Natural Science

In Footprints: In Search of Future Fossils, the award-winning author David Farrier explores the traces we will leave for the very distant future. Modern civilization has created objects and landscapes with the potential to endure through deep time, whether it is plastic polluting the oceans and nuclear waste sealed within the earth or the 30 million miles of roads spanning the planet.

Botany was the darling and the powerhouse of the 18th century. As European ships ventured across the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans, discovery bloomed. Bounties of new plants were brought back, and their arrival meant much more than improved flowerbeds - it offered a new scientific frontier that would transform Europe’s industry, medicine, eating and drinking habits, and even fashion.

Over the past decade, Kevin Alexander saw American dining turned on its head. Starting in 2006, the food world underwent a transformation as the established gatekeepers of American culinary creativity in New York City and the Bay Area were forced to contend with Portland, Oregon. Its new, no-holds-barred, casual fine-dining style became a template for other cities, and a culinary revolution swept across America. Traditional ramen shops opened in Oklahoma City. Craft cocktail speakeasies appeared in Boise. Poke bowls sprung up in Omaha.

From a much-loved expert and popular science writer comes this straight-from-the-trenches report on how and why folks from all walks of life are using magic mushrooms to enhance their lives.

For me, Cassandra Thorn, being born as a human, raised by an elite group of supernaturals, and struggling to reach my 20th birthday was far more fun than this. Then again, anything would be. In this case, "this" refers to being taken against my will - kidnapped - and trapped in an underground lab for supernatural shifters. Pretty ridiculous, considering I was a mere mortal. Or so I was told. Turns out there are a lot of things I was told, not all of them true.

Bounty hunter John Smoke never liked the rules. As a result of his overly aggressive - and often illegal - arrest methods, he ended up behind bars. But the Bureau won't let him be. Placed in the able care of beautiful, tough-as-nails Sidney Shaw, his new FBI handler, Smoke needs to alter his loose-cannon ways to remain a free man. But there is an unchecked evil festering deep in the heart of the nation's capital, a shadow conspiracy that won't be defeated with a by-the-book approach to law enforcement.

Countless reports from credible individuals suggest that something shocking may be stalking the woods of the southern United States—something massive, bipedal, and covered in hair. Tales of these Southern Sasquatch creatures—such as the one made famous by the 1972 horror movie The Legend of Boggy Creek—date back to the very origins of Deep South history and are reported even today.

Eco-friendly living made simple. As a lifestyle guide and an introduction to sustainable living, Sustainable Badass shows you why and how to minimize your consumption while effortlessly making your habits greener.

The never-before-told story of the horned rabbit - the myths, the hoaxes, the very real scientific breakthrough it inspired - and how it became a cultural touchstone of the American West.

The Self Delusion is an explosive, powerful and inspiring book that brings together overwhelming evidence against the illusion we have of ourselves as independent beings - and explains how understanding our many connections may be the key to a better future.

With A Furious Sky, Eric Jay Dolin has created a vivid, sprawling account of our encounters with hurricanes, from the nameless storms that threatened Columbus's New World voyages to the destruction wrought in Puerto Rico by Hurricane Maria. Weaving a story of shipwrecks and devastated cities, of heroism and folly, Dolin introduces a rich cast of unlikely heroes and puts us in the middle of the most devastating storms of the past, none worse than the Galveston Hurricane of 1900, which killed at least 6,000 people, the highest toll of any natural disaster in American history.

A journey around the United States in search of the truth about the threat of earthquakes leads to spine-tingling discoveries, unnerving experts, and ultimately the kind of preparations that will actually help guide us through disasters. It's a road trip full of surprises.

The author of Last Train to Paradise tells the story of the largest public water project ever created - William Mulholland's Los Angeles aqueduct - a story of Gilded Age ambition, hubris, greed, and one determined man whose vision shaped the future and continues to impact us today.

The ocean teems with life that thrives under difficult situations in unusual environments. The Extreme Life of the Sea takes listeners to the absolute limits of the ocean world - the fastest and deepest, the hottest and oldest creatures of the oceans. It dives into the icy Arctic and boiling hydrothermal vents - and exposes the eternal darkness of the deepest undersea trenches - to show how marine life thrives against the odds. This thrilling book brings to life the sea's most extreme species, and tells their stories as characters in the drama of the oceans.

In this informative and highly entertaining account, intrepid science reporter Florence Williams sets out to uncover the latest scientific findings from the fields of anthropology, biology, and medicine. Her investigation follows the life cycle of the breast from puberty to pregnancy to menopause, taking her from a plastic surgeon's office, where she learns about the importance of cup size in Texas, to the laboratory, where she discovers the presence of environmental toxins in her own breast milk.

Lakes might be the most misunderstood bodies of water on earth. And while they may seem commonplace, without lakes our world would never be the same. In this revealing look at these lifegiving treasures, John Richard Saylor shows us just how deep our connection to still waters run.

Mage Kermon struggles to stay loyal to Mielitta, the Queen of the Warrior Bees, in the ongoing war between the oppressive Citadel and the vibrant Forest. His secret dual role in the Citadel is threatened when his students trespass into the mysterious world beyond the walls and, in the back-stabbing climate of Citadel politics, he’s the sacrifice everyone is prepared to make. Little do those around him know that the future of both Forest and Citadel depends on his survival.

Offering a bold new understanding of who we are, where we came from, and where we are going, noted ecologist Mark Bertness argues that human beings and their civilization are the products of the same self-organization, evolutionary adaptation, and natural selection processes that have created all other life on Earth. Bertness follows the evolutionary process from the primordial soup of two billion years ago through today, exploring the ways opposing forces of competition and cooperation have led to current assemblages of people, animals, and plants.

Alfred Russel Wallace will forever be rightfully cited along with Charles Darwin as the codiscoverer of natural selection, even if in his later writings (like Newton before him), he wishes to see a “super” natural teleology behind the universe's unfolding. Wallace began attending various spiritualist and psychic gatherings. Ever the fieldworker, Wallace wanted to see for himself what evidence there was for the supernatural. The following excerpts are a glimpse of Wallace's passionate interest in his subject.

Nate Temple and his pal, Alucard, just want a little peace and quiet after the events of Tiny Gods, but it just isn't in the cards for them. Tory leaves town and asks them to watch over the rebellious Reds. But they have other plans. When love is in the air, there is nothing a teenager wouldn't do. And there is nothing a dad wouldn't do to keep them safe. Even if it involves a Johnson Beaver concert, a magical djinn, and a herd of centaurs.