Download or read book An Unnatural Life written by Erin K. Wagner and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2020-09-15 with total page 118 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Murderbot meets To Kill a Mockingbird in Erin K. Wagner's An Unnatural Life, an interplanetary tale of identity and responsibility. The cybernetic organism known as 812-3 is in prison, convicted of murdering a human worker but he claims that he did not do it. With the evidence stacked against him, his lawyer, Aiya Ritsehrer, must determine grounds for an appeal and uncover the true facts of the case. But with artificial life-forms having only recently been awarded legal rights on Earth, the military complex on Europa is resistant to the implementation of these same rights on the Jovian moon. Aiya must battle against her own prejudices and that of her new paymasters, to secure a fair trial for her charge, while navigating her own interpersonal drama, before it's too late. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Download or read book The Unnatural History of the Sea written by Callum Roberts and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2009-01-05 with total page 649 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Humanity can make short work of the oceans’ creatures. In 1741, hungry explorers discovered herds of Steller’s sea cow in the Bering Strait, and in less than thirty years, the amiable beast had been harpooned into extinction. It’s a classic story, but a key fact is often omitted. Bering Island was the last redoubt of a species that had been decimated by hunting and habitat loss years before the explorers set sail. As Callum M. Roberts reveals in The Unnatural History of the Sea, the oceans’ bounty didn’t disappear overnight. While today’s fishing industry is ruthlessly efficient, intense exploitation began not in the modern era, or even with the dawn of industrialization, but in the eleventh century in medieval Europe. Roberts explores this long and colorful history of commercial fishing, taking readers around the world and through the centuries to witness the transformation of the seas. Drawing on firsthand accounts of early explorers, pirates, merchants, fishers, and travelers, the book recreates the oceans of the past: waters teeming with whales, sea lions, sea otters, turtles, and giant fish. The abundance of marine life described by fifteenth century seafarers is almost unimaginable today, but Roberts both brings it alive and artfully traces its depletion. Collapsing fisheries, he shows, are simply the latest chapter in a long history of unfettered commercialization of the seas. The story does not end with an empty ocean. Instead, Roberts describes how we might restore the splendor and prosperity of the seas through smarter management of our resources and some simple restraint. From the coasts of Florida to New Zealand, marine reserves have fostered spectacular recovery of plants and animals to levels not seen in a century. They prove that history need not repeat itself: we can leave the oceans richer than we found them.

Download or read book The Sixth Extinction written by Elizabeth Kolbert and published by Henry Holt and Company. This book was released on 2014-02-11 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW'S 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR A major book about the future of the world, blending intellectual and natural history and field reporting into a powerful account of the mass extinction unfolding before our eyes Over the last half a billion years, there have been five mass extinctions, when the diversity of life on earth suddenly and dramatically contracted. Scientists around the world are currently monitoring the sixth extinction, predicted to be the most devastating extinction event since the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs. This time around, the cataclysm is us. In The Sixth Extinction, two-time winner of the National Magazine Award and New Yorker writer Elizabeth Kolbert draws on the work of scores of researchers in half a dozen disciplines, accompanying many of them into the field: geologists who study deep ocean cores, botanists who follow the tree line as it climbs up the Andes, marine biologists who dive off the Great Barrier Reef. She introduces us to a dozen species, some already gone, others facing extinction, including the Panamian golden frog, staghorn coral, the great auk, and the Sumatran rhino. Through these stories, Kolbert provides a moving account of the disappearances occurring all around us and traces the evolution of extinction as concept, from its first articulation by Georges Cuvier in revolutionary Paris up through the present day. The sixth extinction is likely to be mankind's most lasting legacy; as Kolbert observes, it compels us to rethink the fundamental question of what it means to be human.

Download or read book Hunger written by Sharman Apt Russell and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2008-08-01 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Every day, we wake up hungry. Every day, we break our fast. Hunger explores the range of this primal experience. Sharman Apt Russell, the highly acclaimed author of Anatomy of a Rose and An Obsession with Butterflies, here takes us on a tour of hunger, from eighteen hours without food to thirty-six hours to seven days and beyond. What Russell finds-both in our bodies and in cultures around the world-is extraordinary. It is a biological process that transcends nature to shape the very of fabric of societies. In a fascinating survey of centuries of thought on hunger's unique power, she discovers an ability to adapt to it that is nothing short of miraculous. From the fasting saints of the early Christian church to activists like Mahatma Gandhi, generations have used hunger to make spiritual and political statements. Russell highlights these remarkable cases where hunger can inspire and even heal, but she also addresses the devastating impact of starvation on cultures around the world today. Written with consummate skill, a compassionate heart, and stocked with facts, figures, and fascinating lore, Hunger is an inspiring window on history and the human spirit.

Download or read book Unnatural Wonders written by Arthur Coleman Danto and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The famous theorist locates contemporary art's most exhilarating achievements.

Download or read book Unnatural Exposure written by Patricia Cornwell and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2008-01-02 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kay Scarpetta finds herself pitted against a possible bioterrorist in this suspense-filled read from #1 New York Times bestselling author Patricia Cornwell. When a woman turns up dismembered in a landfill, Scarpetta initially suspects the work of a serial killer she’s been tracking. But her investigation turns far more dangerous when she realizes the victim’s skin is covered in an unusual rash—and Scarpetta herself may have just been exposed to a deadly virus.

Download or read book Salt Marshes written by Judith S Weis and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2009-07-16 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tall green grass. Subtle melodies of songbirds. Sharp whines of muskrats. Rustles of water running through the grasses. And at low tide, a pungent reminder of the treasures hidden beneath the surface.All are vital signs of the great salt marshes' natural resources. Now championed as critical habitats for plants, animals, and people because of the environmental service and protection they provide, these ecological wonders were once considered unproductive wastelands, home solely to mosquitoes and toxic waste, and mistreated for centuries by the human population. Exploring the fascinating biodiversity of these boggy wetlands, Salt Marshes offers readers a wealth of essential information about a variety of plants, fish, and animals, the importance of these habitats, consequences of human neglect and thoughtless development, and insight into how these wetlands recover. Judith S. Weis and Carol A. Butler shed ample light on the human impact, including chapters on physical and biological alterations, pollution, and remediation and recovery programs. In addition to a national and global perspective, the authors place special emphasis on coastal wetlands in the Atlantic and Gulf regions, as well as the San Francisco Bay Area, calling attention to their historical and economic legacies. Written in clear, easy-to-read language, Salt Marshes proves that the battles for preservation and conservation must continue, because threats to salt marshes ebb and flow like the water that runs through them.

Download or read book A Natural History of the Unnatural World written by Joel Levy and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This imaginative guide uses first hand accounts, historical records, works of literature and art, and the imaginative insights of the scientifically trained author to detail the evolution, habits, life cycles, reproductive behaviour and specialised abilities of dozens of fabled beings.

Download or read book Refuge written by Terry Tempest Williams and published by Vintage. This book was released on 1992-09-01 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the spring of 1983 Terry Tempest Williams learned that her mother was dying of cancer. That same season, The Great Salt Lake began to rise to record heights, threatening the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge and the herons, owls, and snowy egrets that Williams, a poet and naturalist, had come to gauge her life by. One event was nature at its most random, the other a by-product of rogue technology: Terry's mother, and Terry herself, had been exposed to the fallout of atomic bomb tests in the 1950s. As it interweaves these narratives of dying and accommodation, Refuge transforms tragedy into a document of renewal and spiritual grace, resulting in a work that has become a classic.

Download or read book Leaving the Wild written by Gavin Ehringer and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-12-05 with total page 410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A thought-provoking and surprising book that explores the ever-evolving relationship between humans and domesticated animals. The domestication of animals changed the course of human history. But what are the consequences for these animals who have abandoned their wild existence in exchange for our care and protection? Domestication has proven to be a wildly successful survival strategy, but this success has not been without its drawbacks. A modern dairy cow’s daily energy output equals that of a Tour de France rider. Feral cats overpopulate urban areas. And our methods of breeding horses and dogs have resulted in debilitating and sometimes lethal genetic diseases. But these problems and more can be addressed, if we have the will and the compassion. Human values and choices determine an animal’s lot in life even before he or she is born. Just as a sculptor’s hands shape clay, so human values shape our animals—for good and or evil. The little-examined, yet omnipresent act of breeding lies at the core of Gavin Ehringer’s eye-opening book.

Download or read book The Unnatural History Museum written by Viktor Wynd and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2020-03-10 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Viktor Wynd, master of the contemporary Wunderkabinett, is back with a collection of artifacts and curiosities that are more bizarre and wonderful than ever. For over a decade, from a tiny storefront in east London, the artist Viktor Wynd has been reinventing the cabinet of curiosities for the 21st century. The Viktor Wynd Museum of Curiosities, Fine Art & UnNatural History is now one of the city's most tantalizing tourist destinations. Wynd first introduced his worldview in the book Viktor Wynd's Cabinet of Wonders, which John Waters called "an insanely delightful how-to guide...told with lunatic humor and absolute joy." In this new volume, he takes readers on a tour inside his mildly-twisted mind, delving deeper into his philosophy of collecting, and describing personal connections to the objects he treasures. Written in his trademark charismatic style, which blends whimsical stories with odd facts and obscure references, this book is filled with lavish and theatrical photographs and drawings. Loosely organized into thematic chapters, it ponders the beauty of skulls and masks; explores beasts, freaks, monsters, fairies, and mermaids; covers magical plants, hallucinogens, erotica, and dandies; and dips into the world of the occult. This might not be a book for everyone. However, it is a book everyone interested in cabinets of curiosities should have on their shelf.

Download or read book Unnatural Companions written by Peter Christie and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2020-05-21 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Highly compelling...page-turning read" — TNC's Cool Green Science We love our pets. Dogs, cats, birds, reptiles, and other species have become an essential part of more families than ever before—in North America today, pets outnumber people. Pet owners are drawn to their animal companions through an innate desire to connect with other species. But there is a dark side to our domestic connection with animal life: the pet industry is contributing to a global conservation crisis for wildlife—often without the knowledge of pet owners. In Unnatural Companions, journalist Peter Christie issues a call to action for pet owners. If we hope to reverse the alarming trend of wildlife decline, pet owners must acknowledge the pets-versus-conservation dilemma and concede that our well-fed and sheltered cats too often prey on small backyard wildlife and seemingly harmless reptiles released into the wild might be the next destructive invasive species. We want our pets to eat nutritionally healthy food, but how does the designer food we feed them impact the environment? Christie's book is a cautionary tale to responsible pet owners about why we must change the ways we love and care for our pets. It concludes with the positive message that the small changes we make at home can foster better practices within the pet industry that will ultimately benefit our pets’ wild brethren.

Download or read book Unnatural Selection written by Emily Monosson and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2016-03-29 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gonorrhea. Bed bugs. Weeds. Salamanders. People. All are evolving, some surprisingly rapidly, in response to our chemical age. In Unnatural Selection, Emily Monosson shows how our drugs, pesticides, and pollution are exerting intense selection pressure on all manner of species. And we humans might not like the result. Monosson reveals that the very code of life is more fluid than once imagined. When our powerful chemicals put the pressure on to evolve or die, beneficial traits can sweep rapidly through a population. Species with explosive population growth--the bugs, bacteria, and weeds--tend to thrive, while bigger, slower-to-reproduce creatures, like ourselves, are more likely to succumb. Unnatural Selection is eye-opening and more than a little disquieting. But it also suggests how we might lessen our impact: manage pests without creating super bugs; protect individuals from disease without inviting epidemics; and benefit from technology without threatening the health of our children.

Download or read book Unnatural Selection written by Katrina van Grouw and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2018-07-31 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A lavishly illustrated look at how evolution plays out in selective breeding Unnatural Selection is a stunningly illustrated book about selective breeding--the ongoing transformation of animals at the hand of man. More important, it's a book about selective breeding on a far, far grander scale—a scale that encompasses all life on Earth. We'd call it evolution. A unique fusion of art, science, and history, this book celebrates the 150th anniversary of Charles Darwin's monumental work The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication, and is intended as a tribute to what Darwin might have achieved had he possessed that elusive missing piece to the evolutionary puzzle—the knowledge of how individual traits are passed from one generation to the next. With the benefit of a century and a half of hindsight, Katrina van Grouw explains evolution by building on the analogy that Darwin himself used—comparing the selective breeding process with natural selection in the wild, and, like Darwin, featuring a multitude of fascinating examples. This is more than just a book about pets and livestock, however. The revelation of Unnatural Selection is that identical traits can occur in all animals, wild and domesticated, and both are governed by the same evolutionary principles. As van Grouw shows, animals are plastic things, constantly changing. In wild animals the changes are usually too slow to see—species appear to stay the same. When it comes to domesticated animals, however, change happens fast, making them the perfect model of evolution in action. Suitable for the lay reader and student, as well as the more seasoned biologist, and featuring more than four hundred breathtaking illustrations of living animals, skeletons, and historical specimens, Unnatural Selection will be enjoyed by anyone with an interest in natural history and the history of evolutionary thinking.

Download or read book Unnatural Emotions written by Catherine A. Lutz and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2011-05-04 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "An outstanding contribution to psychological anthropology. Its excellent ethnography and its provocative theory make it essential reading for all those concerned with the understanding of human emotions."—Karl G. Heider, American Anthropologist

Download or read book The Book of Goose written by Yiyun Li and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2022-09-20 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2023 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction Long-listed for the 2023 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice A Slate Top Ten Book of the Year A TIME Best Fiction Book of 2022 Named a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker, NPR, Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, Los Angeles Review of Books, Financial Times, San Francisco Chronicle, LitHub, Buzzfeed, and more. A magnificent, beguiling tale winding from the postwar rural provinces to Paris, from an English boarding school to the quiet Pennsylvania home where a woman can live without her past, The Book of Goose is a story of disturbing intimacy and obsession, of exploitation and strength of will, by the celebrated author Yiyun Li. Fabienne is dead. Her childhood best friend, Agnès, receives the news in America, far from the French countryside where the two girls were raised—the place that Fabienne helped Agnès escape ten years ago. Now Agnès is free to tell her story. As children in a war-ravaged backwater town, they’d built a private world, invisible to everyone but themselves—until Fabienne hatched the plan that would change everything, launching Agnès on an epic trajectory through fame, fortune, and terrible loss.

Download or read book Unnatural 1 written by Mirka Andolfo and published by Image Comics. This book was released on 2018-07-04 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Leslie is a simple pig girl. She loves sushi, she's stuck with a job she hates, and she lives under a brutal totalitarian government one that punishes transgressors for anything deemed "unnatural". Leslie dreams of something different for herself. But those dreams are becoming dangerous... This Italian hit series by MIRKA ANDOLFO (Wonder Woman, Harley Quinn, DC Comics Bombshells) will transport you into a colorful but terrible world full of anthropomorphic creatures, but light on personal freedoms by way of a breathtaking plot that travels between thriller and fantasy, with a hint of sensuality.