Natural Science

Even among special agents, Andromeda Stone is special. Her unique ability to walk in the dreams of others has placed her in the services of a secret government research and defense facility known only as The Agency. She always assumed it was because of her gift that she felt out of place, even among her family; but as she faces an entirely new and dangerous mission, perhaps it's something deeper that sets her apart.

Dopamine, Oxytocin, Serotonin, Cortisol, Endorphin and Testosterone - these are the six substances that internationally acclaimed Swedish public speaker and coach David JP Phillips will guide you through to understand just how our chemistry can affect us and how we can take control and affect it. In this simple and accessible guide, learn how to harness the immense power of your mind to its fullest potential and optimize your body's chemical factory to achieve lasting transformation. This book will lead you to the future you desire and is for everyone who wants to feel high on life for real.

Mark Lynas delivers a vital account of the future of our earth, and our civilisation, if current rates of global warming persist. And it’s only looking worse. We are living in a climate emergency. But how much worse could it get? Will civilisation collapse? Are we already past the point of no return? What kind of future can our children expect? Rigorously cataloguing the very latest climate science, Mark Lynas explores the course we have set for Earth over the next century and beyond.

On the night of September 20, 1938, the news on the radio was full of Hitler's pending invasion of Czechoslovakia. Severe weather wasn't mentioned; only light rain was forecast for the following day. In a matter of hours, however, a hurricane of unprecedented force would tear through one of the wealthiest and most populated stretches of coastline in America, obliterating communities from Long Island to Providence, destroying entire fishing fleets from Montauk to Narragansett Bay.

Six years after her perilous exploits in Eriga, Isabella embarks on her most ambitious expedition yet: a two-year trip around the world to study all manner of dragons in every place they might be found. From feathered serpents sunning themselves in the ruins of a fallen civilization to the mighty sea serpents of the tropics, these creatures are a source of both endless fascination and frequent peril.

When Mum died, I inherited a lot more than a pack of lies. I landed a $410,000 debt. Discovered her previous surname. And her real place of birth. Desperate to uncover the truth, I drive to a tiny dot on the map called Deception Valley. Coincidental name? Nope. There, I find her secret family - because she had one of those too.

When John Hunter finds out he can get paid $5,000 for trapping a rogue chimera, it's game on. Now, he'll have a crash course on the goings-on of the secret underworld and more than a few bruises to prove his mettle. But not all is as straightforward as it may seem. There are those closest to Jonny who are more than they're letting on. And the humans in his life turn out to be the worst kind of monsters. Jonny may be able to save himself, if he wants to save the city from an unspeakable, ancient evil lurking in the shadows, he'll have to catch up fast.

On June 28, 2013, a single bolt of lightning sparked an inferno that devoured more than 8,000 acres in Northern Arizona. Twenty elite firefighters - the Granite Mountain Hotshots - walked together into the blaze, tools in their hands and fire shelters on their hips. Only one of them walked out.

Norman MacLean spent the last 14 years of his life determined to sift through grief and controversy in search of the truth behind the Mann Gulch tragedy, one of the worst disasters in the history of the Forest Service. Young Men and Fire is the culmination of his investigations. It is a story about honor, death, compassion, and the human spirit.

In its 4.5 billion–year history, life on Earth has been almost erased at least half a dozen times: shattered by asteroid impacts, entombed in ice, smothered by methane, and torn apart by unfathomably powerful megavolcanoes. And we know that another global disaster is eventually headed our way. Can we survive it? How?

As a species, Homo sapiens is at a crossroads. Study of our planet’s turbulent past suggests that we are overdue for a catastrophic disaster, whether caused by nature or by human interference.
It’s a frightening prospect, as each of the Earth’s past major disasters—from meteor strikes to bombardment by cosmic radiation—resulted in a mass extinction, where more than 75 percent of the planet’s species died out. But in Scatter, Adapt, and Remember, Annalee Newitz, science journalist and editor of the science Web site io9.com explains that although global disaster is all but inevitable, our chances of long-term species survival are better than ever. Life on Earth has come close to annihilation—humans have, more than once, narrowly avoided extinction just
during the last million years—but every single time a few creatures survived, evolving to adapt to the harshest of conditions.
This brilliantly speculative work of popular science focuses on humanity’s long history of dodging the bullet, as well as on new threats that we may face in years to come. Most important, it explores how scientific breakthroughs today will help us avoid disasters tomorrow. From simulating tsunamis to studying central Turkey’s ancient underground cities; from cultivating cyanobacteria for “living cities” to designing space elevators to make space colonies cost-effective; from using math to stop pandemics to studying the remarkable survival strategies of gray whales, scientists and researchers the world over are discovering the keys to long-term resilience and learning how humans can choose life over death.
Newitz’s remarkable and fascinating journey through the science of mass extinctions is a powerful argument about human ingenuity and our ability to change. In a world populated by doomsday preppers and media commentators obsessively forecasting our demise, Scatter, Adapt, and Remember is a compelling voice of hope. It leads us away from apocalyptic thinking into a future where we live to build a better world—on this planet and perhaps on others. Readers of this book will be equipped scientifically, intellectually, and emotionally to face whatever the future holds.

I murder the bad guys on my downtime. You could say it’s one of my favorite hobbies. If someone wanted to get rid of me, I have this entire history of arson and murder they could have used. So, who framed me for embezzling and why? And why was I sent to Scorchwood as a first-time offender? It’s in Hell because that’s where they send the truly evil to rot.

In Bite, zoologist Bill Schutt makes a surprising case: it is teeth that are responsible for the long-term success of vertebrates. The appearance of teeth, roughly half a billion years ago, was an adaptation that allowed animals with backbones, such as fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, dinosaurs and mammals—including us—to chow down in pretty much every conceivable environment.

It is rare for life to change Earth, yet three organisms have profoundly transformed our planet over the long course of its history. Elemental reveals how microbes, plants, and people used the fundamental building blocks of life to alter the climate, and with it, the trajectory of life on Earth in the past, present, and future. Taking listeners from the deep geologic past to our current era of human dominance, Stephen Porder focuses on five of life’s essential elements—hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus.

Lovelorn kangaroo shifter Hamish Mulherne, drummer for the mega-hit rock band Hunter’s Moon, waited years for the band’s jaguar shifter bassist to notice him. Instead, she’s just gotten married and is in a thriving poly relationship. How is Hamish supposed to compete with that? But with everyone else in the band mated and revoltingly happy, he needs somebody. Since he can’t expect true love to strike twice, he signs up with Supernatural Selection. Because what the hell?

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.

Were dinosaurs really dumber than lizards? Why, after all, are roughly the same number of men and women born into the world? What led the famous Dr. Down to his theory of mongolism, and its racist residue? What do the panda's magical "thumb" and the sea turtle's perilous migration tell us about imperfections that prove the evolutionary rule? The wonders and mysteries of evolutionary biology are elegantly explored in these and other essays by the celebrated natural history writer Stephen Jay Gould.

Let There Be Water illustrates how Israel can serve as a model for the United States and countries everywhere by showing how to blunt the worst of the coming water calamities. Even with 60 percent of its country made of desert, Israel has not only solved its water problem; it also has an abundance of water. Israel even supplies water to its neighbors - the Palestinians and the Kingdom of Jordan - every day.

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.

Energy is humanity's single most important resource. In fact, as energy expert Michael E. Webber argues in Power Trip, the story of how societies rise can be told largely as the story of how they manage energy sources through time. In 2019, as we face down growing demand for and accumulating environmental impacts from energy, we are at a crossroads and the stakes are high. But history shows us that energy's great value is that it allows societies to reinvent themselves.

Lysander Spooner (January 19, 1808 - May 14, 1887) was an American political philosopher, essayist, pamphlet writer, Unitarian, abolitionist, legal theorist, and entrepreneur of the 19th century. He was a strong advocate of the labor movement and severely anti-authoritarian and individualist in political views. Spooner was born on a farm in Athol, Massachusetts, on January 19, 1808, and died on May 14, 1887, in Boston.