For a start, pigs have it, sheep don’t; that is, that special quality of intelligence, a sense of play, and a gregariousness that make these tragically misunderstood—yet no less endearing—creatures more like us than any other animal. Best-selling author Lyall Watson takes a delightful look at the occasionally amusing, often instructive, and completely admirable qualities of pigs in this indispensable book, not only for everyone interested in natural history but also for fans of Babe, lovers of Piglet, readers of Charlotte’s Web and Animal Farm, gourmands and truffle hunters, folklorists, and, of course, believers in meaningful interspecies communication.The book is filled with both realistic and wonderfully fanciful illustrations of pigs that illuminate everything you could possibly want to know about the extraordinary family of Suids, from their origins and evolution, rich social lives, and combat strategies, to their special relationship with truffles, popularity in art and literature, and increasing use today in cutting-edge medical transplant technology.

    They have also become vibrant educational centers, full of engaging exhibits that share those discoveries with students and an enthusiastic general public.   At the heart of it all from the very start have been curators. Yet after three decades as a natural history curator, Lance Grande found that he still had to explain to people what he does. This book is the answer—and, oh, what an answer it is: lively, exciting, up-to-date, it offers a portrait of curators and their research  like none we’ve seen, one that conveys the intellectual excitement and the educational and social value of curation. Grande uses the personal story of his own career—most of it spent at Chicago’s storied Field Museum—to structure his account as he explores the value of research and collections, the importance of public engagement, changing ecological and ethical considerations, and the impact of rapidly improving technology. Throughout, we are guided by Grande’s keen sense of mission, of a job where the why is always as important as the what.   This beautifully written and richly illustrated book is a clear-eyed but loving account of natural history museums, their curators, and their ever-expanding roles in the twenty-first century.

    Whether studying biology on your own or enrolled in a course in high school or college, you will find this book indispensable.More than 50% of your brain is devoted to vision and movement. Use the unique and highly effective Coloring Concepts method to experience for yourself how the action of coloring allows for more complete understanding than passive reading. Allow yourself to be tutored step-by-step through the fundamental concepts of biology and the evidence and reasoning processes which lead to them, while the colors and your movements form strong mental associations which greatly improve comprehension and memory. Students will learn:About the basic chemistry of lifeHow organisms fit into their environmentsClassification and organization of animalsIntroductory genetics and the genetic codeNucleic acids: DNA and RNAThe Scientific Method; Observations and Hypotheses

    This riveting narrative offers an account of COVID-19, reminding us of women's leadership and resilience, reflecting back hope and humanity as we all figure out a new normal, together. Throughout history, men have fought, lost, and led us through the world's defining crises. That all changed with COVID-19. In Canada, women's presence in the response to the pandemic has been notable. Women are our nurses, doctors, PSWs. Our cashiers, long-haulers, cooks. In Canada, women are leading the fast-paced search for a vaccine. They are leading our provinces and territories. At home, they are leading families through self-isolation, often bearing the responsibility for their physical and emotional health. They are figuring out what working from home looks like, and many of them are doing it while homeschooling their kids. Women crafted the blueprint for kindness during the pandemic, from sewing masks to kicking off international mutual-aid networks. And, perhaps not surprisingly, women have also suffered some of the biggest losses, bearing the brunt of our economic skydive. Through intimate portraits of Canadian women in diverse situations and fields, Women of the Pandemic is a gripping narrative record of the early months of COVID-19, a clear-eyed look at women's struggles, which highlights their creativity, perseverance, and resilience as they charted a new path forward during impossible times.

    It sustainably provided enough food to allow cities, nations, and empires to grow, but it did so with a different emphasis. Where agriculture encouraged stability, fishing demanded movement. It frequently required a search for new and better fishing grounds; its technologies, centered on boats, facilitated movement and discovery; and fish themselves, when dried and salted, were the ideal food—lightweight, nutritious, and long-lasting—for traders, travelers, and conquering armies. This history of the long interaction of humans and seafood tours archaeological sites worldwide to show readers how fishing fed human settlement, rising social complexity, the development of cities, and ultimately the modern world.

    A narrative masterpiece and a naturalist’s delight, The Hidden Life of Deer is based on the twelve months Thomas, a renowned anthropologist, spent studying the local deer population near her home in New Hampshire.

    It remains an elementary and non-mathematical introduction to molecular spectroscopy that emphasizes the overall unity of the subject and offers a pictorial perception rather than a mathematical description of the principles of spectroscopy.

    This introduction to the life of the past as revealed through fossils includes:-Descriptions of the typical plants and animals of major geological eras-Maps showing where fossils can be found-The history of the development of life on earthFull-color illustrations and concise information make this an invaluable and enjoyable guide to a fascinating subject.

    

    South Asians, who are predominantly Indians and Pakistanis, make up one-third of the world's population and have the highest prevalence of heart disease and diabetes. Dr. Ronesh Sinha, an internal medicine specialist in Silicon Valley, CA, recipient of the 2013 Silicon Valley Business Journal Health Care hero award, and TEDx speaker, specializes in helping patients of South Asian heritage moderate heart disease risk factors and obesity trends with a comprehensive lifestyle modification approach that has delivered exceptional results.Dr. Sinha's The South Asian Health Solution is the first book to provide an ancestral health-based wellness plan culturally tailored for South Asians. In particular, South Asians living outside of India in countries such as the United States, England, and Canada, show an even greater disease risk due to their immersion into western dietary and lifestyle habits.The book covers some of the following topics: South Asian-specific risk factors and how to accurately interpret cholesterol and body composition readings; Key lifestyle changes for weight loss and disease prevention; Three common cultural myths that lead to unhealthy habits; How to effectively manage sleep, stress and fatigue; And specific tips for women, children, and seniors.The South Asian Health Solution explains complex medical circumstances and terminology in an easy to understand voice, allowing the reader to grasp the how's and why's of dietary and lifestyle modification to prevent disease. The book dispenses practical dietary and medical advice, based on proven techniques used in the author's South Asian consult practice and company wellness programs, that recognizes and respects unique South Asian cultural challenges and barriers that can often hinder progress. Each chapter features a detailed case study of one of Dr. Sinha's actual patients (names changed), lending authenticity and real-life application to the material covered, and ends with a checklist for patients, healthcare providers, and even companies looking to keep their South Asian employees healthy.

    And yet there is one creature that is thriving in this seasick environment: the beautiful, dangerous, and now incredibly numerous jellyfish. As foremost jellyfish expert Lisa-ann Gershwin describes in Stung!, the jellyfish population bloom is highly indicative of the tragic state of the world’s ocean waters, while also revealing the incredible tenacity of these remarkable creatures. Recent documentaries about swarms of giant jellyfish invading Japanese fishing grounds and summertime headlines about armadas of stinging jellyfish in the Mediterranean and Chesapeake are only the beginning—jellyfish are truly taking over the oceans. Despite their often dazzling appearance, jellyfish are simple creatures with simple needs: namely, fewer predators and competitors, warmer waters to encourage rapid growth, and more places for their larvae to settle and grow. In general, oceans that are less favorable to fish are more favorable to jellyfish, and these are the very conditions that we are creating through mechanized trawling, habitat degradation, coastal construction, pollution, and climate change. Despite their role as harbingers of marine destruction, jellyfish are truly enthralling creatures in their own right, and in Stung!, Gershwin tells stories of jellyfish both attractive and deadly while illuminating many interesting and unusual facts about their behaviors and environmental adaptations. She takes readers back to the Proterozoic era, when jellyfish were the top predator in the marine ecosystem—at a time when there were no fish, no mammals, and no turtles; and she explores the role jellies have as middlemen of destruction, moving swiftly into vulnerable ecosystems. The story of the jellyfish, as Gershwin makes clear, is also the story of the world’s oceans, and Stung! provides a unique and urgent look at their inseparable histories—and future.

    Experienced birders use the most easily observed characteristics — size, structure, behavior, and general color patterns — to identify birds even before looking carefully at plumage details. Now birders at all levels can learn how to identify shorebirds quickly and simply. This guide includes more than 870 stunning color photographs, starting with a general impression of the species and progressing to more detailed images of the bird throughout its life cycle. Quiz questions in the captions will engage and challenge all birders and help them benefit from this simplified, commonsense approach to identification.

    The biological world under our toes is often unexplored and unappreciated, yet it teems with life. In one square meter of earth, there lives trillions of bacteria, millions of nematodes, hundreds of thousands of mites, thousands of insects and worms, and hundreds of snails and slugs. But because of their location and size, many of these creatures are as unfamiliar and bizarre to us as anything found at the bottom of the ocean.Lavishly illustrated with nearly three hundred color illustrations and masterfully-rendered black and white drawings throughout, Life in the Soil invites naturalists and gardeners alike to dig in and discover the diverse community of creatures living in the dirt below us.  Biologist and acclaimed natural history artist James B. Nardi begins with an introduction to soil ecosystems, revealing the unseen labors of underground organisms maintaining the rich fertility of the earth as they recycle nutrients between the living and mineral worlds. He then introduces readers to a dazzling array of creatures: wolf spiders with glowing red eyes, snails with 120 rows of teeth, and 10,000-year-old fungi, among others. Organized by taxon, Life in the Soil covers everything from slime molds and roundworms to woodlice and dung beetles, as well as vertebrates from salamanders to shrews. The book ultimately explores the crucial role of soil ecosystems in conserving the worlds above and below ground.A unique and illustrative introduction to the many unheralded creatures that inhabit our soils and shape our environment aboveground, Life in the Soil will inform and enrich the naturalist in all of us.

    But what was it really like to be a Neandertal? How were their lives similar to or different from ours?In How to Think Like a Neandertal, archaeologist Thomas Wynn and psychologist Frederick L. Coolidge team up to provide a brilliant account of the mental life of Neandertals, drawing on the most recent fossil and archaeological remains. Indeed, some Neandertal remains are not fossilized, allowingscientists to recover samples of their genes--one specimen had the gene for red hair and, more provocatively, all had a gene called FOXP2, which is thought to be related to speech. Given the differences between their faces and ours, their voices probably sounded a bit different, and the range ofconsonants and vowels they could generate might have been different. But they could talk, and they had a large (perhaps huge) vocabulary--words for places, routes, techniques, individuals, and emotions. Extensive archaeological remains of stone tools and living sites (and, yes, they did often livein caves) indicate that Neandertals relied on complex technical procedures and spent most of their lives in small family groups. The authors sift the evidence that Neandertals had a symbolic culture--looking at their treatment of corpses, the use of fire, and possible body coloring--and concludethat they probably did not have a sense of the supernatural. The book explores the brutal nature of their lives, especially in northwestern Europe, where men and women with spears hunted together for mammoths and wooly rhinoceroses. They were pain tolerant, very likely taciturn, and not easy toexcite.Wynn and Coolidge offer here an eye-opening portrait of Neandertals, painting a remarkable picture of these long-vanished people and providing insight, as they go along, into our own minds and culture.

    Google Hacking teaches people how to get the most out of this revolutionary search engine. Not only will this book teach readers how Google works, but it will also empower them with the necessary skills to make their everyday searches easier, more efficient, and more productive. Google Hacking also demonstrates how Google can be used for negative means. It's immense searching power, means that everyone, including cyber criminals, can feasibly access confidential data, such as company presentations, budgets, blueprints, even credit card numbers, with just the click of a mouse. Using numerous examples, case studies, and screenshots, this book explains the art of ethical Google Hacking -- it not only teaches readers how Google works, but it provides them with the knowledge they need to protect their data and systems from getting Google Hacked. This is the only book you need to maximize (and protect yourself) from Google searches!