To love and loathe the fox is a British condition."The fox is our apex predator, our most beautiful and clever killer. We have witnessed its wild touch, watched it slink by bins at night and been chilled by its high-pitched scream. And yet we long to stroke the tumbling cubs outside their tunnel homes and watch the vixen stalk the cornfield.There is something about foxes. They captivate us like no other species.Exploring a long and sometimes complicated relationship, The Wild Life of the Fox captures our love – and sometimes loathing – of this magnificent creature in vivid detail and lyrical prose.

    They are capable of incredibly complex behavior, even with brains often the size of a poppy seed. How do they accomplish feats that look like human activity— personality, language, childcare—with completely different pathways from our own? What is going on inside the mind of those ants that march like boot-camp graduates across your kitchen floor? How does the lead ant know exactly where to take her colony, to that one bread crumb that your nightly sweep missed? Can insects be taught new skills as easily as your new puppy? Sex on Six Legs is a startling and exciting book that provides answers to these questions and many more. With the humor of Olivia Judson’s Dr. Tatiana’s Sex Advice to All Creation, Zuk not only examines the bedroom lives of creepy crawlies but also calls into question some of our own longheld assumptions about learning, the nature of personality, and what our own large brains might be for.

    

    It dispels common misconceptions about flies and reveals how truly extraordinary, exotic and important are these misunderstood creatures.There are ten chapters:1. The immature ones - Squirmy wormy larvae can be just a bit unnerving, especially when they're in large numbers.2. The pollinators - Those annoying No See Ums, or midge flies, are the only pollinator of the chocolate-producing cacao tree, a status held by many of the pollinators.3. The detritivores - These garbage eaters are often fluffy and thus water-repellent, good for a life spent in a sewer.4. The vegetarians - Entomological spelunkers, many of these flies prefer plant roots forsaking the leaves to other creatures.5. The fungivores - The mushroom eaters include the dark-winged fungus gnats whose wing patterns are one of the author's favorites.6. The predators - Here are the most devious and imaginative methods of luring, capturing and eating prey.7. The parasites - Their methods of survival are often disgusting but the evolutionary genius is admirable.8. The sanguivores - McAlister responds to the perpetual question, exactly why do we have blood-sucking disease-spreading mosquitos?9. The coprophages - The champions of dung, detritus and other unpleasant things.10. The necrophages - The body eaters without which we would be in a most disagreeable situation.In clear language, McAlister explains Diptera taxonomy and forensic entomology, and describes the potential of flies to transform their relationship with humans from one of disease vector to partner in environmental preservation. She has a wonderful knack for storytelling, deftly transforming what could be dry descriptions of biology, reproduction and morphology into entertainment. She takes readers to piles of poo in Ethiopia by way of underground caves, latrines and backyard gardens, and opens the drawers at the Natural History Museum to rhapsodize over her favorite flies.The Secret Life of Flies is full of stories and tongue-in-check descriptions, but the science is rigorous, authoritative and will be enjoyed by dipterists, lepidopterists, insect enthusiasts, naturalists, and general readers.

    But what were and are the true potentates of our planet? Insects, says Scott Richard Shaw—millions and millions of insect species. Starting in the shallow oceans of ancient Earth and ending in the far reaches of outer space—where, Shaw proposes, insect-like aliens may have achieved similar preeminence—Planet of the Bugs spins a sweeping account of insects’ evolution from humble arthropod ancestors into the bugs we know and love (or fear and hate) today. Leaving no stone unturned, Shaw explores how evolutionary innovations such as small body size, wings, metamorphosis, and parasitic behavior have enabled insects to disperse widely, occupy increasingly narrow niches, and survive global catastrophes in their rise to dominance. Through buggy tales by turns bizarre and comical—from caddisflies that construct portable houses or weave silken aquatic nets to trap floating debris, to parasitic wasp larvae that develop in the blood of host insects and, by storing waste products in their rear ends, are able to postpone defecation until after they emerge—he not only unearths how changes in our planet’s geology, flora, and fauna contributed to insects’ success, but also how, in return, insects came to shape terrestrial ecosystems and amplify biodiversity. Indeed, in his visits to hyperdiverse rain forests to highlight the current insect extinction crisis, Shaw reaffirms just how crucial these tiny beings are to planetary health and human survival. In this age of honeybee die-offs and bedbugs hitching rides in the spines of library books, Planet of the Bugs charms with humor, affection, and insight into the world’s six-legged creatures, revealing an essential importance that resonates across time and space.

    But new technology using concentrated sunlight to provide intense heat energy that can be effectively stored overcomes this problem, providing clean renewable power around the clock. Further, the large amounts of power produced can be used to tackle the issue of feeding the world’s growing population—by enabling energy-intense methods of purifying polluted land for agricultural production.Drawing carbon out of the atmosphere is an essential component in limiting climate change. Flannery explores the potential of kelp, a fast-growing sea algae, to be used on a large scale to convert carbon from the air to a non-gaseous form, reducing levels of atmospheric carbon.With accessible and engaging explanations of the fascinating science behind these technologies, as well as accounts of the systems already in operation around the world, Sunlight and Seaweed is an enlightening and uplifting view of the future.

    Dickson Despommier's visionary book provides a blueprint for securing the world's food supply and at the same time solving one of the gravest environmental crises facing us today."--StingImagine a world where every town has their own local food source, grown in the safest way possible, where no drop of water or particle of light is wasted, and where a simple elevator ride can transport you to nature's grocery store - imagine the world of the vertical farm.When Columbia professor Dickson Despommier set out to solve America's food, water, and energy crises, he didn't just think big - he thought up. Despommier's stroke of genius, the vertical farm, has excited scientists, architects, and politicians around the globe. Now, in this groundbreaking book, Despommier explains how the vertical farm will have an incredible impact on changing the face of this planet for future generations.Despommier takes readers on an incredible journey inside the vertical farm, buildings filled with fruits and vegetables that will provide local food sources for entire cities.Vertical farms will allow us to:- Grow food 24 hours a day, 365 days a year- Protect crops from unpredictable and harmful weather- Re-use water collected from the indoor environment- Provide jobs for residents- Eliminate use of pesticides, fertilizers, or herbicides- Drastically reduce dependence on fossil fuels- Prevent crop loss due to shipping or storage- Stop agricultural runoffVertical farms can be built in abandoned buildings and on deserted lots, transforming our cities into urban landscapes which will provide fresh food grown and harvested just around the corner. Possibly the most important aspect of vertical farms is that they can built by nations with little or no arable land, transforming nations which are currently unable to farm into top food producers. In the tradition of the bestselling The World Without Us, The Vertical Farm is a completely original landmark work destined to become an instant classic

    He spent two years gathering information that demonstrates this and along the way interviewed more than a hundred experts in a number of different fields. Among them were parapsychologists, medical doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, quantum physicists, and researchers into the true nature of reality. Specific examples are presented that indicate what happens when we die, for example that memories can be formed and retained despite a subject’s brain having been shutdown and the blood drained from it. Questions such as whether or not you will be able to communicate with living loved ones after death are addressed, if it is possible to be reborn, and what might be missing from reproductive theory to explain the various phenomena indicated in the many case histories and scientific investigations presented. All of us will someday cross the border to what Shakespeare called "The undiscovered country." As long as we must make that trip, wouldn’t it be smart to find out where we are going and what to expect when we get there?

    Today he knows that mountain land as intimately as anyone can know his home. Petersen conflates a quarter century into the adventures of four high-country seasons, tracking the rigors of survival from the snowmelt that announces the arrival of spring to the decline and death of autumn and winter that will establish the fertile ground needed for next year's rebirth. In the past we listened to Henry David Thoreau or Aldo Leopold; today it is Petersen's turn. His observations are lyrical, scientific, and from the heart. He reinforces Thoreau's dictum: "in wildness is the preservation of the earth." In prose rich with mystery and soul, his words are a plea for the survival of the remnant wilderness."Many of us would like to live a life of greater intention and simplicity, but few can and even fewer do. David Petersen is one of those rare human beings among us who lives a wild life with a cultured mind . . . [He] has created a map all of us can follow."—Terry Tempest Williams, author of The Open Space of Democracy

    B&W photos throughout. Full-color insert.

    Full of advice on how surgeons should use their heads as well as their hands - how to think, plan, and improvise - when, for example, operating on a massively bleeding trauma patient. Starts with general principles, continues with specific injuries to abdomen, chest, neck, and peripheral vessels. Generously illustrated throughout, with drawings produced specifically for this book. For residents, general surgeons with an interest in trauma, and for surgeons operating on badly wounded patients in isolated military, rural, or humanitarian settings. Asher Hirshberg and Kenneth L Mattox are trauma surgeons at the Ben Taub General Hospital, Houston, and professors at the Michael E DeBakey Department of Surgery, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, USA. Kenneth L Maddox is famous as the lead editor of McGraw Hill's classic text, Trauma, now in its fifth edition. This is going to be a GREAT book!

    Our garbage has become a massive and exponentially growing problem in modern society. Eco-entrepreneur Tom Szaky explores why this crisis exists and explains how can we solve it by eliminating the very idea of garbage. To outsmart waste, he says, we first have to understand it, then change how we create it, and finally rethink what we do with it.By mimicking nature and focusing on the value inherent in our by-products, we can transform the waste we can’t avoid creating from useless trash to a useful resource. Szaky demonstrates that there is value in every kind of garbage, from used chewing gum to juice pouches to cigarette butts. After reading this mind-expanding book, you will never think about garbage the same way again.

    From the world’s most painful hornet, to the flies that transmit deadly diseases, to millipedes that stop traffic, to the “bookworms” that devour libraries, to the Japanese beetles munching on your roses, Wicked Bugs delves into the extraordinary powers of many-legged creatures. With wit, style, and exacting research, Stewart has uncovered the most terrifying and titillating stories of bugs gone wild. It’s an A to Z of insect enemies, interspersed with sections that explore bugs with kinky sex lives (“She’s Just Not That Into You”), creatures lurking in the cupboard (“Fear No Weevil”), insects eating your tomatoes (“Gardener’s Dirty Dozen”), and phobias that feed our (sometimes) irrational responses to bugs (“Have No Fear”). Intricate and strangely beautiful etchings and drawings by Briony Morrow-Cribbs capture diabolical bugs of all shapes and sizes in this mixture of history, science, murder, and intrigue that begins—but doesn’t end—in your own backyard.

    Drawing on new translations of Mutis's nearly forgotten writings, this fascinating story of scientific adventure in eighteenth-century South America retrieves Mutis's contributions from obscurity.In 1760, the 28-year-old Mutis—newly appointed as the personal physician of the Viceroy of the New Kingdom of Granada—embarked on a 48-year exploration of the natural world of northern South America. His thirst for knowledge led Mutis to study the region's flora, become a professor of mathematics, construct the first astronomical observatory in the Western Hemisphere, and amass one of the largest scientific libraries in the world. He translated Newton's writings and penned essays about Copernicus; lectured extensively on astronomy, geography, and meteorology; and eventually became a priest. But, as two-time Pulitzer Prize–winner Edward O. Wilson and Spanish natural history scholar José M. Gómez Durán reveal in this enjoyable and illustrative account, one of Mutis's most magnificent accomplishments involved ants.Acting at the urging of Carl Linnaeus—the father of taxonomy—shortly after he arrived in the New Kingdom of Granada, Mutis began studying the ants that swarmed everywhere. Though he lacked any entomological training, Mutis built his own classification for the species he found and named at a time when New World entomology was largely nonexistent. His unorthodox catalog of army ants, leafcutters, and other six-legged creatures found along the banks of the Magdalena provided a starting point for future study.Wilson and Durán weave a compelling, fast-paced story of ants on the march and the eighteenth-century scientist who followed them. A unique glance into the early world of science exploration, Kingdom of Ants is a delight to read and filled with intriguing information.

    They are the powerhouses of our cells, essential for the production and management of energy at cell level. Dr Sarah Myhill, together with Dr John McLaren Howard of Acumen Laboratories and Dr Norman Booth of Mansfield College Oxford, has spent many years studying the relationship between their malfunction and the commonest problem seen by GPs in the UK – fatigue. Their research findings have been published in three scientific papers in the International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, in 2009, 2012 and 2013. These studies showed that poor functioning of the mitochondria is the central problem in CFS. Patients with the worst mitochondrial function had the worst fatigue and vice versa. This is solid scientific evidence that CFS is a problem with mitochondria and has allowed the objective measurement of fatigue for the first time. With the publication of the third study, which showed that mitochondrial function tests and symptoms improved in patients who took measures to address their mitochondrial problems, Dr Myhill was ready to write this book. Here she explains the importance of healthy mitochondria, how we can measure their functioning and what we can do to keep them healthy, or restore them to health if problems arise. CFS is all in our cells, not in our minds!