Download or read book A Gap in Nature written by Tim Fridtjof Flannery and published by Atlantic Monthly Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A short description of the extinct animal along with a color drawing.
Download or read book A Gap in Nature written by Tim Fridtjof Flannery and published by Virago Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We live in an age of extinction. A Gap in Nature, written by Tim Flannery and breathtakingly illustrated by Peter Schouten, tells the magic story of how, after Columbus' bold discovery of the Americas in 1492, the impact of European exploration and settlement was to prove fatal for many of the planet's most bizarre and extraordinary creatures. Some species disappeared before they could be properly documented, and others became extinct when overzealous collectors shot their last members. Every part of the planet was affected, from the Caribbean to the Arctic North, from the tiniest Pacific island to Eurasia, the great landmass of them all.
Download or read book The Gap written by Thomas Suddendorf and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2013-11-12 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There exists an undeniable chasm between the capacities of humans and those of animals. Our minds have spawned civilizations and technologies that have changed the face of the Earth, whereas even our closest animal relatives sit unobtrusively in their dwindling habitats. Yet despite longstanding debates, the nature of this apparent gap has remained unclear. What exactly is the difference between our minds and theirs? In The Gap, psychologist Thomas Suddendorf provides a definitive account of the mental qualities that separate humans from other animals, as well as how these differences arose. Drawing on two decades of research on apes, children, and human evolution, he surveys the abilities most often cited as uniquely human -- language, intelligence, morality, culture, theory of mind, and mental time travel -- and finds that two traits account for most of the ways in which our minds appear so distinct: Namely, our open-ended ability to imagine and reflect on scenarios, and our insatiable drive to link our minds together. These two traits explain how our species was able to amplify qualities that we inherited in parallel with our animal counterparts; transforming animal communication into language, memory into mental time travel, sociality into mind reading, problem solving into abstract reasoning, traditions into culture, and empathy into morality. Suddendorf concludes with the provocative suggestion that our unrivalled status may be our own creation -- and that the gap is growing wider not so much because we are becoming smarter but because we are killing off our closest intelligent animal relatives. Weaving together the latest findings in animal behavior, child development, anthropology, psychology, and neuroscience, this book will change the way we think about our place in nature. A major argument for reconsidering what makes us human, The Gap is essential reading for anyone interested in our evolutionary origins and our relationship with the rest of the animal kingdom.
Download or read book Lost Animals written by Errol Fuller and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2013-11-21 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Caught on camera prior to their demise, this book reveals the surprisingly rich photographic record of now-extinct animals. A photograph of an animal long-gone evokes a feeling of loss more than a painting ever can. Often tinted sepia or black-and-white, these images were mainly taken in zoos or wildlife parks, and in a handful of cases featured the last known individual of the species. There are some familiar examples, such as Martha, the last Passenger Pigeon, or the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, recently fledged and perching happily on the hat of one of the biologists that had just ringed it. But for every Martha there are a number of less familiar extinct birds and mammals that were caught on camera. The photographic record of extinction is the focus of this remarkable book, written by the world's leading authority on vanished animals, Errol Fuller. Lost Animals features photographs dating from around 1870 to as recently as 2004, the year that saw the demise of the Hawaiian Po'ouli. From a mother Thylacine and her pups to now-extinct birds such as the Heath Hen and Carolina Parakeet, Fuller tells the tale of each animal, why it became extinct, and discusses the circumstances surrounding the photography itself, in a book rich with unique images. The photographs themselves are poignant and compelling. They provide a tangible link to animals that have now vanished forever, in a book that brings the past to life while delivering a warning for the future.
Download or read book Astonishing Animals written by Tim Flannery and published by Open Road + Grove/Atlantic. This book was released on 2012-03-01 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the authors of A Gap in Nature, a breathtaking visual adventure showcasing ninety of the world’s most astounding creatures. Sumptuous birds of paradise, amazing soft-shell turtles, frogs that look like tomatoes, and terrifying fish (including the deep-water angler fish from Finding Nemo) are just some of the extraordinary creatures that can be found in Tim Flannery and Peter Schouten’s new book, Astonishing Animals. Superbly illustrated with lifelike full-color paintings, Astonishing Animals details ninety of the world’s most amazing animals from around the world. In this book you will find the hairy seadevil; the spectacular Sulawesi naked bat; and in the depths of the limestone caves in Slovenia, the olm, a pink, four-legged, sightless salamander that lives for a hundred years. In fascinating vignettes, Flannery offers the true evolutionary tale of how each of these bizarre creatures came to look the way they do. Alongside each historical account is a stunning hand-painted color reproduction (life-size in the original painting) by Schouten. Filled with purple-faced apes, jagged-toothed dolphins, and antlered lizards, Astonishing Animals is a remarkable collection of the world’s most incredible creatures and the stories behind their remarkable survival into a modern age. “An elegant paean to some of the world’s strangest and/or most beautiful creatures.” —Mary Ann Gwinn, The Seattle Times “As beautiful as it is fascinating, this book will be relished by animal lovers of all stripes.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review
Download or read book The Nature Nurture Debates written by Dale Goldhaber and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012-07-09 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How is it possible that in more than one hundred years, the nature-nurture debate has not come to a satisfactory resolution? The problem, Dale Goldhaber argues, lies not with the proposed answers, but with the question itself. In The Nature-Nurture Debate, Goldhaber reviews the four major perspectives on the issue - behavior genetics, environment, evolutionary psychology and developmental systems theory - and shows that the classic, reductionist strategies (behavior genetics and environmental approaches) are incapable of resolving the issue because they each offer a false perspective on the process of human development. It is only through a synthesis of the two holistic perspectives of evolutionary psychology and developmental systems theory that we will be able to understand the nature of human behavior.
Download or read book The Adventure Gap written by James Edward Mills and published by Mountaineers Books. This book was released on 2024-09-01 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Features a new “where are they now” section, updating readers on lives of expedition’s original climbers Fully updated and detailed resources based on the "Anti-Racism in the Outdoors" (ARITO) guide Readers’ Guide explores additional context and questions for further consideration Outdoor journalist James Edward Mills’s book, The Adventure Gap, is a groundbreaking volume that is equal parts adventure story, history, and inspiration as it chronicles the first American all-Black summit attempt on Denali in 2013. Mills uses this momentous expedition as a jumping-off point to explore diversity in the outdoors, from Mathew Henson who stood at the North Pole in 1909 to contemporary adventurers such as polar explorer Barbara Hillary and rock climber Kai Lightner. This tenth anniversary edition once again shares the compelling events that unfolded during Expedition Denali’s summit bid. But it also provides fresh context: A new thought-provoking afterword by Mills examines what has evolved in and around the outdoor community since that effort. He highlights progress and inspiring stories, such as Full Circle Everest, an expedition led by Phillip Henderson that put an all-Black team on top of the world’s highest peak. And he points to places where we can and should all strive for higher achievement. The Adventure Gap has become an essential text in outdoor education and inspiration--a story of our times, now more relevant than ever.
Download or read book Why Am I a Bird written by Greg Pyers and published by Heinemann-Raintree Library. This book was released on 2006 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explains the things, such as feathers and beaks, that define birds as birds, using a herring gull as an example.
Download or read book Factfulness written by Hans Rosling and published by Flatiron Books. This book was released on 2018-04-03 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “One of the most important books I’ve ever read—an indispensable guide to thinking clearly about the world.” – Bill Gates “Hans Rosling tells the story of ‘the secret silent miracle of human progress’ as only he can. But Factfulness does much more than that. It also explains why progress is so often secret and silent and teaches readers how to see it clearly.” —Melinda Gates "Factfulness by Hans Rosling, an outstanding international public health expert, is a hopeful book about the potential for human progress when we work off facts rather than our inherent biases." - Former U.S. President Barack Obama Factfulness: The stress-reducing habit of only carrying opinions for which you have strong supporting facts. When asked simple questions about global trends—what percentage of the world’s population live in poverty; why the world’s population is increasing; how many girls finish school—we systematically get the answers wrong. So wrong that a chimpanzee choosing answers at random will consistently outguess teachers, journalists, Nobel laureates, and investment bankers. In Factfulness, Professor of International Health and global TED phenomenon Hans Rosling, together with his two long-time collaborators, Anna and Ola, offers a radical new explanation of why this happens. They reveal the ten instincts that distort our perspective—from our tendency to divide the world into two camps (usually some version of us and them) to the way we consume media (where fear rules) to how we perceive progress (believing that most things are getting worse). Our problem is that we don’t know what we don’t know, and even our guesses are informed by unconscious and predictable biases. It turns out that the world, for all its imperfections, is in a much better state than we might think. That doesn’t mean there aren’t real concerns. But when we worry about everything all the time instead of embracing a worldview based on facts, we can lose our ability to focus on the things that threaten us most. Inspiring and revelatory, filled with lively anecdotes and moving stories, Factfulness is an urgent and essential book that will change the way you see the world and empower you to respond to the crises and opportunities of the future. --- “This book is my last battle in my life-long mission to fight devastating ignorance...Previously I armed myself with huge data sets, eye-opening software, an energetic learning style and a Swedish bayonet for sword-swallowing. It wasn’t enough. But I hope this book will be.” Hans Rosling, February 2017.
Download or read book The Accidental Diary of B U G written by Jen Carney and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2021-04-15 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Meet Billie Upton Green and her VERY accidental diary - and don't you DARE call her B.U.G! Billie has taken the new girl at school under her wing. She'll teach her the important stuff - Biscuit Laws, Mrs Patterson and of course where to sneakily eat a Jaffa Cake. She might even get invited to the EVENT OF THE YEAR (Billie's mums' are getting married). But then suspicion sets in. The new girl seems VERY close to Billie's best friend Layla. And she knows a LOT about the big school heist - the theft of Mrs Robinson's purse. But, Billie is on to her. Well, as long as Patrick doesn't catch her eating biscuits first. Join Billie in this laugh-out-loud adventure! A sparky, funny new series perfect for fans of Diary of A Wimpy Kid - Daily Mail Jen Carney knows how to make kids laugh . . . and I mean totally unreserved roll-on-the-floor belly laugh. Billie Upton Green is a firm favourite in our house - Emma Mylrea, author of Curse of the Dearmad
Download or read book Salamanders written by Edward J. Maruska and published by . This book was released on 1996-09 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introduces that cousin of frogs and toads, the salamander.
Download or read book Evolution by Natural Selection written by Michaelis Michael and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2015-11-18 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A persistent argument among evolutionary biologists and philosophers revolves around the nature of natural selection. Evolution by Natural Selection: Confidence, Evidence and the Gap explores this argument by using a theory of persistence as an intentional foil to examine ways in which similar theories can be misunderstood. It discusses Charles Dar
Download or read book The Nature Fix Why Nature Makes Us Happier Healthier and More Creative written by Florence Williams and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2017-02-07 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Highly informative and remarkably entertaining." —Elle From forest trails in Korea, to islands in Finland, to eucalyptus groves in California, Florence Williams investigates the science behind nature’s positive effects on the brain. Delving into brand-new research, she uncovers the powers of the natural world to improve health, promote reflection and innovation, and strengthen our relationships. As our modern lives shift dramatically indoors, these ideas—and the answers they yield—are more urgent than ever.
Download or read book The Control of Nature written by John McPhee and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2011-04-01 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While John McPhee was working on his previous book, Rising from the Plains, he happened to walk by the engineering building at the University of Wyoming, where words etched in limestone said: "Strive on--the control of Nature is won, not given." In the morning sunlight, that central phrase--"the control of nature"--seemed to sparkle with unintended ambiguity. Bilateral, symmetrical, it could with equal speed travel in opposite directions. For some years, he had been planning a book about places in the world where people have been engaged in all-out battles with nature, about (in the words of the book itself) "any struggle against natural forces--heroic or venal, rash or well advised--when human beings conscript themselves to fight against the earth, to take what is not given, to rout the destroying enemy, to surround the base of Mt. Olympus demanding and expecting the surrender of the gods." His interest had first been sparked when he went into the Atchafalaya--the largest river swamp in North America--and had learned that virtually all of its waters were metered and rationed by a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' project called Old River Control. In the natural cycles of the Mississippi's deltaic plain, the time had come for the Mississippi to change course, to shift its mouth more than a hundred miles and go down the Atchafalaya, one of its distributary branches. The United States could not afford that--for New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and all the industries that lie between would be cut off from river commerce with the rest of the nation. At a place called Old River, the Corps therefore had built a great fortress--part dam, part valve--to restrain the flow of the Atchafalaya and compel the Mississippi to stay where it is. In Iceland, in 1973, an island split open without warning and huge volumes of lava began moving in the direction of a harbor scarcely half a mile away. It was not only Iceland's premier fishing port (accounting for a large percentage of Iceland's export economy) but it was also the only harbor along the nation's southern coast. As the lava threatened to fill the harbor and wipe it out, a physicist named Thorbjorn Sigurgeirsson suggested a way to fight against the flowing red rock--initiating an all-out endeavor unique in human history. On the big island of Hawaii, one of the world's two must eruptive hot spots, people are not unmindful of the Icelandic example. McPhee went to Hawaii to talk with them and to walk beside the edges of a molten lake and incandescent rivers. Some of the more expensive real estate in Los Angeles is up against mountains that are rising and disintegrating as rapidly as any in the world. After a complex coincidence of natural events, boulders will flow out of these mountains like fish eggs, mixed with mud, sand, and smaller rocks in a cascading mass known as debris flow. Plucking up trees and cars, bursting through doors and windows, filling up houses to their eaves, debris flows threaten the lives of people living in and near Los Angeles' famous canyons. At extraordinary expense the city has built a hundred and fifty stadium-like basins in a daring effort to catch the debris. Taking us deep into these contested territories, McPhee details the strategies and tactics through which people attempt to control nature. Most striking in his vivid depiction of the main contestants: nature in complex and awesome guises, and those who would attempt to wrest control from her--stubborn, often ingenious, and always arresting characters.
Download or read book Uncommon Ground Rethinking the Human Place in Nature written by William Cronon and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 1996-10-17 with total page 564 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A controversial, timely reassessment of the environmentalist agenda by outstanding historians, scientists, and critics. In a lead essay that powerfully states the broad argument of the book, William Cronon writes that the environmentalist goal of wilderness preservation is conceptually and politically wrongheaded. Among the ironies and entanglements resulting from this goal are the sale of nature in our malls through the Nature Company, and the disputes between working people and environmentalists over spotted owls and other objects of species preservation. The problem is that we haven't learned to live responsibly in nature. The environmentalist aim of legislating humans out of the wilderness is no solution. People, Cronon argues, are inextricably tied to nature, whether they live in cities or countryside. Rather than attempt to exclude humans, environmental advocates should help us learn to live in some sustainable relationship with nature. It is our home.
Download or read book Rewriting Nature written by Paul Enríquez and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-06-24 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rewriting Nature is a cogent, riveting interdisciplinary exploration of the law, science, and policy of emerging genome-editing technology.
Download or read book Sharks written by Jane Parker Resnick and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 38 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Text and illustrations introduce the world of sharks.
