The astonishing science of neutron stars and the stories of the scientists who study them.
Neutron stars are as bewildering as they are elusive. The remnants of exploded stellar giants, they are tiny, merely twenty kilometers across, and incredibly dense. One teaspoon of a neutron star would weigh several million tons. They can spin up to a thousand times per second, they possess the strongest magnetic fields known in nature, and they may be the source of the most powerful explosions in the universe. Through vivid storytelling and on-site reporting from observatories all over the world, Neutron Stars offers an engaging account of these still-mysterious objects.
Award-winning science journalist Katia Moskvitch takes readers from the vast Atacama Desert to the arid plains of South Africa to visit the magnificent radio telescopes and brilliant scientists responsible for our knowledge of neutron stars. She recounts the exhilarating discoveries, frustrating disappointments, and heated controversies of the past several decades and explains cutting-edge research into such phenomena as colliding neutron stars and fast radio bursts: extremely powerful but ultra-short flashes in space that scientists are still struggling to understand. She also shows how neutron stars have advanced our broader understanding of the universe—shedding light on topics such as dark matter, black holes, general relativity, and the origins of heavy elements like gold and platinum—and how we might one day use these cosmic beacons to guide interstellar travel.
With clarity and passion, Moskvitch describes what we are learning at the boundaries of astronomy, where stars have life beyond death.
The award-winning former editor of Science News shows that one of the most fascinating and controversial ideas in contemporary cosmology—the existence of multiple parallel universes—has a long and divisive history that continues to this day.
We often consider the universe to encompass everything that exists, but some scientists have come to believe that the vast, expanding universe we inhabit may be just one of many. The totality of those parallel universes, still for some the stuff of science fiction, has come to be known as the multiverse.
The concept of the multiverse, exotic as it may be, isn’t actually new. In The Number of the Heavens, veteran science journalist Tom Siegfried traces the history of this controversial idea from antiquity to the present. Ancient Greek philosophers first raised the possibility of multiple universes, but Aristotle insisted on one and only one cosmos. Then in 1277 the bishop of Paris declared it heresy to teach that God could not create as many universes as he pleased, unleashing fervent philosophical debate about whether there might exist a “plurality of worlds.”
As the Middle Ages gave way to the Renaissance, the philosophical debates became more scientific. René Descartes declared “the number of the heavens” to be indefinitely large, and as notions of the known universe expanded from our solar system to our galaxy, the debate about its multiplicity was repeatedly recast. In the 1980s, new theories about the big bang reignited interest in the multiverse. Today the controversy continues, as cosmologists and physicists explore the possibility of many big bangs, extra dimensions of space, and a set of branching, parallel universes. This engrossing story offers deep lessons about the nature of science and the quest to understand the universe.
It is the end of an historical epoch, but to an old professor of physics, Victor Jakob, sitting in his unlighted study, eating dubious bread with jam made from turnips, it is the end of a way of thinking in his own subject. Younger men have challenged the classical world picture of physics and are looking forward to observational tests of Einstein’s new theory of relativity as well as the creation of a quantum mechanics of the atom. It is a time of both apprehension and hope.
In this remarkable book, the reader literally inhabits the mind of a scientist while Professor Jakob meditates on the discoveries of the past fifty years and reviews his own life and career—his scientific ambitions and his record of small successes. He recalls the great men who taught or inspired him: Helmholtz, Hertz, Maxwell, Planck, and above all Paul Drude, whose life and mind exemplified the classical virtues of proportion, harmony, and grace that Jakob reveres. In Drude’s shocking and unexpected suicide, we see reflected Jakob’s own bewilderment and loss of bearings as his once secure world comes to an end in the horrors of the war and in the cultural fragmentation wrought by twentieth-century modernism. His attempt to come to terms with himself, with his life in science, and with his spiritual legacy will affect deeply everyone who cares about the fragile structures of civilization that must fall before the onrush of progress.
A small revolution is remaking the world. The only problem is, we can’t see it. This book uses dazzling images and evocative descriptions to reveal the virtually invisible realities and possibilities of nanoscience. An introduction to the science and technology of small things, No Small Matter explains science on the nanoscale.
Authors Felice C. Frankel and George M. Whitesides offer an overview of recent scientific advances that have given us our ever-shrinking microtechnology—for instance, an information processor connected by wires only 1,000 atoms wide. They describe the new methods used to study nanostructures, suggest ways of understanding their often bizarre behavior, and outline their uses in technology. This book explains the various means of making nanostructures and speculates about their importance for critical developments in information processing, computation, biomedicine, and other areas.
No Small Matter considers both the benefits and the risks of nano/microtechnology—from the potential of quantum computers and single-molecule genomic sequencers to the concerns about self-replicating nanosystems. By making the practical and probable realities of nanoscience as comprehensible and clear as possible, the book provides a unique vision of work at the very boundaries of modern science.
Isaac Newton’s classic writings on light and optics are the heart of this volume in the series, Masterworks of Discovery: Guided Studies of Great Texts in Science. The innovative series is aimed at making the great works of scientific discovery accessible to students and lay readers. For each volume, distinguished historians of science have carefully selected original texts (or extracts) and accompanied them with interpretive commentary, explanatory notes, and bio-bibliographical material. These volumes are not synopses or histories to take the place of the original works. Instead, they enable non-specialists to read these classics for themselves and take an active part in discovering the excitement of scientific discovery.
Newton first revealed his scientific genius in his pathbreaking work on optics and the properties of light. Through Newton’s early 1672 letter to the Royal Society and long extracts from his mature work, Opticks (1704), the reader can follow Newton’s own descriptions of his experiments on prisms and films, his arguments about white and colored light and the “particle” nature of light, and his influential remarks on scientific method. Dennis Sepper’s deft commentaries, diagrams, and notes help clarify difficulties that modern readers are apt to encounter in Newton’s language and science. Sepper also provides an engaging sketch of Newton’s life, the scientific background to these discoveries, and their aftermath.
On the fiftieth anniversary of Hiroshima, Nobel-winning physicist Hans Bethe called on his fellow scientists to stop working on weapons of mass destruction. What drove Bethe, the head of Theoretical Physics at Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project, to renounce the weaponry he had once worked so tirelessly to create? That is one of the questions answered by Nuclear Forces, a riveting biography of Bethe’s early life and development as both a scientist and a man of principle.
As Silvan Schweber follows Bethe from his childhood in Germany, to laboratories in Italy and England, and on to Cornell University, he shows how these differing environments were reflected in the kind of physics Bethe produced. Many of the young quantum physicists in the 1930s, including Bethe, had Jewish roots, and Schweber considers how Liberal Judaism in Germany helps explain their remarkable contributions. A portrait emerges of a man whose strategy for staying on top of a deeply hierarchical field was to tackle only those problems he knew he could solve.
Bethe’s emotional maturation was shaped by his father and by two women of Jewish background: his overly possessive mother and his wife, who would later serve as an ethical touchstone during the turbulent years he spent designing nuclear bombs. Situating Bethe in the context of the various communities where he worked, Schweber provides a full picture of prewar developments in physics that changed the modern world, and of a scientist shaped by the unprecedented moral dilemmas those developments in turn created.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 BCE–65 CE) was a Roman Stoic philosopher, dramatist, statesman, and adviser to the emperor Nero, all during the Silver Age of Latin literature. The Complete Works of Lucius Annaeus Seneca is a fresh and compelling series of new English-language translations of his works in eight accessible volumes. Edited by world-renowned classicists Elizabeth Asmis, Shadi Bartsch, and Martha C. Nussbaum, this engaging collection restores Seneca—whose works have been highly praised by modern authors from Desiderius Erasmus to Ralph Waldo Emerson—to his rightful place among the classical writers most widely studied in the humanities.
Written near the end of Seneca’s life, Natural Questions is a work in which Seneca expounds and comments on the natural sciences of his day—rivers and earthquakes, wind and snow, meteors and comets—offering us a valuable look at the ancient scientific mind at work. The modern reader will find fascinating insights into ancient philosophical and scientific approaches to the physical world and also vivid evocations of the grandeur, beauty, and terror of nature.
A timely rethinking of the archetypal story of Noah, the great flood, and who was left behind as the waters rose
Most people know the story of Noah from a children’s bible or a play set with a colorful ship, bearded Noah, pairs of animals, and an uncomplicated vision of survival. Noah’s ark, however, will forever be haunted by what it leaves to the rising waters so that the world can begin again.
In Noah’s Arkive, Jeffrey J. Cohen and Julian Yates examine the long history of imagining endurance against climate catastrophe—as well as alternative ways of creating refuge. They trace how the elements of the flood narrative were elaborated in medieval and early modern art, text, and music, and now shape writing and thinking during the current age of anthropogenic climate change. Arguing that the biblical ark may well be the worst possible exemplar of human behavior, the chapters draw on a range of sources, from the Epic of Gilgamesh and Ovid’s tale of Deucalion and Pyrrah, to speculative fiction, climate fiction, and stories and art dwelling with environmental catastrophe. Noah’s Arkive uncovers the startling afterlife of the Genesis narrative written from the perspective of Noah’s wife and family, the animals on the ark, and those excluded and so left behind to die. This book of recovered stories speaks eloquently to the ethical and political burdens of living through the Anthropocene.
Following a climate change narrative across the millennia, Noah’s Arkive surveys the long history of dwelling with the consequences of choosing only a few to survive in order to start the world over. It is an intriguing meditation on how the story of the ark can frame how we think about environmental catastrophe and refuge, conservation and exclusion, offering hope for a better future by heeding what we know from the past.
The quest to pinpoint the age of the Earth is nearly as old as humanity itself. For most of history, people trusted mythology or religion to provide the answer, even though nature abounds with clues to the past of the Earth and the stars. In A Natural History of Time, geophysicist Pascal Richet tells the fascinating story of how scientists and philosophers examined those clues and from them built a chronological scale that has made it possible to reconstruct the history of nature itself.
Richet begins his story with mythological traditions, which were heavily influenced by the seasons and almost uniformly viewed time cyclically. The linear history promulgated by Judaism, with its story of creation, was an exception, and it was that tradition that drove early Christian attempts to date the Earth. For instance, in 169 CE, the bishop of Antioch, for instance declared that the world had been in existence for “5,698 years and the odd months and days.”
Until the mid-eighteenth century, such natural timescales derived from biblical chronologies prevailed, but, Richet demonstrates, with the Scientific Revolution geological and astronomical evidence for much longer timescales began to accumulate. Fossils and the developing science of geology provided compelling evidence for periods of millions and millions of years—a scale that even scientists had difficulty grasping. By the end of the twentieth century, new tools such as radiometric dating had demonstrated that the solar system is four and a half billion years old, and the universe itself about twice that, though controversial questions remain.
The quest for time is a story of ingenuity and determination, and like a geologist, Pascal Richet carefully peels back the strata of that history, giving us a chance to marvel at each layer and truly appreciate how far our knowledge—and our planet—have come.
An internationally recognized scientist shows that Earth’s separate continents, once together in Pangea, are again on a collision course.
You’ve heard of Pangea, the single landmass that broke apart some 175 million years ago to give us our current continents, but what about its predecessors, Rodinia or Columbia? These “supercontinents” from Earth’s past provide evidence that land repeatedly joins and separates. While scientists debate what that next supercontinent will look like—and what to name it—they all agree: one is coming.
In this engaging work, geophysicist Ross Mitchell invites readers to remote (and sometimes treacherous) lands for evidence of past supercontinents, delves into the phenomena that will birth the next, and presents the case for the future supercontinent of Amasia, defined by the merging of North America and Asia. Introducing readers to plate tectonic theory through fieldwork adventures and accessible scientific descriptions, Mitchell considers flows deep in the Earth’s mantle to explain Amasia’s future formation and shows how this developing theory can illuminate other planetary mysteries. He then poses the inevitable question: how can humanity survive the intervening 200 million years necessary to see Amasia?
An expert on the supercontinent cycle, Mitchell offers readers a front-row seat to a slow-motion mystery and an ongoing scientific debate.
Scientists who specialize in the study of Mississippi Valley earthquakes say that the region is overdue for a powerful tremor that will cause major damage and undoubtedly some casualties.
The inevitability of a future quake and the lack of preparation by both individuals and communities provided the impetus for this book. Atkinson brings together applicable information from many disciplines: history, geology and seismology, engineering, zoology, politics and community planning, economics, environmental science, sociology, and psychology and mental health to provide the most comprehensive perspective to date of the myriad impacts of a major earthquake on the Mississippi Valley.
Atkinson addresses such basic questions as "What, actually, are earthquakes? How do they occur? Where are they likely to occur? Can they be predicted, perhaps even prevented?" He also addresses those steps that individuals can take to improve their chances for survival both during and after an earthquake.
Since its publication in a cloth edition in 1976, Penick’s book has met with enormous regional appeal as well as critical acclaim. For the new paper edition, the author has written a new introduction. New material in the final chapter reports on the scientific inquiries into the New Madrid quakes since 1976.
Critical comments on the cloth edition: “James Penick has put together a well-written account of the quakes and their effects upon people, animals, waterways, and land. Based on the scattered accounts of the times it offers a good insight into the reactions of persons suddenly confronted with the perils of the unknown. The vivid description of the devastation wrought upon the face of the land gives a picture of dramatic change brought about by the upheaval of natural forces. In short, reading Penick’s work one is readily caught up in the total violence of the event.”—American Historical Review
“Penick provides information relevant to present studies of earthquakes in this area.”—Earthquake Information Bulletin
The paleoecological history of the Americas is as complex as the region is broad: stretching from the Arctic Circle to Tierra del Fuego, the New World features some of the most extraordinary vegetation on the planet. But until now it has lacked a complete natural history. Alan Graham remedies that with A Natural History of the New World. With plants as his scientific muse, Graham traces the evolution of ecosystems, beginning in the Late Cretaceous period (about 100 million years ago) and ending in the present, charting their responses to changes in geology and climate.
By highlighting plant communities’ roles in the environmental history of the Americas, Graham offers an overdue balance to natural histories that focus exclusively on animals. Plants are important in evolution’s splendid drama. Not only are they conspicuous and conveniently stationary components of the Earth’s ecosystems, but their extensive fossil record allows for a thorough reconstruction of the planet’s paleoenvironments. What’s more, plants provide oxygen, function as food and fuel, and provide habitat and shelter; in short, theirs is a history that can speak to many other areas of evolution.
A Natural History of the New World is an ambitious and unprecedented synthesis written by one of the world’s leading scholars of botany and geology.
A new collection of writing by contemporary Minnesota writers.
This companion volume to the widely praised North Writers: A Strong Woods Collection features the work of a variety of authors-some new voices, some old friends-all of them writing about life in northern Minnesota.
The essays included in North Writers II explore the special relationship that exists between the people of northern Minnesota and the rugged yet beautiful landscape that surrounds them. These writers consider the things that make living in the far north unique—the red earth of the Iron Range, the spectacular and forbidding wildness of Lake Superior’s North Shore, the elemental nature of climate and wilderness that tests one’s mettle. There are also the farms and towns of northern Minnesota, with their heritage of self-reliance and the insight that comes with it. Taken together, these essays provide an exploration of the character, the essence, the spirit of this northern country, as well as the mystique it holds for those from more hospitable climes.Both realism and justice demand that efforts to conserve biological diversity address human needs as well. The most promising hope of accomplishing such a goal lies in locally based conservation efforts -- an approach that seeks ways to make local communities the beneficiaries and custodians of conservation efforts.
Natural Connections focuses on rural societies and the conservation of biodiversity in rural areas. It represents the first systematic analysis of locally based efforts, and includes a comprehensive examination of cases from around the world where the community-based approach is used. The book provides:
Why shouldn't people who deplete our natural assets have to pay, and those who protect them reap profits? Conservation-minded entrepreneurs and others around the world are beginning to ask just that question, as the increasing scarcity of natural resources becomes a tangible threat to our own lives and our hopes for our children. The New Economy of Nature brings together Gretchen Daily, one of the world's leading ecologists, with Katherine Ellison, a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist, to offer an engaging and informative look at a new "new economy" -- a system recognizing the economic value of natural systems and the potential profits in protecting them.
Through engaging stories from around the world, the authors introduce readers to a diverse group of people who are pioneering new approaches to conservation. We meet Adam Davis, an American business executive who dreams of establishing a market for buying and selling "ecosystem service units;" John Wamsley, a former math professor in Australia who has found a way to play the stock market and protect native species at the same time; and Dan Janzen, a biologist working in Costa Rica who devised a controversial plan to sell a conservation area's natural waste-disposal services to a local orange juice producer. Readers also visit the Catskill Mountains, where the City of New York purchased undeveloped land instead of building an expensive new water treatment facility; and King County, Washington, where county executive Ron Sims has dedicated himself to finding ways of "making the market move" to protect the county's remaining open space.
Daily and Ellison describe the dynamic interplay of science, economics, business, and politics that is involved in establishing these new approaches and examine what will be needed to create successful models and lasting institutions for conservation. The New Economy of Nature presents a fundamentally new way of thinking about the environment and about the economy, and with its fascinating portraits of charismatic pioneers, it is as entertaining as it is informative.
Nature-Friendly Communities presents an authoritative and readable overview of the successful approaches to protecting biodiversity and natural areas in America's growing communities. Addressing the crucial issues of sprawl, open space, and political realities, Chris Duerksen and Cara Snyder explain the most effective steps that communities can take to protect nature.
The book: documents the broad range of benefits, including economic impacts, resulting from comprehensive biodiversity protection efforts; identifies and disseminates information on replicable best community practices; establishes benchmarks for evaluating community biodiversity protection programs.
Nine comprehensive case studies of communities explain how nature protection programs have been implemented. From Austin and Baltimore to Tucson and Minneapolis, the authors explore how different cities and counties have taken bold steps to successfully protect natural areas. Examining program structure and administration, land acquisition strategies and sources of funding, habitat restoration programs, social impacts, education efforts, and overall results, these case studies lay out perfect examples that other communities can easily follow. Among the case study sites are Sanibel Island, Florida; Austin, Texas; Baltimore County, Maryland; Charlotte Harbor, Florida; and Teton County, Wyoming.
Nature-Friendly Communities offers a useful overview of the increasing number of communities that have established successful nature protection programs and the significant benefits those programs provide. It is an important new work for public officials, community activists, and anyone concerned with understanding or implementing local or regional biodiversity protection efforts.
A Natural History of the Intermountain West was written to inform people about the wild world around us, with the idea that we all crave a connection to the natural world to ground us and give us a sense of place. It is also a book about change. While species are described throughout the chapters, the text is focused more on the profound processes that have shaped western ecosystems, based on a belief that understanding those processes is more meaningful than a list of names. The ways and the rapidity with which enormous ecosystems replace one another and sometimes even return as climates change are a magnificent testament to the tenacity of life.
The first book of its kind for this region, A Natural History of the Intermountain West takes a fresh look at the natural history of the southern Rockies and the Intermountain Region based on cutting-edge research, interviews with numerous scientists, and the author’s personal experience. Drawing together many disparate fields, the book integrates the evolution of western ecosystems with the geological and climatic history of the region. It is a passionate, humanistic, and scientific treatment of this area’s ecosystems, how they function, and how they came to be through time; it is a wonderful guide for the general public and scientists alike.
On their journey westward, Lewis and Clark demonstrated an amazing ability to identify the new plants and animals they encountered, and their observations enriched science’s understanding of the trans-Mississippi West. Others have written about their discoveries and have faithfully cataloged their findings; now a twenty-first-century biologist reexamines some of those discoveries in the light of modern science to show for the first time their lasting biological significance.
The Natural World of Lewis and Clark interprets the expedition’s findings from a modern perspective to show how advances such as DNA research, modern understanding of proteins, and the latest laboratory methods shed new light on them. David Dalton recounts the expedition’s observations and, in clear, readily accessible terms, relates them to principles of ecology, genetics, physiology, and even animal behavior.
Writing in informal language with a bit of wry humor, Dalton invites readers to imagine the West that Lewis and Clark found, revealing the dynamic features of nature and the dramatic changes that earlier peoples brought about. He explains surprising facts, ranging from why Indians used cottonwood bark as winter feed for horses to why the explorers experienced gastric distress with some foods, and even why the Expedition’s dog would have been well-advised to avoid a diet of salmon.
Dalton introduces the tools and techniques of today’s science in a way that won’t intimidate nonspecialist readers. Throughout the book he expertly balances botanical and zoological information, with coverage ranging from the extinction of large animals in North America a few thousand years ago to the expected effects of invasive species and climate change in the coming centuries.
Enhanced with unusual and informative illustrations—not only nature photography but also historical images—this book will fascinate any reader with an interest in the natural history of the American West as well as broader issues in conservation and ecology. The Natural World of Lewis and Clark tells the story behind the story of this remarkable expedition and shows that its legacy extended not only across a continent but also into our own time.
Nature Journal is an innovative presentation of the best columns and photographs from L. J. Davenport’s popular column in Alabama Heritage magazine. Readers of the magazine have come to relish his artful and often witty descriptions of common species encountered in the Alabama outdoors. But Nature Journal is designed to be much more than a mere collection of entertaining essays; it is also an educational tool—a means of instructing and encouraging readers in the art of keeping a nature journal for themselves.
Each of the 25 chapters is a self-contained lesson in close observation of species morphology, behavior, and habitat; research in the literature; nondestructive capture of the subject by photography or drawing; and written description of the total observed natural phenomenon. At the end of each account, stimulating questions and gentle directives guide the reader into making his or her own observations and recordings.
This book is intended for broad nature-study use in Alabama and throughout the southeast by the general reader and nature enthusiast alike, as well as visitors to museums and outdoor centers, and students of nature and nature writing at the high school and college levels. Beautifully designed to look like a personal journal, it is a perfect gift and treasured keepsake for all lovers of the natural world.
Publication supported in part by SamfordUniversity
For millennia the ecology of the Great Basin has evolved because of climate change and the impacts of human presence. Nevada’s Changing Wildlife Habitat is the first book to explain the transformations in the plants and animals of this region over time and how they came about. Using data gleaned from archaeological and anthropological studies, numerous historical documents, repeat photography, and several natural sciences, the authors examine changes in vegetation and their impact on wildlife species and the general health of the environment. They also outline the choices that current users and managers of rangelands face in being good stewards of this harsh but fragile environment and its wildlife.
Come for a journey along the Jersey shore with naturalist and ecologist Joanna Burger! In these deeply felt, closely observed personal essays, Burger invokes the intertwined lives of naturalist and wild creatures at the ever-changing edge of ocean and land. Discover with her the delicate mating dances of fiddler crabs, the dangers to piping plovers, the swarming of fish communities into the bays and estuaries, the trilling notes of Fowler's toads, and the subtle green-grays of salt marshes.
Joanna Burger knows the shore through all its seasons--the first moment of spring when the herring gulls arrive on ice-gouged salt marshes, the end of spring when the great flocks of shorebirds come to feed on horseshoe crab eggs at Cape May, the summer when the peregrine hunts its prey, the fall when the migrations of hawks and monarch butterflies attract watchers from around the world, and the depths of winter when a lone snowy owl sweeps across snow-covered dunes and frozen bay.
This is a book that anyone who loves the Jersey shore will cherish! And because so many of these wonderful creatures live all along the Atlantic coast, it will be of equal interest to beach-lovers, naturalists, bird-watchers, fishermen, and coastal and marine scientists from North Carolina to Maine.
A beautifully detailed exploration of flora and fauna.
Author Ron Larson offers a natural history of a Great Basin landscape that focuses on the northern region including Lake Abert and Abert Rim, and the adjacent area in southcentral Oregon. Although the jewel of this landscape is a lake, the real story is the many plants and animals—from the very primitive, reddish, bacteria-like archaea that thrive only in its high-salinity waters to the Golden Eagles and ravens that soar above the desert. The untold species in and around the lake are part of an ecosystem shaped by ageless processes from massive lava flows, repeated drought, and blinding snowstorms. It is an environment rich with biotic and physical interconnections going back millions of years.
The Great Basin, and in particular the Lake Abert region, is special and needs our attention to ensure it remains that way. We must recognize the importance of water for Great Basin ecosystems and the need to manage it better, and we must acknowledge how rich the Great Basin is in natural history. Salt lakes, wherever they occur, are valuable and provide critically important habitat for migratory water birds, which are unfortunately under threat from upstream water diversions and climate change. Larson’s book will help people understand that the Great Basin is unique and that wise stewardship is necessary to keep it unspoiled. The book is an essential reference source, drawing together a wide range of materials that will appeal to general readers and researchers alike.
The Golden Crescent of South Texas, a fifteen-county region along and inland from the middle Gulf Coast, is often called "the Crossroads" because of its natural diversity. Located in the heart of the Gulf Coast Prairie and Marshes, the area also encompasses the trailing edges of the South Texas Plains, Post Oak Savannah, and Blackland Prairie. This confluence of ecological zones makes it a wonderful place for birding and for observing the changing face of nature, especially during seasonal transitions.
In this book, Ro Wauer describes a typical year in the natural life of South Texas. Using selected entries from his weekly column in the Victoria Advocate newspaper, he discusses numerous topics for each month, from the first appearance of butterflies in January, to alligators making a comeback in July, to the Christmas bird count in December. His observations are filled with intriguing natural history lore, from what sounds mockingbirds will imitate (almost any noise in their neighborhood) to how armadillos swim (by inflating themselves to increase their buoyancy).
Belize's Chiquibul Forest is one of the largest remaining expanses of tropical moist forest in Central America. It forms part of what is popularly known as the Maya Forest. Battered by hurricanes over millions of years, occupied by the Maya for thousands of years, and logged for hundreds of years, this ecosystem has demonstrated its remarkable ecological resilience through its continued existence into the twenty-first century. Despite its history of disturbance, or maybe in part because of it, the Maya Forest is ranked as an important regional biodiversity hot spot and provides some of the last regional habitats for endangered species such as the jaguar, the scarlet macaw, Baird's tapir, and Morelet's crocodile.
A Natural History of Belize presents for the first time a detailed portrait of the habitats, biodiversity, and ecology of the Maya Forest, and Belize more broadly, in a format accessible to a popular audience. It is based in part on the research findings of scientists studying at Las Cuevas Research Station in the Chiquibul Forest. The book is unique in demystifying many of the big scientific debates related to rainforests. These include "Why are tropical forests so diverse?"; "How do flora and fauna evolve?"; and "How do species interact?" By focusing on the ecotourism paradise of Belize, this book illustrates how science has solved some of the riddles that once perplexed the likes of Charles Darwin, and also shows how it can assist us in managing our planet and forest resources wisely in the future.
In this accessible analysis, a philosopher and a science educator look at biological theory and society through a synthesis of mechanistic and organicist points of view to best understand the complexity of life and biological systems.
The search for a unified framework for biology is as old as Plato’s musings on natural order, which suggested that the universe itself is alive. But in the twentieth century, under the influence of genetics and microbiology, such organicist positions were largely set aside in favor of mechanical reductionism, by which life is explained by the movement of its parts. But can organisms truly be understood in mechanical terms, or do we need to view life from the perspective of whole organisms to make sense of biological complexity?
The New Biology argues for the validity of holistic treatments from the perspectives of philosophy, history, and biology and outlines the largely unrecognized undercurrent of organicism that has persisted. Mechanistic biology has been invaluable in understanding a range of biological issues, but Michael Reiss and Michael Ruse contend that reductionism alone cannot answer all our questions about life. Whether we are considering human health, ecology, or the relationship between sex and gender, we need to draw from both organicist and mechanistic frameworks.
It’s not always a matter of combining organicist and mechanistic perspectives, Reiss and Ruse argue. There is scope for a range of ways of understanding the complexity of life and biological systems. Organicist and mechanistic approaches are not simply hypotheses to be confirmed or refuted, but rather operate as metaphors for describing a universe of sublime intricacy.
Though the forests are still green and the lakes full of water, an unending stream of invasions is changing many ecosystems around the world from productive, tightly integrated webs of native species to loose assemblages of stressed native species and aggressive invaders. The earth is becoming what author David Quammen has called a "planet of weeds."
Nature Out of Place brings this devastating but overlooked crisis to the forefront of public consciousness by offering a fascinating exploration of its causes and consequences, along with a thoughtful and practical consideration of what can be done about it. The father and son team of Jason and Roy Van Driesche offer a unique combination of narratives that highlight specific locations and problems along with comprehensive explanations of the underlying scientific and policy issues.
Chapters examine Hawaii, where introduced feral pigs are destroying the islands' native forests; zebra mussel invasion in the rivers of Ohio; the decades-long effort to eradicate an invasive weed on the Great Plains; and a story about the restoration of both ecological and human history in an urban natural area. In-depth background chapters explain topics ranging from how ecosystems become diverse, to the characteristics of effective invaders, to procedures and policies that can help prevent future invasions. The book ends with a number of specific suggestions for ways that individuals can help reduce the impacts of invasive species, and offers resources for further information.
By bringing the problem of invasive species to life for readers at all levels, Nature Out of Place will play an essential role in the vital effort to raise public awareness of this ongoing ecological crisis.
Rapid Ecological Assessment (REA) is a methodology developed by The Nature Conservancy to provide comprehensive and reliable information about biodiversity resources in situations where time and financial resources are limited. REAs utilize a combination of remote-sensed imagery, reconnaissance overflights, field data collection, and spatial information visualization to generate useful information for conservation planning.
Nature in Focus is an in-depth guide to the theory and practice of REAs, offering a detailed approach for assessing biodiversity in a rapid and integrative manner. It provides researchers with the essential tools and techniques they need to conduct an REA, and offers valuable advice about the planning and implementation aspects. The book:
Also included is a set of twelve color maps that describe the sequence of mapping activities in the case-study REA, along with other map examples from a range of REAs. In addition to the case study, appendixes offer a full set of REA field forms for sampling, and a model "Scope of Work" that describes the nature of work to be conducted in an REA and outlines the roles and responsibilities of the participating organizations.
Nature in Focus presents the collective experience of more than ten years of REA field-testing. Conservation practitioners and biodiversity scientists who are involved with REA initiatives, along with managers, policymakers, and others involved with conservation programs will find the book a useful and nontechnical guide to an essential element of successful conservation.
On our side, a vast arsenal of chemical pesticides. On their side? They don't have a side, the pests who must do nature's bidding. This is our war, and should we win it, ours would be a sorry planet. With disturbing news from the front, Nature Wars sounds the alarm against our dangerous tactics for controlling the pests that are an annoying but integral part of our world.
Thirty years after Silent Spring woke us to the devastation wrought by DDT, chemical pesticides are as pervasive as ever, deployed at a rate of 4 pounds a year for every man, woman, and child in this country. This ongoing commitment to pesticides, Mark Winston argues, reflects our sense of place in nature: embattled, beleaguered, driven to aggression. His book, as sensible as it is wise, seeks to change this mindset, to show how a more measured and discriminating approach to pests, one based on management rather than eradication, might serve us and the natural world far better than our ill-fated all-out war.
Winston backs up this approach with a full battery of case studies that take us from lawns and kitchens to farms and orchards, from insects and weeds to rats and coyotes. Here we see the complex political, biological, economic, social, and personal interactions that lie behind each pest management decision. Against this background Winston considers diverse instances of past pest management that reveal a consistent pattern of mistakes and problems--and lead to realistic, workable proposals for reducing pesticide use.
A compelling book about ethics and choices, Nature Wars shows us the difference between protecting ourselves from real pests and poisoning ourselves and the planet. It turns us from our war on nature to our task as stewards of the environment.
This companion volume to Siri von Reis's previous exploration of ethnobotanical notes in the Harvard herbaria brings to light a new array of plants with drug or food potential, offering wide-ranging possible applications for pharmacologists, chemists, botanists, and even anthropologists. Following the same criteria as in earlier investigations, the authors have examined the vast holdings of The New York Botanical Garden Herbarium to select little-known plant uses and to record any note suggesting biodynamic constituents--i.e., those having effects on living tissue--from skin irritants and poisons and medications of any kind to foods, beverages, and spices. They have also included species whose applications suggest other kinds of unreported chemical activity, plants associated with magic or ritual which affected people in some unusual way.
Listing the notes in the order in which the species were found in the collection, family by family, the authors call attention to similar characteristics in related species and families having biodvnamic properties in common. Each entry begins with the Latin name of the specimen, cites the country in which it was collected, the collector's name, and his held number for the plant, and then quotes the ethnobotanical or other note of interest.
While in itself a valuable reference work in the search for clues to useful plants, New Plant Source for Drugs and Foods also will enhance the value of the first volume by allowing a comparison of entries.
In this fourth and final installment in the Aquatic and Standing Water Plants of the Central Midwest series, veteran botanist Robert H. Mohlenbrock identifies aquatic and wetland plants in eight central Midwestern states, which include Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Kansas, Kentucky (excluding the Cumberland Mountain region), Missouri, and Nebraska.
Nelumbonaceae to Vitaceae: Water Lotuses to Grapes contains 346 highly informative and technically accurate illustrations as well as ecological information, nomenclature, and keys for plants in the aforementioned families, including white water lily, fireweed, smartweed, mild water pepper, hawthorn, and wild strawberry. Mohlenbrock identifies and describes each plant in concise and readable prose and indicates its usual habitats and the states in which it occurs.
As with previous volumes, Mohlenbrock organizes each species into three groups: truly aquatic plants, which spend their entire life with their vegetative parts either completely submerged or floating on the water’s surface; emergents, which are usually rooted under water with their vegetative parts standing above the water’s surface; and wetland plants, which live most or all of their lives out of water.
With Nelumbonaceae to Vitaceae, Mohlenbrock completes the four-volume series organizing and identifying wetland plants in the central Midwest. The botanical series will aid many, from teachers and students to state and federal employees, focused on conservation efforts and mitigation issues.
Big old trees inspire our respect and even affection. The poet Walt Whitman celebrated a Louisiana live oak that was solitary "in a wide flat space, / Uttering joyous leaves all its life without a friend a lover near." Groves and alleys of live oaks remain as distinctive landscape features on Louisiana's antebellum plantations, while massive individuals still cast their shade over churches, graveyards, parks, and roads. Cajuns have adopted the "Evangeline Oak" as one of their symbols. And the attachment that Louisianians feel for live oaks is equaled by that of Guatemalans for ceibas, the national tree of Guatemala. Long before Europeans came to the Americas, the ceiba, tallest of all native species, was the Mayan world tree, the center of the universe. Today, many ceibas remain as centers of Guatemalan towns, spreading their branches over the central plaza and marketplace.
In this compelling book, Kit Anderson creates a vibrant portrait of the relationship between people and trees in Louisiana and Guatemala. Traveling in both regions, she examined and photographed many old live oaks and ceibas and collected the stories and symbolism that have grown up around them. She describes who planted the trees and why, how the trees have survived through many human generations, and the rich meanings they hold for people today. Anderson also recounts the natural history of live oaks and ceibas to show what human use of the landscape has meant for the trees. This broad perspective, blending cultural geography and natural history, adds a new dimension to our understanding of how big old trees and the places they help create become deeply meaningful, even sacred, for human beings.
New Jersey is exceptionally rich in ferns, as three centuries of naturalists have recognized. Both amateur and professional botanists will welcome this new, complete, fully illustrated guide to the state's ferns and fern allies (the lycopods and horsetails). After an introduction to fern classification and nomenclature, the history of fern collecting, and the ecology and distribution of ferns within New Jersey, the authors describe eighty-three species, in thirty genera, and thiry-two hybrid forms (more than any other state). They include a fascinating account of the rare curly-grass fern, Schizaea pusilla, "New Jersy's most famous plant."
For each species, the authors provide a detailed drawing and comments on taxonomy, habitat, chromosome counts, habits of growth, and status as endangered species. Distribution maps show not only where plants have been collected, but also the time period for the most recent date of collectionÐÐa convenient way of showing the plant's spread or depletion. Throughout, the book reflects the latest research by fern experts.
An essential field guide and reference for naturalists, botanists, hikers, gardeners, and conservationists in New Jersey and the mid-Atlantic states.
The rapid growth of the American environmental movement in recent decades obscures the fact that long before the first Earth Day and the passage of the Endangered Species Act, naturalists and concerned citizens recognized—and worried about—the problem of human-caused extinction.
As Mark V. Barrow reveals in Nature’s Ghosts, the threat of species loss has haunted Americans since the early days of the republic. From Thomas Jefferson’s day—when the fossil remains of such fantastic lost animals as the mastodon and the woolly mammoth were first reconstructed—through the pioneering conservation efforts of early naturalists like John James Audubon and John Muir, Barrow shows how Americans came to understand that it was not only possible for entire species to die out, but that humans themselves could be responsible for their extinction. With the destruction of the passenger pigeon and the precipitous decline of the bison, professional scientists and wildlife enthusiasts alike began to understand that even very common species were not safe from the juggernaut of modern, industrial society. That realization spawned public education and legislative campaigns that laid the foundation for the modern environmental movement and the preservation of such iconic creatures as the bald eagle, the California condor, and the whooping crane.
A sweeping, beautifully illustrated historical narrative that unites the fascinating stories of endangered animals and the dedicated individuals who have studied and struggled to protect them, Nature’s Ghosts offers an unprecedented view of what we’ve lost—and a stark reminder of the hard work of preservation still ahead.
The National Wildlife Refuges provides a comprehensive examination of the laws and policies governing management of the national wildlife refuges, offering for the first time a practical description and analysis of the management regime outlined in the 1997 National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act. The 1997 act is the first new statute governing a system of federal public lands enacted since the 1970s. The evolution of law governing the refuge system parallels broader trends in public land management and environmental protection, making the refuge system a valuable case study for those interested in environmental management, policy, and law. The book:
A separate chapter examines the special rules governing refuges in Alaska and considers the contentious debate over the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Appendixes offer a reference of acronyms and abbreviations, a chronology of the refuge system's development, key statutory provisions (including the full text of the 1997 act), and basic information about each national wildlife refuge.
With an approach to conservation that is increasingly prevalent around the world, the National Wildlife Refuge System is an important model for sustainable resource management, and the book's analyses of the refuge system's ecological management criteria, conflicts between primary and subsidiary uses, and tension between site-specific standards and uniform national goals all offer important lessons for environmental governance generally.
Examining the appearance of nonhuman animals laboring alongside humans in humanitarian operations
Both critical and mainstream scholarly work on humanitarianism have largely been framed from anthropocentric perspectives highlighting humanity as the rationale for providing care to others. In Nonhuman Humanitarians, Benjamin Meiches explores the role of animals laboring alongside humans in humanitarian operations, generating new ethical possibilities of care in humanitarian practice.
Nonhuman Humanitarians examines how these animals not only improve specific practices of humanitarian aid but have started to transform the basic tenets of humanitarianism. Analyzing case studies of mine-clearance dogs, milk-producing cows and goats, and disease-identifying rats, Nonhuman Humanitarians ultimately argues that nonhuman animal contributions problematize foundational assumptions about the emotional and rational capacities of humanitarian actors as well as the ethical focus on human suffering that defines humanitarianism.
Meiches reveals that by integrating nonhuman animals into humanitarian practice, several humanitarian organizations have effectively demonstrated that care, compassion, and creativity are creaturely rather than human and that responses to suffering and injustice do not—and cannot—stop at the boundaries of the human.
In his provocative book The Next Social Contract, Wayne Gabardi rigorously considers the fate of animals in the twenty-first century. He claims that if we are to address the challenges raised by the Anthropocene—the period where nonhuman beings tend to be mere extras, often subsumed under the umbrella notion of “nature”—we need to radically rethink our basic ethical outlook and develop a new, “more-than-human” social contract.
Gabardi’s wide-ranging and multidisciplinary analysis focuses on four principal battlegrounds of animal biopolitics in the twenty first century: the extinction of wild animals, the crisis of oceanic animals, industrialized farm animals and the future of industrial agribusiness, and the situation of contact-zone animals moving into human-occupied habitats.
In his recasting of the social contract, Gabardi envisions a culture shift in human-animal relations toward posthumanism that features the ethical and political prioritization of animal life so it is on par with that of human well-being.
The strike of a praying mantis's forelegs is so fast that, once they are set in motion, the mantis cannot control its aim. How does it ever manage to catch a fly? A moth negotiating the night air hears the squeak of a hunting bat on the wing, and tumbles out of harm's way. How?
Insects are ideal subjects for neurophysiological studies, and at its simplest level this classic book relates the activities of nerve cells to the activities of insects, something that had never been attempted when the book first appeared in 1963. In several elegant experiments--on the moth, the cockroach, and the praying mantis--Roeder shows how stimulus and behavior are related through the nervous system and suggests that the insect brain appears to control behavior by determining which of the various built-in activity patterns will appear in a given situation. This slim volume remains invaluable to an understanding of the nervous mechanisms responsible for insect behavior.
Daniel Otte offers a comprehensive taxonomic treatise on all known species of grasshoppers from the Gulf of Panama to Alaska. Grasshoppers are a dominant form of life in most terrestrial habitats. The abundance of grasshoppers and the ease of obtaining them have brought about their extensive use in a wide variety of biological studies. It is probably fair to say that grasshoppers are biologically better understood than any equivalent group of insects. They were used in pioneering studies in genetics and are increasingly being used to test evolutionary, ecological, and physiological theories. Unfortunately, much of this work is still based on a poor classification, and many studies are hindered by difficulties which arise in identifying the species.
Now for the first time scientists are provided with:
– Illustrated keys and lists for distinguishing genera and species;
– Information on distributional limits, habitat preference, ecology, behavior, and life cycle;
– A list of pertinent references;
– Point distribution maps;
– A taxonomic index as well as a history of name changes.
But the book’s most spectacular feature is the author’s detailed drawings of all species in full color. The North American Grasshoppers will be especially useful to scientists in agriculture, environmental assessment, biogeography, grassland ecology, and insect taxonomy, and will also appeal to amateur naturalists. Undoubtedly, it will long stand as a definitive reference in its field.
“A name is forever, or at least as long as taxonomy continues,” Barry Bolton writes, and here are all the names, antique and modern, of all the ants that are or ever were—from the arctic to the tropical, the fossilized to the living, the mislabeled to the newly christened members of the family Formicidae. For every name that has ever been applied to ants, the book supplies a history and an account of current usage, together with a fully documented indication of the present-day classification. Its comprehensive bibliography provides references to original description, synonymy, homonymy, changes in rank, status, and availability, and alterations in generic status.
Organized by family group, genus group, and species group, this meticulously detailed but easily used volume is the ultimate resource for myrmecology. Along with Bolton’s Identification Guide to the Ant Genera of the World, it will be the essential reference for anyone, expert or amateur, with an interest in ants.
In this reflective account of life in the tropics, Alexander Skutch offers readers both his observations and his interpretations of what he has experienced. In the many chapters about birds and their behavior, he describes a dove that defends its nest with rare courage, castlebuilders who create elaborate nests of interlaced twigs, oropendolas that cluster long woven pouches in high treetops, and an exceptionally graceful hummingbird who fails to pay for its nectar by pollinating the flowers that yield it. Skutch also describes curious plants and their flowers, including a birthwort that holds its pollinating flies captive and fern fronds that twine high up trunks in the rain forest.
With penetrating clarity, Skutch considers the significance of all this restless activity: he examines the origins of beauty and our ability to appreciate it, the foundations of tropical splendor, the factors that help us feel close to nature or alienated from it, and the possibility of consciousness and emotion in animals. He also addresses the quandary of the biologist contemplating painful experiments on animals rather than learning by direct observation, and he asserts that our capacity to care for the world around us is the truest criterion of our evolutionary advancement.
Skutch brings a thoughtful, unequaled voice to the description of the world he has grown to know and understand, a world considered forbidding by most northerners and still largely unexplored.
Every year, more than twenty species of terns, gulls, and colonial wading birds raise their young on rookery islands all along the Gulf Coast. Their breeding and nesting activities go on in the wake of passing oil tankers, commercial fishing vessels, and pleasure boats of all kinds—human traffic that threatens their already circumscribed habitats.
John C. Dyes has spent more than ten years photographing and observing the birds in their rookeries on the Texas Coast, and, in Nesting Birds of the Coastal Islands, he presents a year in the birds' life through fine photographs and an evocative and informative text. In a month-by-month account, he follows the annual rituals and daily dramas of courtship, mating, and chick rearing among herons, egrets, spoonbills, cormorants, ibises, and other birds that migrate and gather in colonies ranging from half a dozen birds to tens of thousands.
Why are the eggs of the marsh wren deep brown, the winter wren's nearly white, and the gray catbird's a brilliant blue? And what in the DNA of a penduline tit makes the male weave a domed nest of fibers and the female line it with feathers, while the bird-of-paradise male builds no nest at all, and his bower-bird counterpart constructs an elaborate dwelling?
These are typical questions that Bernd Heinrich pursues in the engaging style we've come to expect from him—supplemented here with his own stunning photographs and original watercolors. One of the world's great naturalists and nature writers, Heinrich shows us how the sensual beauty of birds can open our eyes to a hidden evolutionary process. Nesting, as Heinrich explores it here, encompasses what fascinates us most about birds—from their delightful songs and spectacular displays to their varied eggs and colorful plumage; from their sex roles and mating rituals to nest parasitism, infanticide, and predation.
What moves birds to mate and parent their young in so many different ways is what interests Heinrich—and his insights into the nesting behavior of birds has more than a little to say about our own.
Recent discoveries about wild chimpanzees have dramatically reshaped our understanding of these great apes and their kinship with humans. We now know that chimpanzees not only have genomes similar to our own but also plot political coups, wage wars over territory, pass on cultural traditions to younger generations, and ruthlessly strategize for resources, including sexual partners. In The New Chimpanzee, Craig Stanford challenges us to let apes guide our inquiry into what it means to be human.
With wit and lucidity, Stanford explains what the past two decades of chimpanzee field research has taught us about the origins of human social behavior, the nature of aggression and communication, and the divergence of humans and apes from a common ancestor. Drawing on his extensive observations of chimpanzee behavior and social dynamics, Stanford adds to our knowledge of chimpanzees’ political intelligence, sexual power plays, violent ambition, cultural diversity, and adaptability.
The New Chimpanzee portrays a complex and even more humanlike ape than the one Jane Goodall popularized more than a half century ago. It also sounds an urgent call for the protection of our nearest relatives at a moment when their survival is at risk.
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