A lively exploration of animal behavior in all its glorious complexity, whether in tiny wasps, lumbering elephants, or ourselves.For centuries, people have been returning to the same tired nature-versus-nurture debate, trying to determine what we learn and what we inherit. In Dancing Cockatoos and the Dead Man Test, biologist Marlene Zuk goes beyond the binary and instead focuses on interaction, or the way that genes and environment work together. Driving her investigation is a simple but essential question: How does behavior evolve?Drawing from a wealth of research, including her own on insects, Zuk answers this question by turning to a wide range of animals and animal behavior. There are stories of cockatoos that dance to rock music, ants that heal their injured companions, dogs that exhibit signs of obsessive-compulsive disorder, and so much more.
W. W. Norton & Company
|
9781324007227
|
Hardcover
Right Here, Right Now
By Harris, Lynden
Upon receiving his execution date, one of the thousands of men living on death row in the United States had an epiphany: "All there ever is, is this moment. You, me, all of us, right here, right now, this minute, that's love." Right Here, Right Now collects the powerful, first-person stories of dozens of men on death rows across the country. From childhood experiences living with poverty, hunger, and violence to mental illness and police misconduct to coming to terms with their executions, these men outline their struggle to maintain their connection to society and sustain the humanity that incarceration and its daily insults attempt to extinguish. By offering their hopes, dreams, aspirations, fears, failures, and wounds, the men challenge us to reconsider whether our current justice system offers actual justice or simply perpetuates the social injustices that obscure our shared humanity.
Duke University Press Books
|
9781478014119
|
Paperback
Blueprint
By Plomin, Robert
A top behavioral geneticist makes the case that DNA inherited from our parents at the moment of conception can predict our psychological strengths and weaknesses.In Blueprint, behavioral geneticist Robert Plomin describes how the DNA revolution has made DNA personal by giving us the power to predict our psychological strengths and weaknesses from birth. A century of genetic research shows that DNA differences inherited from our parents are the consistent lifelong sources of our psychological individuality -- the blueprint that makes us who we are. Plomin reports that genetics explains more about the psychological differences among people than all other factors combined. Nature, not nurture, is what makes us who we are. Plomin explores the implications of these findings, drawing some provocative conclusions -- among them that parenting styles don't really affect children's outcomes once genetics is taken into effect.
MIT Press
|
9780262537988
|
Paperback
Every Living Thing
By Roberts, Jason
An epic, extraordinary account of scientific rivalry and obsession in the quest to survey all of life on Earth - a competition whose consequences still reverberate today - from the bestselling author of A Sense of the World. "[A] vibrant scientific saga . . . at once important, outrageous, enlightening, entertaining, enduring, and still evolving." - Dava Sobel, author of Longitude. In the eighteenth century, two men - exact contemporaries and polar opposites - dedicated their lives to the same daunting task: identifying and describing all life on Earth. Carl Linnaeus, a pious Swedish doctor with a huckster's flair, believed that life belonged in tidy, static categories. Georges-Louis de Buffon, an aristocratic polymath and keeper of France's royal garden, viewed life as a dynamic swirl of complexities.
Random House
|
9781984855206
|
Hardcover
What's Next
By Fitzgerald, Melissa
A behind-the-scenes look into the creation and legacy of The West Wing as told by cast members Melissa Fitzgerald and Mary McCormack, with additional insight from cast and crew exploring what made the show what it was, and how its impassioned commitment to service has made theseries and relationships behind it endure.. Step back inside the world of President Jed Bartlet's Oval Office with Fitzgerald and McCormack as they reunite the West Wing cast and crew in a lively and colorful "backstage pass" to the timeless series. This intimate, in-depth reflection reveals how The West Wing was conceived, and spotlights the army of people it took to produce it, the lifelong friendships it forged, and the service it inspired. From cast member origin stories to the collective, cathartic farewell on the show's final night of filming, What's Next will delight readers with tales of on-set hijinks and off-camera anecdotes that even West Wing superfans have never heard.
Dutton
|
9780593184547
|
Hardcover
The Climate Chronicles
By Bastardi, Joe
Joe Bastardi has been in love with the weather since his first memory, He is the son of a meteorologist, Matt Bastardi Texas A and M 1965, who emphasized to him the importance of looking at the past and understanding the present in an effort to formulate ideas on future events. This methodology revealed distinct cyclical patterns that were used to provide the foundation for his forecasting. The wonderful advances in science add to the mix, but are tools to use, not answers that should automatically be accepted as we see with the climate agenda. The lesson in weather, in history, in anything, is that the foundation you stand on today is built from yesterday to reach for tomorrow. The book examines the clash between that philosophy and one that minimizes lessons of the past, or ignores them, and uses climate and weather to simply further an agenda that has very little to do with either. An uncurious media is a willing accomplice in advancing the missive to the population, The Climate Chronicles reveals that clash in an effort to get the reader to search beyond what they are told. As such its a must read for those seeking not an agenda driven answer, but the right answer, wherever it may lead them. Bastardis goal is not to get you to blindly accept what he says, but to dig in and examine for yourself. The book shows, given the implications of not doing so, more is at stake than just tomorrows weather.
CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
|
9781983509384
|
Paperback
Notes from an Apocalypse
By O'connell, Mark
By the author of the award-winning To Be a Machine, an absorbing, deeply felt book about our anxious present tense--and coming to grips with the futureWe're alive in a time of worst-case scenarios: The weather has gone uncanny. Our old postwar alliances are crumbling. Everywhere you look there's an omen, a joke whose punchline is the end of the world. How is a person supposed to live in the shadow of such a grim future? What does it mean to have children--nothing if not an act of hope? What might it be like to live through the worst? And what on Earth is anybody doing about it?Dublin-based writer Mark O'Connell is consumed by these questions--and, as the father of two young children himself, he finds them increasingly urgent. In Notes from an Apocalypse, he crosses the globe in pursuit of answers.
Doubleday
|
9780385543002
|
Hardcover
The Case for Keto
By Taubes, Gary
The best-selling author of Why We Get Fat and The Case Against Sugar reveals why the established rules about eating healthy might be the wrong approach to weight loss for millions of people, and how low-carbohydrate, high-fat/ketogenic diets can help so many of us achieve and maintain a healthy weight for life.Based on twenty years of investigative reporting and interviews with 100 practicing physicians who embrace the keto lifetstyle as the best prescription for their patients' health, Taubes's book puts the ketogenic diet movement in the necessary historical and scientific perspective. It makes clear the vital misconceptions in how we've come to think about obesity and diet (no, people do not become fat simply because they eat too much; hormones play the critical role) and uses the collected clinical experience of the medical community to provide essential practical advice.
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
|
9780525520061
|
Hardcover
Mammal Tracks & Sign
By Elbroch, Mark
The most comprehensive reference guide to mammal tracks and sign for North America. This new edition is more visual, with more than 1300 photos and 450 illustrations for easy comparison and identification of similar sign. Each species account includes information on tracks and trails, scat and urine, nests and lodges, as well as sign on the ground, in trees and shrubs, on fungi and on plants.
Stackpole Books
|
9780811737746
|
Paperback
Butts
By Radke, Heather
A fascinating journey into the scientific and cultural history of the female butt, for fans of Mary Roach and Leslie Jamison.Whether we love them or hate them, think they're sexy, think they're strange, consider them too big, too small, or anywhere in between, humans have a complicated relationship with butts. It is a body part unique to humans, critical to our evolution and survival, and yet it has come to signify so much more: sex, desire, comedy, shame. A woman's butt, in particular, is forever being assessed, criticized, and objectified, from anxious self-examinations trying on jeans in department store dressing rooms to enduring crass remarks while walking down a street or high school hallways. But why? In Butts: A Backstory, reporter, essayist, and RadioLab contributing editor Heather Radke is determined to find out.
Dancing Cockatoos and the Dead Man Test
By Zuk, Marlene
A lively exploration of animal behavior in all its glorious complexity, whether in tiny wasps, lumbering elephants, or ourselves.For centuries, people have been returning to the same tired nature-versus-nurture debate, trying to determine what we learn and what we inherit. In Dancing Cockatoos and the Dead Man Test, biologist Marlene Zuk goes beyond the binary and instead focuses on interaction, or the way that genes and environment work together. Driving her investigation is a simple but essential question: How does behavior evolve?Drawing from a wealth of research, including her own on insects, Zuk answers this question by turning to a wide range of animals and animal behavior. There are stories of cockatoos that dance to rock music, ants that heal their injured companions, dogs that exhibit signs of obsessive-compulsive disorder, and so much more.
Right Here, Right Now
By Harris, Lynden
Upon receiving his execution date, one of the thousands of men living on death row in the United States had an epiphany: "All there ever is, is this moment. You, me, all of us, right here, right now, this minute, that's love." Right Here, Right Now collects the powerful, first-person stories of dozens of men on death rows across the country. From childhood experiences living with poverty, hunger, and violence to mental illness and police misconduct to coming to terms with their executions, these men outline their struggle to maintain their connection to society and sustain the humanity that incarceration and its daily insults attempt to extinguish. By offering their hopes, dreams, aspirations, fears, failures, and wounds, the men challenge us to reconsider whether our current justice system offers actual justice or simply perpetuates the social injustices that obscure our shared humanity.
Blueprint
By Plomin, Robert
A top behavioral geneticist makes the case that DNA inherited from our parents at the moment of conception can predict our psychological strengths and weaknesses.In Blueprint, behavioral geneticist Robert Plomin describes how the DNA revolution has made DNA personal by giving us the power to predict our psychological strengths and weaknesses from birth. A century of genetic research shows that DNA differences inherited from our parents are the consistent lifelong sources of our psychological individuality -- the blueprint that makes us who we are. Plomin reports that genetics explains more about the psychological differences among people than all other factors combined. Nature, not nurture, is what makes us who we are. Plomin explores the implications of these findings, drawing some provocative conclusions -- among them that parenting styles don't really affect children's outcomes once genetics is taken into effect.
Every Living Thing
By Roberts, Jason
An epic, extraordinary account of scientific rivalry and obsession in the quest to survey all of life on Earth - a competition whose consequences still reverberate today - from the bestselling author of A Sense of the World. "[A] vibrant scientific saga . . . at once important, outrageous, enlightening, entertaining, enduring, and still evolving." - Dava Sobel, author of Longitude. In the eighteenth century, two men - exact contemporaries and polar opposites - dedicated their lives to the same daunting task: identifying and describing all life on Earth. Carl Linnaeus, a pious Swedish doctor with a huckster's flair, believed that life belonged in tidy, static categories. Georges-Louis de Buffon, an aristocratic polymath and keeper of France's royal garden, viewed life as a dynamic swirl of complexities.
What's Next
By Fitzgerald, Melissa
A behind-the-scenes look into the creation and legacy of The West Wing as told by cast members Melissa Fitzgerald and Mary McCormack, with additional insight from cast and crew exploring what made the show what it was, and how its impassioned commitment to service has made theseries and relationships behind it endure.. Step back inside the world of President Jed Bartlet's Oval Office with Fitzgerald and McCormack as they reunite the West Wing cast and crew in a lively and colorful "backstage pass" to the timeless series. This intimate, in-depth reflection reveals how The West Wing was conceived, and spotlights the army of people it took to produce it, the lifelong friendships it forged, and the service it inspired. From cast member origin stories to the collective, cathartic farewell on the show's final night of filming, What's Next will delight readers with tales of on-set hijinks and off-camera anecdotes that even West Wing superfans have never heard.
The Climate Chronicles
By Bastardi, Joe
Joe Bastardi has been in love with the weather since his first memory, He is the son of a meteorologist, Matt Bastardi Texas A and M 1965, who emphasized to him the importance of looking at the past and understanding the present in an effort to formulate ideas on future events. This methodology revealed distinct cyclical patterns that were used to provide the foundation for his forecasting. The wonderful advances in science add to the mix, but are tools to use, not answers that should automatically be accepted as we see with the climate agenda. The lesson in weather, in history, in anything, is that the foundation you stand on today is built from yesterday to reach for tomorrow. The book examines the clash between that philosophy and one that minimizes lessons of the past, or ignores them, and uses climate and weather to simply further an agenda that has very little to do with either. An uncurious media is a willing accomplice in advancing the missive to the population, The Climate Chronicles reveals that clash in an effort to get the reader to search beyond what they are told. As such its a must read for those seeking not an agenda driven answer, but the right answer, wherever it may lead them. Bastardis goal is not to get you to blindly accept what he says, but to dig in and examine for yourself. The book shows, given the implications of not doing so, more is at stake than just tomorrows weather.
Notes from an Apocalypse
By O'connell, Mark
By the author of the award-winning To Be a Machine, an absorbing, deeply felt book about our anxious present tense--and coming to grips with the futureWe're alive in a time of worst-case scenarios: The weather has gone uncanny. Our old postwar alliances are crumbling. Everywhere you look there's an omen, a joke whose punchline is the end of the world. How is a person supposed to live in the shadow of such a grim future? What does it mean to have children--nothing if not an act of hope? What might it be like to live through the worst? And what on Earth is anybody doing about it?Dublin-based writer Mark O'Connell is consumed by these questions--and, as the father of two young children himself, he finds them increasingly urgent. In Notes from an Apocalypse, he crosses the globe in pursuit of answers.
The Case for Keto
By Taubes, Gary
The best-selling author of Why We Get Fat and The Case Against Sugar reveals why the established rules about eating healthy might be the wrong approach to weight loss for millions of people, and how low-carbohydrate, high-fat/ketogenic diets can help so many of us achieve and maintain a healthy weight for life.Based on twenty years of investigative reporting and interviews with 100 practicing physicians who embrace the keto lifetstyle as the best prescription for their patients' health, Taubes's book puts the ketogenic diet movement in the necessary historical and scientific perspective. It makes clear the vital misconceptions in how we've come to think about obesity and diet (no, people do not become fat simply because they eat too much; hormones play the critical role) and uses the collected clinical experience of the medical community to provide essential practical advice.
Mammal Tracks & Sign
By Elbroch, Mark
The most comprehensive reference guide to mammal tracks and sign for North America. This new edition is more visual, with more than 1300 photos and 450 illustrations for easy comparison and identification of similar sign. Each species account includes information on tracks and trails, scat and urine, nests and lodges, as well as sign on the ground, in trees and shrubs, on fungi and on plants.
Butts
By Radke, Heather
A fascinating journey into the scientific and cultural history of the female butt, for fans of Mary Roach and Leslie Jamison.Whether we love them or hate them, think they're sexy, think they're strange, consider them too big, too small, or anywhere in between, humans have a complicated relationship with butts. It is a body part unique to humans, critical to our evolution and survival, and yet it has come to signify so much more: sex, desire, comedy, shame. A woman's butt, in particular, is forever being assessed, criticized, and objectified, from anxious self-examinations trying on jeans in department store dressing rooms to enduring crass remarks while walking down a street or high school hallways. But why? In Butts: A Backstory, reporter, essayist, and RadioLab contributing editor Heather Radke is determined to find out.