Natural Science

When twenty-two-year-old aspiring geologist Charles Darwin boarded HMS Beagle in 1831 with his microscopes and specimen bottles—invited by ship’s captain Robert FitzRoy who wanted a travel companion at least as much as a ship’s naturalist—he hardly thought he was embarking on what would become perhaps the most important and epoch-changing voyage in scientific history.

With Earth's acclimatization year ticking away, Marc and his party share the desire to grow stronger. Based on their previous experiences, they theorize where they might find spawns that would be powerful enough to give them good experience, then head out to prove their theory. Along the way they discover another fairly large Safe Zone with a population of hundreds of people. On their return to their home Safe Zone, Marc finds that he's received messages from powerful, potential allies from off world. Allies who are aware of the satellite and what it's been doing.

An American epic of science, politics, race, honor, high society, and the Mississippi River, Rising Tide tells the riveting and nearly forgotten story of the greatest natural disaster this country has ever known, the Mississippi flood of 1927. The river inundated the homes of nearly one million people, helped elect Huey Long governor and made Herbert Hoover president, drove hundreds of thousands of blacks north, and transformed American society and politics forever.

Next to a continent or in the middle of the ocean, all islands are surrounded by water. These landforms can be rock, sand, or even coral. Listen to Islands to learn about life on these isolated places.

In Monarchs and Milkweed, Anurag Agrawal presents a vivid investigation into how the monarch butterfly has evolved closely alongside the milkweed - a toxic plant named for the sticky white substance emitted when its leaves are damaged - and how this inextricable and intimate relationship has been like an arms race over the millennia, a battle of exploitation and defense between two fascinating species.

Picture an early scene from The Wizard of Oz: Dorothy hurries home as a tornado gathers in what was once a clear Kansas sky. Hurriedly, she seeks shelter in the storm cellar under the house, but, finding it locked, takes cover in her bedroom. We all know how that works out for her.Many investors these days are a bit like Dorothy, putting their faith in something as solid and trustworthy as a house (or, say, real estate). But market disruptions - storms - seem to arrive without warning, leaving us little time to react.

In early May of 2005, Captain Tom Tighe and first mate, Loch Reidy, of the sailboat Almeisan welcomed three new crew members, two men and a woman, for a five-day voyage from Connecticut to Bermuda. While Tighe and Reidy had made the journey countless times, the rest of the crew were paying passengers learning about offshore sailing—and looking for adventure. Four days into their voyage, they got adventure but nothing that they had expected or had any training to handle.

For Marc and his party, their current quest seems to drag on and on. Clearing the Labyrinth, defeating Circe, destroying Medusa, and more have become a grind. The main factor that keeps them going is that Zeus is keeping his promise by helping their levels shoot up. Meanwhile, Marc's Safe Zone, Any Port, and the accompanying Safe Zone network continue expanding and growing. They keep him busy whenever he manages to get back home on breaks from the quest.

Increasingly, cracks are appearing in the capacity of communities, ecosystems, and landscapes to provide the goods and services that sustain our planet's well-being. The response from most quarters has been for "more of the same" that created the situation in the first place: more control, more intensification, and greater efficiency. "Resilience thinking" offers a different way of understanding the world and a new approach to managing resources. It embraces human and natural systems as complex entities continually adapting through cycles of change.

Fatal Forecast chronicles a dramatic fight for survival aboard two small fishing boats that were ambushed by a horrific surprise storm just southeast of Cape Cod. Soon after the Fair Wind and the Sea Fever reached the fishing ground at Georges Bank, they were hit with hurricane-force winds and massive 90-foot waves that battered the boats for hours. The direction of the wind made it impossible to turn back.

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.

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.

When her sister drowned, Azure Galanides was given a choice: sell her soul or let the child die. The decision was simple, and Daneliya lived, but the consequences were worse than she had imagined. Azure became a slave, turned into one of the Sea Goddess’ murderous mermaids. From caregiver to killer, regret became her constant companion, and hope was a long-forgotten stranger. She didn’t deserve redemption. At least, that was what she thought until she met Elios. But the Goddess would stop at nothing to snuff out Azure’s life, and by helping her, Elios put a target on his back.

In Dragons in the Snow, Power delves into the research and science behind avalanche forecasting and rescue, weaving in the art of backcountry skiing as well as dramatic tales of avalanche accidents, rescues, and recoveries. And he paints compelling portraits of the men and women who have made the study of avalanches their life's work. The tales told by these avalanche forecasters, as well as the stories of the backcountry riders who may "wake the dragon" make for not just a compelling listen, but also a powerful tool for raising avalanche awareness.

With health and sustainability at the forefront of our minds, more and more people are hitting the woodlands and foraging for edible goodies every day. But if you're new to the foraging game, you're probably a little nervous about how you can be sure you're finding the edible gold...and not the toxic imposters. Being able to identify mushrooms confidently and accurately is a crucial part of foraging—and it's only when you can do this that the real fun can begin.

Let’s see, my hired hunter has decided I’m his mate, my twin sister is blaming me for her abduction, a crazy and dangerous supernatural is now after my magic, and I’m somehow supposed to keep running Practically Perfect despite the disaster that is my life. Sigh...I just can’t win, especially when the crazy supernatural comes looking for me and my hired hunter goes into full-blown territorial werewolf mode. Did I mention that I haven’t accepted his mating bond? Now, it’s getting real, especially when I learn that my hunter has kept a very dark secret from me....

Ofelia Archer is the French Quarter’s favorite witch. That comes with a lot of problems, however. With her fiancé Zach Sully at her side, and a bevy of other magical folk serving as backup, Ofelia will take on the evil that comes to New Orleans while embracing the light and magic. There’s a lot of both.

J. M. Adovasio has spent the last thirty years at the center of one of our most fiery scientific debates: Who were the first humans in the Americas, and how and when did they get there? At its heart, The First Americans is the story of the revolution in thinking that Adovasio and his fellow archaeologists have brought about, and the firestorm it has ignited.

America was built on white pine. From the 1600s through the Civil War and beyond, it was used to build the nation's ships and houses, barns, and bridges. Yet this popularity came at a cost: by the end of the nineteenth century, clear cutting had decimated much of America's white pine forests. In White Pine, ecologist and writer John Pastor takes listeners on walk through history, connecting the white pine forests that remain today to a legacy of destruction and renewal.

In the span of five violent hours on August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina destroyed major Gulf Coast cities and flattened 150 miles of coastline. Yet those wind-torn hours represented only the first stage of the relentless triple tragedy that Katrina brought to the entire Gulf Coast from Louisiana to Mississippi to Alabama.