Book picks similar to
The Natural History of Madagascar by Steven M. Goodman
science-nature
biology
field-guides
good-animals-books
Ocean Warrior: My Battle to End the Illegal Slaughter on the High Seas
Paul Watson - 1994
He has stood in the path of oncoming icebreakers to protect seal nurseries, and overturned the law that shielded hunters of baby seals from protest and active intervention to stop slaughter. He is the environmentalist who scathingly referred to Greenpeace, an organization he helped found, as "the Avon ladies of the environmental movement." Now he owns a submarine.Why? Paul Watson's unswerving mission is to publicize -- and stop -- the atrocities committed against the creatures who inhabit the world's oceans.His life story is one of a man with more than the courage of his convictions -- time and time again he has risked his life for his beliefs. He rammed the Sierra, a whaling vessel whose masters illegally slaughtered 25,000 whales; he sailed up to a whale processing plant in the former Soviet Union and calmly snapped photographs when confronted with armed guards; he drove a Cuban fishing boat off the Grand Banks to protect the depleted cod population and he founded the radical and confrontationalist Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, after he became disillusioned with Greenpeace tactics.Ocean Warrior is the story of Paul Watson's conservation career -- an amazing chronicle of bravery, horrifying slaughter and international intrigue. A story of passion and principles, it will not easily be forgotten by anyone who cares about the fate of our oceans -- or our planet.
Birder's Handbook: A Field Guide to the Natural History of North American Birds
Paul R. Ehrlich - 1988
The Birder's Handbook is the first of its kind: a portable library of fascinating information not included in your identification guide. For each of the 646 species of birds that breed in North America, The Birder's Handbook will tell you at a glance: * Where the bird nests, and which sex(es) build(s) the nest;* How many eggs the bird lays, what they look like, which patent incubates and for how long, and how the young are cared for;* Food preferences and foraging habits.You will also find information about displays and mating, wintering, conservation status, and much more. In addition, The Birder's Handbook contains some 250 short essays covering all aspects of avian natural history.
Becoming Human: Evolution and Human Uniqueness
Ian Tattersall - 1998
A worldwide tour of discovery, Tattersall takes the reader from 30,000-year-old cave paintings in France and anthropological digs in Africa, to examining human behavior in a New York restaurant. And by offering wisdom gleaned from fossil remains, primate behavior, prehistoric art, and archaeology, Tattersall presents a stunning picture of where humankind evolved, how Darwin's theories have changed, and what we reliably know about modern-day human's capacity for love, language, and thought. Widely praised in the media, and an Amazon.com Top-10 bestseller, Becoming Human is an amazing trip into the past and into the future.
Glacial Lake Missoula: And Its Humongous Flood
David D. Alt - 2001
Harlen Bretz walked the dry scabland channels of eastern Washington in the 1920s, it dawned on him that he was viewing a landscape sculpted by water. Lots of water. A flood of catastrophic proportions. Glacial Lake Missoula and Its Humongous Floods tells the gripping tale of a huge Ice Age lake that drained suddenly--not just once but repeatedly--and reshaped the landscape of the Northwest. The narrative follows the path of the floodwaters as they raged from western Montana across the Idaho Panhandle, then scoured through eastern Washington and down the Columbia Gorge to the Pacific Ocean. This is also the story of geologists grappling with scientific controversy--"of how personalities, pride, and prejudice sometimes superseded scientific evidence."
Tracking and the Art of Seeing: How to Read Animal Tracks and Sign
Paul Rezendes - 1992
Illustrated with hundreds of his original photographs, Tracking & the Art of Seeing provides complete information on the behavior and habitat of over 50 animal species and shows you how to identify animals by their tracks, tail patterns, droppings, dens, scratches and other signs.
Brother Wolf: A Forgotten Promise
Jim Brandenburg - 1993
In a sequel to White Wolf, award-winning nature photographer Jim Brandenburg's powerful narrative--and 140 color photos of timber wolves in their natural habitat--will revolutionize our thinking about wolves, human nature, our primeval past, and the survival of our planet.
Possessing Genius: The True Account of the Bizarre Odyssey of Einstein's Brain
Carolyn Abraham - 2002
He seized the opportunity to do something "noble." Using an electric saw, Harvey sliced through the skull and gingerly removed the organ that would both define and haunt the rest of his life. Harvey struck a controversial deal with Einstein's family to keep the brain, swearing to safeguard it from souvenir hunters and publicity seekers, and to make it available only for serious scientific inquiry. Not a neuroscientist himself, he became the unlikely custodian of this object of intense curiosity and speculation, and the self-styled bulwark against the relentless power of Einstein's growing celebrity. Bridging the post-war era and the new millennium, Possessing Genius is the first comprehensive account of the circuitous path the brain took with Harvey during the decades it remained in his possession. Harvey permitted Einstein's gray matter to be sliced, diced, probed, prodded, and weighed by those hoping to solve the enigma and locate the source of genius itself. The brain was more than a subject of scientific investigation, it was a kind of holy relic; the history of its adventures since 1955 reflects the vicissitudes and vanities underpinning what we believe makes us human. Abraham has gathered together all of the fascinating details and documents of the brain's saga--including previously unpublished correspondence between Harvey and Otto Nathan, the executor of Einstein's estate—and from them woven a story that is both deeply engrossing and highly illuminating.
Silence of the Songbirds: How We Are Losing the World's Songbirds and What We Can Do to Save Them
Bridget Stutchbury - 2007
By some estimates, we may already have lost almost half of the songbirds that filled the skies only forty years ago. Renowned biologist Bridget Stutchbury convincingly argues that songbirds truly are the "canaries in the coal mine"--except the coal mine looks a lot like Earth and we are the hapless excavators.Following the birds on their six-thousand-mile migratory journey, Stutchbury leads us on an ecological field trip to explore firsthand the major threats to songbirds: pesticides, still a major concern decades after Rachel Carson first raised the alarm; the destruction of vital habitat, from the boreal forests of Canada to the diminishing continuous forests of the United States to the grasslands of Argentina; coffee plantations, which push birds out of their forest refuges so we can have our morning fix; the bright lights and structures in our cities, which prove a minefield for migrating birds; and global warming. We could well wake up in the near future and hear no songbirds singing. But we won't just be missing their cheery calls, we'll be missing a vital part of our ecosystem. Without songbirds, our forests would face uncontrolled insect infestations, and our trees, flowers, and gardens would lose a crucial element in their reproductive cycle. As Stutchbury shows, saving songbirds means protecting our ecosystem and ultimately ourselves.Some of the threats to songbirds: - The U.S. annually uses 4-5 million pounds of active ingredient acephate, an insecticide that, even in small quantities, throws off the navigation systems of White-throated sparrows and other songbirds, making them unable to tell north from south. - The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service conservatively estimated that 4-5 million birds are killed by crashing into communication towers each year.- A Michigan study found that 600 domestic cats killed more than 6,000 birds during a typical 10-week breeding season. Wood thrush, Kentucky warbler, the Eastern kingbird--migratory songbirds are disappearing at a frightening rate. By some estimates, we may already have lost almost half of the songbirds that filled the skies only forty years ago. Renowned biologist Bridget Stutchbury convincingly argues that songbirds truly are the "canaries in the coal mine"--except the coal mine looks a lot like Earth and we are the hapless excavators.Following the birds on their six-thousand-mile migratory journey, Stutchbury leads us on an ecological field trip to explore firsthand the major threats to songbirds: pesticides, still a major concern decades after Rachel Carson first raised the alarm; the destruction of vital habitat, from the boreal forests of Canada to the diminishing continuous forests of the United States to the grasslands of Argentina; coffee plantations, which push birds out of their forest refuges so we can have our morning fix; the bright lights and structures in our cities, which prove a minefield for migrating birds; and global warming. We could well wake up in the near future and hear no songbirds singing. But we won't just be missing their cheery calls, we'll be missing a vital part of our ecosystem. Without songbirds, our forests would face uncontrolled insect infestations, and our trees, flowers, and gardens would lose a crucial element in their reproductive cycle. As Stutchbury shows, saving songbirds means protecting our ecosystem and ultimately ourselves.Some of the threats to songbirds: - The U.S. annually uses 4-5 million pounds of active ingredient acephate, an insecticide that, even in small quantities, throws off the navigation systems of White-throated sparrows and other songbirds, making them unable to tell north from south. - The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service conservatively estimated that 4-5 million birds are killed by crashing into communication towers each year.- A Michigan study found that 600 domestic cats killed more than 6,000 birds during a typical 10-week breeding season.
Mushrooms
Roger Phillips - 2006
This volume contains over 1250 photographs of mushrooms and fungi, often showing the specimens in various stages of growth, and including all the latest botanical and common names as well as current ecological information on endangered species.
Applied Biopharmaceutics & Pharmacokinetics
Leon Shargel - 1980
Provies basic theoretical discussions of the principles of biopharmaceutics and pharmacokinetics, along with illustrative examples and practice problems and solutions to help the student gain skill in practical problem solving.
Tower of Babel: The Evidence Against the New Creationism
Robert T. Pennock - 1999
One of Pennock's major innovations is to turn from biological evolution to the less-charged subject of linguistic evolution, which has strong theoretical parallels with biological evolution both in content and in the sort of evidence scientists use to draw conclusions about origins Several chapters deal with the work of Phillip Johnson, a highly influential leader of the new creationists. Pennock explains how science uses naturalism and discusses the relationship between factual and moral issues in the creationism-evolution controversy. The book also includes a discussion of Darwin's own shift from creationist to evolutionist and an extended argument for keeping private religious beliefs separate from public scientific knowledge.
The Particles of the Universe
Jeff Yee - 2012
Everything around us, including matter, is energy. A deep look into the mysteries of the subatomic world – the particles that make up the atom – provides answers to basic questions about how the universe works. To solve the future of mankind’s energy needs we need to understand the basic building blocks of the universe, including the atom and its parts. By exploring the subatomic world we’ll find more answers to our questions about time, forces like gravity and the matter that surrounds us. More importantly, we’ll find new ways to tap into the energy that exists around us to power our growing needs. In a new branch of particle physics, where tiny particles are thought of as energy waves, we find new answers that may help us in our quest to find alternative energy sources.
The Earth Dwellers: Adventures in the Land of Ants
Erich Hoyt - 1996
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.
Jonah Lomu Autobiography
Jonah Lomu - 2004
His size and pace seemed to make him unstoppable - and he was still just 20, having only recently learned to play on the wing. How much better would he get? But a year later, a rare and serious kidney disorder threatened more than his career. He fought back, and continued to score tries at a remarkable rate.Lomu's astonishing story is not just about tries, but about adapting to becoming rugby's first superstar of the professional era, a life lived in the spotlight. This is an extraordinary tale from an extraordinary man.
Galápagos: The Islands That Changed the World
Paul D. Stewart - 2006
Its geology, its unique flora and fauna, and its striking role in human history intersect in surprising and dynamic ways. This book is the most wide-ranging and beautifully illustrated book available on the famous islands. Not since Darwin’s Naturalist’s Voyage has a book combined so much scientific and historic information with firsthand accounts that bring the Galápagos to life.Galápagos: The Islands That Changed the World describes how tragedy and murderous pirates curtailed settlement of the islands and how the islands’ pristine nature, spectacular geology, and defining isolation inspired Darwin’s ideas about evolution. The book explores the diverse land and marine habitats that shelter Galápagos species and considers the islands’ importance today as a frontier for science and a refuge for true wilderness. The book’s extensive gazetteer provides details about endemic plants and animals as well as travel advice about visitors’ sites, diving, photography, when to go, and what to take. Vividly illustrated throughout, this guide is an indispensable reference for natural history enthusiasts, armchair travelers, and island visitors alike.