Nonfiction Science

When the platypus was first discovered by Europeans in the 1800s, it was well-known by Australian Aborigines - but no one knew how to classify it. It lived in the water and laid eggs like a reptile, had a bill like a bird, and was furry and warm-blooded like a mammal. Scientists had to come up with a way to solve this and many other mysteries of nature. Alaskan Polar bears sleeping in hidden underground dens caused problems for researchers wanting to drill for oil without disturbing the bears. Find out how scientists used infrared imaging to see the caves beneath the snow.

Ernest Seton's stories reach, inside the animals he writes about in telling their stories. He gives us a greater understanding of their lives on planet earth. Adventure, comedy and sadness all intertwine to make these stories hard to put down until the last word...

Any misunderstandings between Blacks and Whites in today's society tend to stem from the misconceptions about Blacks that have been allowed to thrive throughout the ages. The only way to help abolish stereotypes is to help present a more complete picture of the Black people throughout history. Black History for Beginners covers a rich but often ignored history and chronicles the Black struggle from capture and enslavement in Africa through the civil rights movement and up to today and the new and different kinds of struggles that Black people face today.

American Indians remain familiar as icons, yet poorly understood as historical agents. In this ambitious book that ranges across Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, and eastern California (a region known as the Great Basin), Ned Blackhawk places Native peoples squarely at the center of a dynamic and complex story as he chronicles two centuries of Indian and imperial history that profoundly shaped the American West.

How does a cake bake? What’s the difference between baking soda and baking powder? And why is it so important to measure the different ingredients in a recipe? Ada Twist, Scientist: The Why Files is the perfect nonfiction resource for all these questions and more. Based on the bestselling series and the new Netflix show, this nonfiction series is perfect for the youngest scientists of tomorrow, as they learn along with Ada.

What did your face look like before your parents were born? In The Face: A Time Code, best-selling author and Zen Buddhist priest Ruth Ozeki recounts, in moment-to-moment detail, a profound encounter with memory and the mirror. According to ancient Zen tradition, 'your face before your parents were born' is your original face. Who are you? What is your true self? What is your identity before or beyond the dualistic distinctions, like father/mother and good/evil, that come to define us?

Piven and Cloward have updated their classic work on the history and function of welfare to cover the American welfare state's massive erosion during the Reagan, Bush, and Clinton years. The authors present a boldly comprehensive, brilliant new theory to explain the comparative underdevelopment of the US welfare state among advanced industrial nations. Their conceptual framework promises to shape the debate within current and future administrations as they attempt to rethink the welfare system and its role in American society.

A prize-winning journalist upends our centuries-long assumptions about migration through science, history, and reporting - predicting its lifesaving power in the face of climate change.

In 1982, Professors Sagan and Turco made known their discovery of the concept "nuclear winter", a widespread cold and dark, resulting in agricultural collapse and world famine, that would be generated in even a "small" nuclear war. It was a landmark discovery that revealed in the starkest terms how vulnerable our civilization is to the long-term environmental effects of nuclear war.

Based on the much loved African-American spiritual, children will enjoy learning about the human body and having their funny bones tickled at the same time.

In Cracking the Aging Code, theoretical biologist Josh Mitteldorf and award-winning writer and ecological philosopher Dorion Sagan reveal that evolution and aging are even more complex and breathtaking than we originally thought. Using meticulous multidisciplinary science as well as reviewing the history of our understanding about evolution, this book makes the case that aging is not something that "just happens", nor is it the result of wear and tear or a genetic inevitability.

Ten years after the infamous Watergate scandal that brought down the Nixon presidency, Jim Hougan—then the Washington editor of Harper's Magazine—set out to write a profile of Lou Russell, a boozy private-eye who plied his trade in the vice-driven underbelly of the nation's capital. Hougan soon discovered that Russell was "the sixth man, the one who got away" when his boss, veteran CIA officer Jim McCord, led a break-in team into a trap at the Watergate.

Though fashions may change, certain things never go out of style - like your favorite little black dress that can take you from a business meeting to a dinner party to a night on the town. But what makes it work is not the dress; it's how you present yourself while wearing it. A woman who is polite, well spoken, gracious, charming, and thoughtful is always welcome - though such women appear to be in short supply these days!

London, 1857: Two teenage girls holding a sign that says "Fugitive Slaves" ask for money on the corner of Blackman Street. After a constable accosts them and charges them with begging, they end up in court, where newspapers pick up their story. Are the girls truly escaped slaves from Kentucky? Or will the city's dystopian Mendicity Society catch them in a lie, exposing them as born-and-raised Londoners and endangering their safety? With its many accounts of people like these who lived and made their living on the streets, Vagabonds forms a moving picture of London's most compelling period.

We are complacent. We bask in the idea that Canada holds 20% of the world’s fresh water - water crises face other countries, but not ours. We could not be more wrong. In Boiling Point, best-selling author and activist Maude Barlow lays bare the issues facing Canada’s water reserves, including long-outdated water laws, unmapped and unprotected groundwater reserves, agricultural pollution, industrial-waste dumping, boil-water advisories, and the effects of deforestation and climate change. This will be the defining issue of the coming decade, and most of us have no idea that it is on our very own doorstep.

Steve Jobs, adopted in infancy by a family in San Francisco, packed a lot of life into 56 short years. In this Who Was...? biography, children will learn how his obsession with computers and technology at an early age led him to cofound and run Apple in addition to turning Pixar into a groundbreaking animation studio. A college dropout, Jobs took unconventional steps in his path to success and inspired the best and the brightest to come with him and "change the world".

Almost 7,000 fans eagerly packed into the Ringling Brothers big top on July 6, 1944. With a single careless act, an afternoon at the "Greatest Show on Earth" quickly became one of terror and tragedy as the paraffin-coated circus tent caught fire. Panicked crowds rushed for the few exits, but in minutes, the tent collapsed on those still struggling to escape below. A total of 168 lives were lost, many of them children, with many more injured and forever scarred by the events.

A landmark book that completely transforms our understanding of the crisis of liberalism, from two preeminent intellectuals. Why did the West, after winning the Cold War, lose its political balance? In the early 1990s, hopes for the eastward spread of liberal democracy were high. And yet the transformation of Eastern European countries gave rise to a bitter repudiation of liberalism itself, not only there but also back in the heartland of the West.

Author Sumbul Ali-Karamali offers her personal account, discussing the many and varied questions she fielded from curious friends and schoolmates while growing up in Southern California - from diet, to dress, to prayer and holidays and everything in between. She also provides an academically reliable introduction to Islam, addressing its inception, development, and current demographics. Through this engaging work, listeners will gain a better understanding of the everyday aspects of Muslim American life.

What happens when conservationists meet rhinos in trouble? They arrange to airlift them to safety! Follow National Geographic Explorers-in-Residence Dereck and Beverly Joubert as they move rhinos out of harm's way and meet a courageous little Hawaiian monk seal and a pair of Siberian tiger cubs fighting for survival.