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How to speak whale : a voyage into the future of animal communication / by Mustill, Tom,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."What if animals and humans could speak to one another? Tom Mustill--the nature documentarian who went viral when a thirty ton humpback whale breached onto his kayak--asks this question in his thrilling investigation into whale science and animal communication. "When a whale is in the water, it is like an iceberg: you only see a fraction of it and have no conception of its size." On September 12, 2015, Tom Mustill was paddling in a two-person kayak with a friend, just off the coast of California. It was cold, but idyllic--until a humpback whale breached, landing on top of them, releasing the energy equivalent of forty hand grenades. He was certain he was about to die, but both he and his friend survived miraculously unscathed. In the interviews that followed the incident, Mustill was left with one question: What could this astonishing encounter teach us? Drawing from his experience as a naturalist and wildlife filmmaker, Mustill started investigating human-whale interactions around the world. When he met two tech entrepreneurs, who told him they wanted to use artificial intelligence (AI) to decode animal communication, Mustill embarked on a journey where big data meets big beasts, using animal eavesdropping technologies to train AI--originally designed to translate human languages--to discover patterns in the conversations of animals. There is a revolution taking place in biology, as the technologies we've developed to explore our own languages are turned to nature. From seventeenth-century Dutch inventors, to the whaling industry of the nineteenth century, to the cutting edge of Silicon Valley, How to Speak Whale looks at how scientists and start-ups around the world are decoding animal languages. Whales, with their giant mammalian brains, offer one of the most realistic opportunities for this to happen. But what would the consequences of such human-animal interaction be? We're about to find out"--
Subjects: Animal communication.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Life as we made it : how 50,000 years of human innovation refined--and redefined--nature / by Shapiro, Beth Alison,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."Humans seem to be destroying nature with incessant fiddling. We can use viruses to insert genes for pesticide resistance into plants, or to make the flesh of goldfish glow. We can turn bacteria into factories for millions of molecules, from vitamin A and insulin to diesel fuel. And this year's Nobel Prize went to the inventors of tool called CRISPR, which lets us edit genomes almost as easily as we can edit the text in a computer document. The potential for harm can seem both enormous and inevitable. In Life as We Made It, evolutionary biologist Beth Shapiro argues that our fears of new technologies aren't just mistaken, but they miss the big picture about human history: we've been remaking nature for as long as we've been around. As Shapiro shows, the molecular tools of biotechnology are just the latest in a long line of innovations stretching back to the extra food and warm fires that first brought wolves into the human fold, turning them into devoted dogs. Perhaps more importantly, Shapiro offers a new understanding of the evolution of our species and those that surround us. We might think of evolution as a process bigger than humans (and everything else). To the contrary, Shapiro argues that we have always been active participants in it, driving it both inadvertently and intentionally with our remarkable capacity for technological innovation. Shapiro shows that with each innovation and every plant and animal we touched, we not only shaped our own diets, genes, and social structures but we reset the course of evolution, both theirs and ours. Indeed, although we think of only modern technology as capable of gene editing, she shows that even the first stone tools could edit DNA, simply by changing the world in which all life lives. Recasting the history of biology and technology alike, Life as We Made It shows that the history of our species is essentially and inevitably a story of us meddling with nature. And that ultimately, our species' fate depends on how we do it in the future"--
Subjects: Biotechnology; Biotechnology; Nature;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Still alive : a wild life of rediscovery / by Galante, Forrest,author.;
"Forrest Galante, host of Extinct or Alive and the world's #1 rare species expert, takes readers along with him through the deepest wilderness and most remote and dangerous parts of the world to find all the animals we thought were extinct. In the course of his travels, Galante has been attacked by lions, stung by jellyfish, bitten by snakes and had run-ins with pissed off hippos. Still Alive offers a travelogue of Galante's most harrowing adventures, introducing readers to some of the most unique rare species he's encountered--while also adding the unpredictable drama and human element of traveling to some of the world's most isolated locations. Part memoir, part biological adventure, Still Alive is a calling card for conservation, highlighting not just Galante's toughness as he finds animals thought to be lost, but also the resiliency of the animals themselves, as they keep their species alive in spite of the odds"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Galante, Forrest.; Adventure and adventurers; Rare animals; Rare animals;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Fluke : chance, chaos, and why everything we do matters / by Klaas, Brian P.(Brian Paul),1986-author.;
In the perspective-altering tradition of Malcolm Gladwell's 'The Tipping Point' and Nassim Nicholas Taleb's 'The Black Swan', 'Fluke' is a provocative challenge to how we think our world works-and why small, chance events can divert our lives and change everything. Drawing on social science, chaos theory, history, evolutionary biology, and philosophy, Brian Klaas provides a brilliantly fresh look at why things happen-all while providing mind-bending lessons on how we can live smarter, be happier, and lead more fulfilling lives.
Subjects: Chance; Chaotic behavior in systems.; Conduct of life.; Forecasting.; Forecasting;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Accidental brothers : the story of twins exchanged at birth and the power of nature and nurture / by Segal, Nancy L.,1951-author.; Montoya, Yesika S.,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index.Accidental Brothers tells the unique story of two sets of identical Colombian twin brothers who discovered at age 25 that they were mistakenly raised as fraternal twins--when they were not even biological brothers. Due to an oversight that presumably occurred in the hospital nursery, one twin in each pair was switched with a twin in the other pair. The result was two sets of unrelated "fraternal" twins--Jorge and Carlos, who were raised in the lively city of Bogota; and William and Wilber, who were raised in the remote rural village of La Paz, 150 miles away. Their parents and siblings were aware of the enormous physical and behavioral differences between the members of each set, but never doubted that the two belonged in their biological families. Everyone's life unraveled when one of the twins--William--was mistaken by a young woman for his real identical twin, Jorge. Her "discovery" led to the truth--that the alleged twins were not twins at all, but rather unrelated individuals who ended up with the wrong families. Blending great science and human interest, Accidental Brothers by Nancy L. Segal and Yesika S. Montoya will inform and entertain anyone interested in how twin studies illuminate the origins of human behavior, as well as mother-infant identification and the chance events that can have profound consequences on our lives.
Subjects: Twins; Nature and nurture;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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How to live in space : everything you need to know for the not-so-distant future / by Stuart, Colin(Science writer),author.;
"An amusing and informative illustrated guide to life beyond our own planet that covers everything from training for and living in space to the future of space travel and tourism Now that suborbital space tourism is predicted to become a billion-dollar industry in the next ten years and NASA has announced its plans for landing humans on Mars in the 2030s, the dream of traveling and living in space is taking on new reality. But given that life on Earth can be complicated enough, how can we survive and thrive in the zero-gravity, absolute-zero far reaches of space? Look no further: How to Live in Space is chock-full of all the essential information you need to equip yourself for life beyond our blue planet. Grounded in space science, planetary biology, and rocket science, this accessible guide propels readers through takeoff, life in orbit, terraforming, and the long-term effects of space on the human body. Infographics and full-color illustrations help How to Live in Space to answer your burning questions, including: How do you sleep in microgravity? How do you grow food without water? Will your muscles waste away out there? How do you protect yourself from radiation? This is a light-hearted yet informative guide to a life far from terra firma"--
Subjects: Manned space flight.; Interplanetary voyages.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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In ascension / by MacInnes, Martin,author.;
"An astonishing novel about a young microbiologist investigating an unfathomable deep vent in the ocean floor, leading her on a journey that will encompass the full trajectory of the cosmos and the passage of a single human life. Leigh grew up in Rotterdam, drawn to the waterfront as an escape from her unhappy home life and volatile father. Enchanted by the undersea world of her childhood, she excels in marine biology, traveling the globe to study ancient organisms. When a trench is discovered in the Atlantic Ocean, Leigh joins the exploration team, hoping to find evidence of Earth's first life forms--what she instead finds calls into question everything we know about our own beginnings. Her discovery leads Leigh to the Mojave Desert and an ambitious new space agency. Drawn deeper into the agency's work, she learns that the Atlantic trench is only one of several related phenomena from across the world, each piece linking up to suggest a pattern beyond human understanding. Leigh knows that to continue working with the agency will mean leaving behind her declining mother and her younger sister, and faces an impossible choice: to remain with her family, or to embark on a journey across the breadth of the cosmos. Exploring and celebrating the natural world with wonder and reverence, In Ascension is a compassionate, deeply inquisitive epic that reaches outward to confront the greatest questions of existence, looks inward to illuminate the smallest details of the human heart, and shows how--no matter how far away we might be and how much we have lost hope--we will always attempt to return to the people and places we call home"--
Subjects: Science fiction.; Novels.; Discoveries in science; Evolution (Biology); Life on other planets; Marine biologists; Women scientists;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Eat, poop, die : how animals make our world / by Roman, Joe,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."From the volcanoes of Iceland to the tropical waters of Hawaii, the great plains of the American heartland, and beyond, Eat, Poop, Die takes readers on an exhilarating and enlightening global adventure, revealing the remarkable ways in which the most basic biological activities of animals make and remake the world-and how a deeper understanding of these cycles provides us with opportunities to undo the environmental damage humanity has wrought on the planet we call home"--
Subjects: Animal behavior.; Animal-plant relationships.; Animals.; Animals; Climatic changes.; Global warming; Nature.; Nature;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Urban jungle : the history and future of nature in the city / by Wilson, Ben,1980-author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."In this exhilarating look at cities, past and future, Ben Wilson proposes that, in our world of rising seas and threatening weather, the natural world may prove the city's savior. Since the beginning of civilization, humans have built cities to wall nature out, then glorified it in beloved but quite artificial parks. In Urban Jungle, Ben Wilson--the author of Metropolis, a seven-thousand-year history of cities that the Wall Street Journal called "a towering achievement"--looks to the fraught relationship between nature and the city for clues to how the planet can survive in an age of climate crisis. Whether it was the market farmers of Paris, Germans in medieval forest cities, or the Aztecs in the floating city of Tenochtitlan, pre-modern humans had an essential bond with nature. But when the day came that water was piped in and food flown from distant fields, that relationship was lost. Today, urban areas are the fastest-growing habitat on Earth and in Urban Jungle Ben Wilson finds that we are at last acknowledging that human engineering is not enough to protect us from extremes of weather. He takes us to places where efforts to rewild the city are under way: to Los Angeles, where the city's concrete river will run blue again, to New York City, where a bleak landfill will be a vast grassland preserve. The pinnacle of this strategy will be Amsterdam: a city that is its own ecosystem, that makes no waste and produces its own energy. In many cities, Wilson finds, nature is already thriving. Koalas are settling in Brisbane, wild boar may raid your picnic in Berlin. Green canopies, wildflowers, wildlife: the things that will help cities survive, he notes, also make people happy. Urban Jungle offers the pleasures of history--how backyard gardens spread exotic species all over the world, how war produces biodiversity--alongside a fantastic vision of the lush green cities of our future. Climate change, Ben Wilson believes, is only the latest chapter in the dramatic human story of nature and the city"--
Subjects: Climatic changes.; Urban ecology (Biology); Urban ecology (Sociology);
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Inflamed : deep medicine and the anatomy of injustice / by Marya, Rupa,1975-author.; Patel, Raj,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."Our bodies, societies, and planet are inflamed. Boldly original, Inflamed takes us on a medical tour through the human body--our digestive, endocrine, circulatory, respiratory, reproductive, immune, and nervous systems. Unlike a traditional anatomy book, this groundbreaking work illuminates the hidden relationships between our biological systems and the profound injustices of our political and economic systems. Inflammation is connected to the food we eat, the air we breathe, and the diversity of the microbes living inside us, which regulate everything from our brain's development to our immune system's functioning. It's connected to the number of traumatic events we experienced as children and to the traumas endured by our ancestors. It's connected not only to access to health care but to the very models of health that physicians practice"--Dust jacket flap.
Subjects: Discrimination in medical care.; Equality.; Health services accessibility.; Social medicine.; Social justice.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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