Showing titles in Nature & Ecology

Lobster has been a phenomenal success story, with a commercial fishery that has generated enormous wealth and fuelled appetites for one of the world’s most recognizable luxury foods. The great lobster boom that began in the 1990s has also led to violent fights over who has the right to catch this valuable seafood, including many Indigenous people in Canada, who until recently have been excluded from this industry. Now overfishing, trade wars, and climate change are threatening the future of this fishery in deeply troubling ways.

In this Very Short Introduction audiobook, Jan Zalasiewicz gives a brief introduction to the fascinating field of geology. Describing how the science developed from its early beginnings, he looks at some of the key discoveries that have transformed it before delving into its various subfields, such as sedimentology, tectonics, and stratigraphy.

Aticia Grey - Teesh as she is known to friends and family - picked up her first team of kelpies in 2013 and has never looked back. In her area of rugged rangeland in West Australia's Pilbara region, mustering with aircraft, buggies and motorbikes has become the norm, alongside horses. But stepping into the world of working dogs, Teesh found herself on a roller-coaster ride of laughter, love, heartbreak - and revelation - as the economic and animal-welfare benefits of handling cattle with skilled herding dogs became clear.

Whales are among the largest, most intelligent, deepest diving species to have ever lived on our planet. We have hunted them for thousands of years and scratched their icons into our mythologies. They simultaneously fill us with waves of terror, awe and affection - yet we know hardly anything about them. Whales tend to enter our awareness only when they die, struck by a ship or stranded in the surf. They evolved from land-roaming, doglike creatures into animals that move like fish and breathe like us and can grow to 300,000 pounds, live 200 years and roam entire ocean basins. Yet despite centuries of observing whales, we know little about their evolutionary past.

A podcast featuring conversations with immunologists from around the globe. Brought to by STEMCELL Technologies.

Tristan Gooley shows how it is possible to achieve a level of outdoors awareness that will enable you to sense direction from stars and plants, forecast weather from woodland sounds and predict the next action of an animal from its body language - instantly. Although once common, this now rare awareness would be labelled by many as a 'sixth sense'.

The podcast for the latest beekeeping news, information and entertainment for today's beekeeper. Hosts Jeff Ott and Becky Masterman bring you conversations with beekeepers, researchers and industry leaders, helping you become a more informed and knowledgeable beekeeper.

In 2011, a young wolf named Slavc set out from Slovenia. Tracked by GPS, he travelled a thousand miles through the Alps, arriving four months later on the Lessinian plateau, north of Verona. There had been no wolves in northern Italy for a century, but here he crossed paths with a female wolf on a walkabout of her own. A decade later and there are more than a hundred wolves back in the area, the result of their remarkable meeting. In Lone Wolf, Weymouth walks Slavc's path, examining the changes facing these wild corners of Europe.

In this inspiring manifesto, an internationally renowned ecologist makes a clear case for why protecting nature is our best health insurance, and why it makes economic sense.

The universal appeal of Laura Ingalls Wilder springs from a life lived in partnership with the land, on farms she and her family settled across the Northeast and Midwest. In this revealing exploration of Wilder's deep connection with the natural world, Marta McDowell follows the wagon trail of the beloved Little House series. You'll learn details about Wilder's life and inspirations, pinpoint the Ingalls and Wilder homestead claims on authentic archival maps, and learn to grow the plants and vegetables featured in the series. Excerpts from Wilder's books, letters, and diaries bring to light her profound appreciation for the landscapes at the heart of her world.

Be More Human explores the importance of reconnecting with our natural state and help us learn how to meet our true needs and live more naturally. Tony Riddle (@thenaturallifestylist) explores how the majority of us do not sit, breathe, eat, sleep or move as nature intended, and so we're actively going against our biology. This audiobook will help us all to reassess our habits and tap back into our natural rhythms and ways of being to optimise our mental and physical wellbeing, reduce stress, sit correctly, breathe better and improve our quality of sleep.

Charlotte Runcie has always felt pulled to the sea, lured by its soothing, calming qualities but also enlivened and inspired by its salty wildness. When she loses her beloved grandmother and becomes pregnant with her first child, she feels its pull even more intensely. In Salt on Your Tongue Charlotte explores what the sea means to us and particularly what it has meant to women through the ages.

The world is overheating, and despite good intentions and significant efforts, emissions increase nearly every year. The challenge is immense, but there are solutions. In this lucid, inspiring essay, Alan Finkel maps Australia’s path forward. He explains the solar and wind revolution and addresses the challenge of intermittent supply. He introduces hydrogen, the energy hope of the future. He traces the rise and rise of the electric car. He shows how we can build a zero-emissions world.

Colleen Patrick-Goudreau, the “Joyful Vegan,” has guided countless individuals through the process of becoming vegan. In The Joyful Vegan, she shares her insights into why some people stay vegan and others don’t. Understanding that the food is the easy part of being vegan, Colleen turns her attention to what she believes is the most challenging - dealing with the social, cultural, and emotional aspects: being asked to defend your eating choices, living with the awareness of animal suffering, feeling the pressure to be perfect, and experiencing guilt, remorse, and anger.

Framed by the author’s personal experience with backyard hens, Chickens: Their Natural and Unnatural Histories explores the history of the chicken from its descent from the dinosaurs to the space-age present. En route, Lembke surveys chickens in ancient Greece, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the 19th century, and modern times, including the role of chickens in Jewish and Muslim practices. She also investigates the birds’ contributions to science and their jaunty appearances in literature.

Voted the greatest English cricketer of the 20th century by the fans, Sir Ian Botham is the English game’s one true living legend, and his story, both on and off the pitch, reads like a Boy’s Own rollercoaster ride. Born with a natural genius for the game, Botham began breaking records with bat and ball from a young age and soon became the man English cricket expected most from. After a troubled period as captain, Botham rose once again to become a national hero with his display in the Miracle Ashes of 1981.

Evolutionary biologist Nathan H. Lents takes listeners on a journey from silent crickets to lesbian albatrosses to bonobos who kiss, revealing what this incredible array of sexual diversity can teach us about our own. Amusing, enlightening and meticulously researched, Lents convincingly shows that diverse genders and sexuality have evolutionary functions far beyond procreation. The Sexual Evolution is a perspective-altering book that advocates understanding and demolishes biases held by even the most open-minded among us.

The Allure of Fungi presents fungi through multiple perspectives–those of mycologists and ecologists, foragers and forayers, naturalists and farmers, aesthetes and artists, philosophers and Traditional Owners. It explores how a history of entrenched fears and misconceptions about fungi has led to their near absence in Australian ecological consciousness and biodiversity conservation.

An accessible and compelling story of a scientist's discovery of plant communication and how it influenced her research and changed her life.

Heatwaves, wildfires, hurricanes and flooding caused by climate change are already impacting people and nature. Adaptation until now has been incremental with governments and institutions tinkering around the edges of current systems. This will not be enough. Sink or Swim explores the hard choices that lie ahead concerning how people earn a living, the way governments manage relationships between countries, and how communities accommodate the movement of people. Should people be encouraged to move away from the coast?