisher: Hachette UK
Total Pages: 298
Release: 2022-01-20
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1399800159

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Over the past century, our species has made unprecedented technological innovations with which we have sought to control nature. In A Natural History of the Future, biologist Rob Dunn argues that such efforts are futile. We may see ourselves as life's overlords, but we are instead at its mercy. In the evolution of antibiotic resistance, the power of natural selection to create biodiversity, and even the surprising life of the London Underground, Dunn finds laws of life that no human activity can annul. When we create artificial islands of crops, dump toxic waste, or build communities, we provide new materials for old laws to shape. Life's future flourishing is not in question. Ours is. A Natural History of the Future sets a new standard for understanding the diversity and destiny of life itself.

Warfare Ecology

Warfare Ecology
Author: Gary E. Machlis
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 303
Release: 2011-05-29
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9400712138

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The purpose of this book is specific and ambitious: to outline the distinctive elements, scope, and usefulness of a new and emerging field of applied ecology named warfare ecology. Based on a NATO Advanced Research Workshop held on the island of Vieques, Puerto Rico, the book provides both a theoretical overview of this new field and case studies that range from mercury contamination during World War I in Slovenia to the ecosystem impacts of the Palestinian occupation, and from the bombing of coral reefs of Vieques to biodiversity loss due to violent conflicts in Africa. Warfare Ecology also includes reprints of several classical papers that set the stage for the new synthesis described by the authors. Written for environmental scientists, military and humanitarian relief professionals, conservation managers, and graduate students in a wide range of fields, Warfare Ecology is a major step forward in understanding the relationship between war and ecological systems.

Coyote America

Coyote America
Author: Dan Flores
Publisher: Basic Books
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2016-06-07
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 0465098533

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The New York Times best-selling account of how coyotes--long the target of an extermination policy--spread to every corner of the United States Finalist for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award "A masterly synthesis of scientific research and personal observation." -Wall Street Journal Legends don't come close to capturing the incredible story of the coyote. In the face of centuries of campaigns of annihilation employing gases, helicopters, and engineered epidemics, coyotes didn't just survive, they thrived, expanding across the continent from Alaska to New York. In the war between humans and coyotes, coyotes have won, hands-down. Coyote America is the illuminating five-million-year biography of this extraordinary animal, from its origins to its apotheosis. It is one of the great epics of our time.

Every Penguin in the World

Every Penguin in the World
Author: Charles Bergman
Publisher: Sasquatch Books
Total Pages: 226
Release: 2020-04-14
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 1632172674

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A husband and wife travel the globe to see all 18 penguin species in this “celebration of these delightful birds and a call for their conversation” that offers “joy, love, and hope for penguins and the world” (Dr. Jane Goodall). Every Penguin in the World tracks author-photographer Charles Bergman’s forays around the southern hemisphere—from the Galapagos to South Africa to the Antarctic—in his quest to see all 18 species of penguins in the world. The sections of the book are organized around themes of adventure, science and conservation, and pilgrimage—in which stories of each penguin species will be touched upon. This endearing and thought-provoking book beautifully combines narrative and photography to capture the plight and the experience of penguins worldwide. The author and his wife developed a passion after seeing their first penguin species and have since spent years traveling far and wide to see each variety of penguin in its natural habitat. Both a love letter and a call to action, Every Penguin in the World is a joyful ode to adventure, conservation, and the beautiful penguins that capture our hearts. “It's SO good! [...] Chuck Bergman’s writing, photography, and vulnerability is so kick-ass!” —Brené Brown, New York Times–bestselling author of Dare to Lead