In this extraordinary feat of nature writing, we meet ants who harvest crops, raise insects as livestock, build roadways and bridges, embark on nuptial flights, and make war.

    Wally Johnson spent half a century in Mozambique hunting white gold--ivory. Most men died at this hazardous trade. He's the last one able to tell his story.In hours of conversations by mopane fired in the African bush, Wally described his career--how he survived the massive bite of a Gaboon viper, buffalo gorings, floods, disease, and most dangerous of all, gold fever. He bluffed down 200 armed poachers almost single-handedly, and survived rocket attacks from communist revolutionaries during Mozambique's plunge into chaos in 1975. In Botswana, at age 63, Wally continued his career. Though the great tuskers have largely gone and most of Wally's colleagues are dead, Wally has survived. His words are rugged testimony to an Africa that is now a distant dream.

    Since reptiles are cold-blooded creatures, most humans don't instinctively understand their requirements the way they understand the needs of a cat or dog. Herp expert Philippe de Vosjoli and his team of veterinarians and authors seek to make keepers confident in their ability to properly care for their bearded dragons through this most informative book. A key component of caring for bearded dragons, according to the authors, is recognizing that their needs change as they develop. De Vosjoli states in the introduction to the book, "Looking at the life stages of bearded dragons also made [the authors] aware that, like humans, they undergo changes in growth and behavior, which may require the dedicated owner to make adjustments in husbandry (and general care) to meet the needs of each life style." The Bearded Dragon Manual is the first book to present this information that is so critical to the proper maintenance of these very popular reptiles.Colorfully illustrated, The Bearded Dragon Manual provides chapter-length coverage on the following topics: selecting a dragon, making a home for a dragon, heating and lighting, diet and feeding management, and behavior. The feeding chapter, which includes as age-by-age guide to nutrition, was co-written with veterinarian Dr. Susan Donoghue. A chapter on breeding discusses strategies for breeding dragons, requirements, conditioning, incubation, and potential problems encountered. Lizard vet extraordinaire Dr. Roger Klingenberg has written a chapter on recognizing and treating bearded dragon diseases, in which he discusses how to recognize a sick dragon, various internal and external parasites, nutritional disorders as well as kidney disease, prolapses, egg-binding, respiratory infections, and eye problems. The chapter concludes with a four-page chart for troubleshooting health problems. Herb expert Jerry Cole has provided a special chapter on frilled dragons, an agamid similar to the bearded dragon that has attracted many bearded dragon fans. Appendices and index included.

    Members of the phylum Mollusca are among the most ancient animals on the planet. Their shells provide homes for other animals, and across the ages, people have used shells not only as trinkets but also as a form of money, and as powerful symbols of sex and death, prestige and war.The science and natural history of shells are woven into a compelling narrative, revealing their cultural importance and the ways they have been used by humans over the millennia. (Seashells have even been tapped as a source of mind-bending drugs.) Marine biologist Helen Scales shows how seashells have been sculpted by the fundamental rules of mathematics and evolution; how they gave us color, gems, food, and new medicines.After surviving multiple mass extinctions millions of years ago, molluscs and their shells still face an onslaught of anthropogenic challenges, including climate change and corrosive oceans. But rather than dwelling on all that is lost, Scales emphasizes that seashells offer an accessible way to reconnect people with nature, helping to bridge the gap between ourselves and the living world. Spirals in Time: The Secret Life and Curious Afterlife of Seashells shows why nature matters, and reveals the hidden wonders that you can hold in the palm of your hand.

    But evolutionary biologists also point out many examples of contingency, cases where the tiniest change--a random mutation or an ancient butterfly sneeze--caused evolution to take a completely different course. What role does each force really play in the constantly changing natural world? Are the plants and animals that exist today, and we humans ourselves, inevitabilities or evolutionary freaks? And what does that say about life on other planets?Jonathan Losos reveals what the latest breakthroughs in evolutionary biology can tell us about one of the greatest ongoing debates in science. He takes us around the globe to meet the researchers who are solving the deepest mysteries of life on Earth through their work in experimental evolutionary science. Losos himself is one of the leaders in this exciting new field, and he illustrates how experiments with guppies, fruit flies, bacteria, foxes, and field mice, along with his own work with anole lizards on Caribbean islands, are rewinding the tape of life to reveal just how rapid and predictable evolution can be.Improbable Destinies will change the way we think and talk about evolution. Losos's insights into natural selection and evolutionary change have far-reaching applications for protecting ecosystems, securing our food supply, and fighting off harmful viruses and bacteria. This compelling narrative offers a new understanding of ourselves and our role in the natural world and the cosmos.

    This is incidental as it is about neither of those industries in particular. It is about the magic and wonderment of those days as seen through the eyes of a child – my eyes! It is about the days when imagination was the biggest plaything that we possessed. The days when a plastic football provided a whole summer's play. It is about the scrapes that I found myself in and the things that I observed around me, and how they made me feel. All the stories are true and I personally experienced every one of them. The names of the characters have been changed. The reason being that I have no idea of the whereabouts of many of the characters contained within my stories, so I have no way of asking them for their permission to include them in this book. Some have possibly passed away, and it would be unfair of me to mention them without their blessing. Anyone who knows me will know who they are though.

    Prosek travels the globe to tell the story of the eel--from New York to New Zealand; from Europe to Japan and the small island of Pohnpei in Micronesia, where freshwater eels are worshipped by members of the eel clan.

    Recent, massive blooms of billions of jellyfish have clogged power plants, decimated fisheries, and caused millions of dollars of damage. Driven by questions about how overfishing, coastal development, and climate change were contributing to a jellyfish population explosion, Juli embarked on a scientific odyssey. She traveled the globe to meet the biologists who devote their careers to jellies, hitched rides on Japanese fishing boats to see giant jellyfish in the wild, raised jellyfish in her dining room, and throughout it all marveled at the complexity of these alluring and ominous biological wonders.

    The awesome journey of life's transformation from the first microbes 4 billion years ago to Homo sapiens today is an epic that we are only now beginning to grasp. Magnificent and bizarre, it is the story of how we got here, what we left behind, and what we brought with us. We all know about evolution, but it still seems absurd that our ancestors were fish. Darwin's idea of natural selection was the key to solving generation-to-generation evolution -- microevolution -- but it could only point us toward a complete explanation, still to come, of the engines of macroevolution, the transformation of body shapes across millions of years. Now, drawing on the latest fossil discoveries and breakthrough scientific analysis, Carl Zimmer reveals how macroevolution works. Escorting us along the trail of discovery up to the current dramatic research in paleontology, ecology, genetics, and embryology, Zimmer shows how scientists today are unveiling the secrets of life that biologists struggled with two centuries ago. In this book, you will find a dazzling, brash literary talent and a rigorous scientific sensibility gracefully brought together. Carl Zimmer provides a comprehensive, lucid, and authoritative answer to the mystery of how nature actually made itself.

    Siracusa's overview, wrap-up, and critique of everything new in OS X 10.10 Yosemite.

    In addition to his day job in the Oxfordshire countryside treating cows, dogs, pigs and cats, he's also worked with an astonishing range of species around the world, including crocodiles, rhinos and pandas. In this charming collection he introduces us to some of his favourite patients, ranging from beloved family pets through to magnificent creatures of the wild. Whether microchipping armadillos, anaesthetising giraffes or advising the makers of the Jurassic World series on exactly how to operate on a velociraptor, Jonathan's love for his work and the entire animal kingdom is infectious. From the preposterous (castrating a sugar glider) to the poignant (encountering victims of rhino poaching), the stories in The Travelling Vet will delight and enthral every animal lover.

    1 comes a fascinating chronicle of life’s history told not through the fossil record but through the stories of organisms that have survived, almost unchanged, throughout time. Evolution, it seems, has not completely obliterated its tracks as more advanced organisms have evolved; the history of life on earth is far older—and odder—than many of us realize.   Scattered across the globe, these remarkable plants and animals continue to mark seminal events in geological time. From a moonlit beach in Delaware, where the hardy horseshoe crab shuffles its way to a frenzy of mass mating just as it did 450 million years ago, to the dense rainforests of New Zealand, where the elusive, unprepossessing velvet worm has burrowed deep into rotting timber since before the breakup of the ancient supercontinent, to a stretch of Australian coastline with stromatolite formations that bear witness to the Precambrian dawn, the existence of these survivors offers us a tantalizing glimpse of pivotal points in evolutionary history. These are not “living fossils” but rather a handful of tenacious creatures of days long gone.   Written in buoyant, sparkling prose, Horseshoe Crabs and Velvet Worms is a marvelously captivating exploration of the world’s old-timers combining the very best of science writing with an explorer’s sense of adventure and wonder.

    It hold the remains of an ancient sea where dozens of strange creatures lived—a forgotten corner of evolution preserved in awesome detail. In this book Stephen Jay Gould explores what the Burgess Shale tells us about evolution and the nature of history.

    Will he speak soft words unto thee?' Job 41 Whale Nation is a hymn to the beauty, intelligence and majesty of the largest mammal on earth. A 'green classic' read with natural resonance by its author, it rarely fails to strike a chord in the heart of those concerned with the abuse of our planet. It is joined by additional content devoted to a fascinating account of whale history.Music: Mendelssohn, Holst, Bach, Mozart, Brahms, Debussy, Ciurlionis, The Song of the Humpback Whale

    In 1905 an unknown 26-year-old clerk at the Swiss Patent Office, who had supposedly failed math in school, burst on to the scientific scene and swept away the hidebound theories of the day. The clerk, Albert Einstein, introduced a new and unexpected understanding of the universe and launched the two great revolutions of twentieth-century physics, relativity and quantum mechanics. The obscure origin and wide-ranging brilliance of the work recalled Isaac Newton’s “annus mirabilis” (miracle year) of 1666, when as a 23-year-old seeking safety at his family manor from an outbreak of the plague, he invented calculus and laid the foundations for his theory of gravity. Like Newton, Einstein quickly became a scientific icon--the image of genius and, according to Time magazine, the Person of the Century.The actual story is much more interesting. Einstein himself once remarked that “science as something coming into being ... is just as subjectively, psychologically conditioned as are all other human endeavors.” In this profile, the historian of science L. Randles Lagerstrom takes you behind the myth and into the very human life of the young Einstein. From family rifts and girlfriend troubles to financial hardships and jobless anxieties, Einstein’s early years were typical of many young persons. And yet in the midst of it all, he also saw his way through to profound scientific insights. Drawing upon correspondence from Einstein, his family, and his friends, Lagerstrom brings to life the young Einstein and enables the reader to come away with a fuller and more appreciative understanding of Einstein the person and the origins of his revolutionary ideas.About the cover image: While walking to work six days a week as a patent clerk in Bern, Switzerland, Einstein would pass by the famous "Zytglogge" tower and its astronomical clocks. The daily juxtaposition was fitting, as the relative nature of time and clock synchronization would be one of his revolutionary discoveries in the miracle year of 1905.