Recommendations based on "The Malay Archipelago"

'Kimmerer blends, with deep attentiveness and musicality, science and personal insights to tell the overlooked story of the planet's oldest plants' Guardian'Bewitching ... a masterwork ... a glittering read in its entirety' Maria Popova, BrainpickingsLiving at the limits of our ordinary perception, mosses are a common but largely unnoticed element of the natural world. Gathering Moss is a beautifully written mix of science and personal reflection that invites readers to explore and learn from the elegantly simple lives of mosses.In these interwoven essays, Robin Wall Kimmerer leads general readers and scientists alike to an understanding of how mosses live and how their lives are intertwined with the lives of countless other beings. Kimmerer explains the biology of mosses clearly and artfully, while at the same time reflecting on what these fascinating organisms have to teach us.Drawing on her experiences as a scientist, a mother, and a Native American, Kimmerer explains the stories of mosses in scientific terms as well as within the framework of indigenous ways of knowing. In her book, the natural history and cultural relationships of mosses become a powerful metaphor for ways of living in the world.

How the monsters of nineteenth-century literature and science came to define us.“Was I then a monster, a blot upon the earth, from which all men fled and whom all men disowned?” In We Are All Monsters, Andrew Mangham offers a fresh interpretation of this question uttered by Frankenstein’s creature in Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel in an expansive exploration of how nineteenth-century literature and science recast the monster as vital to the workings of nature and key to unlocking the knowledge of all life-forms and processes. Even as gothic literature and freak shows exploited an abiding association between abnormal bodies and horror, amazement, or failure, the development of monsters in the ideas and writings of this period showed the world to be dynamic, varied, plentiful, transformative, and creative.In works ranging from Comte de Buffon’s interrogations of humanity within natural history to Hugo de Vries’s mutation theory, and from Shelley’s artificial man to fin de siècle notions of body difference, Mangham expertly traces a persistent attempt to understand modern subjectivity through a range of biological and imaginary monsters. In a world that hides monstrosity behind theoretical and cultural representations that reinscribe its otherness, this enlightened book shows how innovative nineteenth-century thinkers dismantled the fictive idea of normality and provided a means of thinking about life in ways that check the reflexive tendency to categorize and divide.

"THE ULTIMATE DINOSAUR BIOGRAPHY," hails Scientific American: A thrilling new history of the age of dinosaurs, from one of our finest young scientists."A masterpiece of science writing." —Washington PostA New York Times Bestseller • Goodreads Choice Awards Winner • A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: Smithsonian, Science Friday, The Times (London), Popular Mechanics, Science News"This is scientific storytelling at its most visceral, striding with the beasts through their Triassic dawn, Jurassic dominance, and abrupt demise in the Cretaceous." —NatureThe dinosaurs. Sixty-six million years ago, the Earth’s most fearsome creatures vanished. Today they remain one of our planet’s great mysteries. Now The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs reveals their extraordinary, 200-million-year-long story as never before.In this captivating narrative (enlivened with more than seventy original illustrations and photographs), Steve Brusatte, a young American paleontologist who has emerged as one of the foremost stars of the field—naming fifteen new species and leading groundbreaking scientific studies and fieldwork—masterfully tells the complete, surprising, and new history of the dinosaurs, drawing on cutting-edge science to dramatically bring to life their lost world and illuminate their enigmatic origins, spectacular flourishing, astonishing diversity, cataclysmic extinction, and startling living legacy. Captivating and revelatory, The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs is a book for the ages.Brusatte traces the evolution of dinosaurs from their inauspicious start as small shadow dwellers—themselves the beneficiaries of a mass extinction caused by volcanic eruptions at the beginning of the Triassic period—into the dominant array of species every wide-eyed child memorizes today, T. rex, Triceratops, Brontosaurus, and more. This gifted scientist and writer re-creates the dinosaurs’ peak during the Jurassic and Cretaceous, when thousands of species thrived, and winged and feathered dinosaurs, the prehistoric ancestors of modern birds, emerged. The story continues to the end of the Cretaceous period, when a giant asteroid or comet struck the planet and nearly every dinosaur species (but not all) died out, in the most extraordinary extinction event in earth’s history, one full of lessons for today as we confront a “sixth extinction.”Brusatte also recalls compelling stories from his globe-trotting expeditions during one of the most exciting eras in dinosaur research—which he calls “a new golden age of discovery”—and offers thrilling accounts of some of the remarkable findings he and his colleagues have made, including primitive human-sized tyrannosaurs; monstrous carnivores even larger than T. rex; and paradigm-shifting feathered raptors from China.An electrifying scientific history that unearths the dinosaurs’ epic saga, The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs will be a definitive and treasured account for decades to come.Includes 75 images, world maps of the prehistoric earth, and a dinosaur family tree.

The National Institute of Health recently announced its plan to retire the fifty remaining chimpanzees held in national research facilities and place them in sanctuaries. This significant decision comes after a lengthy process of examination and debate about the ethics of animal research. For decades, proponents of such research have argued that the discoveries and benefits for humans far outweigh the costs of the traumatic effects on the animals; but today, even the researchers themselves have come to question the practice. John P. Gluck has been one of the scientists at the forefront of the movement to end research on primates, and in Voracious Science and Vulnerable Animals he tells a vivid, heart-rending, personal story of how he became a vocal activist for animal protection.Gluck begins by taking us inside the laboratory of Harry F. Harlow at the University of Wisconsin, where Gluck worked as a graduate student in the 1960s. Harlow’s primate lab became famous for his behavioral experiments in maternal deprivation and social isolation of rhesus macaques. Though trained as a behavioral scientist, Gluck finds himself unable to overlook the intense psychological and physical damage these experiments wrought on the macaques. Gluck’s sobering and moving account reveals how in this and other labs, including his own, he came to grapple with the uncomfortable justifications that many researchers were offering for their work. As his sense of conflict grows, we’re right alongside him, developing a deep empathy for the often smart and always vulnerable animals used for these experiments.At a time of unprecedented recognition of the intellectual cognition and emotional intelligence of animals, Voracious Science and Vulnerable Animals is a powerful appeal for our respect and compassion for those creatures who have unwillingly dedicated their lives to science. Through the words of someone who has inflicted pain in the name of science and come to abhor it, it’s important to know what has led this far to progress and where further inroads in animal research ethics are needed.

Silver Medal, 2023 Nautilus Book Awards in the category of Ecology and Environment Amid environmental catastrophe, it is vital to recall what unites all forms of life. We share characteristics and genetic material extending back billions of years. More than that, we all—from humans to plants to bacteria—share a planet. We are all Earthlings. Adrian Parr calls on us to understand ourselves as existing with and among the many forms of Earthling life. She argues that human survival requires us to recognize our interdependent relationships with the other species and systems that make up life on Earth. In a series of meditations, Earthlings portrays the wonder and beauty of life with deep feeling, vivid detail, and an activist spirit. Parr invites readers to travel among the trees of the Amazonian rainforest; take flight with birds and butterflies migrating through the skies; and plunge into the oceans with whales and polar bears—as well as to encounter bodies infected with deadly viruses and maimed by the violence of global capitalism. Combining poetic observation with philosophical contemplation and scientific evidence, Parr offers a moving vision of a world in upheaval and a potent manifesto for survival. Earthlings is both a joyful celebration of the magnificence of the biosphere and an urgent call for action to save it.

A photographic field guide to all the common and some unusual species of insects across Britain and Ireland that the keen amateur naturalist is likely to spot, this collection of 1,500 species is illustrated with detailed photographs chosen for their help in identification, including photographs of larvae. Each section is coded with a symbol for easy reference, and differences between similar species are highlighted to avoid confusion. Information is given on when to look and where to find each species. Insect groups dealt with include butterflies and moths, mayflies, dragonflies, damselflies, grasshoppers, crickets, earwigs, lacewings, bugs, bees, wasps, and ants and beetles, all with keys to ensure accurate identification.

An engrossing and revealing study of why we deem certain animals “pests” and others not—from cats to rats, elephants to pigeons—and what this tells us about our own perceptions, beliefs, and actions, as well as our place in the natural worldA squirrel in the garden. A rat in the wall. A pigeon on the street. Humans have spent so much of our history drawing a hard line between human spaces and wild places. When animals pop up where we don’t expect or want them, we respond with fear, rage, or simple annoyance. It’s no longer an animal. It’s a pest.At the intersection of science, history, and narrative journalism, Pests is not a simple call to look closer at our urban ecosystem. It’s not a natural history of the animals we hate. Instead, this book is about us. It’s about what calling an animal a pest says about people, how we live, and what we want. It’s a story about human nature, and how we categorize the animals in our midst, including bears and coyotes, sparrows and snakes. Pet or pest? In many cases, it’s entirely a question of perspective.Bethany Brookshire’s deeply researched and entirely entertaining book will show readers what there is to venerate in vermin, and help them appreciate how these animals have clawed their way to success as we did everything we could to ensure their failure. In the process, we will learn how the pests that annoy us tell us far more about humanity than they do about the animals themselves.

Landscape architect James Corner and aerial photographer Alex MacLean present breathtaking photographs, exquisite map-drawings, and thoughtful essays that record their flights across the United States and express their growing understanding of the way the American landscape has been forged by various cultures in the past and what the possibilities are for its future design. 13 b&w illustrations. 115 color plates.

When renowned British geneticist J. B. S. Haldane was asked what could be inferred about God from a study of his works, Haldane replied, “An inordinate fondness for beetles.” With 350,000 known species, and scientific estimates that millions more have yet to be identified, their abundance is indisputable as is their variety.  They range from the delightful summer firefly to the one-hundred-gram Goliath beetle. Beetles offer a dazzling array of shapes, sizes, and colors that entice scientists and collectors across the globe. The Book of Beetles celebrates the beauty and diversity of this marvelous insect. Six hundred significant beetle species are covered, with each entry featuring a distribution map, basic biology, conservation status, and information on cultural and economic significance. Full-color photos show the beetles both at their actual size and enlarged to show details, such as the sextet of spots that distinguish the six-spotted tiger beetle or the jagged ridges of the giant-jawed sawyer beetle. Based in the most up-to-date science and accessibly written, the descriptive text will appeal to researchers and armchair coleopterists alike. The humble beetle continues to grow in popularity, taking center stage in biodiversity studies, sustainable agriculture programs, and even the dining rooms of adventurous and eco-conscious chefs. The Book of Beetles is certain to become the authoritative reference on these remarkably adaptable and beautiful creatures.

The second book by the bestselling author of Extraordinary Insects Trees clean air and water; hoverflies and bees pollinate our crops; the kingfisher inspired the construction of high-speed trains. In Tapestries of Life, bestselling author Anne Sverdrup-Thygeson explains how closely we are all connected with the natural world, highlighting our indelible link with nature's finely knit system and our everyday lives. In the heart of natural world is a life-support system like no other, a collective term that describes all the goods and services we receive - food, fresh water, medicine, pollination, pollution control, carbon sequestration, erosion prevention, recreation, spiritual health and so much more. In this utterly captivating book, Anne Sverdrup-Thygeson sets out to explore these wonderful, supportive elements - taking the reader on a journey through the surprising characteristics of the natural world.