Suggested travel strategies and lists of must-see sights provide you with real judgments so you can decide where you should go, stay, and eat—without hassles or regrets. Practical information includes maps, photographs, illustrations, and suggested travel strategies and lists of must-see sights, plus essentials on dining, transportation, and accommodations for a range of budgets. Complete with details for enjoying an array of outdoor adventures, such as bicycling, bungee jumping, surfing, sport fishing, wildlife viewing, and off-road driving, Moon Handbooks Costa Rica gives you the tools you need to create a personal and memorable experience.

    Written with clarity and a dazzling intellectual passion, it is both a seminal work of modern geology and a compelling precursor to Darwinism, exploring the evidence for radical changes in climate and geography across the ages and speculating on the progressive development of life. A profound influence on Darwin, Principles of Geology also captured the imagination of contemporaries such as Melville, Emerson, Tennyson and George Eliot, transforming science with its depiction of the powerful forces that shape the natural world.

    Learning how flowers grow gives kids beautiful building blocks of science and inquiry.In the launch of a new nonfiction picture book series, Rachel Ignotofsky's distinctive art style and engaging, informative text clearly answers any questions a child (or adult) could have about flowers.

    Inside, you will find over 200 facts about the Titanic. There are facts about: • Building the Titanic • Crew of the Titanic • Passengers of the Titanic • Interior of the Titanic • Maiden voyage of the Titanic • Sinking of the Titanic • Survivors of the Titanic • Museums of the Titanic • Movies about the Titanic • Titanic’s legacy Ready? Let’s go back to Titanic…

    "From cover to cover, this openly invites the reader to discover the delights of dinosaurs. The visual appeal is impressive. The text is informative. Fossilization, skeleton reconstruction, and a superb time scale round out a stunning and compelling book. Complete, authoritative, exact, and imaginative, it is sure to survive when other dinosaur books become extinct."--(starred) Science Books & Films.

    Integrated central case studies woven throughout each chapter, use real-life stories to give you a tangible and engaging framework around which to learn and understand the science behind environmental issues. Printed on FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certified paper, the newly revised Fourth Edition engages you through the addition of new EnvisionIt photo essays.

    Full of extraordinary facts and astonishing stories, The Body: A Guide for Occupants is a brilliant, often very funny attempt to understand the miracle of our physical and neurological make up.A wonderful successor to A Short History of Nearly Everything, this book will have you marvelling at the form you occupy, and celebrating the genius of your existence, time and time again.

    This thorough revision provides a survey by groups, emphasizing adaptive morphology and physiology, while covering anatomical ground plans and basic developmental patterns. New co-author Richard Fox brings to the revision his expertise as an ecologist, offering a good balance to Ruppert's background as a functional morphologist. Rich illustrations and extensive citations make the book extremely valuable as a teaching tool and reference source.

    Full-color illustrated guide to identifying 200 Western mushrooms by their key features.

    . . . Anyone with the slightest interest in biology should read this book."--The New York Times Book Review"A marvelous museum of the past four billion years on earth--capacious, jammed with treasures, full of learning and wide-eyed wonder."--The Boston GlobeFrom its origins on the still-forming planet to the recent emergence of Homo sapiens--one of the world's leading paleontologists offers an absorbing account of how and why life on earth developed as it did. Interlacing the tale of his own adventures in the field with vivid descriptions of creatures who emerged and disappeared in the long march of geologic time, Richard Fortey sheds light upon a fascinating array of evolutionary wonders, mysteries, and debates. Brimming with wit, literary style, and the joy of discovery, this is an indispensable book that will delight the general reader and the scientist alike."A drama bolder and more sweeping than Gone with the Wind . . . a pleasure to read."--Science"A beautifully written and structured work . . . packed with lucid expositions of science."--Natural History

    The new edition is thoroughly updated, including most notably a new chapter on innate immunity, a capstone chapter on immune responses in time and space, and many new focus boxes drawing attention to exciting clinical, evolutionary, or experimental connections that help bring the material to life.See what's in the LaunchPad

    Are wilderness fires now a tragic and enduring feature of the American landscape? John N. Maclean, author of the acclaimed Fire on the Mountain, offers a view from the front lines, combining action-packed storytelling with moving insights about firefighters and informed analysis of firefighting strategy past and present.Beginning with a riveting account of the worst case of arson in wildfire history, the 1953 Rattlesnake Fire in Mendocino National Forest, which claimed the lives of fifteen firefighters, Maclean explains the mysterious dynamics of fire, and the courage and techniques required to combat it. One such mystery underlines the life- threatening 1999 Sadler Fire in Nevada when a line of flames suddenly blew up, trapping six firefighters mistakenly placed in harm’s way. For the final story Maclean returns to Mann Gulch, the site of his father’s classic Young Men and Fire, to interview the last survivor of the worst disaster in the history of smoke jumping. From it we understand why fatal fires burn for generations. Offering a prescient view of the inevitable conflict between people, property, and nature, Fire and Ashes presents a riveting and emotional story, one that in many ways John Maclean was destined to tell.

    The Golden Section—otherwise known as phi, the golden mean, or the golden ratio—is one of the most elegant and beautiful rations in the universe.Defined as a line segment divided into two unequal parts, such that the ratio of the shorter portion to the longer portion is the same as the ratio of the longer portion to the whole, it pops up throughout nature—in water, DNA, the proportions of fish and butterflies, and the number of teeth we possess—as well as in art and architecture, music, philosophy, science, and mathematics.Beautifully illustrated, The Golden Section tells the story of this remarkable construct and its wide-ranging impact on civilization and the natural world.

    It gives you the tools and inspiration you need to celebrate, mark and appreciate each month of the year in your own particular way. Divided into the 12 months, a set of tables each month gives it the feel and weight of a traditional almanac, providing practical information that gives access to the outdoors and the seasons, perfect for expeditions, meteor-spotting nights and beach holidays. There are also features on each month's unique nature, such as the meteor shower of the month, beehive behaviour, folklore and stories, seasonal recipes and charts tracking moon phases and tides. Why not try identifying trees by their bare buds in January; Enjoy a broad bean, pea shoot & pecorino salad in June; Discover the story of gourmet garlics and how to plant them in October.You will find yourself referring to the almanac all year long, revisiting it again and again, and looking forward to the next edition as the year draws to a close.Praise for The Almanac: A Seasonal Guide to 2018:'The perfect companion to the seasons' - India Knight'A richly layered book of events, celebrations and everyday information that together create a beautiful, fascinating resource . . . In the single month I've had my hands on it, the book has quietly "worked".' - Telegraph'Beautifully written, this pocket-sized guide is a labour of love and will remind you to appreciate little moments throughout the year.' - Gardens Illustrated'Elegant . . . an ideal stocking filler.' - The English Garden

    From New England aquarium tanks to the reefs of French Polynesia and the Gulf of Mexico, she has befriended octopuses with strikingly different personalities—gentle Athena, assertive Octavia, curious Kali, and joyful Karma. Each creature shows her cleverness in myriad ways: escaping enclosures like an orangutan; jetting water to bounce balls; and endlessly tricking companions with multiple “sleights of hand” to get food.Scientists have only recently accepted the intelligence of dogs, birds, and chimpanzees but now are watching octopuses solve problems and are trying to decipher the meaning of the animal’s color-changing techniques. With her “joyful passion for these intelligent and fascinating creatures” (Library Journal Editors’ Spring Pick), Montgomery chronicles the growing appreciation of this mollusk as she tells a unique love story. By turns funny, entertaining, touching, and profound, The Soul of an Octopus reveals what octopuses can teach us about the meeting of two very different minds.