Download or read book Spineless written by Juli Berwald and published by Black Inc.. This book was released on 2018-04-30 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jellyfish have been swimming in our oceans for over half a billion years, longer than any other animal that lives on the planet. Their sting is the fastest known motion in the animal kingdom, their venom so toxic it can kill a human in three minutes. Made of roughly 95 percent water, some jellies are barely perceptible virtuosos of disguise, while others’ luminescent glow has revolutionized biotechnology. Yet until recently, jellyfish were largely ignored by science, and they remain among the most poorly understood of ocean dwellers. Over a decade ago, ocean scientist Juli Berwald left her career to raise a family in landlocked Austin, Texas, but jellyfish drew her back to the sea. Driven by questions about how overfishing, coastal development, and climate change were contributing to a jellyfish population explosion that has caused millions of dollars of damage, Juli embarked on a scientific odyssey that took her across the globe. She met the biologists who devote their careers to jellies, hitched rides on Japanese fishing boats to see giant jellyfish in the wild, raised jellyfish in her dining room, and throughout it all marveled at the complexity of these alluring and ominous biological wonders. Gracefully blending personal memoir with crystal-clear distillations of science, Spineless is the story of how Juli learned to navigate and ultimately embrace her ambition, her curiosity, and her passion for the natural world. She discovers that jellyfish science is a call to realize our collective responsibility for the planet we share. ‘Captivating and informative.’—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review ‘In this astonishing adventure of a book, Juli Berwald takes us on a personal journey into the enchanting and mystifying aqueous world of jellyfish, and in so doing, sheds light on the vital ecological balances upon which our own survival depends.’ —Ruth Ozeki, author of A Tale for the Time Being ‘Berwald uncovers many fascinating aspects of jellyfish behaviour, including the fact that they are the most efficient swimmers ever discovered.’—Tim Flannery ‘This thoroughly engaging book turned my old horror into wonderment and by its end into something close to love and awe.’—Helen Macdonald, author of H is for Hawk ‘In this lovely exploration of the mysterious jellyfish, Berwald both entrances and sounds a warning: pay attention to the messages sent by ocean life, and act to protect their environment, and ours.’ —Kirkus

Download or read book Spineless written by Samantha San Miguel and published by Union Square & Co.. This book was released on 2022-06-07 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This exciting middle-grade adventure is Hoot for the Gilded Age—with scientific discoveries, secret plots, and surprisingly enormous fauna. When his asthma lands him at a health resort in the wilds of Gilded Age South Florida, twelve-year-old Algie Emsworth is over the moon. The scientific treasure trove of unexplored swamps may launch his dream career as a naturalist. But even Algie is startled when he happens upon a brand-new species and her brood in the karst springs surrounding the resort. Algie quickly realizes he must keep his discovery a secret: a famous collector of exotic animals is also staying at the hotel, and the new species is threatened by his very presence. An apparent curse has also descended upon the hotel, bringing with it a deadly red tide. But when the pool starts filling with ink and guests start getting mysterious, sucker-shaped wounds, Algie must pluck up his courage to find the truth about the goings-on at the Grand Hotel—and save the new species from destruction.

Download or read book This Book Is Spineless written by Lindsay Leslie and published by Page Street Kids. This book was released on 2019-02-19 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With suspense and humor, this wary and unadventurous book uses the five senses to try and figure out what kind of story might be on its pages. Does it hear spooky wails from a ghost story? Can it see a mysterious something peeking around a corner? Is that the dizzy feeling of zero gravity it senses? Might that be the stinky smell of animals in nature it detects? Could it be tasting the saltiness of a story on the high seas? The reader and book navigate the book’s contents together, becoming friends as the book becomes braver with every page turn. This multilayered book incorporates the five senses, multiple literary genres, and various book parts, with the relationship between book and reader bringing everything together.

Download or read book Spineless written by Susan Middleton and published by Harry N. Abrams. This book was released on 2014-10-21 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Spineless, acclaimed photographer Susan Middleton explores the mysterious and surprising world of marine invertebrates, which represent more than 98 percent of the known animal species in the ocean. They are also astonishingly diverse in their shapes, patterns, textures, and colors--in nature's fashion show, they are the haute couture of marine life. This collection of more than 250 remarkable images is the result of seven years of painstaking fieldwork across the Pacific Ocean, using photographic techniques that Middleton developed to capture these extremely fragile creatures on camera. She also provides short essays that examine the place these invertebrates occupy on the tree of life, their vast array of forms, and their lives in the ocean. Scientist Bernadette Holthuis contributes profiles describing each species, many of them for the first time. Middleton's book is a stunning new view of nature that harmoniously combines art and science.

Download or read book The Spineless Porcupine written by Say Yang and published by Illumify Media Global. This book was released on 2020-12-04 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "If you could only choose one kind of life, what would you choose?" Pearson asked. "One with quills living like every other porcupine or one that's trailblazing a new path in the vast wilderness?" Mattie, the first porcupine born without any spines, is banished from her clan for being different. She's quickly picked up by the circus due to her commercial potential. At first, she loves the attention, but soon an emptiness grows deep within. That's when Pearson convinces her they belong in the wilderness instead of being enslaved under a ringmaster's control. Will her heartache finally end by escaping from the golden prison of performing, producing, and perfecting? Follow Mattie and Pearson's fantastical journey as they face their painful pasts only to discover their differences are their superpowers. It's an unforgettably rare story that speaks to every age because it's about what we all desire: to feel comfortable in our own skin.

Download or read book Hoglet the Spineless Hedgehog written by Allyson Marnoch and published by Kelpies. This book was released on 2010 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Mrs. Hog had already noticed that the fourth baby was the last to do everything. He seemed to be smaller than the rest, but what worried her more than anything was that he had no spines." Hoglet is a problem hedgehog! With no prickles to defend himself, he needs to overcome his lack of spines and find somewhere safe and warm to hibernate for the winter. Hoglet is a small hedgehog with a big attitude, but will he survive the worsening weather and other wild creatures of the woods? A heartwarming tale, set in the Scottish countryside, of one little hedgehog's attempts to conquer adversity with politeness--and a certain amount of luck! This delightful and charmingly illustrated book will appeal to young and old alike. (Ages 6-10)

Download or read book Gadsby written by Ernest Vincent Wright and published by DigiCat. This book was released on 2022-05-28 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gadsby is a novel by Ernest Vincent Wright. A fading fictitious city known as Branton Hills is rejuvenated due to the efforts of central character John Gadsby and a youth organizer. A humorous read!

Download or read book Spineless Wonders written by Richard Conniff and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Blending natural history and human lore, Ric hard Conniff relates some of his knowledge of the world of i nvertebrates. Spineless Wonders marvels at the skills of the housefly, looks at the world of the fire ant, and meets a m an who loves beetles. '

Download or read book Spineless written by Autumn Reed and published by Autumn Reed. This book was released on 2020-07-09 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Eight years ago, I believed I’d finally found a place to call home. My mother’s marriage to Vincent Sharpe meant security and three stepbrothers who were already my best friends. But Mom’s mysterious death one week before the wedding turned my world upside down. The day of her funeral, I was whisked away to live with my aunt in Kansas, and I never heard from the Sharpes again... Until a devastating tornado leaves me destitute. Now, Vincent is offering me the opportunity of a lifetime—he’ll pay for my tuition and expenses at an exclusive university. All I have to do is move back in with him and his sons. Knowing this is my one chance to discover what really happened to my mother, I grudgingly accept. But if I thought living in the same house with a potential murderer was going to be my biggest obstacle, I couldn’t have been more wrong. Leo, Hayle, and Tristin Sharpe are no longer the boys I remember. They're all grown up, with the adult attitudes, tensions, and sex appeal to prove it. They aren’t my problem anymore. Yet, somehow, they keep drawing me into their web of drama. I might be the only person who can fix what’s broken between them. But I don't trust that they won't shatter me in the process. *The Lonely Souls trilogy is a contemporary reverse harem series inspired by the main characters in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz...except, this version of Dorothy and her friends is a little twisted.

Download or read book Luther Burbank Spineless Cactus Identification Project written by Roy Wiersma and published by AuthorHouse. This book was released on 2008 with total page 94 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Squid Empire written by Danna Staaf and published by University Press of New England. This book was released on 2017-10-03 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Before there were mammals on land, there were dinosaurs. And before there were fish in the sea, there were cephalopods-the ancestors of modern squid and Earth's first truly substantial animals. Cephalopods became the first creatures to rise from the seafloor, essentially inventing the act of swimming. With dozens of tentacles and formidable shells, they presided over an undersea empire for millions of years. But when fish evolved jaws, the ocean's former top predator became its most delicious snack. Cephalopods had to step up their game. Many species streamlined their shells and added defensive spines, but these enhancements only provided a brief advantage. Some cephalopods then abandoned the shell entirely, which opened the gates to a flood of evolutionary innovations: masterful camouflage, fin-supplemented jet propulsion, perhaps even dolphin-like intelligence. Squid Empire is an epic adventure spanning hundreds of millions of years, from the marine life of the primordial ocean to the calamari on tonight's menu. Anyone who enjoys the undersea world-along with all those obsessed with things prehistoric-will be interested in the sometimes enormous, often bizarre creatures that ruled the seas long before the first dinosaurs.

Download or read book Rebugging the Planet written by Vicki Hird and published by Chelsea Green Publishing. This book was released on 2021-09-16 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This is a lovely little book that could and should have a big impact...Let’s all get rebugging right away!"—Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall Meet the intelligent insects, marvelous minibeasts, and inspirational invertebrates that help shape our planet—and discover how you can help them help us by rebugging your attitude today! Remember when there were bugs on your windshield? Ever wonder where they went? We need to act now if we are to help the insects survive. Robin Wall Kimmerer, David Attenborough, and Elizabeth Kolbert are but a few voices championing the rewilding of our world. Rebugging the Planet explains how we are headed toward “insectageddon” with a rate of insect extinction eight times faster than that of mammals or birds, and gives us crucial information to help all those essential creepy-crawlies flourish once more. Author Vicki Hird passionately demonstrates how insects and invertebrates are the cornerstone of our global ecosystem. They pollinate plants, feed birds, support and defend our food crops, and clean our water systems. They are also beautiful, inventive, and economically invaluable—bees, for example, contribute an estimated $235 to $577 billion to the US economy annually, according to Forbes. Rebugging the Planet shows us small changes we can make to have a big impact on our littlest allies: Learn how to rewild parks, schools, sidewalks, roadsides, and other green spaces. Leave your garden to grow a little wild and plant weedkiller-free, wildlife-friendly plants. Take your kids on a minibeast treasure hunt and learn how to build bug palaces. Make bug-friendly choices with your food and support good farming practices Begin to understand how reducing inequality and poverty will help nature and wildlife too—it’s all connected. So do your part and start rebugging today! The bees, ants, earthworms, butterflies, beetles, grasshoppers, ladybugs, snails, and slugs will thank you—and our planet will thank you too.

Download or read book Keyhole Factory written by William Gillespie and published by Catapult. This book was released on 2012-11-01 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Set in an alternate present that is a slightly, if dangerously, skewed version of our own, Keyhole Factory tracks the interwoven destinies of disparate characters up to and beyond the end of the world-as-we-know-it, brought on by a global super-virus. Beginning with a biting satire of an academic poetry conference, the novel moves on to encompass the stories of a poet-astronaut, a microbiologist contemplating an exit strategy from her high-level job designing biological weapons, a sports-car-driving killer who stages the aesthetic murders of utopian commune-dwellers, and a lone pirate radio disc jockey who may be the last person left alive broadcasting her story to nobody. Allowing form and content to shape each other, William Gillespie pries open the confusion in a moment of total crisis through a narrative web-work technique derived from deranged fiction pioneer Harry Stephen Keeler. Part imaginative free-for-all and part deeply felt examination of isolation and survival, the individual lives in Keyhole Factory shine through the chaos in all their beauty and tragedy. With his signature wit and originality, Gillespie spins a glittering fever-dream that questions our assumptions about the way we interpret events and our relation to the planet, without ever losing sight of the underlying experience of what it feels like to be a human being in the world we live in today.

Download or read book Drawn Inward and Other Poems written by Mike Maguire and published by . This book was released on 2016-05-23 with total page 56 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawn Inward is a collection of poetry by Mike Maguire comprising four sections: Palindromes, in which the letters of each poem run in the same sequence backwards as they do forwards; Charades, in which each poem is spelled the same as the one next to it; Word Palindromes, in which the words of each poem run in the same sequence backwards as they do forwards; and Poems about trains. The poems are beautiful, humorous, and transcendent. Arguably some of the most exquisite palindromes ever written in English find their place nestled among equally gorgeous poems written in less familiar forms, showing that, even with poetry, perfection is possible. Maguire's wildly successful formal experiments ensure the palindrome its rightful place as a poetic form. An example is the book's opening palindrome: Same nice cinemas, same nice cafe. We talk late. We face cinemas. Same nice cinemas.

Download or read book Smart and Spineless written by Ann Downer and published by Twenty-First Century Books. This book was released on 2015-08-01 with total page 92 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When you think of smart animals, what comes to mind? Wise old owls? Problem-solving dolphins? Maybe you have heard of Koko the gorilla, who has mastered one thousand signs in American Sign Language, or Chaser the border collie, who recognizes one thousand names for her stuffed toys. But what about ants building megacolonies or bees reporting to the hive about new nesting sites? What about escape artist octopuses and jellyfish that use their eyes (they have twenty-four!) to navigate? Are insects, spiders, and other animals without backbones considered smart, too? When we think of intelligent creatures, we often think of vertebrates, or animals with spinal columns and relatively large brains. We don't usually think of invertebrates, or animals without a spine. But invertebrates can be astonishingly intelligent. These animals exhibit surprising feats of learning, memory, and problem-solving using their relatively simple, tiny brains—some the size of a sesame seed or even smaller. In fact, some intelligent invertebrates have no brain at all! Scientists around the world are putting invertebrate intelligence to use in mind-boggling ways. Engineers are designing swarmbots based on bees to take part in search-and-rescue efforts. And materials scientists are basing a new, tough ceramic on the structure of a mantis shrimp's claw. In Smart and Spineless, readers will be challenged to think in a whole new way about what it means to be smart!

Download or read book Loopholes written by Susan McCreery and published by . This book was released on 2016-10-26 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: LOOPHOLE, noun. 1. An escape route from a sticky situation. 2. A chink in the system that allows us to circumvent or avoid consequences. Susan McCreery's perfectly-formed microfictions provide glimpses into the travails of everyday existence - of family life, relationships, ageing and loss. Her characters are typical humans - flawed yet admirable, frustrating and frustrated. Told with wit and compassion and honed with a wordsmith's skill, McCreery's Loopholes makes us see ourselves and each other differently. Ranging in length from a page to four lines, Susan McCreery's vivid glimpses into diverse lives and situations will amuse, shock and inspire you. ELIZABETH WEBBY AM

Download or read book Memoir of a Sloppy Spineless Creature written by Rose Dudley and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2017-07-26 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With candour and dry wit, Rose Dudley recounts her early years as an only child of divorced parents, being raised, on a farm in rural Wales during WWII, by a mentally unbalanced grandmother and struggling with the British class system. At age eleven, she was separated from her friends by the ill-conceived wisdom of the British education system which landed her in a prestigious school. There, she fitted in like a sore thumb and was presented with further challenges that she claims affected all her future relationships but did, at least, provide her with a title for her memoir. The characters, so typical of those seen in British dramas, are brought to life on the page and will provide laugh-aloud moments. Teachers of young children will identify with the author's experiences in the classroom and the feeling of panic on being faced with the responsibility of that first group of 30 to 40 small children. Her descriptions of the countryside, references to historical events and the ideas and social mores of the forties, fifties and sixties will fill you with nostalgia and a yearning to return to the simpler life, that in these times of crass commercialism and super-abundance, we are all beginning to crave.