Book
Extinction and Evolution recounts the work and discoveries of Niles Eldredge, one of the world's most renowned paleontologists, whose research overturned Charles Darwin's theory of evolution as a slow and inevitable process, as published in On the Origin...
Whether to escape predators or to surprise their prey, the talented strategists of nature in The Champions of Camouflage survive using visual trickery and fascinating biology.
A captivatingly informative and visually beautiful survey of the tree species – from all over the world – that human cultures have found most useful. Each tree species is the subject of a concise text centred on a story – or stories – about the tree ...
Bees are our most loyal ally. These fascinating, enigmatic creatures are a key lynchpin in the working of our planet. Without them the landscape, as well as every aisle in our supermarkets would look radically different. And we're not just talking about...
Companion to the film Fantastic Fungi. Contributions from Michael Pollan, Andrew Weil, Eugenia Bone, and many more expterts make Fantastic Fungi an awe-inspiring visual journey through the exotic, little-known realm of fungi and its amazing potential...
Sharks are ruthlessly efficient predators, the apex of 450 million years of evolution. They are older than trees, have survived five extinction events and are essential to maintaining balanced ocean ecosystems, but how much do we really know about their...
Have you ever found yourself wondering what we might have in common with stars or why the Moon never leaves us? Thinking about the precise dancing of planets, the passing of time or the nature of natural things? Our world is full of unshakeable mystery,...
Evolution is the process by which species adapt over time to their environments. The tricky part about human evolution is that, as technology builders, we have the power to alter our environments--and even build new, unprecedented conditions in which...
This book is for anyone who wants to easily understand the mind-blowing fundamentals of our extraordinary, expanding universe. Written by Oxford astrophysicist Dr Becky Smethurst and composed of ten captivating, simple essays, it guides you swiftly through...
"It had been nearly a century since elephants had lived in Southern Zululand, South Africa, where Lawrence Anthony founded his Thula Thula wildlife reserve. Yet one day a phone call changed all that. A troubled, unpredictable herd needed a new home. In...
The passion and urgency that inspired WWI and WWII Victory Gardens is needed today to meet another threat to our food supply and our environment-the steep decline of pollinators. The Pollinator Victory Garden offers practical solutions for winning the...
Insects are quite literally the largest subjects in the natural world, with more than 1 million species known. Using the simple observation that every picture is worth a thousand words, the 1,000+ photographs in this book are all presented with a caption...
From an educator at NASA, this photo treasury presents 100 eclectic objects--from Stonehenge to Sputnik--and explains their significance to the history of space exploration.
Everyone knows about DNA. It is the essence of our being, influencing who we are and what we pass on to our children. But the information in DNA can t be used without a machine to decode it. The ribosome is that machine. Older than DNA itself, it is the...
A natural history of the wilderness in our homes, from the microbes in our showers to the crickets in our basements.
Are you wishing you knew all you need to know about how to better communicate science, without having to read several hundred academic papers and blogs and books? Luckily Dr Craig Cormick has done this for you! This highly readable and entertaining b...
Follow an epic animal race, a quest for a disembodied hand, and an emu egg hunt in constellation stories from diverse cultures. We can see love, betrayal, and friendship in the heavens, if we know where to look. A world expert on cultural understandings...
Darkness has shaped the lives of humans for millennia, and in Dark Skies, author Tiffany Francis travels around Britain and Europe to learn more about nocturnal landscapes and humanity's connection to the night sky. Over the course of a year, Tiffany...
From Classical times to the 19th century, the great quest to discover and define the intoxicating diversity of the natural world attracted a host of intrepid thinkers and explorers. Aristotle and Linnaeus set out to classify nature; Joseph Banks and ...
Why the social character of scientific knowledge makes it trustworthy Do doctors really know what they are talking about when they tell us vaccines are safe? Should we take climate experts at their word when they warn us about the perils of global w...
Explore the star-studded cosmos with this fully updated, user-friendly skywatcher's guide, filled with charts, graphics, photographs, and expert tips for viewing -- and understanding -- the wonders of space. Stargazing's too much fun to leave to astr...
Discover the fascinating answers to the most curious weather questions from two expert meteorologists. Why doesn't rain fall all at once? Can technology change the track of a hurricane? What's the weather like on other planets? Meteorologists Simon King...
The universe literally encompasses everything we were, are and will be, everything we knew, know and can know. When we decide to understand the universe as a whole, new truths come to light, and unexpected perspectives illuminate our take on life. 30...
Maths is the story of the world around us, and the wisdom it gives us can be the difference between success and disaster. We are all doing maths all the time, from the way we communicate with each other to the way we travel, from how we work to how we...
Since the 1970s, astronomers have been aware that galaxies have far too little matter in them to account for the way they spin around: they should fly apart like clay off a potter’s wheel, but something concealed holds them together. This ‘something’...
Are you ready to #RateASpecies? Zoos and aquariums have poked wild fun at their animal friends - and their "product reviews" will leave your pack howling! Packed with adorable animal photos and laced with wit and humor, Animals Reviewed is a must-read...
Increasingly, scientists are gaining control over matter at the nanometer scale. Spearheaded by physical scientists operating at the interfaces of physics and biology (such as the author herself), advances in nanoscience and technology are transforming...
An astonishing exploration of planet formation and the origins of life by one of the world's most innovative planetary geologists. In 1959, the Soviet probe Luna 3 took the first photos of the far side of the moon. Even in their poor resolution, the ...
The Firefly Guide to Minerals, Rocks and Gems is designed for easy and reliable identification of minerals, gems and rocks. The identification process begins with the stone's streak colour, which is how the book is organised: Blue, Red, Yellow, Brown,...
Name That Flower is a valued source of clear and concise information on identifying flowering plants from around the world, both cultivated and in the wild. This edition is updated to align with current systems of plant classification that incorporate...
A groundbreaking argument for the political rights of animals. In When Animals Speak, Eva Meijer develops a new, ground-breaking theory of language and politics, arguing that non-human animals speak—and, most importantly, act—politically. From geese and...
David Abulafia's new book guides readers along the world's greatest bodies of water to reveal their primary role in human history. The main protagonists are the three major oceans-the Atlantic, the Pacific, and the Indian-which together comprise the ...
Fungipedia presents a delightful A-Z treasury of mushroom lore. With more than 180 entries-on topics as varied as Alice in Wonderland, chestnut blight, medicinal mushrooms, poisonings, Santa Claus, and waxy caps-this collection will transport both ge...
This richly illustrated treasury showcases the finest examples of celestial cartography - a glorious genre of map-making often overlooked by modern map books - as well as medieval manuscripts, masterpiece paintings, ancient star catalogues, antique i...
Accessible introduction to the biology, life cycle, natural history, and classification of moths. Moths are a crucial insect group encompassing more than 160,000 species, and they are among the most ancient of Earth's inhabitants, with some fossils believed...
From a journalist and former lab researcher, a penetrating investigation of the explosion in cases of scientific fraud and the factors behind it. In the 1970s, a scientific scandal about painted mice hit the headlines. A cancer researcher was found to...
In this guided tour of our planetary neighborhood, the Milky Way and other galaxies, and beyond, detailed maps and fascinating imagery from recent space missions partner with clear, authoritative scientific information. Starting with the sun and moving...
Reveals the profound influence of the Denisovans and their hybrid descendants upon the flowering of human civilization around the world.
A hugely affecting memoir by the world's leading coral reef scientist, revealing the thrill of diving and the vital science and story of these majestic reefs. How did one of the world's preeminent marine conservation scientists fall in love with coral...
"[This book] showcases 125 of the best photographs ever assembled of the countries' most spectacular reptiles and frogs.Twenty-five of the best photographers specialising in herpetology each submitted five of their most awe-inspiring images, culminating...
The periodic table, created in the early 1860s by Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev, is one of the most extraordinary advances in modern chemistry. This basic visual aid helped scientists to gain a deeper understanding of what chemical elements really...
The philosophy of Raymond Ruyer was an important if subterranean influence on twentieth-century French thought, and explicitly engaged with by figures such as Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Georges Canguilhem, Gilbert Simondon, and Gilles Deleuze. The Genesis...
Sy Montgomery, New York Times best-selling author and recipient of numerous awards, edits this year's volume of the finest science and nature writing. "Science is important because this is how we seek to discover the truth about the world. And this is...
Humans are the most successful species on Earth; a planet-altering force of nature. Meanwhile, our closest living relatives, the now-endangered chimpanzees, continue to live as they have for millions of years. Yet we evolved through the same process....
If you found maths lessons at school irrelevant and boring, that's because you didn't have a teacher like Bobby Seagull. Long before his rise to cult fandom on University Challenge, Bobby Seagull was obsessed with numbers. They were the keys that unlocked...
It is now known that we live in a galaxy with more planets than stars. The Milky Way alone encompasses 30 trillion potential home planets. Scientists Trefil and Summers bring readers on a marvelous experimental voyage through the possibilities of lif...
The Mindset Mathematics series offers a unique, research-based visual approach to exploring the big ideas in mathematics, which is essential to future mathematics success. This hands-on resource is for any teacher who wants to engage their seventh gr...
Saturn is the showpiece planet of our solar system. It may not be the largest, nor the smallest, nor even the only planet with rings. But it is among the most stunning objects in the sky and is always breathtaking when seen in a telescope. This is a....
This book features the earth sciences at their most spectacular. It reveals the massive internal forces that create and change the Earth's surface, with dramatic and sometimes beautiful consequences. The authors explain what fuels the power of volcanoes...
In 1911, a relatively unknown physicist named Albert Einstein published his preliminary theory of gravity. But it hadn't been tested. To do that, he needed a photograph of starlight as it passed the sun during a total solar eclipse. So began a nearly...
Beloved science commentator Bob McDonald takes us on a tour of our galaxy, unraveling the mysteries of the universe and helping us navigate our place among the stars. How big is our galaxy? Is there life on those distant planets? Are we really made of...
"For many years now, we have known the story of the Solar System, and the Earth's place in it. We have mapped out the stars in the night sky, and have known that we live in a disk of stars that makes up the Milky Way galaxy. But, in the past few decades,...
New Zealand's native trees are truly remarkable. From the massive kauri, the third-largest tree in the world, the showy pohutukawas and ratas, and the ubiquitous cabbage tree to rare and endangered species found only on offshore islands, our glorious...
Graceful, intelligent and huge, whales cast a spell over the human species. But their thoughts and ways of life lie beyond our understanding, in an alien habitat. A few people who've dived and made their acquaintance come closer to penetrating the un...
For seventeen years, as part of his daily writerly routine, the author and naturalist Mark Cocker has taken a two-mile walk down to the river from his cottage on the edge of the Norfolk Broads National Park. Over the course of those 10,000 daily paces...
In this "phytobiography" a collection of stories written in partnership with a plant research scientist, Monica Gagliano, reveals the dynamic role plants play in genuine first-hand accounts from her research into plant communication and cognition. By...
Trekking the globe and drawing from their latest research, Barbara Natterson-Horowitz and Kathryn Bowers discovered that all animals and humans on the journey to adulthood face four core challenges: how to stay safe, negotiate status, navigate sexuality,...
A French ornithologist and philosopher teach us to pause, look to the sky, and reconnect with the natural world, in twenty-two short lessons inspired by the secret lives of birds. There is a lot we can learn from birds if we pay attention. This elegant...
A comprehensive look at four of the most famous problems in mathematics. Tales of Impossibility recounts the intriguing story of the renowned problems of antiquity, four of the most famous and studied questions in the history of mathematics. First posed...
From the first tiny green scouts that clung to watery banks, plants spread across the land, opening their leaves to the sun, growing tall, turning the world green. How did plants accomplish this extraordinary feat? The author takes us through the story,...
How many cats are there in the world? What's the chance of winning the lottery twice? And just how long does it take to count to a million? Learn how to tackle tricky maths problems with nothing but the back of an envelope, a pencil and some good old...
In Underland, Macfarland delivers his masterpiece: an epic exploration of the Earth's underworlds as they exist in myth, literature, memory, and the land itself. He takes us on an extraordinary journey into our relationship with darkness, burial, and...
We've all seen the fox. A flash of his brushy tail disappearing between the gap of a fence, a blaze of orange caught in the headlights as he scampers across the road. We've heard him too, his strange barks echoing in the city night. Perhaps we've even...
Part aspirational encyclopedia, part identification guide, 100 Birds to See in Your Lifetime provides detailed summary information and range maps, along with profiles featuring unusual facts, anecdotes and its significance. Whilst many of the species...
From the rabbit-sized Black-footed Cat of southern Africa to bear-killing Amur tigers of the Russian Far East, the 38 members of the Cat Family include some of the world's most fascinating and magnificent species on earth. Supremely adapted for the kill,...
Even the most enthusiastic of maths students probably at one time wondered when exactly it would all prove useful in 'real life'. Well, maths reaches so far and wide through our world that, love it or hate it, we're all doing maths almost every minute...
How is the climate where you are? And how did it get that way? How does the great complex global interaction of ice, ocean, and atmosphere combine to generate the rain that sustains us? And who figured all its secret processes out? From the glaciers of...
Dolphins and parrots call each other by their names. Fork tailed drongos mimic the calls of other animals to scare them away and then steal their dinner. In the songs of many species of birds, and in skin patterns of squid, we find grammatical structures....
The Last Dance looks at how the barbaric practice of dancing bears worked and how the coalition set about bringing it to an end and rescuing every bear off the streets of India. It exposes the terrible suffering the bears endured to make them dance.
Few spaces are as enchanting and romantic--with a touch of the tantalizingly morbid--as an churchyard. From the earliest pagan sites to modern urban cemeteries, these burial grounds have always enjoyed a sacred, protected status. Their preservation, and...
A compendium of slimy and repulsive facts from the authors of DOES IT FART? What is hyena butter, and would you want to put it on toast? A hagfish can produce how much slime in 60 seconds? Which animal produces a snotty sleeping bag? How does a bubble...
Scientists in the past few decades have made crucial discoveries about how our cosmos evolved over the past 13.8 billion years. But there remains a critical gap in our knowledge: we still know very little about what happened in the first seconds after...
A number of extreme weather events have struck the Northern Hemisphere in recent years, from scorching heatwaves to desperately cold winters and from floods and storms to droughts and wildfires. Is this the emerging signal of climate change, and should...
Game of Thrones is a fantasy that features a lot of made-up science-fabricated climatology (when is winter coming?), astronomy, metallurgy, chemistry, and biology. Most fans of George R. R. Martin's fantastical world accept it all as part of the magic....
How to Draw a Map is a fascinating meditation on the centuries-old art of map-making, from the first astronomical maps to the sophisticated GPS guides of today. Maps have influenced humanity in many unexpected ways: life, death, sexual reproduction, ...
What would drive a man to 'smuggle' rhino horn back into Africa at great risk to himself? This is just one of the situations Grant Fowlds has put himself in as part of his ongoing fight against poaching, in order to prove a link between southern Africa...
18 Miles is a kaleidoscopic and fact-filled journey that uncovers our obsession with the atmosphere and weather as both evocative metaphor and physical reality.
Every single one of the millions of species alive today is the most recent link in an almost-endless chain of creation going all the way back to the origins of life. The amazing diversity and complexity we see all around us are products of nature's c...
Explores how scientists create superheavy elements, using giant machines to try to make single atoms of mysterious artefacts that have never existed on Earth. From the first elements past uranium and their role in the devlopment of the atomic bomb to...
Explore the wonders of the universe like you've never seen before with this incredible new book from bestselling author Martin Vargic, which will fascinate both young and old alike. Vargic's beautifully innovative designs will help to explain all of the...
From tiny insects to sleek sharks and majestic elephants, this book invites you to explore the animal kingdom up close - from nose to tail. Whether you're interested in specific animal groups such as mammals or birds or have a passion for wildlife ph...
David Dickinson, earth science teacher and backyard astronomer, and Fraser Cain, publisher of Universe today, have teamed up to provide expert guidance on observing the night sky. "The universe today ultimate guide to viewing the cosmos" features the...
This compelling visual journey through our galaxy combines more than 350 photographs, illustrations, and graphics to present the universe as you've never seen it before. Visual Galaxy is a deep dive into the past, present, and future of our home galaxy,...
Joe McDonald and Mary Ann McDonald hold the record for treks to Rwanda to photograph mountain gorillas in their natural habitat. In this book, Joe shares his vast knowledge of the apes, and the pair present an unprecedented collection of images that ...
In Eight Master Lessons of Nature, Gary Ferguson reveals the wisdom of the natural world. By keenly observing and admiring wildlife and their surroundings, he shows us why sympathy is our greatest asset and crucial to our survival, that feminine rule...
A vibrant exploration of the world's most famous and important mathematical ideas, theorems, and movements, and the great minds behind them. Take a journey through the intriguing story of numbers, patterns, and shapes in order to better understand the...
The stunning visuals and authoritative text make Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Life a fascinating and revealing encyclopedia that will appeal to the whole family. From the origin of life, through the age of dinosaurs stalked by the terrifying Tyrannosaurus...
Explore ecology in this accessible introduction to how the natural world works and how we have started to understand the environment, ecosystems, and climate change. Using a bold, graphic-led approach, The Ecology Book explores and explains over 85 of...
"The Primate Family Tree" is a beautiful and comprehensive resource on the subject of our animal relatives: apes, monkeys and lemurs. Readers will learn an abundance of facts, review recent research and conservation efforts and discover the remarkabl...
In a centuries-old tradition, farmers in northwestern Iceland scour remote coastal plains for the down of nesting eider ducks. High inside a vast cave in Borneo, men perched atop rickety ladders collect swiftlets' nests, a delicacy believed to be a cure...
Insects comprise roughly half of the animal kingdom, and they live everywhere. Most of us think life would be better without bugs. In fact, life would be impossible without them. Without the pinhead-sized chocolate midge, cocoa flowers would not pollinate....
With the advent of CRISPR gene-editing technology, designer babies have become a reality. Françoise Baylis insists that scientists alone cannot decide the terms of this new era in human evolution. Members of the public, with diverse interests and per...
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