Giving a clear overview of the classification of our natural world-over 6,000 species-Natural History looks at every kingdom of life, from bacteria, minerals, and rocks to fossils to plants and animals. Featuring a remarkable array of specially commissioned photographs, Natural History looks at thousands of specimens and species displayed in visual galleries that take the reader on an incredible journey from the most fundamental building blocks of the world's landscapes, through the simplest of life forms, to plants, fungi, and animals.

    While an illness keeps her bedridden, Bailey watches a wild snail that has taken up residence on her nightstand. As a result, she discovers the solace and sense of wonder that this mysterious creature brings and comes to a greater understanding of her own confined place in the world. Intrigued by the snail’s molluscan anatomy, cryptic defenses, clear decision making, hydraulic locomotion, and mysterious courtship activities, Bailey becomes an astute and amused observer, providing a candid and engaging look into the curious life of this underappreciated small animal.  Told with wit and grace, The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating is a remarkable journey of survival and resilience, showing us how a small part of the natural world illuminates our own human existence and provides an appreciation of what it means to be fully alive.

    Moffett, “the Indiana Jones of entomology,” takes us around the globe on a strange and colorful journey in search of the hidden world of ants. In tales from Nigeria, Indonesia, the Amazon, Australia, California, and elsewhere, Moffett recounts his entomological exploits and provides fascinating details on how ants live and how they dominate their ecosystems through strikingly human behaviors, yet at a different scale and a faster tempo. Moffett’s spectacular close-up photographs shrink us down to size, so that we can observe ants in familiar roles; warriors, builders, big-game hunters, and slave owners. We find them creating marketplaces and assembly lines and dealing with issues we think of as uniquely human—including hygiene, recycling, and warfare. Adventures among Ants introduces some of the world’s most awe-inspiring species and offers a startling new perspective on the limits of our own perception.• Ants are world-class road builders, handling traffic problems on thoroughfares that dwarf our highway systems in their complexity• Ants with the largest societies often deploy complicated military tactics• Some ants have evolved from hunter-gatherers into farmers, domesticating other insects and growing crops for food

    In these pages you’ll also meet Maya and Zuni, two orphaned baby hummingbirds who hatched from eggs the size of navy beans, and who are little more than air bubbles fringed with feathers. Their lives hang precariously in the balance—but with human help, they may one day conquer the sky. Snowball is a cockatoo whose dance video went viral on YouTube and who’s now teaching schoolchildren how to dance. You’ll meet Harris’s hawks named Fire and Smoke. And you’ll come to know and love a host of other avian characters who will change your mind forever about who birds really are. Each of these birds shows a different and utterly surprising aspect of what makes a bird a bird—and these are the lessons of Birdology: that birds are far stranger, more wondrous, and at the same time more like us than we might have dared to imagine. In Birdology, beloved author of The Good Good Pig Sy Montgomery explores the essence of the otherworldly creatures we see every day. By way of her adventures with seven birds—wild, tame, exotic, and common—she weaves new scientific insights and narrative to reveal seven kernels of bird wisdom. The first lesson of Birdology is that, no matter how common they are, Birds Are Individuals, as each of Montgomery’s distinctive Ladies clearly shows. In the leech-infested rain forest of Queensland, you’ll come face to face with a cassowary—a 150-pound, man-tall, flightless bird with a helmet of bone on its head and a slashing razor-like toenail with which it (occasionally) eviscerates people—proof that Birds Are Dinosaurs. You’ll learn from hawks that Birds Are Fierce; from pigeons, how Birds Find Their Way Home; from parrots, what it means that Birds Can Talk; and from 50,000 crows who moved into a small city’s downtown, that Birds Are Everywhere. They are the winged aliens who surround us. Birdology explains just how very "other" birds are: Their hearts look like those of crocodiles. They are covered with modified scales, which are called feathers. Their bones are hollow. Their bodies are permeated with extensive air sacs. They have no hands. They give birth to eggs. Yet despite birds’ and humans’ disparate evolutionary paths, we share emotional and intellectual abilities that allow us to communicate and even form deep bonds. When we begin to comprehend who birds really are, we deepen our capacity to approach, understand, and love these otherworldly creatures. And this, ultimately, is the priceless lesson of Birdology: it communicates a heartfelt fascination and awe for birds and restores our connection to these complex, mysterious fellow creatures.

     Chemistry is a compelling guide to a community of characters who make up everything around us.

    Now Abram returns with a startling exploration of our human entanglement with the rest of nature.As the climate veers toward catastrophe, the innumerable losses cascading through the biosphere make vividly evident the need for a metamorphosis in our relation to the living land. For too long we’ve inured ourselves to the wild intelligence of our muscled flesh, taking our primary truths from technologies that hold the living world at a distance. This book subverts that distance, drawing readers ever deeper into their animal senses in order to explore, from within, the elemental kinship between the body and the breathing Earth.The shapeshifting of ravens, the erotic nature of gravity, the eloquence of thunder, the pleasures of being edible: all have their place in Abram’s investigation. He shows that from the awakened perspective of the human animal, awareness (or mind) is not an exclusive possession of our species but a lucid quality of the biosphere itself—a quality in which we, along with the oaks and the spiders, steadily participate.With the audacity of its vision and the luminosity of its prose, Becoming Animal sets a new benchmark for the human appraisal of our place in the whole.

    Holland leads you through the New England seasons out-of-doors—through the sun, rain, and snow; along roadsides and wetlands; above underground burrows and under treetop nesting sites. With just a turn of the page you'll suddenly know more about the creatures that frequent your backyard or the pond you visit every summer than you ever thought possible. Naturally Curious perfectly melds practical field guide with informal nature literature, providing you the remarkable opportunity to sit back, relax, and learn something fascinating about the natural world around you.

    Find out why a mongoose comes running when a warthog lies down, how a crab and an iguana help each other out, why ravens follow wolves, and more. Witness the ingenious lifestyles of some of the world’s most unusual animal partners in this book of curious biology, a symbiotic collaboration by Steve Jenkins and Robin Page.

    This book is the record of her experiences. It’s a stunning collection of carefully observed accounts of her life—tracking otters on the beach, cooking breakfast in the desert, canoeing in a snow squall, wading among migrating salmon in the dark—but it is also a profound meditation on the healing power of nature.

    Pierre (NORML), Tommy Chong, and others - Covers marijuana's physiological and psychological effects, its medicinal uses, the complex politics of cannabis law, pot and parenting, its role in creativity, business, and spirituality, and much more Exploring the role of cannabis in medicine, politics, history, and society, The Pot Book offers a compendium of the most up-to-date information and scientific research on marijuana from leading experts, including Lester Grinspoon, M.D., Rick Doblin, Ph.D., Allen St. Pierre (NORML), and Raphael Mechoulam. Also included are interviews with Michael Pollan, Andrew Weil, M.D., and Tommy Chong as well as a pot dealer and a farmer who grows for the U.S. Government. Encompassing the broad spectrum of marijuana knowledge from stoner customs to scientific research, this book investigates the top ten myths of marijuana; its physiological and psychological effects; its risks; why joints are better than water pipes and other harm-reduction tips for users; how humanity and cannabis have co-evolved for millennia; the brain's cannabis-based neurochemistry; the complex politics of cannabis law; its potential medicinal uses for cancer, AIDS, Alzheimer's, multiple sclerosis, and other illnesses; its role in creativity, business, and spirituality; and the complicated world of pot and parenting. As legalization becomes a reality, this book candidly offers necessary facts and authoritative opinions in a society full of marijuana myths, misconceptions, and stereotypes.

    From the clownfish to the killer whale, sea otter to walrus, young readers will see some of their favorite animals from a perspective than they've ever had before. With informative, fun facts accompanying the stellar photographs of each animal, Life-Size Aquarium brings readers eye-to-eye with 19 different animals, including a leafy sea dragon, a luna lionfish, a humphead wrasse, two different varieties of penguins, a sea turtle, a jellyfish, a spider crab, a sea otter, and more. As in previous volumes, three of the animals in this book — a walrus, a killer whale, and a dolphin — spring out of the book in oversized gatefolds.

    A. Baker’s extraordinary classic of British nature writing.Despite the association of peregrines with the wild, outer reaches of the British Isles, The Peregrine is set on the flat marshes of the Essex coast, where J A Baker spent a long winter looking and writing about the visitors from the uplands – peregrines that spend the winter hunting the huge flocks of pigeons and waders that share the desolate landscape with them.Including original diaries from which The Peregrine was written and its companion volume The Hill of Summer, this is a beautiful compendium of lyrical nature writing at its absolute best.Such luminaries as Richard Mabey, Robert Macfarlane, Ted Hughes and Andrew Motion have cited this as one of the most important books in 20th Century nature writing, and the bestselling author Mark Cocker has provided an introduction on the importance of Baker, his writings and the diaries – creating the essential volume of Baker's writings.Since the hardback was published in 2010, papers, maps, and letters have come to light which in turn provide a little more background into J A Baker’s history. Contemporaries – particularly from while he was at school in Chelmsford – have kindly provided insights, remembering a school friend who clearly made an impact on his generation. In the longer term, there is hope of an archive of these papers being established, but in the meantime, and with the arrival of this paperback edition, there is a chance to reveal a little more of what has been learned.Among fragments of letters to Baker was one from a reader who praised a piece that Baker had written in RSPB Birds magazine in 1971. Apart from a paper on peregrines which Baker wrote for the Essex Bird Report, this article – entitled On the Essex Coast – appears to be his only other published piece of writing, and, with the kind agreement of the RSPB, it has been included in this updated new paperback edition of Baker’s astounding work.

    Basher Science: Planet Earth, What planet are you on? Created & illustrated by Simon Basher, written by Dan GilpinFrom Basher, the illustrator who showed the periodic table in a whole new light and gave us his fresh spin on physics, biology, astronomy and rocks and minerals, comes Planet Earth, a book that sheds light on this rock we live on, from its mountains and ocean depths to the storms that whirl around it.

    Through the use of historical ecology, Laura Cunningham walks through these forgotten landscapes to uncover secrets about the past, explore what our future will hold, and experience the ever-changing landscape of California. Combining the skill of an accomplished artist with a passion for landscapes and training as a naturalist, Cunningham has spent over two decades pouring over historical accounts, paleontology findings, and archaeological data. Traveling with paintbox in hand, she tracked the remaining vestiges of semi-pristine landscape like a detective, seeking clues that revealed the California of past centuries. She traveled to other regions as well, to sketch grizzly bears, wolves, and other magnificent creatures that are gone from California landscapes. In her studio, Cunningham created paintings of vast landscapes and wildlife from the raw data she had collected, observations in the wild, and knowledge of ecological laws and processes.Through A State of Change, readers are given the pure pleasure of wandering through these wondrous and seemingly exotic scenes of Old California and understanding the possibilities for both change and conservation in our present-day landscape. A State of Change is as vital as it is visionary.

    At stake is the future of old-growth forests. Loggers and police face off with protesters deep in the forest, while savage political games are played in the courts and parliaments. In Into the Woods, Anna Krien, armed with a notebook, a sleeping bag and a rusty sedan, ventures behind the battlelines to see what it is like to risk everything for a cause. She speaks to ferals and premiers, sawmillers and whistle-blowers. She investigates personalities and convictions, methods and motives. This is a book about a company that wanted its way and the resistance that eventually forced it to change. Into the Woods is intimate, intrepid reporting by a fearless new voice.

    Using scaled maps, object comparisons, and beautiful space photographs, it demonstrates the actual size of objects in the cosmos —from Buz Aldrin's historic footprint to the visible universe and beyond. The authors offer visual comparisons with astonishing precision and maximum reader-friendliness, conveying clear and understandable explanations of unimaginable vastness. Plus, as an unprecedented bonus, their 1.5-million-selling Map of the Universe is published here for the first time ever in a book—presented on an oversize foldout page that maximizes its eye-popping presentation of satellites, planets, stars, and galaxies. Based on the popularity of the map and of Richard Gott's Time Travel in Einstein's Universe, and offering innovative ways to appreciate the majesty of the universe, this new title should soar.

    First Life travels the world, from Canada to Australia, Morocco to Scotland, to unearth the secrets hidden in prehistoric fossils and meet the palaeontologists who have harnessed new techniques to enhance greatly our understanding of the origins of life.With an introduction by David Attenborough, and insights captured during the making of the television series, this book is a journey of discovery, showing us what these early animals would have looked like and how they would have lived, bringing them to life with the help of modern computer technology. First Life shows us how evolutionary features of the first creatures have been passed down to modern animals, including humans, giving us amazing insight into the remarkable evolutionary journey that has brought us here today.

    It is essentially a death sentence. The only accepted form of treatment - starvation - whittles her down to forty-five pounds skin and bones. Miles away, Canadian researchers Frederick Banting and Charles Best manage to identify and purify insulin from animal pancreases - a miracle soon marred by scientific jealousy, intense business competition and fistfights. In a race against time and a ravaging disease, Elizabeth becomes one of the first diabetics to receive insulin injections - all while its discoverers and a little known pharmaceutical company struggle to make it available to the rest of the world.Relive the heartwarming true story of the discovery of insulin as it's never been told before. Written with authentic detail and suspense, and featuring walk-ons by William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson, and Eli Lilly himself, among many others.

    Identification is made to the family level, sometimes to the genus or species. It's an invaluable guide for wildlife professionals, naturalists, students, and insect specialists.Beetles, spiders, ants, flies, butterflies, mayflies, dragonflies, earwigs, crickets, grasshoppers, scorpions, centipedes, millipedes, snails, earthworms, lacewings, wasps, damselflies, slugs, and alderflies

    Each volume’s series editor selects notable works from hundreds of magazines, journals, and websites. A special guest editor, a leading writer in the field, then chooses the best twenty or so pieces to publish. This unique system has made the Best American series the most respected—and most popular—of its kind. The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2011 includes Atul Gawande, Jonathan Franzen, Deborah Blum, Malcolm Gladwell, Oliver Sacks, Jon Mooallem, Jon Cohen, Luke Dittrich, and others

    It has dealt with issues of religious freedom, patriotism, terrorism, genetic engineering, and the ultimate science fiction question: what does it mean to be human? While the re-imagined BSG may not be packed with cool techie tools (the bad guys don't even have laser guns for frak's sake!), this book shows that the science in the series has a lot to say about the use of science and technology in our lives today.What are the principles behind artificial gravity and sublight propulsion? Are Cylons men or machines? How are humanoid Cylons able to interface with computers? By tackling these and other intriguing questions, The Science of Battlestar Galactica takes us billions of miles away from Earth so that we can turn around and see ourselves from a different perspective.Tackles fans' most pressing BSG questions, from how an FTL drive might work to how the 12 colonies of Kobol could co-exist to the principles behind Gaius Baltar's Cylon-detectorFeatures behind-the-scenes anecdotes, quotes from the BSG Series Bible, and over 60 photosIncludes a foreword by BSG co-executive producer, Jane Espenson, and an afterword by actor, Richard Hatch, who played Tom Zarek in the reimagined series and Captain Apollo in the classic seriesCo-written by BSG's scientific advisor and a Wired contributing editorPacked with must-know details and scientific background, this thought-provoking book will help you see Battlestar Galactica as never before.

    The tiger isn’t just killing people, it’s annihilating them, and a team of men and their dogs must hunt it on foot through the forest in the brutal cold. As the trackers sift through the gruesome remains of the victims, they discover that these attacks aren’t random: the tiger is apparently engaged in a vendetta. Injured, starving, and extremely dangerous, the tiger must be found before it strikes again.As he re-creates these extraordinary events, John Vaillant gives us an unforgettable portrait of this spectacularly beautiful and mysterious region. We meet the native tribes who for centuries have worshipped and lived alongside tigers, even sharing their kills with them. We witness the arrival of Russian settlers in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, soldiers and hunters who greatly diminished the tiger populations. And we come to know their descendants, who, crushed by poverty, have turned to poaching and further upset the natural balance of the region.This ancient, tenuous relationship between man and predator is at the very heart of this remarkable book. Throughout we encounter surprising theories of how humans and tigers may have evolved to coexist, how we may have developed as scavengers rather than hunters, and how early Homo sapiens may have fit seamlessly into the tiger’s ecosystem. Above all, we come to understand the endangered Siberian tiger, a highly intelligent super-predator that can grow to ten feet long, weigh more than six hundred pounds, and range daily over vast territories of forest and mountain.Beautifully written and deeply informative, The Tiger circles around three main characters: Vladimir Markov, a poacher killed by the tiger; Yuri Trush, the lead tracker; and the tiger himself. It is an absolutely gripping tale of man and nature that leads inexorably to a final showdown in a clearing deep in the taiga.

    Beginning as simple sponges more than 635 million years ago, the earliest animals evolved into a diverse marine fauna over the course of 100 million years. In The Cambrian Explosion, Erwin and Valentine synthesize research from many fields to explain why there was such remarkable novelty of animal forms. This is an integrative work of the highest quality, covering one of the most fascinating and transformative periods in life’s history.

    

    Emily Dickinson had a great love of birds--in her collected poems, birds are mentioned 222 times, sometimes as the core inspiration of the poem. However, in existing anthologies of Dickinson's work, little acknowledgment is made of her close connection to birds. This book contains thirty-seven of Dickinson's poems featuring birds common to New England. Many lesser-known poems are brought to light, renewing our appreciation for Dickinson's work.The editors' introduction draws extensively from Dickinson's letters, providing fascinating insights into her relationship with birds. The illustrations, by late 18th century to early 20th century artists/ornithologists, are often so apt as to seem to have been created with the poems in mind. Included are beautiful watercolors by Mark Catesby, engravings of John James Audubon's paintings, illustrations by Alexander Wilson, chromo-lithographs by Robert Ridgway (curator of birds at the National Museum for some fifty years), paintings by Louis Agassiz Fuertes, and some of the earliest bird photographs by Cordelia Stanwood. The editors also discuss the development and growth of birding in the nineteenth century as well as the evolution of field guides and early conservation efforts. Brief biographies of the artists are included in an appendix. This book is an eloquent tribute to the special place held by birds in our lives and imaginations, and will make an ideal gift for both birders and poetry readers.

    Science and politics collide in this thrilling account of America's struggle for protection against the deadly threat of violent weather. Warnings tells the dramatic true stories of the unsung weather warriors who save innocent lives, often by risking their own.

    This comprehensive manual, crafted by the staff of the Tallgrass Prairie Center at the University of Northern Iowa, will be an essential companion for everyone dedicated to planning, developing, and maintaining all types of prairie restorations and reconstructions in the tallgrass prairie region of Iowa, northern Illinois, northwestern Indiana, southwestern Wisconsin, southwestern Minnesota, eastern South Dakota, eastern Nebraska, northwestern Missouri, and northeastern Kansas.Focusing on conservation plantings, prairie recovery, native landscaping in yards and at schools, roadside plantings, and pasture renovations, the authors—who collectively have more than a hundred years of experience with prairie restoration—have created a manual that will be particularly useful to landowners, conservation agency personnel, ecosystem managers, native-seeding contractors, prairie enthusiasts, teachers, and roadside managers. A wealth of color and black-and-white photographs taken in the field as well as checklists and tables support the detailed text, which also includes useful online and print sources and references, a glossary, and lists of common and scientific names of all plant species discussed.The text is divided into five parts. Part I, Reconstruction Planning, provides an overall summary of the entire process, information about securing good-quality seed, and the design of seed mixes. In Part II, Implementing Reconstruction, the authors consider ways to prepare and seed the site, manage the site in its first growing season, identify seedlings, and evaluate success. Part III, Prairie Restoration and Management, deals with identifying and assessing prairie remnants, working toward a predetermined restoration goal, and managing restored prairie remnants and completed reconstructions, including prescribed burning. Chapters in Part IV, Special Cases, discuss the uses of prairie in public spaces, roadside vegetation management, and landscaping on a smaller scale in yards and outdoor classrooms. Part V, Native Seed Production, describes the processes of harvesting, drying, cleaning, and storing native seed as well as propagating and transplanting native seedlings.Although we cannot recreate the original blacksoil prairie, tallgrass prairie restoration offers the opportunity to reverse environmental damage and provide for the recovery of vital aspects of this lost ecosystem. Anyone in the Upper Midwest who wishes to improve water quality, reduce flood damage, support species diversity, preserve animal habitats, and enjoy the changing panorama of grasses and wildflowers will benefit from the clear, careful text and copious illustrations in this authoritative guide.

    This book is sure to spark discussion” (Publishers Weekly).   When John Robbins first released The Food Revolution in 1987, his insights into America’s harmful eating habits gave us a powerful wake-up call. Since then, Robbins has continued to shine a spotlight on the most important issues in food politics, such as our dependence on animal products, provoking awareness and promoting change.   Robbins’s arguments for a plant-based diet are compelling and backed by over twenty years of work in the field of sustainable agriculture and conscious eating. This timely new edition will enlighten those curious about plant-based diets and fortify the mindsets of the already converted.

    They attracted followers ranging from Thomas Jefferson, who laid out mastodon bones on the White House floor, to twentieth-century doctors who used their knowledge of new species to conquer epidemic diseases. Acclaimed science writer Richard Conniff brings these daredevil "species seekers" to vivid life. Alongside their globe-spanning tales of adventure, he recounts some of the most dramatic shifts in the history of human thought. At the start, everyone accepted that the Earth had been created for our benefit. We weren't sure where vegetable ended and animal began, we couldn't classify species, and we didn't understand the causes of disease. But all that changed as the species seekers introduced us to the pantheon of life on Earth—and our place within it.

    He visits Norwegian megafarms that use genetic techniques once pioneered on sheep to grow millions of pounds of salmon a year. He travels to the ancestral river of the Yupik Eskimos to see the only Fair Trade–certified fishing company in the world. He makes clear how PCBs and mercury find their way into seafood; discovers how Mediterranean sea bass went global; challenges the author of Cod to taste the difference between a farmed and a wild cod; and almost sinks to the bottom of the South Pacific while searching for an alternative to endangered bluefin tuna.Fish, Greenberg reveals, are the last truly wild food — for now. By examining the forces that get fish to our dinner tables, he shows how we can start to heal the oceans and fight for a world where healthy and sustainable seafood is the rule rather than the exception.

    More than 75 percent of the globe is covered by the oceans. It is sometimes difficult to understand why it is called Planet Earth rather than Planet Ocean. Since half the world's human population lives within a stone's throw of an ocean coastline, the oceans' health is increasingly important. Rich with resources and potential -- as a source of renewable energy, new drugs, drinking water -- for years we have treated them as both infinite and undamageable. But they are not. Over-fishing, climate change, pollution, acidification, and more have put the world's oceans and marine life at great risk.Oceans gathers some of the most insightful visionaries, explorers, and ocean lovers -- marine biologists, politicians, environmentalists, fishermen, sportsmen, deep divers, and more -- in a unique anthology, in which each speaks to a unique aspect of our world's most dimly understood dimension.

    Drawing from the best data available, it is an unprecedented guide to the state of the planet and our most pressing resource and environmental issues. Top scientists at The Nature Conservancy, the leading conservation organization working around the world to protect ecologically important lands and water, have joined forces to create this extraordinary reference. It features 79 richly-detailed, fullcolor maps and other graphics paired with an informative, inviting discussion of major trends across the world’s terrestrial, marine, and freshwater environments. Interspersed throughout, essays by noted international authorities point the way forward in confronting some of our greatest conservation challenges.• The most comprehensive single volume on global environmental conservation and future sustainability• Includes the latest data on environmental threats, such as climate change, water use, habitat protection, deforestation and overfishing• Full-color maps and graphics are designed to facilitate sideby-side comparisons, empowering readers to draw their own conclusions• Brings together information that has been widely dispersed across myriad publications and databases in a format thatinvites evaluation and application• Supporting data is available on an accompanying website

    Complement and complete your family's study of Exploring Creation with Zoology 3: Land Animals of the Sixth Day with the companion notebooking journal.Your child will illustrate and document fascinating facts, record experiments,complete fun activities, assemble beautifully designed mini-books, and more! Notonly does it contain all the features of other Apologia notebooking journals, theZoology 3 Notebooking Journal also includes animal stickers for completing theMap It! activities found throughout the book.

    Nature Writing. In these twenty-six short essays, Merrill Gilfillan records his encounters with Wood Warblers as they flit through North American landscapes on their migratory paths. With precision, appetite, and a touch of whimsy, he sketches the tiny birds in their surroundings, perfecting the art of what he elsewhere calls alfresco writing. Throughout, THE WARBLER ROAD testifies to birding as a meditative, even votive dedication and a fundamental mode of attention to the world: When I walk out with binoculars in May and September, it is often the fly fisherman in Yeats's poem I have in mind as I move along the path. We are both out to discover and authenticate the morning, to break the glaze of habitude and mark, for an hour or so, the weave and fine points of the season and its day-in-place. As Peter Matthiessen writes, A bird book for poets, precisely and evocatively observed, beautifully written. Would that such a eulogy existed for every family of birds.

    Merlin Tuttle and his colleagues at Bat Conservation International aren't scared of bats. These bat crusaders are fascinated by them, with good reason. Bats fly the night skies in nearly every part of the world, but they are the least studied of all mammals. As the major predator of night-flying insects, bats eat many pests. Unfortunately bats are facing many problems, including a terrifying new disease. White-nose Syndrome is infecting and killing millions of hibernating bats in North America. But Dr. Tuttle, with the help of his fellow bat scientists are in the trenches--and caves--on the front line of the fight to save their beloved bats.

    - The format of the series is unique, with humorous, cartoon-like original illustrations from the author.- Special sales potential in museum gift shops.- Perfect for developing scientists and critical thinkers.- Emphasizes the hard work, patience, and fearless curiosity needed to do great science.

    The text sparkles with fact and folklore, illuminating the subject with authority and enthusiasm. Fully updated, it includes all the newest tree varieties and cultivars. A reference section includes a guide to choosing trees for the garden.

    Their essays, stories, poems and images are woven into a conversation which draws on a range of cultural and intellectual traditions.

    The Hubble’s dazzling images have transformed astronomy, shedding light on the deepest mysteries of the cosmos, sparking new discoveries and turning speculation into fact. Its gaze has helped astronomers find new galaxies, look back in time almost to the Big Bang, and verify the existence of dark energy, the mysterious force that is causing the expansion of the universe to accelerate. Through the eye of the Hubble, Elaine Scott skillfully guides readers along the evolution of our universe, investigating a question that was once unanswerable: “Where did we come from?”

    On the island of Ambon, one of the Moluccas, he made drawings of fish and other marine organisms of the Indian Ocean and brought them back to Holland in 1712. His drawings belong to a number of sets of similar drawings, depicting hundreds of animals, mostly fish but also crustaceans, insects, a dugong, and even a mermaid. Some of these became the basis for 18th-century publications, among them Louis Renard's Poissons, Ecrevisses et Crabes (1719) and François Valentijn's Verhandeling der Ongemeene Visschen van Amboina, a chapter in his Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indien (1724−1726). These beautiful, elaborately detailed and brilliantly colored drawings provide an extraordinary description of marine fish fauna of the East Indies that can still be interpreted in light of present-day scientific knowledge. From an artistic and historical viewpoint,  these drawings are among the finest natural history illustrations ever made. Samuel Fallours apparently born in Rotterdam, began his career as a common soldier in the service of the Dutch East India Company. On 27 April 1703, he sailed from Goeree, the Netherlands, to Batavia where he stayed until at least the close of 1705. By June 1706, he was serving as a soldier in Ambon, assigned to the main guard-house of Castle Victoria. From September 1706 to June 1712, he held the title of Associate Curate (krankbezoeker), a kind of assistant to the clergy, entrusted with consoling the sick of Ambon.  He left the Indies for the Netherlands in November 1712. During his sojourn in Ambon, (1706−1712) Fallours executed the illustrations. This reprint is made from the manuscript belonging to the University Library of Göttingen

    Despite dire warnings and escalating concern over the state of our planet, many people feel out of touch with the natural world. Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai has spent decades working with the Green Belt Movement to help women in rural Kenya plant—and sustain—millions of trees. With their hands in the dirt, these women often find themselves empowered and “at home” in a way they never did before. Maathai wants to impart that feeling to everyone, and believes that the key lies in traditional spiritual values: love for the environment, self-betterment, gratitude and respect, and a commitment to service. While educated in the Christian tradition, Maathai draws inspiration from many faiths, celebrating the Jewish mandate tikkun olam (“repair the world”) and renewing the Japanese term mottainai (“don’t waste”). Through rededication to these values, she believes, we might finally bring about healing for ourselves and the earth.

    But even the casual observer is aware that birds don’t fill our skies in the number they once did. That awareness has spawned conservation action that has led to notable successes, including the recovery of some of the nation’s most emblematic species, such as the Bald Eagle, Brown Pelican, Whooping Crane, and Peregrine Falcon. Despite this, a third of all American bird species are in trouble—in many cases, they’re in imminent danger of extinction. The most authoritative account ever published of the threats these species face, The American Bird Conservancy Guide to Bird Conservation will be the definitive book on the subject. The Guide presents for the first time anywhere a classification system and threat analysis for bird habitats in the United States, the most thorough and scientifically credible assessment of threats to birds published to date, as well as a new list of birds of conservation concern. Filled with beautiful color illustrations and original range maps, the Guide is a timely, important, and inspiring reference for birders and anyone else interested in conserving North America’s avian fauna. But this book is far more than another shout of crisis. The Guide also lays out a concrete and achievable plan of long-term action to safeguard our country’s rich bird life. Ultimately, it is an argument for hope. Whether you spend your early weekend mornings crouched in silence with binoculars in hand, hoping to check another species off your list, or you’ve never given much thought to bird conservation, you’ll appreciate the visual power and intellectual scope of these pages.

     Hope Is an Imperative brings together in a single volume Professor Orr’s most important works. These include classics such as “What Is Education For?,” one of the most widely reprinted essays in the environmental literature, “The Campus and the Biosphere,” which helped launch the green campus movement,and “Loving Children: A Design Problem,” which renowned theologian and philosopher Thomas Berry called “the most remarkable essay I’ve read in my whole life.”   The book features thirty-three essays, along with an introductory section that considers the evolution of environmentalism, section introductions that place the essays into a larger context, and a foreword by physicist and author Fritjof Capra.  Hope Is an Imperative is a comprehensive collection of works by one of the most important thinkers and writers of our time. It offers a complete introduction to the writings of David Orr for readers new to the field, and represents a welcome compendium of key essays for longtime fans. The book is a must-have volume for every environmentalist’s bookshelf.

    But what started as a trip to investigate a relatively minor geographical controversy became the basis of a five-year exploration throughout South America, Mexico, and Cuba. The discoveries amassed by Humboldt and Bonpland were staggering, and much of today’s knowledge of tropical zoology, botany, geography, and geology can be traced back to Humboldt’s numerous records of these expeditions. One of these accounts, Views of the Cordilleras and Monuments of the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas, firmly established Alexander von Humboldt as the founder of Mesoamerican studies. In Views of the Cordilleras—first published in French between 1810 and 1813—Humboldt weaves together magnificently engraved drawings and detailed texts to achieve multifaceted views of cultures and landscapes across the Americas. In doing so, he offers an alternative perspective on the New World, combating presumptions of its belatedness and inferiority by arguing that the “old” and the “new” world are of the same geological age. This critical edition of Views of the Cordilleras—the second volume in the Alexander von Humboldt in English series—contains a new, unabridged English translation of Humboldt’s French text, as well as annotations, a bibliography, and all sixty-nine plates from the original edition, many of them in color.