Science Ecology

The forests of Northeast Asia are home to a marvelous range of animals—fish owls and brown bears, musk deer and moose, wolves and raccoon dogs, and leopards and tigers. But in the final years of the Cold War, only a few hundred tigers stepped quietly through the snow of the Amur River basin. Soon, the Soviet Union fell and catastrophe arrived, as poaching and logging took a fast, astonishing toll on an already vulnerable species.

Yorkshire, it has been said, is 'a continent unto itself'. It is southern Britain in microcosm, where mountain, plain, coast, downs, fen and heath lie side by side. Richard Morris weaves history, travelogue and ecology to explore this landscape in legend, literature and popular regard. Morris considers different ways to come to Yorkshire - in a poem, through an image, on holiday.

An entertaining and enlightening exploration of why waste matters, this cultural history explores an often ignored subject matter and makes a compelling argument for a deeper understanding of human and animal waste. Approaching the subject from a variety of perspectives - evolutionary, ecological, and cultural - this examination shows how integral excrement is to biodiversity, agriculture, public health, food production and distribution, and global ecosystems.

Could extinct species, like mammoths and passenger pigeons, be brought back to life? The science says yes. In How to Clone a Mammoth, Beth Shapiro, evolutionary biologist and pioneer in "ancient DNA" research, walks listeners through the astonishing and controversial process of de-extinction.

In Material, Kary takes listeners along with him to visit some of the places where modern artisans are preserving, and in some cases passing on, the old craft skills. His vivid descriptions and eye for detail make this book a rich and delightful listen, and the natural and cultural history he imparts along the way provides an important context for understanding our own past and the roots of our industrial society. Personal, engaging, and filled with memorable people, landscapes, and scenes, Material is a rich celebration of what it means to imagine and create.

Say hello to the astonishing natural world with this mind-boggling collection of downright unbelievable facts that will have you doing double-takes at every turn. This captivating compendium is your ticket to exploring the wackiest secrets Mother Nature has up her sleeve. From the outrageous mating rituals of exotic creatures to the perplexing phenomena of Earth's wildest landscapes, True Facts That Sound Like Bull$#*t: Nature covers a vast array of topics that will leave you questioning everything you thought you knew about our planet.

This is a memoir of a woman who took solo journeys to conduct an explorative, observational research study in India with elephants, horses, goats, and dogs using specific Animal Energy Therapy techniques such as sound, touch and smell. In her story telling style, the author speaks about several individual animals that she worked with and closely observed during a length of time. Her interests lie in the integration of Animal Energy Therapy and the affects of individualized therapy for each, with regards to behavioral anxieties and traumas.

In its 2001 report on global climate, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of the United Nations prominently featured the "Hockey Stick", a chart showing global temperature data over the past 1,000 years. The Hockey Stick demonstrated that temperature had risen with the increase in industrialization and use of fossil fuels. The inescapable conclusion was that worldwide human activity since the industrial age had raised CO2 levels, trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and warming the planet.

Meet Earth. Planet Awesome! And your awesome home! Actually, Earth is home to all the plants and all the animals in the solar system, including nearly eight billion people. Humans have accidentally moved Earth's climate change into the fast lane, and she need your help to put on the brakes. Earthlings need Earth, and Earth needs Earthlings, so let’s save Earth together!

Winner Take All is about the commodity dynamics that the world will face over the next several decades. In particular, it is about the implications of China’s rush for resources across all regions of the world. The scale of China’s resource campaign for hard commodities (metals and minerals) and soft commodities (timber and food) is among the largest in history.

Do you love rocks, gems, and fossils? Have you ever thought about where they come from and how they form? Do you want to learn more about rock hunting and collecting but are unsure where to start? If you answered yes to any of these questions, get ready because Rockhounding is exactly what you need. Whether a novice or a seasoned rockhound, this audiobook contains all the knowledge and tools you need to get started.

"Our Choice gathers in one place all of the most effective solutions that are available now and that, together, will solve this crisis. It is meant to depoliticize the issue as much as possible and inspire readers to take action - not only on an individual basis but as participants in the political processes by which every country, and the world as a whole, makes the choice that now confronts us." (Al Gore, from the Introduction)

Marine microbiologist and deep sea explorer Jeff Marlow offers a new perspective on the power and beauty of the deep sea. Beginning with the nineteenth century “discovery” that the deep sea was, in fact, teeming with life, to more recent investigations into the microbiology of cold seeps and deep sea vents. Throughout, Marlow explores the ocean’s scientific marvels: theories about how life began underwater and how it may hold the key to discovering new life to entire ecosystems that formed around sunk whale carcasses.

"We don't govern water. Water governs us," writes James Workman. In Heart of Dryness, he chronicles the memorable, cautionary tale of the famed Bushmen of the Kalahari - remnants of one of the world's most successful civilizations, today at the exact epicenter of Africa's drought - and their remarkable, widely publicized battle over water with the government of Botswana, to explore the larger story of what many feel is becoming the primary resource battleground of the 21st century: water.

Essayist. Preservationist. Mountain man. Inventor. John Muir may be California’s best-known icon. A literary naturalist and founder of the Sierra Club and Yosemite National Park, Muir left his legacy on the landscape and on paper. But the celebrity of John Muir does not tell the whole story. In Essential Muir, for the first time, Muir's selected writings include those that show his ecological vision without ignoring his racism, providing a more complete portrait of the man.

In Birdland, journalist and lifelong twitcher Jon Gower explores our intimate connection with the bird life around us. From the symphonic song of the wren to the clack of a puffin’s beak and from epic migrations to sunset murmurations, birds are commonplace miracles. No wonder they have inspired our artists, writers and songwriters. Whether rare or abundant, Jon Gower visits some of the best places in Britain to watch birds, searching for some species he has always wanted to see such as wryneck, dotterel and barred warbler.

Before skyscrapers and smokestacks rose across the eastern U.S., elk, bison, wolves, and cougars roamed. Typically imagined as icons of the West, these large mammals are in fact native to what was once a kind of Eden—towering forests in the Northeast, rolling prairies in the Midwest, and cypress swamps in the Deep South. But, in mere decades, industrialization and unregulated hunting brought these emblems of the East to the precipice of extinction; by the 1950s, squirrels were one of the few wild mammals an easterner was likely to encounter.

Most people only consider the Mississippi River when they cross it or when it inconveniently abandons its banks. But every year, millions of tons of cargo are transported by towboats on the river. In Peep Light, Captain Lee Hendrix provides unique insight on people who work and live on and near the Mississippi River. Hendrix, formerly a pilot for the Delta Queen Steamboat Co., has worked on the Mississippi for fifty years. In 2014, Hendrix became captain of the towboat Mississippi with the US Army Corps of Engineers, then he later retired to return to passenger vessels.

The Pasagoula River is the largest unobstructed river in the continuous United States. Because of this lack of restraint, the river has been left to rise and fall naturally with the seasons, overflowing annually into the adjoining bottomland surrounded by some of the most ecologically diverse woodlands, in North America. Herman Murrah lived his entire life on the banks and in the swamp surrounding this river in southeast Mississippi. In this book, Herman's son Davy details the adventures that continue to inspire young conservationists in the fight to protect our remaining natural ecosystems.

By turns epic and intimate, Telling Our Way to the Sea is both a staggering revelation of unraveling ecosystems and a profound meditation on our changing relationships with nature - and with one another. When the biologists Aaron Hirsh and Veronica Volny, along with their friend Graham Burnett, a historian of science, lead twelve college students to a remote fishing village on the Sea of Cortez, they come upon a bay of dazzling beauty and richness.