Download or read book The Exultant Ark written by Jonathan Peter Balcombe and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2011-05-09 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nature documentaries often depict animal life as a grim struggle for survival, but this visually stunning book opens our eyes to a different, more scientifically up-to-date way of looking at the animal kingdom. In more than one hundred thirty striking images, The Exultant Ark celebrates the full range of animal experience with dramatic portraits of animal pleasure ranging from the charismatic and familiar to the obscure and bizarre. These photographs, windows onto the inner lives of pleasure seekers, show two polar bears engaged in a bout of wrestling, hoary marmots taking time for a friendly chase, Japanese macaques enjoying a soak in a hot spring, a young bull elk sticking out his tongue to catch snowflakes, and many other rewarding moments. Biologist and best-selling author Jonathan Balcombe is our guide, interpreting the images within the scientific context of what is known about animal behavior. In the end, old attitudes fall away as we gain a heightened sense of animal individuality and of the pleasures that make life worth living for all sentient beings.

Download or read book The Exultant Ark written by Jonathan Peter Balcombe and published by University of California Press. This book was released on 2011-05-09 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nature documentaries often depict animal life as a grim struggle for survival, but this visually stunning book opens our eyes to a different, more scientifically up-to-date way of looking at the animal kingdom. In more than one hundred thirty striking images, The Exultant Ark celebrates the full range of animal experience with dramatic portraits of animal pleasure ranging from the charismatic and familiar to the obscure and bizarre. These photographs, windows onto the inner lives of pleasure seekers, show two polar bears engaged in a bout of wrestling, hoary marmots taking time for a friendly chase, Japanese macaques enjoying a soak in a hot spring, a young bull elk sticking out his tongue to catch snowflakes, and many other rewarding moments. Biologist and best-selling author Jonathan Balcombe is our guide, interpreting the images within the scientific context of what is known about animal behavior. In the end, old attitudes fall away as we gain a heightened sense of animal individuality and of the pleasures that make life worth living for all sentient beings.

Download or read book Exultant written by Stephen Baxter and published by Del Rey. This book was released on 2004-10-26 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Baxter has an uncanny gift for mixing a punchy, cyberpunk cynicism with his resolutely hard SF story base. . . . [Exultant] rivals Asimov in its boundless vision for the future evolution of humanity.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review) For more than twenty thousand years, humans have been at war with the alien race of Xeelee. Faced with certain death, a young pilot, Pirius, disobeys orders and travels into the future. Upon his return, Pirius is court-martialed and sentenced to penal servitude. But it is not only Pirius who pays the price. In flying into the future and back again, Pirius returned to a time before he’d left, a time inhabited by his younger self, who also receives punishment. Commissary Nilis believes that the elder Pirius, whom he dubs Pirius Blue, may know how to defeat the Xeelee. But Nilis can do nothing for Pirius Blue. Instead, he takes the younger Pirius—Pirius Red—back to Earth. There Pirius Red will discover truths that shatter his preconceived notions of all that he is fighting for, while Pirius Blue will learn even harsher truths. But the most shocking revelation of all is still to come. “Absurdly ambitious, technically brilliant, and downright exciting.”—SFX Magazine “Striking . . . chilling . . . [with] a triumphant conclusion.”—Starburst

Download or read book Pleasurable Kingdom written by Jonathan Balcombe and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2006-05-02 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The recognition of animal pain and stress, once controversial, is now acknowledged by legislation in many countries, but there is no formal recognition of animals' ability to feel pleasure. Pleasurable Kingdom is the first book for lay-readers to present new evidence that animals--like humans--enjoy themselves. It debunks the popular perception that life for most is a continuous, grim struggle for survival and the avoidance of pain. Instead it suggests that creatures from birds to baboons feel good thanks to play, sex, touch, food, anticipation, comfort, aesthetics, and more. Combining rigorous evidence, elegant argument and amusing anecdotes, leading animal behavior researcher Jonathan Balcombe proposes that the possibility of positive feelings in creatures other than humans has important ethical ramifications for both science and society.

Download or read book Ark written by Stephen Baxter and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2010-05-04 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It's the year 2030. The oceans have risen rapidly, and soon the entire planet will be submerged. But the discovery of another life-sustaining planet light years away gives those who remain alive hope. Only a few will be able to make the journey-Holle Groundwater is one of the candidates. If she makes the cut, she will live. If not, she will be left to face a watery death...

Download or read book The Emotional Lives of Animals revised written by Marc Bekoff and published by New World Library. This book was released on 2024-04-09 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A seminal exploration of animal emotion, sentience, and cognition, revised and expanded to incorporate a surge of new science When award-winning scientist Marc Bekoff penned the first edition of this book in 2007, he predicted that over time our understanding of animal cognition and emotion would grow “richer, more accurate, and possibly different.” Since then, not only has the field seen an explosion of new and startling research, but the popular interest in the subject has grown as well, spawning countless podcasts, articles, and bestselling books. Bekoff skillfully blends extraordinary stories of animal joy, empathy, grief, embarrassment, anger, and love with the latest scientific research confirming the existence of emotions that common sense and experience have long implied. Filled with light humor and compassion, The Emotional Lives of Animals is a clarion call for reassessing both how we view and how we treat animals.

Download or read book Second Nature written by Jonathan Balcombe and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2010-03-16 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jonathan Balcombe, animal behaviorist and author of the critically acclaimed "Pleasurable Kingdom," draws on the latest research, observational studies and personal anecdotes to reveal the full gamut of animal experience--from emotions, to problem solving, to moral judgment, while at the same time challenging the widely held idea that nature is red in tooth and claw and highlighting animal traits we have disregarded until now.

Download or read book Super Fly written by Jonathan Balcombe and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-05-25 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the National Outdoor Book Award for Natural History and a New York Times Editors Choice Pick "After reading Super Fly, you will never take a fly for granted again. Thank you, Jonathan Balcombe, for reminding us of the infinite marvels of everyday creatures." —Sy Montgomery, Author of How to Be a Good Creature From an expert in animal consciousness, a book that will turn the fly on the wall into the elephant in the room. For most of us, the only thing we know about flies is that they're annoying, and our usual reaction is to try to kill them. In Super Fly, the myth-busting biologist Jonathan Balcombe shows the order Diptera in all of its diversity, illustrating the essential role that flies play in every ecosystem in the world as pollinators, waste-disposers, predators, and food source; and how flies continue to reshape our understanding of evolution. Along the way, he reintroduces us to familiar foes like the fruit fly and mosquito, and gives us the chance to meet their lesser-known cousins like the Petroleum Fly (the only animal in the world that breeds in crude oil) and the Chocolate Midge (the sole pollinator of the Cacao tree). No matter your outlook on our tiny buzzing neighbors, Super Fly will change the way you look at flies forever. Jonathan Balcombe is the author of four books on animal sentience, including the New York Times bestselling What A Fish Knows, which was nominated for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Award for Science Writing. He has worked for years as a researcher and educator with the Humane society to show us the consciousness of other creatures, and here he takes us to the farthest reaches of the animal kingdom.

Download or read book What a Fish Knows written by Jonathan Balcombe and published by Scientific American / Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2016-06-07 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Bestseller Do fishes think? Do they really have three-second memories? And can they recognize the humans who peer back at them from above the surface of the water? In What a Fish Knows, the myth-busting ethologist Jonathan Balcombe addresses these questions and more, taking us under the sea, through streams and estuaries, and to the other side of the aquarium glass to reveal the surprising capabilities of fishes. Although there are more than thirty thousand species of fish—more than all mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians combined—we rarely consider how individual fishes think, feel, and behave. Balcombe upends our assumptions about fishes, portraying them not as unfeeling, dead-eyed feeding machines but as sentient, aware, social, and even Machiavellian—in other words, much like us. What a Fish Knows draws on the latest science to present a fresh look at these remarkable creatures in all their breathtaking diversity and beauty. Fishes conduct elaborate courtship rituals and develop lifelong bonds with shoalmates. They also plan, hunt cooperatively, use tools, curry favor, deceive one another, and punish wrongdoers. We may imagine that fishes lead simple, fleeting lives—a mode of existence that boils down to a place on the food chain, rote spawning, and lots of aimless swimming. But, as Balcombe demonstrates, the truth is far richer and more complex, worthy of the grandest social novel. Highlighting breakthrough discoveries from fish enthusiasts and scientists around the world and pondering his own encounters with fishes, Balcombe examines the fascinating means by which fishes gain knowledge of the places they inhabit, from shallow tide pools to the deepest reaches of the ocean. Teeming with insights and exciting discoveries, What a Fish Knows offers a thoughtful appraisal of our relationships with fishes and inspires us to take a more enlightened view of the planet’s increasingly imperiled marine life. What a Fish Knows will forever change how we see our aquatic cousins—the pet goldfish included.

Download or read book Last Laughs written by J. Patrick Lewis and published by Charlesbridge. This book was released on 2012-07-01 with total page 34 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offers morbidly-humorous, pun-filled, illustrated epitaphs for animals that poetically describe how they met their ends.

Download or read book Elephant Reflections written by Dale Peterson and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2023-12-22 with total page 749 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Elephant Reflections brings award-winning wildlife photographer Karl Ammann's gorgeous images together with a revelatory text by writer Dale Peterson to illuminate one of nature's greatest and most original works of art: the elephant. The photographs move from the purely aesthetic to the informative, depicting animals who are at once enigmatic, individual, mysterious, elusive, and iconic. In riveting prose, Peterson introduces the work of field scientists in Africa and explains their recent astonishing discoveries. He then explores the natural history and conservation status of African elephants and discusses the politics of ivory. Elephant Reflections is a book that could change the way the world thinks about elephants while we still have some measure of control over their fate.

Download or read book Transcendent written by Stephen Baxter and published by Del Rey. This book was released on 2005-11-29 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Breathtaking . . . brilliantly conducted . . . Far-future philosophic space opera and near-future eco-thriller combine effectively.”—Locus It is the year 2047, and nuclear engineer Michael Poole is mourning the death of his beloved wife and doubting his own sanity. But he must stave off a looming catastrophe: vast reservoirs of toxic gases lie beneath the melting poles, threatening to contaminate the atmosphere and destroy all life on Earth. Though born five hundred thousand years after the death of Michael Poole, Alia knows him intimately. Every person in Alia’s world is entrusted with Witnessing one life from the past by means of a technology able to traverse time. Alia’s subject is Michael Poole. Chosen to become a Transcendent, a member of the group mind that is shepherding humanity toward an evolutionary apotheosis, Alia discovers a dark side to the Transcendent’s plans. Somehow, Michael holds the fate of the future in his hands, and to save that future, Alia must undertake a desperate journey into the past. “Stunning . . . engaging . . . a contrasting mix of Baxter’s customary skill at presenting a very realnear future, and his talent for high-level hardscience fiction.”—Starburst

Download or read book Introduction to California Birdlife written by Jules Evens and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2005-04-07 with total page 395 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An introduction to the behavior and natural history of California's birds, organized by their habitats.

Download or read book Dolphin Societies written by Karen Pryor and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1991 with total page 410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A survey of current dolphin research.

Download or read book Flood written by Stephen Baxter and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2009-05-05 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Four hostages are rescued from a group of religious extremists in Barcelona. After five years of being held captive together, they make a vow to always watch out for one another. But they never expected this. The world they have returned to has been transformed-by water. And the water is rising.

Download or read book Proxima written by Stephen Baxter and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2014-11-04 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Stephen Baxter has been heralded, with some merit, as Arthur C. Clarke’s literary heir, and Proxima certainly reinforces this accolade in spades.”—Concatenation Mankind’s future in this galaxy could be all but infinite. There are hundreds of billions of red dwarf stars, lasting trillions of years—and their planets can be habitable for humans. Such is the world of Proxima Centauri. And its promise could mean the never-ending existence of humanity. But first it must be colonized, and no one wants to be a settler. There is no glamor that accompanies it, nor is there the ease of becoming a citizen of an already-tamed world. There is only hardship...loneliness...emptiness, even as war brews in the solar system. But that’s where Yuri comes in. Because sometimes exploration isn’t voluntary. It must be coerced.

Download or read book Titan written by Stephen Baxter and published by HarperCollins UK. This book was released on 2013-04-11 with total page 592 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Signs of life have been found on Titan, Saturn’s largest moon.