McPhee embarks on a fascinating journey across the basement of the continent -- the land masses forming Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, and thereabouts -- with a professor and geochronologist acting as a guide.

    My objective has been to provide you with a lifetime supply of icebreakers and points of discussion. Amaze your friends and family by telling them that all the planets in our Solar System could fit in the distance between Earth and the Moon or that flamingos can drink boiling water.Following the success of my site RaiseYourBrain, I decided to collect the best trivia gems and present you with a fact compendium suitable for a wide audience. This is the product of years of sifting through history and references books on a myriad of subjects as well as searching the Internet and paying attention to the news.These facts are a result of years of sifting through history and reference books, as well as searching the Internet and researching the news. Each fact is suitable for nearly any age – the “spiciest” entries are separated by their own chapter but still use clean language!Become a trivia whiz with even more facts in the Hard to Believe Facts series!

    And the most surprising revelation about the rules that regulate life at such different scales is that they are remarkably similar--there is a common underlying logic of life. Carroll recounts how our deep knowledge of the rules and logic of the human body has spurred the advent of revolutionary life-saving medicines, and makes the compelling case that it is now time to use the Serengeti Rules to heal our ailing planet.A bold and inspiring synthesis by one of our most accomplished biologists and gifted storytellers, "The Serengeti Rules" is the first book to illuminate how life works at vastly different scales. Read it and you will never look at the world the same way again.

    South, by historian Hunter Stewart, chronicles the competition between two fierce rivals - Robert F. Scott and Roald Amundsen - to secure their place in history as the first man to lead an expedition to the most uninhabitable place on earth. South dramatically tells the story of the quest that is marked by heartbreak, greed, ego, and bravery - not only by Scott and Amundsen but by the courageous crews and financial backers who supported them. The journey to reach the South Pole was truly, as it was later called, "The Heroic Age of Arctic Exploration."

    Contemplation of time and the discoveries of modern science lead to the assertion that the mind is paramount and limitless.

    

    So the next time the fates collide and you're reminded of what a small world it can be, you'll realize we're all victims of coincidence ...

    Compared with birds elsewhere, ours are more likely to be intelligent, aggressive and loud, to live in complex societies, and are long-lived. They're also ecologically more powerful, exerting more influences on forests than other birds.But unlike the mammals, the birds did not keep to Australia; they spread around the globe. Australia provided the world with its songbirds and parrots, the most intelligent of all bird groups. It was thought in Darwin's time that species generated in the Southern Hemisphere could not succeed in the Northern, an idea that was proven wrong in respect of birds in the 1980s but not properly accepted by the world's scientists until 2004 – because, says Tim Low, most ornithologists live in the Northern Hemisphere. As a result, few Australians are aware of the ramifications, something which prompted the writing of this book.Tim Low has a rare gift for illuminating complex ideas in highly readable prose, and making of the whole a dynamic story. Here he brilliantly explains how our birds came to be so extraordinary, including the large role played by the foods they consume (birds, too, are what they eat), and by our climate, soil, fire, and Australia's legacy as a part of Gondwana. The story of its birds, it turns out, is inseparable from the story of Australia itself, and one that continues to unfold, so much having changed in the last decade about what we know of our ancient past. Where Song Began also shines a light on New Guinea as a biological region of Australia, as much a part of the continent as Tasmania. This is a work that goes far beyond the birds themselves to explore the relationships between Australia's birds and its people, and the ways in which scientific prejudice have hindered our understanding.

    A fearless adventurer, his fascination with beautiful women was only trumped by his obsession with the natural world and his lust for scientific knowledge.Fabulously wealthy, Banks was the driving force behind monumental voyages and scientific discoveries in Australia, New Zealand, the South Pacific, Europe, North America, South America, Asia, Africa and the Arctic. In 1768, as a galivanting young playboy, he joined Captain James Cook's Endeavour expedition to the South Pacific. Financing his own team of scientists and artists, Banks battled high seas, hailstorms, treacherous coral reefs and hostile locals to expand the world's knowledge of life on distant shores. He returned with thousands of specimens of plants and animals, generating enormous interest in Europe, while the racy accounts of his amorous adventures in Tahiti made him one of the most famous and notorious men in England.As the longest-serving president of Britain's Royal Society, Banks was perhaps the most important man in the scientific world for more than half a century. It was Banks, one of the first Europeans to set foot on Australia's east coast, who advised Britain to establish a remote penal settlement and strategic base at Botany Bay, and he eventually became the foremost expert on everything Australian. Early governors in the colony answered to him as he set about unleashing Australia's vast potential in agriculture and minerals. For decades, major British voyages of exploration around the globe only sailed with his backing.By award-winning bestselling writer Grantlee Kieza, Banks is a rich and rollicking biography of one of the most colourful and intriguing characters in the history of exploration.

    The author explodes the old orthodoxies and gives us a convincing picture of how dinosaurs hunted, fed, mated, fought and died.Containing over 200 detailed illustrations, The Great Dinosaur Debate will enthrall "dinosaurmaniacs". It is a bold new look at the extraordinary reign and eventual extinction of the awesome behemoths who ruled the earth for 150 million years.

    Horton's experiences being thrown into heavy combat after just a few months of training. Recommended reading for all. Survival against all odds - in the trenches of Vietnam - I still can't believe they get out of there alive - couldn't put it down. This first person narrative of hand-to-hand combat in the trenches of Vietnam left me scared, glad to be alive and eternally grateful to those who died for my freedom Could not put it down - A friend had mentioned this book to me. Once I received it I could not put it down. Jerry Horton joined the army to simply be able to afford to go to college. 40 years later he has a PHD and multiple degrees but they were earned at a heavy price for this patriot. Jerry shares his experiences in Vietnam in an articulate, honest and direct assessment of his time in Vietnam, the men he served with and the horrors of war. Incredible story of leadership and survival. Shake N Bake Sergeant aka Instant NCO - Jerry Horton absolutely nailed the life of a "Shake 'n Bake" Sergeant when he tells the story of dedicated soldiers trained at Fort Benning, GA and then follows them to Vietnam. This book is not only absolutely dead on accurate but gives the reader every aspect of what it was like to experience the war as a Shake 'n Bake Sergeant. Instant NCO's were trained for only one reason - to lead United States soldiers into combat and they did it with heroic efficiency and effectiveness with limited resources. This book is not just a home run - it is a Grand Slam. Interesting, accurate, full of suspense and you can't put it down. This book should be required reading for everyone so they can understand that Freedom is not Free. There is a cost and sometimes that cost is heavy. Horton brings it all across in a nonstop action format. It is a great read! If you really want to know what it was like...This has to be the most realistic 'must read' book to come out of the VN war. If you ever read any book about this war - this is the one to read. You won't put it down and you won't ever forget it! From the book's review by the late COL(R) David Hackworth (most-decorated Vietnam veteran): "In 1968, the U.S. Army was running out of sergeants in Vietnam. Throughout military history, as least as far back as the Revolutionary War, sergeants were the backbone of the Army. This shortage of sergeants meant disaster in Vietnam. The NCO candidate school was created to solve this serious problem by doing one thing - train soldiers to lead men in combat. It was modeled after the Officer's candidate school but streamlined to meet this critical need for leaders in half the time. Graduates were known by most as "Shake 'n Bake Sergeants" or "Instant NCOs" since they got their rank fast from going to school. This book is the first time this important part of American history has ever been published. It is the first time anyone has given credit to Shake 'n Bake Sergeants - a credit that they so greatly deserved. At the time there were many who said they would fail. It seemed many did not respect them even though all were destined for front line positions. The book documents how they proved their worth over and over again as front line infantry leaders even though for thirty some years their sacrifices have been unknown." An unforgettable mixture of vivid realism, poignant sadness and unexpected humor. Once you begin reading The Shake 'n Bake Sergeant, you will find it hard to put it down. See www.shakenbakesergeant.com.

    It is the inside account of the hopes, achievements and bitter failures of the Labor Government from 2007 to 2013. Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard came together to defeat John Howard, formed a brilliant partnership and raised the hopes of the nation. Yet they fell into tension and then hostility under the pressures of politics and policy. Veteran journalist Paul Kelly probes the dynamics of the Rudd–Gillard partnership and dissects what tore them apart. He tells the full story of Julia Gillard’s tragedy as our first female prime minister - her character, Rudd’s destabilisation, the carbon tax saga and how Gillard was finally pulled down on the eve of the 2013 election. Kelly documents the most misunderstood event in these years - the rise of Tony Abbott and the reason for his success. It was Abbott’s performance that denied Rudd and Gillard the chance to recover. Labor misjudged Abbott and paid the price. Kelly writes with a keen eye and fearless determination. His central theme is that Australian politics has entered a crisis of the system that, unless corrected, will diminish the lives of all Australians.

    In just over a year, the Stephens Island Wren, a rare bird endemic to the island, was rendered extinct. Mounting scientific evidence confirms what many conservationists have suspected for some time--that in the United States alone, free-ranging cats are killing birds and other animals by the billions. Equally alarming are the little-known but potentially devastating public health consequences of rabies and parasitic Toxoplasma passing from cats to humans at rising rates. Cat Wars tells the story of the threats free-ranging cats pose to biodiversity and public health throughout the world, and sheds new light on the controversies surrounding the management of the explosion of these cat populations.This compelling book traces the historical and cultural ties between humans and cats from early domestication to the current boom in pet ownership, along the way accessibly explaining the science of extinction, population modeling, and feline diseases. It charts the developments that have led to our present impasse--from Stan Temple's breakthrough studies on cat predation in Wisconsin to cat-eradication programs underway in Australia today. It describes how a small but vocal minority of cat advocates has campaigned successfully for no action in much the same way that special interest groups have stymied attempts to curtail smoking and climate change.Cat Wars paints a revealing picture of a complex global problem--and proposes solutions that foresee a time when wildlife and humans are no longer vulnerable to the impacts of free-ranging cats.

    Because it was extremely difficult to verbalize the events to her own children years later, her adult family knew very little of the details until 30 years after her passing in 1967. That is when her granddaughter discovered her writings and promised to tell the story of what she endured.

    After being freed at the age of 57, she begins a tireless search for her only remaining family member, her daughter Eliza Jane. What Clara accomplishes in her 28 years of freedom will simply astound you! I first wrote about Clara Brown in my book Unbreakable Dolls, Too. This single story eBook is the expanded version, with much more information and 9 photos.