There are no stupid questions in science
There Are (No) Stupid Questions ... In Science provides easy-to-understand, and delightfully cheeky explanations for scientific and medical quandaries, and is appropriate for those with no prior scientific knowledge to colleagues in the scientific field.
Cave of Bones
Lee Berger is an award-winning paleoarchaeologist whose explorations into human origins in Africa over the past 25 years have resulted in the discovery of more hominin fossil remains than any other. He spearheaded the discovery of two new species of ancient human relatives- Australopithecus sediba and Homo naledi .
Many Things Under a Rock: The Mysteries of Octopuses
Marine biologist Scheel debuts with a fascinating exploration of how octopuses experience their world. Drawing on research he's conducted in locales from Hawaii to Alaska, Scheel dives into the science of how the cephalopods think about and sense the world around them.
Brave the Wild River
A biography of two female botanists who cataloged the plants of the Grand Canyon. Sevigny, a science journalist for Arizona Public Radio, recounts the details of the 1938 river journey of Elzada Clover and Lois Jotter, who, along with their guide, Norm Nevills, and a few other crew members, traveled down the Colorado River with the goal of cataloging undiscovered plants in the area.
The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet
A noted environmental journalist examines the effects of extreme heat on our lives and future generations. In this gripping examination, Goodell, a Rolling Stone contributing editor and author of The Water Will Come and Big Coal, demonstrates the deleterious effects of rising temperatures and the frightening possibilities of what lies ahead if we don't take immediate, globally coordinated action.
Chasing Shadows: My Life Chasing the Great White Shark
As shark attacks continue to rise along the coast of New England, Dr. Greg Skomal, the leading great white shark expert in the country, takes readers on a gripping exploration of these apex predators and the factors in their resurgence.
The Underworld: journeys to the depths of the ocean
Today, cutting-edge technologies allow scientists and explorers to dive miles beneath the surface, and we are beginning to understand this strange and exotic underworld: a place of soaring mountains, smoldering volcanoes, and valleys 7,000 feet deeper than Everest is high, where tectonic plates collide and separate, and extraordinary life forms operate under different rules.
The possibility of life: science, imagination, and our quest for kinship in the cosmos
One of the most powerful questions humans ask about the cosmos is: Are we alone? In The Possibility of Life, acclaimed science journalist Jaime Green traces the history of our understanding, from the days of Galileo and Copernicus to our contemporary quest for exoplanets. Along the way, she interweaves insights from science fiction writers who construct worlds that in turn inspire scientists.
To infinity and beyond: a journey of cosmic discovery
Astrophysicist Tyson and Walker, senior producer of Tyson's StarTalk podcast, provide a vivid look at the universe and the scientists who have changed how humans understand it. Though Galileo's observations confirming that the Earth isn't the center of the cosmos and Isaac Newton's work on planetary orbits receive expected mentions, the focus is on the contributions of lesser known scientists, such as physicists Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, who in 1964, while working on improving satellite communication, detected a constant microwave signal throughout the universe that turned out to be the remains of "the first light ever emitted," confirming the big bang theory.
The master builder : how the new science of the cell is rewriting the story of life
What defines who we are? For decades, the biological answer has been our genes. Our identities are shaped not simply by our genes, but by the interconnections between all our cells, working as a sort of symphony-cooperative, and creating something greater than its parts could on their own. As Martinez Arias shows, nothing in your genes explains why your heart is on the left side of your body, why you have five fingers and not ten, or why genetically identical twins have different sets of fingerprints and why it's possible for a mother to apparently share no DNA with the children to whom she gave birth!
Alien Worlds: How Insects Conquered the Earth & Why Their Fate Will Determine Our Future
Life on Earth depends on the busy activities of insects, but global populations of these teeming creatures are currently under threat, with grave consequences for us all. Alien Worlds presents insects and other arthropods as you have never seen them before, explaining how they conquered the planet and why there are so many of them, and shedding light on the evolutionary marvels that enabled them to thrive.
On the origin of time : Stephen Hawking's final theory
Stephen Hawking's closest collaborator, Thomas Hertog, sums up work they did at the end of Hawking's life that yields a new quantum theory of the cosmos. Puzzling how the universe could have created conditions hospitable to life, especially with the math predicting many big bangs producing multiple universes mostly not capable of sustaining life, they eventually realized that physical laws can transform and even simplify until particles, forces, and time itself disappear. And that means physical laws might be born and evolve alongside the universe they govern.