Geerat J. Vermeij is Distinguished Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the University of California, Davis. He is the author of The Evolutionary World: How Adaptation Explains Everything from Seashells to Civilization; Privileged Hands: A Scientific Life; Nature: An Economic History (Princeton); and Evolution and Escalation: An Ecological History of Life (Princeton). From "one of the master naturalists of our time" (American Scientist),...

Henry, a young boy with autism goes on a class field trip to the natural history museum, with instructions to find something new.

Debbie Busby is an equine behaviorist with degrees in applied animal behavior and welfare and psychology. She is certified by the International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants and runs the website Evolution Equine. Catrin Rutland is associate professor of anatomy and developmental genetics at the School of Veterinary Medicine, University of Nottingham, UK. She writes about science for a number of leading UK newspapers and magazines, including...

Here is a volume that is true Maine-as eloquent of "downeast" as a bough of fir balsam, as the thunder of a wave of a rocky shore, as the lonely splendor of the northern lights in the sky behind Katahdin. In WHITE PINE AND BLUE WATER has been collected the best of three centuries of fact and fiction written about the wonderful country that is Maine. The recorded history of this northern land starts in the troubled era when the French and English...

A philosophical approach to the enigma of nature and the universe approached through observation, meditation, and logical analysis of material phenomena. Written in accessible language for the general reader, The Origin of the Universe expounds on a theory that Jan Aleksander Piasecki developed from a synthesis of data he accumulated over the years. He discusses world forces and how they combine and operate to create the universe and matter, and...

A paleontologist shows what life was like on our planet long before the early humans emerged through words and illustrations. Paleontologist Dr. Mark P. Witton draws on the latest twenty-first century discoveries to re-create the appearances and lifestyles of extinct, fascinating species, the environments they inhabited, and the challenges they faced living on an ever-changing planet. A worthy successor to Charles Knight's beloved 1946 classic, Life...

Richard Lutwyche has been interested in pigs since he was a child, growing up on a farm alongside a herd of pedigree Wessex Saddlebacks. He ran the Gloucestershire Old Spots Pig Breeders' Club, was editor of The Ark magazine for the Rare Breeds Survival Trust, and is chief steward and organizer of one of Britain's largest pig shows. He is the author of Pig Keeping and Higgledy-Piggledy and in 2010 received the lifetime achievement award in the BBC...

Dinosaurs of Darkness opens a doorway to a fascinating former world, between 100 million and 120 million years ago, when Australia was far south of its present location and joined to Antarctica. Dinosaurs lived in this polar region. How were the polar dinosaurs discovered? What do we now know about them? Thomas H. Rich and Patricia Vickers-Rich, who have played crucial roles in their discovery, describe how they and others collected the fossils indispensable...

Completing the Planet Earth trilogy, Planet Earth III explores the greatest habitats on our planet and the extraordinary animals that live in them. Filled with wonder and insight, Planet Earth III celebrates places and animals beyond our imagination. From the depths of the ocean to the most remote jungle, discover the planet₂s last great wild places and the astonishing strategies animals have evolved to survive. Each episode focuses on a distinct...

Sparrows are as complicated as they are common. This is an essential guide to identifying 76 kinds, along with a fascinating history of human interactions with them.   What, exactly, is a sparrow? All birders (and many non-birders) have essentially the same mental image of a pelican, a duck, or a flamingo, and a guide dedicated to waxwings or kingfishers would need nothing more than a sketch and a single sentence to satisfactorily identify its...