Natural Science

This is the third and last of Sir David’s great natural history books based on his TV series and completes his survey of the animal world that began with Life on Earth and continues with Living Planet. In Life on Earth, Sir David showed how each group of animals evolved. In Living Planet he looked at the way they have adapted to the whole range of habitats in which they live. Now, in Trials of Life, he completes the story by revealing how animals behave – and why.

For nearly a decade, Palley has been on the frontline of fire. He has witnessed homeowners on the worst day of their lives. He’s seen puddles of aluminum where cars were once parked. He’s watched as 150-foot walls of flame cascaded down mountainsides and crashed into the Pacific Ocean. And he’s captured, time and again, the tireless commitment of firefighters as they work to save lives and homes, in terrain where fire always seems to have the upper hand.

In The Marsh Builders, Sharon Levy delves into the intertwined histories of wetlands loss and water pollution. The book's springboard is the tale of a years-long citizen uprising in Humboldt County, California, which led to the creation of one of the first US wetlands designed to treat city sewage. The book explores the global roots of this local story: the cholera epidemics that plagued 19th-century Europe; the researchers who invented modern sewage treatment after bumbling across the insight that microbes break down pollutants in water; and more.

Ten thousand years after humans figured out how to stop wandering and plant crops, veteran investigative journalist Mark Schapiro plunges into the struggle already underway for control of seeds, the ground-zero ingredient for our food. Three-quarters of the seed varieties on Earth in 1900 had become extinct by 2015. In Seeds of Resistance, Schapiro takes us onto the frontlines of a struggle over the seeds that remain, one that will determine the long-term security of our food supply in the face of unprecedented climate volatility. More than half of all commercially-traded seeds have fallen under the control of just three multinational agri-chemical companies....

Maddison James is about to discover some truths about the world. Firstly...supernaturals exist. WTF? Secondly...she is one, even though no one seems to know exactly what kind. Double WTF. Thirdly...she’s about to go back to school. Well, things just got a little more interesting. The Supernatural Academy is where shifters, vampires, magic users, and fey are educated. Where they are taught about their abilities, and how to function in the human world. Maddison already has the human part down, but this supernatural thing is an entirely new dangerous game.

The world is changing at a relentless pace. How can we slow down and act from a place of respect for all living things? The Sacred Balance shows us how.

Earth evolves. From first atom to molecule, mineral to magma, granite crust to single cell to verdant living landscape, ours is a planet constantly in flux. In this radical new approach to Earth’s biography, senior Carnegie Institution researcher and national best-selling author Robert M. Hazen reveals how the co-evolution of the geosphere and biosphere - of rocks and living matter - has shaped our planet into the only one of its kind in the Solar System, if not the entire cosmos.

After finding her brother and saving the entire supernatural world, Amari Peters is convinced her first full summer as a Junior Agent will be a breeze. But between the fearsome new Head Minister’s strict anti-magician agenda, fierce Junior Agent rivalries, and her brother Quinton’s curse steadily worsening, Amari’s plate is full. So when the secretive League of Magicians offers her a chance to stand up for magiciankind as its new leader, she declines. She’s got enough to worry about!

During the real estate crash of the late 2000s, Christopher Brown purchased an empty lot in an industrial section of Austin, Texas. The property—a brownfield site bisected with an abandoned petroleum pipeline and littered with concrete debris and landfill trash—was an unlikely site for a home. Along with his son, Brown had explored similar empty lots around Austin, so-called “ruined” spaces once used for agriculture and industry awaiting their redevelopment as Austin became a 21st century boom town.

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.

Roderick Nash's classic study of changing attitudes toward wilderness during American history, as well as the origins of the environmental and conservation movements, has received wide acclaim since its initial publication in 1967. For the fifth edition, Nash has written a new preface and epilogue that brings Wilderness and the American Mind into dialogue with contemporary debates about wilderness.

Rescue of the Bounty is the harrowing story of the sinking and rescue of Bounty - the tall ship used in the classic 1962 film Mutiny on the Bounty - which was caught in the path of Hurricane Sandy with 16 aboard.

On March 10, 1920, in Pachuca, Mexico, the Compañía de Santa Gertrudis may have committed murder. The alert was first raised at six in the morning: A fire was tearing through the El Bordo mine. After a brief evacuation, the mouths of the shafts were sealed. Company representatives hastened to assert that “no more than 10” men remained inside the mineshafts, and that all 10 were most certainly dead. Yet when the mine was opened six days later, the death toll was not 10 but 87. And there were seven survivors.

Eating one's own kind is a completely natural behavior in thousands of species, including humans. Throughout history we have engaged in cannibalism for reasons related to famine, burial rites, and medicine. Cannibalism has also been used as a form of terrorism and as the ultimate expression of filial piety. With unexpected wit and a wealth of knowledge, Bill Schutt takes us on a tour of the field, exploring exciting new avenues of research and investigating questions like why so many fish eat their offspring and some amphibians consume their mothers' skin.

Did you know that numerous scientific studies have confirmed the mental and physical health benefits of consuming psilocybin mushrooms? We will look at the health, medical, and work-related benefits of microdosing psilocybin and show you how you can acquire psilocybin to get started on your journey to a better you! Microdosing psilocybin isn’t just for tech professionals and artists. The cat is out of the bag...the only question is, how can psilocybin improve you? After listening to this book, you will be able to make an informed decision on whether microdosing is right for you!

There are many amazing sights to be seen in the sky. In the daytime there may be unusual cloud formations, rainbows, and moonbows. At night you might see a comet, meteorites, or the Aurora Borealis. The Science Behind Wonders in the Sky looks at some of these phenomena, explaining how and why they occur.

When the formidable power of Jessa Lebron's mark was unleashed during her impulsive foray into Vanguard, the American supernatural prison, she learned the truth. She's a dual shifter: wolf and, as an added bonus, dragon - of the fluffy persuasion. Yep, she's one special cupcake. Now, pursued by the Four, powerful hunters of the dragon marked, she has no choice but to run.

A Natural History of North American Trees gives us a picture of life in America from its earliest days to the middle of the last century. The information is always interesting, though often heartbreaking. While Peattie looks for the better side of man's nature, he reports sorrowfully on the greed and waste that have doomed so much of America's virgin forest.

In this classic work, Leo Strauss examines the problem of natural right and argues that there is a firm foundation in reality for the distinction between right and wrong in ethics and politics. On the centenary of Strauss's birth, and the fiftieth anniversary of the Walgreen Lectures which spawned the work, Natural Right and History remains as controversial and essential as ever.

From the National Book Award-winning writer, humanitarian, environmentalist and author of the now-classic Arctic Dreams: a vivid, poetic, capacious work that recollects the travels around the world and the encounters - human, animal, and natural - that have shaped his extraordinary life. Poignantly, powerfully, it also asks "How do we move forward?" Taking us nearly from pole to pole - from modern megacities to some of the most remote regions on the earth - Barry Lopez gives us his most far-ranging yet personal work to date.