Showing titles in Nature & Ecology

Explorer, naturalist and president of Britain's Royal Society, Sir Joseph Banks was a larger-than-life character best known for his promotion of science. In 1768 Banks joined Captain James Cook's expedition to the South Pacific. The 30,000 specimens he brought back generated enormous interest, as did the sometimes racy written account of the journey, which chronicled his frequent amorous exploits.

An accessible and compelling story of a scientist's discovery of plant communication and how it influenced her research and changed her life. In this "phytobiography"--a collection of stories written in partnership with a plant--research scientist Monica Gagliano reveals the dynamic role plants...

The book that helped make Michael Pollan, the New York Times bestselling author of Cooked and The Omnivore’s Dilemma, one of the most trusted food experts in America In 1637, one Dutchman paid as much for a single tulip bulb as the going price of a town house in Amsterdam. Three and a...

In Forest Euphoria, Kaishian shows us this making of a scientist and introduces listeners to the queerness of all the life around us. Fungal species, we learn, commonly encompass more than two biological sexes—and some as many as twenty-three thousand. Some intersex slugs mutually fire calcium carbonate “love darts” at each other during courtship.

While most of us fly-fish to escape from daily life, for John Gierach and his friends fly-fishing IS a way of life. They are trout bums. But John Gierach is also an exceptional writer. The essays in Trout Bum are reflective, bitingly humorous, and enormously wise in the ways of fishing and men. In vivid, unforgettable detail they recount the emotional, spiritual, and tangible adventures and pleasures of stalking trout in and around the Rockies—day in, day out, from season to season, with friends, and alone.

Filled to the brim with far-out facts, this wickedly informative narrative from the author of National Geographic's popular Gory Details blog takes us on a fascinating journey through an astonishing new reality. Blending humor and journalism in the tradition of Mary Roach, acclaimed science reporter Erika Engelhaupt investigates the gross, strange, and morbid absurdities of our bodies and our universe.

More than a hundred salt lakes dot Earth's surface, most of them hidden away in remote desert valleys. But today nearly all of them are at risk of drying up. Their death is a harbinger of rising sea levels, life-threatening dust storms, and environmental collapse. Writer and geographer Caroline Tracey didn't know this when she began crossing paths with salt lakes during her early twenties. From the Great Salt Lake to the Aral Sea, across the American West and around the world, the unusual beauty of these shimmering, uncanny bodies of water captured her imagination.

Postcontact World is an audiobook podcast exploring what happens after humanity makes open contact with extraterrestrial civilizations. Written and produced by Max Rempel, Ph.D., a molecular geneticist with 4,500+ citations, h-index 21, and publications in Nature and Genome Research, the series presents a detailed, positive, common-sense scenario for the post-disclosure world. Topics span first contact with the Galactic Federation, telepathic awakening and its social consequences, economic transformation without collapse, government restructuring under radical transparency, community ...

The award-winning, New York Times bestselling international sensation hailed as an “instant classic” (Dwight Garner). One of the New York Times's 100 Best Books of the 21st Century One of Kirkus Reviews’s Best Books of the 21st Century One of the New York Times Book Review’s 10 Best...

An Instant New York Times Bestseller From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Braiding Sweetgrass, a bold and inspiring vision for how to orient our lives around gratitude, reciprocity, and community, based on the lessons of the natural world. As Indigenous scientist and author of...

New York Times Bestseller Winner of the National Outdoor Book Award Winner of the Saroyan International Prize for Writing Winner of the Pacific Northwest Book Award “The best outdoors book of the year.” —Sierra Club From a talent who’s been compared to Annie Dillard...

One of Scientific American and The Times (London)’s Best Books of 2024 From one of the world’s leading climate scientists, a heart- and mind-changing book that offers a hopeful and attainable vision for restoring the atmosphere and ending the climate crisis. Climate change is here. From the...

From the bestselling author of The Clockwork Universe and The Writing of the Gods, an “utterly delightful…hugely entertaining” (Air Mail) book about the eccentric Victorians who discovered dinosaur bones, leading to a whole new understanding of human history. In the early 1800s the natural...

A compelling global exploration of nature and survival as seen via a dozen species of trees, offering “extensive insight into the ways in which humans and trees are interconnected” (BookPage), revealing the challenges facing our planet and how scientists are working urgently to save our...

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE The 10th Anniversary Edition of the powerful and important work about the future of the world, blending intellectual and natural history and field reporting into a compelling account of the mass extinction unfolding before our eyes. Over the last half a billion years...

*Winner of the Penn Libraries Book Prize in Sustainability* *Named a Best Book of the Year by Scientific American* This timely and captivating look at the hidden impact of light pollution is “rich in revelation and insight…lyrical” (The Wall Street Journal) and urges us to cherish natural...

National Book Award finalist Breathless tells the story of the worldwide scientific race to decipher the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, trace its source, and make possible the vaccines to fight the Covid-19 pandemic—a “luminous, passionate account of the defining crisis of our time” (The New York...

From historian and critically acclaimed author of The Three-Cornered War comes the captivating story of how Yellowstone became the world’s first national park in the years after the Civil War, offering “a fresh, provocative study…departing from well-trodden narratives about conservation...

A firsthand exploration of the extraordinary abilities and surprising, sometimes life-saving talents of “working dogs”—pups who can sniff out drugs, find explosives, even locate the dead—as told through the experiences of a journalist and her intrepid canine companion, which The New York...

From meteorologist and Peabody Award–winning journalist Bonnie Schneider, an innovative look at how climate change is already threatening our mental and physical health and practical tips for you to tackle these challenges head on. The impacts of climate change have become dire. Rising...