Science
"The quality of the deep-sky images is outstanding--a tribute to the various photographers as well as the book's printer. But it's the written word that will make or break a book like this, and Sue's writing is superb... [For] an occasional stargazer, a serious observer, or anyone in between, you won't go wrong with Deep-Sky Wonders. This is a great introduction to deep-sky stargazing for novice and experienced amateur astronomers alike."
--Mercury, publication of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific
Sue French writes the popular column "Deep-Sky Wonders" for Sky and Telescope magazine and also teaches deep sky observation. She has earned a loyal following among enthusiasts and is welcomed by beginners for her skill at presenting astronomy in an understandable way. After selling 10,000 copies of Deep-Sky Wonders in hardcover, we expect a good response for this paperback edition at an accessible price.
Deep-Sky Wonders is a collection of 100 of French's best "Deep-Sky Wonders" columns originally published in Sky and Telescope, which has a monthly readership exceeding 100,000. The book is organized by season and subdivided into months for a total of 100 in-depth tours of the deep sky. Each deep sky tour illuminates little-known seasonal wonders that lie off the beaten path.
Features include:
- Full-color photographs and detailed sketches of each deep sky tour
- Descriptions of double and variable stars, star clusters, nebulae, galaxies and exotics
- Historical and scientific background of particular interest
- A tabular listing of the deep-sky sites
- Color charts showing the position of each target in the night sky
- An index to all of the deep-sky objects covered.
Deep-Sky Wonders also features a variety of challenging objects that encourage observers to test the limits of their equipment and skills. Suitable for beginner and intermediate small-scope astronomers as well as large-scope viewers and astrophotographers, this book will be greeted enthusiastically by all Sky and Telescope readers. It is also an outstanding introduction to deep-sky viewing for novice observers.
ONE OF PEOPLE'S BEST BOOKS OF THE 2020S - ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Time, BBC Science Focus, The Daily Mail, Geographical, The Times, The Telegraph, New Statesman, London Evening Standard, Science Friday When we think of fungi, we likely think of mushrooms. But mushrooms are only fruiting bodies, analogous to apples on a tree. Most fungi live out of sight, yet make up a massively diverse kingdom of organisms that supports and sustains nearly all living systems. Fungi provide a key to understanding the planet on which we live, and the ways we think, feel, and behave. In the first edition of this mind-bending book, Sheldrake introduced us to this mysterious but massively diverse kingdom of life. This exquisitely designed volume, abridged from the original, features more than one hundred full-color images that bring the spectacular variety, strangeness, and beauty of fungi to life as never before. Fungi throw our concepts of individuality and even intelligence into question. They are metabolic masters, earth makers, and key players in most of life's processes. They can change our minds, heal our bodies, and even help us remediate environmental disaster. By examining fungi on their own terms, Sheldrake reveals how these extraordinary organisms--and our relationships with them--are changing our understanding of how life works. Winner of the Wainwright Prize, the Royal Society Science Book Prize, and the Guild of Food Writers Award - Shortlisted for the British Book Award - Longlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize
WINNER OF THE PEN/E.O. WILSON LITERARY SCIENCE WRITING AWARD - A KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR In the eighteenth century, two men--exact contemporaries and polar opposites--dedicated their lives to the same daunting task: identifying and describing all life on Earth. Carl Linnaeus, a pious Swedish doctor with a huckster's flair, believed that life belonged in tidy, static categories. Georges-Louis de Buffon, an aristocratic polymath and keeper of France's royal garden, viewed life as a dynamic swirl of complexities. Each began his task believing it to be difficult but not impossible: How could the planet possibly hold more than a few thousand species--or as many could fit on Noah's Ark? Both fell far short of their goal, but in the process they articulated starkly divergent views on nature, the future of the Earth, and humanity itself. Linnaeus gave the world such concepts as mammal, primate, and Homo sapiens, but he also denied that species change and he promulgated racist pseudoscience. Buffon formulated early prototypes of evolution and genetics, warned of global climate change, and argued passionately against prejudice. The clash of their conflicting worldviews continued well after their deaths, as their successors contended for dominance in the emerging science that came to be called biology. In Every Living Thing, Jason Roberts weaves a sweeping, unforgettable narrative spell, exploring the intertwined lives and legacies of Linnaeus and Buffon--as well as the groundbreaking, often fatal adventures of their acolytes--to trace an arc of insight and discovery that extends across three centuries into the present day.
What's to be done about a jaywalking moose? A bear caught breaking and entering? A murderous tree? Three hundred years ago, animals that broke the law would be assigned legal representation and put on trial. These days, as New York Times best-selling author Mary Roach discovers, the answers are best found not in jurisprudence but in science: the curious science of human-wildlife conflict, a discipline at the crossroads of human behavior and wildlife biology.
Roach tags along with animal-attack forensics investigators, human-elephant conflict specialists, bear managers, and "danger tree" faller blasters. Intrepid as ever, she travels from leopard-terrorized hamlets in the Indian Himalaya to St. Peter's Square in the early hours before the pope arrives for Easter Mass, when vandal gulls swoop in to destroy the elaborate floral display. She taste-tests rat bait, learns how to install a vulture effigy, and gets mugged by a macaque.
Combining little-known forensic science and conservation genetics with a motley cast of laser scarecrows, langur impersonators, and trespassing squirrels, Roach reveals as much about humanity as about nature's lawbreakers. When it comes to "problem" wildlife, she finds, humans are more often the problem--and the solution. Fascinating, witty, and humane, Fuzz offers hope for compassionate coexistence in our ever-expanding human habitat.
When Newton discovered the law of gravity, he unified the rules governing the heavens and the Earth. Since then, physicists have been placing new forces into ever-grander theories. But perhaps the ultimate challenge is achieving a monumental synthesis of the two remaining theories--relativity and the quantum theory. This would be the crowning achievement of science, a profound merging of all the forces of nature into one beautiful, magnificent equation to unlock the deepest mysteries in science: What happened before the Big Bang? What lies on the other side of a black hole? Are there other universes and dimensions? Is time travel possible? Why are we here? Kaku also explains the intense controversy swirling around this theory, with Nobel laureates taking opposite sides on this vital question. It is a captivating, gripping story; what's at stake is nothing less than our conception of the universe. Written with Kaku's trademark enthusiasm and clarity, this epic and engaging journey is the story of The God Equation.
"A gifted and thoughtful writer, Metzl brings us to the frontiers of biology and technology, and reveals a world full of promise and peril." --Siddhartha Mukherjee MD, New York Times bestselling author of The Emperor of All Maladies and The Gene
A groundbreaking exploration of genetic engineering and its impact on the future of our species from leading geopolitical expert and technology futurist, Jamie Metzl.
At the dawn of the genetics revolution, our DNA is becoming as readable, writable, and hackable as our information technology. But as humanity starts retooling our own genetic code, the choices we make today will be the difference between realizing breathtaking advances in human well-being and descending into a dangerous and potentially deadly genetic arms race. Enter the laboratories where scientists are turning science fiction into reality.
In this captivating and thought-provoking nonfiction science book, Jamie Metzl delves into the ethical, scientific, political, and technological dimensions of genetic engineering, and shares how it will shape the course of human evolution.
Drawing on his extensive background in genetics, national security, and foreign policy, Metzl paints a vivid picture of a world where advancements in technology empower us to take control of our own evolution, but also cautions against the pitfalls and ethical dilemmas that could arise if not properly managed.
Hacking Darwin is a must-read for anyone interested in the intersection of science, technology, and humanity's future.
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER SELECTED AS ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, AND THE ECONOMIST FINALIST FOR THE L.A. TIMES BOOK PRIZE, THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY'S HELEN BERNSTEIN AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN JOURNALISM, AND THE PEN/E.O. WILSON AWARD FOR LITERARY SCIENCE WRITING.
New York Times best-selling journalist Jeff Goodell presents a "masterful, bracing" (David Wallace-Wells) examination of the impact that temperature rise will have on our lives and on our planet, offering a vital new perspective on where we are headed, how we can prepare, and what is at stake if we fail to act."When heat comes, it's invisible. It doesn't bend tree branches or blow hair across your face to let you know it's arrived.... The sun feels like the barrel of a gun pointed at you."
The world is waking up to a new reality: wildfires are now seasonal in California, the Northeast is getting less and less snow each winter, and the ice sheets in the Arctic and Antarctica are melting fast. Heat is the first order threat that drives all other impacts of the climate crisis. And as the temperature rises, it is revealing fault lines in our governments, our politics, our economy, and our values. The basic science is not complicated: Stop burning fossil fuels tomorrow, and the global temperature will stop rising tomorrow. Stop burning fossil fuels in 50 years, and the temperature will keep rising for 50 years, making parts of our planet virtually uninhabitable. It's up to us. The hotter it gets, the deeper and wider our fault lines will open. The Heat Will Kill You First is about the extreme ways in which our planet is already changing. It is about why spring is coming a few weeks earlier and fall is coming a few weeks later and the impact that will have on everything from our food supply to disease outbreaks. It is about what will happen to our lives and our communities when typical summer days in Chicago or Boston go from 90° F to 110°F. A heatwave, Goodell explains, is a predatory event-- one that culls out the most vulnerable people. But that is changing. As heatwaves become more intense and more common, they will become more democratic. As an award-winning journalist who has been at the forefront of environmental journalism for decades, Goodell's new book may be his most provocative yet, explaining how extreme heat will dramatically change the world as we know it. Masterfully reported, mixing the latest scientific insight with on-the-ground storytelling, Jeff Goodell tackles the big questions and uncovers how extreme heat is a force beyond anything we have reckoned with before.
A fascinating tour of creatures from the surface to the deepest ocean floor: this "miraculous, transcendental book" invites us to envision wilder, grander, and more abundant possibilities for the way we live (Ed Yong, author of An Immense World).
A queer, mixed race writer working in a largely white, male field, science and conservation journalist Sabrina Imbler has always been drawn to the mystery of life in the sea, and particularly to creatures living in hostile or remote environments. Each essay in their debut collection profiles one such creature, including:
-the mother octopus who starves herself while watching over her eggs,
-the Chinese sturgeon whose migration route has been decimated by pollution and dams,
-the bizarre, predatory Bobbitt worm (named after Lorena),
-the common goldfish that flourishes in the wild,
-and more.
Imbler discovers that some of the most radical models of family, community, and care can be found in the sea, from gelatinous chains that are both individual organisms and colonies of clones to deep-sea crabs that have no need for the sun, nourished instead by the chemicals and heat throbbing from the core of the Earth. Exploring themes of adaptation, survival, sexuality, and care, and weaving the wonders of marine biology with stories of their own family, relationships, and coming of age, How Far the Light Reaches is a shimmering, otherworldly debut that attunes us to new visions of our world and its miracles.
WINNER OF THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE in SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
Finalist for the Lambda Literary Award One of TIME's 10 Best Nonfiction Books of the Year - A PEOPLE Best New Book - A Barnes & Noble and SHELF AWARENESS Best Book of 2022 - An Indie Next Pick - One of Winter's Most Eagerly Anticipated Books: VANITY FAIR, VULTURE, BOOKRIOT
