Juan is that rarest of rarities, a scholar with a sense of humor. He fearlessly tours the brain's mysterious corridors, discussing such wide-ranging topics as phobias, compulsive water drinking, serial killers, the secrets of hypnotism, and the man who thought he was a cat. You will find this book absolutely engrossing.Do kleptomaniacs have a legitimate excuse to steal? Can excessive TV watching physically "shape" a child's growing brain?These answers and scores more fill Dr. Stephen Juan's fascinating and endlessly entertaining book The Odd Brain. Following up his popular first book, The Odd Body, Dr. Juan takes us on an animated tour of the enigmatic organ that sits on top of them all.Equal parts scholarly professor--he teaches at the University of Sydney--cultural detective, and theater of oddities tour guide, Dr. Juan explores bizarre brain disorders and the normal-but-still-weird brain phenomena that we all occasionally experience (like deja vu). Through it all, Dr. Juan pulls off the nifty trick of making the clinical both clear and entertaining.Each chapter is packed with real-life anecdotes and case studies. These include the Criminal Brain, the Savant Brain, the Shy Brain, the Suicidal Brain, the Thrill-Seeking Brain, the Obsessive-Compulsive Brain, and more than 20 others.For anyone who's ever witnessed unusual behavior and thought, "Now, what would make a person do that?" The Odd Brain is sure to have an answer.

    This is the first book to look at fracking from both economic and environmental perspectives."

    As she chronicles the clash of social movements, ideas, and armies that have played a part in this struggle, Ishay illustrates how the history of human rights has evolved from one era to the next through texts, cultural traditions, and creative expression. Writing with verve and extraordinary range, she develops a framework for understanding contemporary issues from the debate over globalization to the intervention in Kosovo to the climate for human rights after September 11, 2001. The only comprehensive history of human rights available, the book will be essential reading for anyone concerned with humankind's quest for justice and dignity.Ishay structures her chapters around six core questions that have shaped human rights debate and scholarship: What are the origins of human rights? Why did the European vision of human rights triumph over those of other civilizations? Has socialism made a lasting contribution to the legacy of human rights? Are human rights universal or culturally bound? Must human rights be sacrificed to the demands of national security? Is globalization eroding or advancing human rights? As she explores these questions, Ishay also incorporates notable documents—writings, speeches, and political statements—from activists, writers, and thinkers throughout history.

    These fascinating, enigmatic creatures are a key lynchpin in the working of our planet. Without them the landscape, as well as every aisle in our supermarkets would look radically different. And we're not just talking about honey bees. There are more than 20,000 species of bee worldwide and only a handful make honey. Some live in colonies and others are solitary. We can all help protect them - and they desperately need protecting - but you can't save what you don't love. And you can't love what you don't know. The Good Bee is a celebration of this most vital and mysterious of nature's wizards. Here you'll discover the complexities of bee behaviour - as well as the bits that still baffle us - the part they play in the natural world, their relationship with us throughout history, how they are coming under threat and what we can all do about it.Beautifully produced, with hand-made illustrations throughout, it is a story for our times and a book to treasure.

    "Reading The Neanderthal Enigma is like sitting down with a wonderful storyteller in the cave where stories began." -- Jonathan Weiner, author of The Beak of the Finch..

    In this thrill-ride across millennia and continents, the complete history of the planet comes to life: from the Earth's fiery birth to its near-obliteration in the Triassic period, and from the first signs of human life to the tentative future of a world with a burgeoning population and a global warming crisis. Covering a wide range of topics including astrophysics, zoology, and sociology, and complete with maps and illustrations, What on Earth Happened? In Brief is the endlessly entertaining story of the planet, life, and people.

    Friedman, New York Times Big World, Small Planet probes the urgent predicament of our times: how is it possible to create a positive future for both humanity and Earth? We have entered the Anthropocene—the era of massive human impacts on the planet—and the actions of over seven billion residents threaten to destabilize Earth’s natural systems, with cascading consequences for human societies. In this extraordinary book, the authors combine the latest science with compelling storytelling and amazing photography to create a new narrative for humanity’s future. Johan Rockström and Mattias Klum reject the notion that economic growth and human prosperity can only be achieved at the expense of the environment. They contend that we have unprecedented opportunities to navigate a “good Anthropocene.” By embracing a deep mind-shift, humanity can reconnect to Earth, discover universal values, and take on the essential role of planetary steward. With eloquence and profound optimism, Rockström and Klum envision a future of abundance within planetary boundaries—a revolutionary future that is at once necessary, possible, and sustainable for coming generations.

    Even utility and oil companies now promote conservation in the face of demands for dwindling energy reserves. And for years some biologists have warned us of the direct correlation between scarcity and population growth. These scientists see an appalling future riding the tidal wave of a worldwide growth of population and technology.A calm but unflinching realist, Catton suggests that we cannot stop this wave - for we have already overshot the Earth's capacity to support so huge a load. He contradicts those scientists, engineers, and technocrats who continue to write optimistically about energy alternatives. Catton asserts that the technological panaceas proposed by those who would harvest from the seas, harness the winds, and farm the deserts are ignoring the fundamental premise that "the principals of ecology apply to all living things." These principles tell us that, within a finite system, economic expansion is not irreversible and population growth cannot continue indefinitely. If we disregard these facts, our sagging American Dream will soon shatter completely.

    Now, more than ever before, our country needs to see full legalization of medical/recreational marijuana and hemp. Any way you look at it, for whoever is using it, marijuana is a medicinal plant, in abundant supply. Every month and every year that goes by, we find out more positive things about it. Medicinal marijuana has been demonized through the years but obviously this plant has a great deal of positive attributes, and it’s also a renewable resource. Being a cash crop, marijuana is bad for the pharmaceutical industry. Is Big Pharma pressuring the government to continue to deny sick people access? If so, that’s truly a crime against American citizens. And as Ventura writes: “Our government won’t do the right thing and legalize marijuana unless we the people demand it, because there are so many people within our government on the payroll, all thanks to the War on Drugs." Jesse Ventura’s Marijuana Manifesto calls for an end to the War on Drugs. Just because something is illegal, that doesn’t mean it goes away, it just means that criminals run it. Legalizing marijuana and marijuana dispensaries will serve to rejuvenate our pathetic economy, and just might make people a little happier. Ventura’s book will show us all how we can take our country back.

    Boosters of the city have long capitalized on this splendor, recently likening it to the fairytale capital of L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz, the Emerald City. But just as Dorothy, Toto, and their traveling companions discover a darker reality upon entering the green gates of the imaginary Emerald City, those who look more closely at Seattle’s landscape will find that it reveals a history marked by environmental degradation and urban inequality.This book explores the role of nature in the development of the city of Seattle from the earliest days of its settlement to the present. Combining environmental history, urban history, and human geography, Matthew Klingle shows how attempts to reshape nature in and around Seattle have often ended not only in ecological disaster but also social inequality. The price of Seattle’s centuries of growth and progress has been paid by its wildlife, including the famous Pacific salmon, and its poorest residents. Klingle proposes a bold new way of understanding the interdependence between nature and culture, and he argues for what he calls an “ethic of place.” Using Seattle as a compelling case study, he offers important insights for every city seeking to live in harmony with its natural landscape.

    Humans: from the beginning will appeal to anybody who reads about these discoveries, is intrigued by them, and would like to know more about prehistory. Now brought fully up to date for 2015, Humans: from the beginning is a single-volume guide to the human past. Drawing upon expert literature and the latest multi-disciplinary research, this rigorous but accessible book traces the whole of the human story from the first apes to the first cities. The end product of five years of research, it has also been planned from the ground up to take advantage of the eBook format and ease access to visual matter, references and glossary items. Humans: from the beginning is written for the non-specialist, but it is sufficiently comprehensive in scope, rigorous in content, and well-referenced to serve as an ideal ‘one-stop’ text not only for undergraduate students of relevant disciplines, but also to postgraduates, researchers and other academics seeking to broaden their knowledge. This 32-chapter work presents an even-handed coverage of topics including: • How climate change has long played a pivotal role in our affairs and those of our ancestors. • How humans evolved from apes at a time when the apes were facing extinction. • Why the last common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees (our closest living relatives) might have been more like a human than a chimpanzee. • A possible Asian rather than African origin for the earliest humans. • Why the Neanderthals were not the dimwits of popular imagination. • How language and modern human behaviour evolved: an examination of theories including those of Robin Dunbar, Steven Mithen and Derek Bickerton. • How the small group of modern humans that eventually colonised the whole of the non-African world might have started from Arabia rather than Africa. • David Lewis-Williams’ theory that the cave art of Ice Age Europe was linked to a shamanistic belief system that might be rooted in the very architecture of the human brain. • Why the Neolithic transition from hunter-gathering to agriculture was a lengthy process, with many down sides. • Colin Renfrew’s still-controversial theory that the spread of farming communities in Neolithic times was responsible for the languages now spoken in many parts of the world. • How an ‘Urban Revolution’ replaced egalitarian farming communities with socially-stratified kingdoms and city-states in just a few millennia. • How the complex, technological societies of today have much in common with not only the earliest states but much earlier primate societies.

    Darwin wondered why these birds were confined to remote islands at the tip of South America, sensing a larger story, but he set this mystery aside and never returned to it. Almost two hundred years later, Jonathan Meiburg takes up this chase. He takes us through South America, from the fog-bound coasts of Tierra del Fuego to the tropical forests of Guyana, in search of these birds: striated caracaras, which still exist, though they're very rare. He reveals the wild, fascinating story of their history, origins, and possible futures. And along the way, he draws us into the life and work of William Henry Hudson, the Victorian writer and naturalist who championed caracaras as an unsung wonder of the natural world, and to falconry parks in the English countryside, where captive caracaras perform incredible feats of memory and problem-solving. A Most Remarkable Creature is a hybrid of science writing, travelogue, and biography, as generous and accessible as it is sophisticated, and absolutely riveting.

    If it ceased flowing, the water held in its reservoirs might hold out for three to four years, but after that it would be necessary to abandon most of southern California and Arizona, and much of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming. For the entire American Southwest the Colorado is indeed the river of life, which makes it all the more tragic and ironic that by the time it approaches its final destination, it has been reduced to a shadow upon the sand, its delta dry and deserted, its flow a toxic trickle seeping into the sea.   In this remarkable blend of history, science, and personal observation, acclaimed author Wade Davis tells the story of America’s Nile, how it once flowed freely and how human intervention has left it near exhaustion, altering the water temperature, volume, local species, and shoreline of the river Theodore Roosevelt once urged us to “leave it as it is.” Yet despite a century of human interference, Davis writes, the splendor of the Colorado lives on in the river’s remaining wild rapids, quiet pools, and sweeping canyons. The story of the Colorado River is the human quest for progress and its inevitable if unintended effects—and an opportunity to learn from past mistakes and foster the rebirth of America’s most iconic waterway.   A beautifully told story of historical adventure and natural beauty, River Notes is a fascinating journey down the river and through mankind’s complicated and destructive relationship with one of its greatest natural resources.

    Members of a parallel humanity that evolved in Europe for hundreds of thousands of years, they were in direct competition with Cro-Magnons — modern humans. The way Neanderthals lived and the reasons why they disappeared 50,000 years ago offer a surprising mirror in which we can examine and learn more about ourselves. Illustrated, concise and readable, this is a fascinating exploration of human origins. "Lively, personal, refreshing, and instructive, this book should be read by anyone interested in their own origins and our extinct relatives." — Ian Tattersall, author of The Fossil Trail, The Last Neanderthal, and Becoming Human

    How did we end up in this mess?In this masterful new history, Andreas Malm claims it all began in Britain with the rise of steam power. But why did manufacturers turn from traditional sources of power, notably water mills, to an engine fired by coal? Contrary to established views, steam offered neither cheaper nor more abundant energy—but rather superior control of subordinate labour. Animated by fossil fuels, capital could concentrate production at the most profitable sites and during the most convenient hours, as it continues to do today. Sweeping from nineteenth-century Manchester to the emissions explosion in China, from the original triumph of coal to the stalled shift to renewables, this study hones in on the burning heart of capital and demonstrates, in unprecedented depth, that turning down the heat will mean a radical overthrow of the current economic order.