Science Ecology

In this Very Short Introduction audiobook, David Norman discusses how dinosaurs were first discovered and interpreted and how our understanding of them has changed over the past 200 years. He looks at some of the amazing discoveries that have enabled us to gain new and unexpected insights into dinosaurs as animals with natural histories and behaviors and considers some of the biggest questions in dinosaur biology, such as the implications of them having warm blood.

A century ago, mountain lions were vilified as a threat to livestock and hunted to the verge of extinction. Its recovery has led to an unexpected conundrum: Do more mountain lions mean they're a threat to humans and domestic animals? Or, are mountain lions still in need of our help and protection as their habitat dwindles? Mountain lion biologist and expert Mark Elbroch welcomes these tough questions. He dismisses long-held myths about mountain lions and uses groundbreaking science to uncover important new information about their social habits.

While politicians, entrepreneurs, and even school children could tell you that sustainability is an important and nearly universal value, many of them, and many of us, may struggle to define the term, let alone trace its history. What is sustainability? Is it always about the environment? What science do we need to fully grasp what it requires? What does sustainability mean for business? How can governments plan for a sustainable future?

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.

In Return to the Sky, Tina Morris, one of the first women to engage in a raptor reintroduction program, shares her remarkable story that is as much about the human spirit as it is about birds of prey.

In The Ocean’s Menagerie, world-renowned marine ecologist Dr. Drew Harvell takes us diving from Hawaii to the Salish Sea, from St. Croix to Indonesia, to uncover the incredible underwater “superpowers” of spineless creatures: we meet corals many times stronger than steel or concrete, sponges who create potent chemical compounds to fight off disease, and sea stars who garden the coastlines, keeping all the other nearby species in perfect balance.

They are trees of life and trees of knowledge. They are wish-fulfillers, rain forest royalty, more precious than gold. They are the fig trees, and they have affected humanity in profound but little-known ways. Gods, Wasps and Stranglers tells their amazing story. Fig trees fed our prehuman ancestors, influenced diverse cultures, and played key roles in the dawn of civilization.

New York Times best-selling author Seth Siegel tells how contaminants got in our drinking water, what they’re doing to us, and what we must do to make our water safe.

What is the difference between a savanna and a prairie? How do bison, zebras, and other grazers avoid hungry grassland predators? Trek across the plant-covered landscape of this book, and find out what makes grasslands one of Earth's treasures.

Here is the epic story of the centuries-long search to understand the tide: from Aristotle, said to have drowned himself when he failed to figure out the Greek tides, to the pioneering investigations into the role of the moon by Galileo and Newton to supercomputing in our own time.

Ever since he was young, Levison Wood has been fascinated by elephants and their fight for survival. Whilst trekking the Nile he saw these beasts up close, and in The Last Giants, he finally satisfies his desire to learn more about the majestic African elephant. In The Last Giants, he teams up with local trackers to gain insight into how this iconic species survives, camps out in the wild, meets the people and tribes living on the migration's path, and joins the park rangers whose job it is to protect these land goliaths.

When you turn on the tap or twist the cap, you might not give a second thought to where your drinking water comes from. But how it gets from the ground to your glass is far more complex than you might think. Is it safe to drink tap water? Should you feel guilty buying bottled water? Is your water vulnerable to terrorist attacks? With springs running dry and reservoirs emptying, where is your water going to come from in the future? In Drinking Water, Duke professor James Salzman shows how drinking water highlights the most pressing issues of our time.

Most of us have heard of such popular butterflies as the Monarch or Painted Lady. But what about the Fender's Blue? Or the St. Francis' Satyr? Because of their extreme rarity, these butterflies are not well-known, yet they are remarkable species with important lessons to teach us. The Last Butterflies spotlights the rarest of these creatures - some numbering no more than what can be held in one hand.

Across the world, invasive species pose a danger to ecosystems. The UN Convention on Biological Diversity ranks them as a major threat to biodiversity on par with habitat loss, climate change, and pollution. Tackling this isn't easy, and no one knows this better than Hugh Warwick, a conservationist who loathes the idea of killing, harming, or even eating animals. Yet as an ecologist, he is acutely aware of the need, at times, to kill invasive species whose presence harms the wider environment.

"There are no unsacred places," the poet Wendell Berry has written. "There are only sacred places and desecrated places." What might it mean to behold the world with such depth and feeling that it is no longer possible to imagine it as something separate from ourselves, or to live without regard for its well-being? To understand the work of seeing things as an utterly involving moral and spiritual act? Such questions have long occupied the center of contemplative spiritual traditions.

Conquer the GED Science Exam: Your Essential Guide to Mastering Science Concepts offers a comprehensive and accessible resource for preparing for the GED Science section. This guide covers key scientific topics, including life science, physical science, and Earth and space science, with detailed explanations and practical examples. Each chapter is designed to strengthen your understanding of essential science concepts, from cellular biology and genetics to energy, chemical reactions, and ecosystems. Real-world applications are integrated throughout, helping learners relate scientific ...

For readers and viewers of The Perfect Storm, opening this long-awaited work by Sebastian Junger will be like stepping off the deck of the Andrea Gail and into the inferno of a fire burning out of control in the steep canyons of Idaho. Here is the same meticulous prose brought to bear on the inner workings of a terrifying elemental force; here is a cast of characters risking everything in an effort to bring that force under control.

“I love food” Nakkiah Lui says, and in the next breath whispers “so give us back our land”. In First Eat, a confrontational, raw and highly personal exploration of food politics, power and body sovereignty, Nakkiah Lui asks how our meals would look different if First Nations people owned the land from which the food came. First Eat is about more than just food, it’s an aural feast for a rich future.

With its rich biodiversity, astounding wildlife, and breathtaking animal migrations, Serengeti is like no other ecosystem on the planet. A Place Like No Other is Anthony Sinclair's firsthand account of how he and other scientists discovered the biological principles that regulate life in Serengeti and how they rule all of the natural world.

In Our Kindred Creatures, Bill Wasik, editorial director of The New York Times Magazine, and veterinarian Monica Murphy offer a fascinating history of this crusade and the battles it sparked in American life. On the side of reform were such leaders as George Angell, the inspirational head of Massachusetts’s animal-welfare society and the American publisher of the novel Black Beauty; Henry Bergh, founder of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals; Caroline White of Philadelphia, who fought against medical experiments that used live animals; and many more.