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America's Scientific Treasures: A Travel Companion

Stephen M. Cohen and Brenda H. Cohen

America’s Scientific Treasures is a comprehensive travel guide, designed for adults, that takes the reader to well-known and lesser-known sites of scientific and technological interest in the United ... More

America’s Scientific Treasures is a comprehensive travel guide, designed for adults, that takes the reader to well-known and lesser-known sites of scientific and technological interest in the United States. The book is divided into nine geographical chapters. Subdivided by states, each chapter is represented by its scientific and technological treasures, including museums, arboretums, zoos, national parks, planetariums, natural or technological points of interest, and the homes of famous scientists. While the book is aimed at adults, many of the sites may also be of interest to teens and younger children. The traveler is provided with essential information, including addresses, telephone numbers, hours of entry, handicapped access, dining facilities, dates open and closed, available public transportation, and websites. Nearly every site included here has been visited by the authors. Although written with scientists in mind, this book is for anyone who likes to travel and visit places of historical and scientific interest. Included are photographs of many sites within each state.Less

American Bison: A Natural History

Dale Lott

Jan van Wagtendonk and Kevin Shaffer (eds)

This book combines the latest scientific information and one man's personal experience in an homage to one of the most magnificent animals to have roamed America's vast, vanished grasslands. The book ... More

This book combines the latest scientific information and one man's personal experience in an homage to one of the most magnificent animals to have roamed America's vast, vanished grasslands. The book relates what is known about this iconic animal's life in the wild and its troubled history with humans. The book takes us on a journey into the bison's past and shares a compelling vision for its future, offering along the way a valuable introduction to North American prairie ecology. The book acquaints us with the social life and physiology of the bison, sharing stories about its impressive physical prowess and fascinating relationships. Describing the entire grassland community in which the bison live, it talks about the wolves, pronghorn, prairie dogs, grizzly bears, and other animals and plants, detailing the interdependent relationships among these inhabitants of a lost landscape. The book also traces the long and dramatic relationship between the bison and Native Americans, and gives a surprising look at the history of the hide hunts that delivered the coup de grace to the already dwindling bison population in a few short years. This book gives us a peek at the rich and unique ways of life that evolved in the heart of America. The book also dismantles many of the myths we have created about these ways of life, and about the bison in particular, to reveal the animal itself: ruminating, reproducing, and rutting in its full glory. This portrait of the bison ultimately becomes a plea to conserve its wildness and an eloquent meditation on the importance of the wild in our lives.Less

Anaconda: The Secret Life of the World's Largest Snake

Jesús A. Rivas

Written by Jesús Rivas, the undisputed expert on the biology of anacondas, this is the first authoritative book on the biology of the green anaconda, the world’s largest snake. Rivas describes his ... More

Written by Jesús Rivas, the undisputed expert on the biology of anacondas, this is the first authoritative book on the biology of the green anaconda, the world’s largest snake. Rivas describes his experiences over a quarter of a century exploring the secret life of these fantastic snakes, including their diet, movement patterns, life and tribulations, survival, behavior, and fascinating reproductive life. But more than just presenting facts about anacondas, Rivas tells his story about studying them in the field. Ultimately, his love for anacondas and his unorthodox approach give his voice a unique accent that makes this book stand out among other books of its kind. The rich photography and its storytelling approach make this an enjoyable and thoroughly readable book that can sit as comfortably on a coffee table as in the bookshelves of advanced scholars.Less

Bones, Clones, and Biomes: The History and Geography of Recent Neotropical Mammals

Bruce D. Patterson and Leonora P. Costa (eds)

As explorers and scientists have known for decades, the Neotropics harbor a fantastic array of our planet's mammalian diversity, from capybaras and capuchins to maned wolves and mouse opossums to ... More

As explorers and scientists have known for decades, the Neotropics harbor a fantastic array of our planet's mammalian diversity, from capybaras and capuchins to maned wolves and mouse opossums to sloths and sakis. This biological bounty can be attributed partly to the striking diversity of Neotropical landscapes and climates and partly to a series of continental connections that permitted intermittent faunal exchanges with Africa, Antarctica, Australia, and North America. Thus, to comprehend the development of modern Neotropical mammal faunas requires not only mastery of the Neotropics' substantial diversity, but also knowledge of mammalian lineages and landscapes dating back to the Mesozoic. This book offers an exploration of the development and relationships of the modern mammal fauna through a series of studies that encompass the last 100 million years and both Central and South America. This work serves as a complement to more taxonomically driven works, providing for readers the long geologic and biogeographic contexts that undergird the abundance and diversity of Neotropical mammals. Rather than documenting diversity or distribution, this collection traverses the patterns that the distributions and relationships across mammal species convey, bringing together geology, paleobiology, systematics, mammalogy, and biogeography.Less

Darwin's Orchids: Then and Now

Retha Edens-Meier and Peter Bernhardt (eds)

A quorum of scientists, conducting field and laboratory research on orchid pollination in eleven countries, offer reviews and results to celebrate the 150th anniversary of On The Various Contrivances ... More

A quorum of scientists, conducting field and laboratory research on orchid pollination in eleven countries, offer reviews and results to celebrate the 150th anniversary of On The Various Contrivances By Which British And Foreign Orchids Are Fertilised By Insects, And On The Good Effects Of Intercrossing (1862). Authors of the first ten chapters follow research on the pollination and breeding systems of the same orchid lineages that interested Darwin, including temperate and tropical species. Authors on the last two chapters provide information on the floral attractants and flowering systems of orchids using protocols and technologies unavailable during Darwin’s lifetime. The functional structure of orchid flowers, the chemistry of their fragrances, the behaviour of their pollinators, the effects of seasonal changes on flowering periods, and the role of genetics in determining their genealogy are addressed to show how the study of orchid evolution has expanded and diversified since Darwin (1862, 1877). As so many orchid species are currently threatened or endangered, conservation issues are discussed in terms of reproductive success.Less

Deep Things out of Darkness: A History of Natural History

John G. T. Anderson

Natural history, the deliberate observation of the environment, is arguably the oldest science. From purely practical beginnings as a way of finding food and shelter, natural history evolved into the ... More

Natural history, the deliberate observation of the environment, is arguably the oldest science. From purely practical beginnings as a way of finding food and shelter, natural history evolved into the holistic, systematic study of plants, animals, and the landscape. This book chronicles the rise, decline, and ultimate revival of natural history within the realms of science and public discourse. The account is focused on the lives and contributions of an eclectic group of men and women, from John Ray, John Muir, Charles Darwin, and Rachel Carson, who endured remarkable hardships and privations in order to learn more about their surroundings. The book charts the journey of the naturalist's endeavor from prehistory to the present, underscoring the need for natural history in an era of dynamic environmental change.Less

The Energy of Nature

E. C. Pielou

Energy is crucial for events of every kind, in this world or any other. Without energy, nothing would ever happen. Nothing would move and there would be no life. The sun wouldn't shine, winds ... More

Energy is crucial for events of every kind, in this world or any other. Without energy, nothing would ever happen. Nothing would move and there would be no life. The sun wouldn't shine, winds wouldn't blow, rivers wouldn't flow, trees wouldn't grow, birds wouldn't fly, and fish wouldn't swim; indeed no material object, living or dead, could even exist. In spite of all this, energy is seldom considered a part of what we call “nature.” This book explores energy's role in nature — how and where it originates, what it does, and what becomes of it. Drawing on a wide range of scientific disciplines, from physics, chemistry, and biology to all the earth sciences, as well as on her own lifelong experience as a naturalist, the author opens our eyes to the myriad ways energy and its transfer affect the earth and its inhabitants. Along the way, we learn how energy is delivered to the earth from the sun; how it causes weather, winds, and tides; how it shapes the earth through mountain building and erosion; how it is captured and used by living things; how it is stored in chemical bonds; how nuclear energy is released; how it heats the unseen depths of the planet and is explosively revealed in the turmoil of earthquakes and volcanoes; how energy manifests itself in magnetism and electromagnetic waves; how we harness it to fuel human societies; and much more.Less

Mushroom

Nicholas P. Money

Mushrooms are the most wondrous inventions of the last billion years of evolutionary history on earth. Their overnight appearance is a pneumatic process, with the inflation of millions of preformed ... More

Mushrooms are the most wondrous inventions of the last billion years of evolutionary history on earth. Their overnight appearance is a pneumatic process, with the inflation of millions of preformed cells extending the stem, pushing earth aside, and unfolding a cap above the dewy grass. Once exposed, a mushroom's gills shed an astonishing 30,000 spores per second, delivering billions of microscopic particles into the air in a single day, cells that may be capable of spawning the largest organisms on the planet. Mushroom colonies burrow through soil and rotting wood. Some hook into the roots of forest trees and engage in mutually supportive symbioses; others are pathogens that decorate their food sources with hardened hooves and fleshy shelves. Among the staggering diversity of mushroom-forming fungi we find stranger apparitions including gigantic puffballs, phallic eruptions with revolting aromas, and tiny “bird's nests” whose spore-filled eggs are splashed out by raindrops. But it is the poisonous effects of a handful of fungal metabolites, and the powerful hallucinogenic qualities of others, which account for the central place of mushrooms in mythology and their commonest associations in Western culture. This book explains what mushrooms are (Chapter 1), how they work (Chapter 2), and what their underlying colonies do (Chapter 3); the harvesting and conservation of wild mushrooms and the cultivation of domesticated species are addressed in Chapters 4 and 5, the science of poisonous and hallucinatory fungi in Chapters 6 and 7, and deceptive claims about medicinal mushrooms in Chapter 8.Less

The Nature Handbook: A Guide to Observing the Great Outdoors

Ernest H. Williams Jr. (ed.)

This book is a field guide that explores and explains the patterns of nature, providing new insight into observations of the natural world. The text offers scientifically current explanations of more ... More

This book is a field guide that explores and explains the patterns of nature, providing new insight into observations of the natural world. The text offers scientifically current explanations of more than 225 observable patterns, along with a brief list of sources for further study. The descriptions add understanding of the principles and interactions that underlie these patterns, and include distinct behaviors and adaptations as well as broad distributional patterns. With about one page devoted to each observation, this book offers an ecological perspective and insight. The descriptions are grouped into 14 chapters and cover features that one may observe in individual plants and animals as well as in habitats such as mountains, wetlands, and forests. Curiosity about the world around us is a basis for human learning, and this book aims to generate interest in the many stories of the living world.Less

Prevention of Bug Bites, Stings, and Disease

Daniel Strickman, Stephen P Frances, and Mustapha Debboun

Venoms from scorpions, spiders, centipedes, ants, wasps, and bees can be very poisonous, or induce serious allergic reactions. Blood sucking mites, ticks, lice, bed bugs, kissing bugs, sand flies, ... More

Venoms from scorpions, spiders, centipedes, ants, wasps, and bees can be very poisonous, or induce serious allergic reactions. Blood sucking mites, ticks, lice, bed bugs, kissing bugs, sand flies, biting midges, black flies, mosquitoes, snipe flies, horse flies, tsetse flies, stable flies, and fleas cause irritation. More seriously, some of them can leave behind pathogens that cause serious diseases. This volume presents the full spectrum of methods necessary for prevention of bites and stings from the worldwide variety of bloodsucking and venomous arthropods. The first step is identification of the problem by identifying the bug, knowing where the bug occurs, and deciding whether or not the problem is seriously connected to health problems. The next step is to build the bugs out of the personal environment of the home and its surrounding property. If those methods do not give complete relief, insecticides can sometimes provide the solution. Barriers like screens and doors can at least help when people are indoors. Outside, clothing can make a big difference, especially if repellents are applied to the cloth. The last resort for people exposed to bloodsucking bugs is to use repellents on the skin. This book provides information that will help in choosing the right repellent among the dozens of natural and synthetic products.Less