Book picks similar to
Life: The Science of Biology, Vol. II by David E. Sadava
nature
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Darwin's Odyssey: The Voyage of the Beagle (Kindle Single)
Kevin Jackson - 2013
For five years in his mid-twenties, he sailed on the BEAGLE around the world, exploring jungles, climbing mountains, trekking across deserts. With every new landfall, he had new adventures: he rode through bandit country, was thrown into jail by revolutionaries, took part in an armed raid with marines, survived two earthquakes, hunted and fished. He suffered the terrible cold and rain of Tierra del Fuego, the merciless heat of the Australian outback and the inner pangs of heartbreak. He also made the discoveries that finally led him to formulate his theory of Natural Selection as the driving force of evolution. The five-year voyage of the BEAGLE was the basis for all Darwin's later work; but it also turned him from a friendly idler into the greatest scientist of his century. Kevin Jackson is a writer, broadcaster and film-maker. His most recent book is Constellation of Genius: 1922 and All That Jazz (Farrar Strauss Giroux, 2013). He lives in Cambridge, England.
A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived: The Stories in Our Genes
Adam Rutherford - 2016
It is the history of who you are and how you came to be. It is unique to you, as it is to each of the 100 billion modern humans who have ever drawn breath. But it is also our collective story, because in every one of our genomes we each carry the history of our species births, deaths, disease, war, famine, migration, and a lot of sex. Since scientists first read the human genome in 2001, it has been subject to all sorts of claims, counterclaims, and myths. In fact, as Adam Rutherford explains, our genomes should be read not as instruction manuals, but as epic poems. DNA determines far less than we have been led to believe about us as individuals, but vastly more about us as a species. In this captivating journey through the expanding landscape of genetics, Adam Rutherford reveals what our genes now tell us about history, and what history tells us about our genes. From Neanderthals to murder, from redheads to race, dead kings to plague, evolution to epigenetics, this is a demystifying and illuminating new portrait of who we are and how we came to be."
Almost Eleven: The Murder of Brenda Sue Sayers
Harrell Glenn Crowson - 2013
Imperial Valley’s biggest crime is detailed through volumes of official records and interviews with witnesses, relatives and investigators.Serial killer Robert Eugene Pennington not only murdered Sayers, but was a suspect in killing Dorothy Minor-Hindman in Fresno and possibly fifteen other innocent victims from coast to coast including one victim attributed to the Boston Strangler.Extensive research provides the reader with details of Pennington’s life before and after his encounter with Brenda.
What It's Like to Be a Bird: From Flying to Nesting, Eating to Singing—What Birds Are Doing, and Why
David Allen Sibley - 2020
This special, large-format volume is geared as much to nonbirders as it is to the out-and-out obsessed, covering more than two hundred species and including more than 330 new illustrations by the author. While its focus is on familiar backyard birds--blue jays, nuthatches, chickadees--it also examines certain species that can be fairly easily observed, such as the seashore-dwelling Atlantic puffin. David Sibley's artwork and expertise bring observed behaviors vividly to life. (For most species, the primary illustration is reproduced life-sized.) And while the text is aimed at adults--including fascinating new scientific research on the myriad ways birds have adapted to environmental changes--it is nontechnical, making it the perfect occasion for parents and grandparents to share their love of birds with young children, who will delight in the big, full-color illustrations of birds in action.
The Lost Art of Reading Nature’s Signs: Use Outdoor Clues to Find Your Way, Predict the Weather, Locate Water, Track Animals—and Other Forgotten Skills
Tristan Gooley - 2014
The roots of a tree indicate the sun’s direction; the Big Dipper tells the time; a passing butterfly hints at the weather; a sand dune reveals prevailing wind; the scent of cinnamon suggests altitude; a budding flower points south. To help you understand nature as he does, Gooley shares more than 850 tips for forecasting, tracking, and more, gathered from decades spent walking the landscape around his home and around the world. Whether you’re walking in the country or city, along a coastline, or by night, this is the ultimate resource on what the land, sun, moon, stars, plants, animals, and clouds can reveal—if you only know how to look!
How to Do Ecology: A Concise Handbook
Richard Karban - 2006
While these are essential, many young ecologists need to figure out how to actually do research themselves. How to Do Ecology provides nuts-and-bolts advice on how to develop a successful thesis and research program. This book presents different approaches to posing testable ecological questions. In particular, it covers the uses, strengths, and limitations of manipulative experiments in ecology. It will help young ecologists consider meaningful treatments, controls, replication, independence, and randomization in experiments, as well as where to do experiments and how to organize a season of work. This book also presents strategies for analyzing natural patterns, the value of alternative hypotheses, and what to do with negative results.Science is only part of being a successful ecologist. This engagingly written book offers students advice on working with other people and navigating their way through the land mines of research. Findings that don't get communicated are of little value. How to Do Ecology suggests effective ways to communicate information in the form of journal articles, oral presentations, and posters. Finally, it outlines strategies for developing successful grant and research proposals. Numerous checklists, figures, and boxes throughout the book summarize and reinforce the main points. In short, this book makes explicit many of the unspoken assumptions behind doing good research in ecology, and provides an invaluable resource for meaningful conversations among ecologists.
Galapagos at the Crossroads: Pirates, Biologists, Tourists, and Creationists Battle for Darwin's Cradle of Evolution
Carol Ann Bassett - 2009
For millions, the Galápagos Islands represent nature at its most unspoiled, an inviolate place famed for its rare flora and fauna. But soon today’s 30,000 human residents could surpass 50,000. Add invasive species, floods of tourists, and unresolved conflicts between Ecuadorian laws and local concerns, and it’s easy to see why the Galápagos were recently added to UNESCO’s World Heritage in Danger list. Each chapter in this provocative, perceptive book focuses on a specific person or group with a stake in the Galápagos’ natural resources—from tour companies whose activities are often illegal and not always green, to creationist guides who lead tours with no mention of evolution, from fishermen up in arms over lobster quotas, to modern-day pirates who poach endangered marine species. Bassett presents a perspective as readable as it is sensible. Told with wit, passion, and grace, the Galápagos story serves as a miniature model of Earth itself, a perfect example of how an environment can be destroyed-- and what is being done to preserve these islands before it's too late.
Finding Murph: From First Overall to Living Homeless in the Bush - The Tragic True Story of Joe Murphy
Rick Westhead - 2020
In 1986, he became the first college-educated hockey player ever selected first overall in the NHL entry draft. He won a Stanley Cup in Edmonton alongside Mark Messier. But since then, his life has taken a tragic turn as a result of mental illness, substance abuse and the untreated head injuries he suffered as a player.Murphy’s life didn’t begin on a track that would take him to poverty, addiction and illness. He was smart, dedicated and put his hockey life on hold to complete his education before joining the NHL. He once scored eighty-two points in a season and was a key player for the Oilers, Red Wings and Blackhawks, among other teams. But one vicious bodycheck during a game started him down a road to ruin. Murphy was clearly shaken by the hit, but he was never treated and he never missed a game. His entire life was about to change.Murphy became a journeyman, moving from team to team, and all along the way, other NHLers said they witnessed a change. Murphy was becoming more different by the day. He took to drugs and alcohol and soon found himself out of the NHL entirely. He and his wife divorced. Murphy eventually became homeless and, in the spring of 2019, he made his way to Kenora, Ontario, where he lived in the bush, spending his days outside a local convenience store, muttering to himself. The player who had once set the NHL aflame slept by the side of the road in the unforgiving North.In the vein of Playing with Fire and Boy on Ice, Finding Murph tells the tragic story of Joe Murphy and examines the role of the NHL in the downward spiral of one of the league’s most promising players.
Raising Hell: Backstage Tales from the Lives of Metal Legends
Jon Wiederhorn - 2020
The book contains the crazy, funny and sometimes horrifying anecdotes musicians have told about a lifestyle both invigorating and at times self-destructive. The metal genre has always been populated by colorful individuals who have thwarted convention and lived by their own rules. For many, vice has been virtue, and the opportunity to record albums and tour has been an invitation to push boundaries and open a Pandora ’s Box of wild experiences. Even before they joined bands, the urge for metalheads to rebel and a seemingly contradictory need to belong was ingrained in their DNA. Whether they were oddballs who didn’t fit in or angry kids from troubled backgrounds, metal gave them a sense of identity and became more than a form of music. From the author of the classic collection of Metal music-making tales Louder Than Hell comes a collection that goes behind the music with the lead singers, guitarists, bassists, drummers, stage hands, roadies, groupies, fans, and more. These are the stories of the parties, the tours, the rage, the joy, . . . the Heavy Metal life!
Stallion Challenges
Kelly Wilson - 2015
From the author of the bestselling book For the Love of Horses, comes an epic new journey to rescue wild Kaimanawa horses from the biennial cull.Follow television stars Vicki, Kelly and Amanda Wilson on their quest to train 10 wild, difficult and sometimes dangerous Kaimanawas for competition in the first national Stallion Challenges.Can the Wilsons change these horses' fate? Share the heartbreak, the pain, the elation and the success as they take on their greatest challenge yet.
Wild Guide Scotland: Hidden Places, Great Adventures & the Good Life
Kimberley Grant - 2017
This guide to Scotland and the Scottish highlands and islands, one of Europe's fastest growing adventure holiday destinations, explores the hidden parts of its better known tourist areas, as well many more remote regions, rarely visited by tourists. Guiding you to over 800 wild swims, ancient forests, lost ruins and hidden beaches. Including inns, wild camping, local crafts, artisan whisky distilleries and wild places to stay.
Cuba: A History
Sergio Guerra-Vilaboy - 2010
He is the author of numerous books on Latin American history and is currently the executive secretary of the Association of Latin American and Caribbean Historians.Oscar Loyola-Vega is a professor of history at the University of Havana.
The Boy In 7 Billion: A True Story of Love, Courage and Hope
Callie Blackwell - 2017
A powerful true story revealing a remarkable relationship between a dying son - and a mother that refuses to let him go. At the age of 10, Deryn was diagnosed with Leukaemia. Then 18 months later he developed another rare form of cancer called Langerhan’s cell sarcoma. Only five other people in the world have it. He is the youngest of them all and the only person in the world known to be fighting it alongside another cancer, making him one in seven billion. Told there was no hope of survival, after four years of intensive treatment, exhausted by his fight and with just days left to live, Deryn planned his own funeral. But, Deryn’s desperate mother, Callie would not let him give in. Battling medical errors, impossible odds and years of hardship as the cancer consumed his body and their world, they looked for more answers. After making some startling discoveries and taking massive chances - something began to change… Would their lives as a family ever be the same again?
Introduction to Kettlebells: A Minimalist's Guide to Blasting Fat and Boosting Muscle
Pat Flynn - 2019
You simply move more deeply into them. For anyone - the kettlebell novice to the 15-year veteran - this short (read: just 30 page) ebook provides the perfect foundation or refresher of the fundamental kettlebell techniques, including the kettlebell swing, goblet squat, snatch, Turkish get up, clean, and military press. Each movement has detailed instructions plus step-by-step photos to help the reader understand the movements as well as safely and effectively execute them. After we discuss the hows of each of the basic movements, we move into applying what we've learned with a simple, straightforward kettlebell program for strength, muscle, mobility, conditioning, and (for those who want it) weight loss. This 7-day program can be run through just once as a refresher or for up to six weeks as a standalone program. This book includes: *The following kettlebell exercises: Kettlebell swing, goblet squat, snatch, Turkish get up, clean, and military press. *Each kettlebell exercise features a detailed description of the movement, step-by-step photos and key points. *A straightforward and simple 7-day program (repeatable for up to 6 weeks) to help the novice acclimate to kettlebell training or for the kettlebell veteran hone their technique and skills.
Coleman's Laws: The Twelve Medical Truths You Must Know To Survive
Vernon Coleman - 2014
Here's how Dr Coleman describes this book: `However good your doctor is, and however much you may trust him or her, you must share the responsibility for your own health, and you must know when to tell your doctor if you think that the treatment with which he or she is providing you, could be causing problems. After all, if things go wrong, your nice friendly doctor is more likely to kill you than is a burglar a deranged relative or a drunken motorist. Remember: one in six people in hospital are there because they have been made ill by a doctor. I have built this book around ther twelve basic laws of medicine which I have, over the years, formulated for my own benefit as a doctor, an observer and a patient. I have illustrated each of the 12 laws with clinical anecdotes and scientific data.' Here, for example, is Coleman's First Law of Medicine: `If you are receiving treatment for an existing disease and you develop new symptoms then, until proved otherwise, you should assume that the new symptoms are caused by the treatment you are receiving.' Dr Vernon Coleman is the author of over 100 books - many of them international bestsellers. His books have sold over two million copies in hardback and paperback in the UK alone and have been translated into 25 languages. Dr Coleman has written columns and articles for many of the world's leading newspapers and magazines and has presented numerous TV and radio programmes based on his books. In the mid 1980s he devised the world's first medical software for use on home computers. For more information about Dr Coleman's books please see the Vernon Coleman page on Amazon or visit www.vernoncoleman.com What the papers say: Vernon Coleman writes brilliant books - Good Book Guide The calmest voice of reason - The Observer A godsend - Daily Telegraph Brilliant - The People No thinking person can ignore him - The Ecologist Marvellously succinct, refreshingly sensible - The Spectator Probably one of the most brilliant men alive today - Irish Times King of the media docs - The Independent Britain's leading health care campaigner - The Sun Britain's leading medical author - The Star Perhaps the best known health writer for the general public in the world today - The Therapist The patient's champion - Birmingham Post A persuasive writer whose arguments, based on research and experience, are sound - Nursing Standard The doctor who dares to speak his mind - Oxford Mail He writes lucidly and wittily - Good Housekeeping The man is a national treasure - What doctors don't tell you Compulsive reading - The Guardian His message is important - The Economist Revered guru of medicine - Nursing Times His advice is optimistic and enthusiastic - British Medical Journal It's impossible not to be impressed - Western Daily Press Outspoken and alert - Sunday Express Hard hitting - inimitably forthright - Hull Daily Mail Refreshingly forthright - Liverpool Daily Post Dr Coleman made me think again - BBC World Service