iBooks Top Science and Nature Ebooks

The bestselling Science and Nature Ebooks at Apple's iBookstore. The chart list of the most popular science and nature iBooks updated daily.

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Science and Nature Ebook Best Sellers

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Adaptable - Herman Pontzer PhD Cover Art

Adaptable

Adaptable How Your Unique Body Really Works and Why Our Biology Unites Us by Herman Pontzer PhD

A new understanding of how our bodies work, how to keep them healthy, and how our biological diversity unites us rather than divides us How does the body work—and why does it seem to work so differently for each of us? Why do we grow tall or short, obese or slim? Why do some of us stay healthy despite our bad habits while others who do all the right things fall ill? When we look around the planet, why do people vary in skin color, facial features, stature, body proportions, and disease risk?     The answer is both simple and powerful: We’re different because we’re adaptable. Over the past 100,000 years, as humans expanded into every biome on the planet, our bodies were fine-tuned to our local environments. Adaptability is at the heart of being human and the engine of our diversity – our species’ original superpower. As an evolutionary anthropologist working with human populations around the globe, Herman Pontzer has conducted research that embraces our incredible diversity, documenting the connections among lifestyle, landscape, local adaptations, and health.    Adaptable takes us on a tour of the human body. In each chapter, we learn how our bodies navigate an uncertain world: how we grow and mature; how our brains develop and learn; how our hearts, lungs, and digestive systems deliver oxygen and nutrients; how we manage toxins, temperature, and water balance; how we move and reproduce; how our immune system keeps invaders at bay; and how we age and decline. Along the way, we learn how to take care of our remarkable bodies, and that the universe of healthy lifestyles is vast (we don’t need the latest fad diet or cleanse!). Crucially, we come to see how understanding our bodies helps us make sense of the big issues we face today, from vaccines to heart disease, IQ to athletic excellence, diets and obesity to sex and gender, and what we can do to live longer and healthier.

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Gifts of the Crow - John Marzluff Cover Art

Gifts of the Crow

Gifts of the Crow How Perception, Emotion, and Thought Allow Smart Birds to Behave Like Humans by John Marzluff

Stan Coren’s groundbreaking The Intelligence of Dogs meets Bernd Heinrich’s classic Mind of the Raven in this astonishing, beautifully illustrated look at the uncanny intelligence and emotions of crows. Playful, social, and passionate, crows have brains that are huge for their body size, which allows them to think, plan, and reconsider their actions. They also exhibit an avian kind of eloquence, mate for life, and associate with relatives and neighbors for years. And to people who care for them and feed them, they often give oddly touching gifts in return. The ongoing connection between humans and crows—a cultural coevolution—has shaped both species for millions of years. Scientist John Marzluff teams up with artist-naturalist Tony Angell to tell amazing stories of these brilliant birds. With Marzluff’s extraordinary original research on the intelligence and startling abilities of corvids—crows, ravens, and jays—Angell’s gorgeous line drawings, and a lively joint narrative, the authors offer an in-depth look at these complex creatures and the traits and behaviors we share, including language, delinquency, frolic, passion, wrath, risk taking, and awareness. Crows gather around their dead, warn of impending doom, recognize people, commit murder of other crows, lure animals to their death, swill coffee and drink beer, design and use tools—including cars as nutcrackers—and windsurf and sled to play. Perfect for birdwatchers, animal lovers, and fans of nature writing such as Sy Montgomery’s The Soul of an Octopus , this book is a captivating blend of science, art, and unforgettable stories about one of the world’s most intelligent animals.

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Operation Paperclip - Annie Jacobsen Cover Art

Operation Paperclip

Operation Paperclip The Secret Intelligence Program that Brought Nazi Scientists to America by Annie Jacobsen

The “remarkable” story of America's secret post-WWII science programs ( The Boston Globe ), from the  New York Times  bestselling author of  Area 51 .  In the chaos following World War II, the U.S. government faced many difficult decisions, including what to do with the Third Reich's scientific minds. These were the brains behind the Nazis' once-indomitable war machine. So began Operation Paperclip, a decades-long, covert project to bring Hitler's scientists and their families to the United States. Many of these men were accused of war crimes, and others had stood trial at Nuremberg; one was convicted of mass murder and slavery. They were also directly responsible for major advances in rocketry, medical treatments, and the U.S. space program. Was Operation Paperclip a moral outrage, or did it help America win the Cold War? Drawing on exclusive interviews with dozens of Paperclip family members, colleagues, and interrogators, and with access to German archival documents (including previously unseen papers made available by direct descendants of the Third Reich's ranking members), files obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, and dossiers discovered in government archives and at Harvard University, Annie Jacobsen follows more than a dozen German scientists through their postwar lives and into a startling, complex, nefarious, and jealously guarded government secret of the twentieth century. In this definitive, controversial look at one of America's most strategic, and disturbing, government programs, Jacobsen shows just how dark government can get in the name of national security. "Harrowing...How Dr. Strangelove came to America and thrived, told in graphic detail."  —Kirkus Reviews

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The Rise and Reign of the Mammals - Steve Brusatte Cover Art

The Rise and Reign of the Mammals

The Rise and Reign of the Mammals A New History, from the Shadow of the Dinosaurs to Us by Steve Brusatte

By the author of the acclaimed bestseller The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs, a "brilliant" and "beautifully told" new history of mammals, illuminating the lost story of the extraordinary family tree that led to us [New Scientist; The Times UK] National Bestseller • Top 10 Nonfiction of the Year: Kirkus • Best Science Book of the Year: The Times UK We humans are the inheritors of a dynasty that has reigned over the planet for nearly 66 million years, through fiery cataclysm and ice ages: the mammals. Our lineage includes saber-toothed tigers, woolly mammoths, armadillos the size of a car, cave bears three times the weight of a grizzly, clever scurriers that outlasted Tyrannosaurus rex, and even other types of humans, like Neanderthals. Indeed humankind and many of the beloved fellow mammals we share the planet with today—lions, whales, dogs—represent only the few survivors of a sprawling and astonishing family tree that has been pruned by time and mass extinctions. How did we get here? In his acclaimed bestseller The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs—hailed as “the ultimate dinosaur biography” by Scientific American—American paleontologist Steve Brusatte enchanted readers with his definitive history of the dinosaurs. Now, picking up the narrative in the ashes of the extinction event that doomed T-rex and its kind, Brusatte explores the remarkable story of the family of animals that inherited the Earth—mammals— and brilliantly reveals that their story is every bit as fascinating and complex as that of the dinosaurs. Beginning with the earliest days of our lineage some 325 million years ago, Brusatte charts how mammals survived the asteroid that claimed the dinosaurs and made the world their own, becoming the astonishingly diverse range of animals that dominate today’s Earth. Brusatte also brings alive the lost worlds mammals inhabited through time, from ice ages to volcanic catastrophes. Entwined in this story is the detective work he and other scientists have done to piece together our understanding using fossil clues and cutting-edge technology. A sterling example of scientific storytelling by one of our finest young researchers, The Rise and Reign of the Mammals illustrates how this incredible history laid the foundation for today’s world, for us, and our future.

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Merlin’s Tour of the Universe, Revised and Updated for the Twenty-First Century - Neil deGrasse Tyson Cover Art

Merlin’s Tour of the Universe, Revised and Updated for the Twenty-First Century

Merlin’s Tour of the Universe, Revised and Updated for the Twenty-First Century A Traveler’s Guide to Blue Moons and Black Holes, Mars, Stars, and Everything Far by Neil deGrasse Tyson

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Astrophysics for People in a Hurry takes readers on an entertaining and edifying tour of the universe. In Neil deGrasse Tyson’s delightful journey through the cosmos, his fictional character Merlin responds to popular questions asked by adults and children alike. Merlin, a timeless visitor from Planet Omniscia in the Andromeda Galaxy, has observed firsthand many of the major scientific events of Earth’s history. Merlin’s friends include the most important scientific figures and explorers of all time—da Vinci, Magellan, Newton, Einstein, and Hubble. While Merlin occasionally recounts playful conversations with these luminaries, all questions are answered with authentic science, infused with wit, wisdom, and an occasional rhyme. With the help of intermittent humorous cartoons, Merlin clarifies the details of familiar phenomena like gravity, light, space, and time, and travels to distant stars and galaxies to describe what makes them tick, rotate, explode, and collapse. Merlin’s Tour of the Universe is perfect for anyone who harbors burning questions on how the cosmos works.

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The Pine Barrens - John McPhee Cover Art

The Pine Barrens

The Pine Barrens by John McPhee

Most people think of New Jersey as a suburban-industrial corridor that runs between New York and Philadelphia. Yet in the low center of the state is a near wilderness, larger than most national parks, which has been known since the seventeenth century as the Pine Barrens. The term refers to the predominant trees in the vast forests that cover the area and to the quality of the soils below, which are too sandy and acid to be good for farming. On all sides, however, developments of one kind or another have gradually moved in, so that now the central and integral forest is reduced to about a thousand square miles. Although New Jersey has the heaviest population density of any state, huge segments of the Pine Barrens remain uninhabited. The few people who dwell in the region, the "Pineys," are little known and often misunderstood. Here McPhee uses his uncanny skills as a journalist to explore the history of the region and describe the people—and their distinctive folklore—who call it home.

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Breath - James Nestor Cover Art

Breath

Breath The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor

A New York Times Bestseller A Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of 2020 Named a Best Book of 2020 by NPR   “A fascinating scientific, cultural, spiritual and evolutionary history of the way humans breathe—and how we’ve all been doing it wrong for a long, long time.” —Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Big Magic and Eat Pray Love No matter what you eat, how much you exercise, how skinny or young or wise you are, none of it matters if you’re not breathing properly. There is nothing more essential to our health and well-being than breathing: take air in, let it out, repeat twenty-five thousand times a day. Yet, as a species, humans have lost the ability to breathe correctly, with grave consequences. Journalist James Nestor travels the world to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it. The answers aren’t found in pulmonology labs, as we might expect, but in the muddy digs of ancient burial sites, secret Soviet facilities, New Jersey choir schools, and the smoggy streets of São Paulo. Nestor tracks down men and women exploring the hidden science behind ancient breathing practices like Pranayama, Sudarshan Kriya, and Tummo and teams up with pulmonary tinkerers to scientifically test long-held beliefs about how we breathe. Modern research is showing us that making even slight adjustments to the way we inhale and exhale can jump-start athletic performance; rejuvenate internal organs; halt snoring, asthma, and autoimmune disease; and even straighten scoliotic spines. None of this should be possible, and yet it is. Drawing on thousands of years of medical texts and recent cutting-edge studies in pulmonology, psychology, biochemistry, and human physiology, Breath turns the conventional wisdom of what we thought we knew about our most basic biological function on its head. You will never breathe the same again.

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Replaceable You - Mary Roach Cover Art

Replaceable You

Replaceable You Adventures in Human Anatomy by Mary Roach

Instant New York Times Bestseller One of Literary Hub's Most Anticipated Books of 2025 A Goodreads Readers' Most Anticipated Fall Book From the New York Times best-selling author of Stiff and Fuzz, a rollicking exploration of the quest to re-create the impossible complexities of human anatomy. The body is the most complex machine in the world, and the only one for which you cannot get a replacement part from the manufacturer. For centuries, medicine has reached for what’s available—sculpting noses from brass, borrowing skin from frogs and hearts from pigs, crafting eye parts from jet canopies and breasts from petroleum by-products. Today we’re attempting to grow body parts from scratch using stem cells and 3D printers. How are we doing? Are we there yet? In Replaceable You, Mary Roach explores the remarkable advances and difficult questions prompted by the human body’s failings. When and how does a person decide they’d be better off with a prosthetic than their existing limb? Can a donated heart be made to beat forever? Can an intestine provide a workable substitute for a vagina? Roach dives in with her characteristic verve and infectious wit. Her travels take her to the OR at a legendary burn unit in Boston, a “superclean” xeno-pigsty in China, and a stem cell “hair nursery” in the San Diego tech hub. She talks with researchers and surgeons, amputees and ostomates, printers of kidneys and designers of wearable organs. She spends time in a working iron lung from the 1950s, stays up all night with recovery techs as they disassemble and reassemble a tissue donor, and travels across Mongolia with the cataract surgeons of Orbis International. Irrepressible and accessible, Replaceable You immerses readers in the wondrous, improbable, and surreal quest to build a new you.

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The Good Virus - Tom Ireland Cover Art

The Good Virus

The Good Virus The Amazing Story and Forgotten Promise of the Phage by Tom Ireland

A New York Times Editors’ Choice "A deft narrative that is rich and approachable." —Alex Johnson, New York Times Book Review How a mysterious, super-powerful—yet long-neglected—microbe rules our world and can rescue our health in the age of antibiotic resistance. At every moment, within our bodies and all around us, trillions of microscopic combatants are waging a war that shapes our health and life on Earth. Countless times per second, viruses known as phages attack and destroy bacteria while leaving all other life forms, including us, unscathed. Vastly outnumbering the viruses that do us harm, phages power ecosystems, drive evolutionary innovation, and harbor a remarkable capacity to heal life-threatening infections when conventional antibiotics fail. Yet most of us have never heard of them, thinking of viruses only as enemies to be feared. The Good Virus prompts us to reconsider, and to discover, how these viruses could save countless lives if we can learn to harness their extraordinary abilities. Taking us inside the ongoing quest to use phages’ powers for good, Tom Ireland introduces us to the brilliant, often eccentric, scientists who have fought to realize phages’ potential in the face of doubt and political intrigue. We meet the renegade French-Canadian scientist who discovered phages and pioneered their use as medicine over a century ago, leading them to be hailed as the world’s first genuine antibiotic years before penicillin. We learn why, in some pockets of the former Soviet Union, drinking a vial of phages remains as common as taking an over-the-counter drug. We follow the intrepid scientists and doctors now racing to make “phage therapy” work worldwide as the threat of antibiotic-resistant bacteria grows ever more urgent—even as other researchers uncover how phages bolster our everyday immunity, help generate the oxygen we breathe, and furnish the origins for breakthrough technologies like CRISPR. Unveiling the hidden rulers of the microbial world and celebrating the surprising power of viruses to heal, not harm, The Good Virus forever changes how we see nature’s most maligned life forms.

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God, the Science, the Evidence - Michel-Yves Bolloré & Olivier Bonnassies Cover Art

God, the Science, the Evidence

God, the Science, the Evidence by Michel-Yves Bolloré & Olivier Bonnassies

After four years of research in partnership with over twenty scientists and esteemed experts, this book explores one of the most significant questions we face: the existence or non-existence of a creator God. For more than four centuries, the scientific discoveries of Copernicus, Galileo, Darwin, and Freud created the impression that we could explain the workings of the Universe without the idea of a creator--God. By the beginning of the twentieth century, materialism had become the dominant theory of the time. And yet, with unexpected and astonishing force, the pendulum of science has swung back in the other direction, owing to a rapid succession of discoveries: the theory of relativity; quantum mechanics; the Big Bang; the theories of expansion, heat death, and fine-tuning of the universe. This newly acquired knowledge has upended the certainties of the twentieth century collective consciousness. Once the only acceptable theory, materialism is increasingly considered an irrational belief. The authors of this highly readable book retrace the fascinating history of these scientific breakthroughs and offer a rigorous overview of the new proof of the existence of God. God: the Science and the Evidence is an invitation to reflect and debate the place of God in science.

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The Ends of the World - Peter Brannen Cover Art

The Ends of the World

The Ends of the World Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and Our Quest to Understand Earth's Past Mass Extinctions by Peter Brannen

One of Vox’s Most Important Books of the Decade New York Times Editors' Choice 2017 Forbes Top 10 Best Environment, Climate, and Conservation Book of 2017 As new groundbreaking research suggests that climate change played a major role in the most extreme catastrophes in the planet's history, award-winning science journalist Peter Brannen takes us on a wild ride through the planet's five mass extinctions and, in the process, offers us a glimpse of our increasingly dangerous future Our world has ended five times: it has been broiled, frozen, poison-gassed, smothered, and pelted by asteroids. In The Ends of the World, Peter Brannen dives into deep time, exploring Earth’s past dead ends, and in the process, offers us a glimpse of our possible future. Many scientists now believe that the climate shifts of the twenty-first century have analogs in these five extinctions. Using the visible clues these devastations have left behind in the fossil record, The Ends of the World takes us inside “scenes of the crime,” from South Africa to the New York Palisades, to tell the story of each extinction. Brannen examines the fossil record—which is rife with creatures like dragonflies the size of sea gulls and guillotine-mouthed fish—and introduces us to the researchers on the front lines who, using the forensic tools of modern science, are piecing together what really happened at the crime scenes of the Earth’s biggest whodunits. Part road trip, part history, and part cautionary tale, The Ends of the World takes us on a tour of the ways that our planet has clawed itself back from the grave, and casts our future in a completely new light.

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Spook - Mary Roach Cover Art

Spook

Spook Science Tackles the Afterlife by Mary Roach

The best-selling author of Stiff   and Bonk  trains her considerable wit and curiosity on the human soul. "What happens when we die? Does the light just go out and that's that—the million-year nap? Or will some part of my personality, my me-ness persist? What will that feel like? What will I do all day? Is there a place to plug in my lap-top?" In an attempt to find out, Mary Roach brings her tireless curiosity to bear on an array of contemporary and historical soul-searchers: scientists, schemers, engineers, mediums, all trying to prove (or disprove) that life goes on after we die.

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The Hidden Life of Trees - Peter Wohlleben & Tim Flannery Cover Art

The Hidden Life of Trees

The Hidden Life of Trees What They Feel, How They Communicate —Discoveries from a Secret World by Peter Wohlleben & Tim Flannery

In The Hidden Life of Trees , Peter Wohlleben shares his deep love of woods and forests and explains the amazing processes of life, death, and regeneration he has observed in the woodland and the amazing scientific processes behind the wonders of which we are blissfully unaware. Much like human families, tree parents live together with their children, communicate with them, and support them as they grow, sharing nutrients with those who are sick or struggling and creating an ecosystem that mitigates the impact of extremes of heat and cold for the whole group. As a result of such interactions, trees in a family or community are protected and can live to be very old. In contrast, solitary trees, like street kids, have a tough time of it and in most cases die much earlier than those in a group. Drawing on groundbreaking new discoveries, Wohlleben presents the science behind the secret and previously unknown life of trees and their communication abilities; he describes how these discoveries have informed his own practices in the forest around him. As he says, a happy forest is a healthy forest, and he believes that eco-friendly practices not only are economically sustainable but also benefit the health of our planet and the mental and physical health of all who live on Earth.

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Cosmos - Carl Sagan & Ann Druyan Cover Art

Cosmos

Cosmos by Carl Sagan & Ann Druyan

Renowned astronomer Carl Sagan’s classic bestseller that “dives into the past, present, and future of science, dealing with the mind-staggering enormity of the cosmos in which we exist” (Associated Press)—with an Introduction by Ann Druyan and a Foreword by Neil deGrasse Tyson “Sagan dazzles the mind with the miracle of our survival, framed by the stately galaxies of space.”— Cosmopolitan THE INSPIRATION FOR THE FOX MINISERIES COSMOS: POSSIBLE WORLDS , HOSTED BY NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON AND STARRING SETH MACFARLANE AND SIR PATRICK STEWART In clear-eyed prose, Carl Sagan reveals a jewel-like blue world inhabited by a life form that is just beginning to discover its own identity and to venture into the vast ocean of space. Featuring full-color illustrations, Cosmos retraces the fourteen billion years of cosmic evolution that have transformed matter into consciousness, exploring such topics as the origin of life, the human brain, Egyptian hieroglyphics, spacecraft missions, the death of the Sun, the evolution of galaxies, and the forces and individuals who helped shape modern science.

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An Elegant Defense - Matt Richtel Cover Art

An Elegant Defense

An Elegant Defense The Extraordinary New Science of the Immune System: A Tale in Four Lives by Matt Richtel

National Bestseller "Gives you all the context you need to understand the science of immunity. ... An Elegant Defense left me with [a] sense of awe.” —Bill Gates, Gates Notes Summer Reading List The Pulitzer Prize–winning New York Times journalist "explicates for the lay reader the intricate biology of our immune system" (Jerome Groopman, MD, New York Review of Books) From New York Times science journalist Matt Richtel, An Elegant Defense is an acclaimed and definitive exploration of the immune system and the secrets of health. Interweaving cutting-edge science with the intimate stories of four individual patients, this epic, first-of-its-kind book “give[s] lay readers a means of understanding what’s known so far about the intricate biology of our immune systems” (The Week). The immune system is our body’s essential defense network, a guardian vigilantly fighting illness, healing wounds, maintaining order and balance, and keeping us alive. It has been honed by evolution over millennia to face an almost infinite array of threats. For all its astonishing complexity, however, the immune system can be easily compromised by fatigue, stress, toxins, advanced age, and poor nutrition—hallmarks of modern life—and even by excessive hygiene. Paradoxically, it is a fragile wonder weapon that can turn on our own bodies with startling results, leading today to epidemic levels of autoimmune disorders. An Elegant Defense effortlessly guides readers on a scientific detective tale winding from the Black Plague to twentieth-century breakthroughs in vaccination and antibiotics, to today’s laboratories that are revolutionizing immunology—perhaps the most extraordinary and consequential medical story of our time. Drawing on extensive new interviews with dozens of world-renowned scientists, Richtel has produced a landmark book, equally an investigation into the deepest riddles of survival and a profoundly human tale that is movingly brought to life through the eyes of his four main characters, each of whom illuminates an essential facet of our “elegant defense.”

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Why We Sleep - Matthew Walker Cover Art

Why We Sleep

Why We Sleep Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams by Matthew Walker

“ Why We Sleep is an important and fascinating book…Walker taught me a lot about this basic activity that every person on Earth needs. I suspect his book will do the same for you.” —Bill Gates A New York Times bestseller and international sensation, this “stimulating and important book” ( Financial Times ) is a fascinating dive into the purpose and power of slumber. With two appearances on CBS This Morning and Fresh Air 's most popular interview of 2017, Matthew Walker has made abundantly clear that sleep is one of the most important but least understood aspects of our life. Until very recently, science had no answer to the question of why we sleep, or what good it served, or why we suffer such devastating health consequences when it is absent. Compared to the other basic drives in life—eating, drinking, and reproducing—the purpose of sleep remains more elusive. Within the brain, sleep enriches a diversity of functions, including our ability to learn, memorize, and make logical decisions. It recalibrates our emotions, restocks our immune system, fine-tunes our metabolism, and regulates our appetite. Dreaming creates a virtual reality space in which the brain melds past and present knowledge, inspiring creativity. In this “compelling and utterly convincing” ( The Sunday Times ) book, preeminent neuroscientist and sleep expert Matthew Walker provides a revolutionary exploration of sleep, examining how it affects every aspect of our physical and mental well-being. Charting the most cutting-edge scientific breakthroughs, and marshalling his decades of research and clinical practice, Walker explains how we can harness sleep to improve learning, mood and energy levels, regulate hormones, prevent cancer, Alzheimer’s and diabetes, slow the effects of aging, and increase longevity. He also provides actionable steps towards getting a better night’s sleep every night. Clear-eyed, fascinating, and accessible, Why We Sleep is a crucial and illuminating book. Written with the precision of Atul Gawande, Andrew Solomon, and Sherwin Nuland, it is “recommended for night-table reading in the most pragmatic sense” ( The New York Times Book Review ).

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The Beak of the Finch - Jonathan Weiner Cover Art

The Beak of the Finch

The Beak of the Finch A Story of Evolution in Our Time (Pulitzer Prize Winner) by Jonathan Weiner

PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • A dramatic story of groundbreaking scientific research of Darwin's discovery of evolution that "spark[s] not just the intellect, but the imagination" ( Washington Post Book World) • With a new preface   “Admirable and much-needed.... Weiner’s triumph is to reveal how evolution and science work, and to let them speak clearly for themselves.”— The New York Times Book Review On a desert island in the heart of the Galapagos archipelago, where Darwin received his first inklings of the theory of evolution, two scientists, Peter and Rosemary Grant, have spent twenty years proving that Darwin did not know the strength of his own theory. For among the finches of Daphne Major, natural selection is neither rare nor slow: it is taking place by the hour, and we can watch. In this remarkable story, Jonathan Weiner follows these scientists as they watch Darwin's finches and come up with a new understanding of life itself. The Beak of the Finch is an elegantly written and compelling masterpiece of theory and explication in the tradition of Stephen Jay Gould.

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Braiding Sweetgrass - Robin Wall Kimmerer Cover Art

Braiding Sweetgrass

Braiding Sweetgrass Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer

As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass , Kimmerer brings these two lenses of knowledge together to take us on “a journey that is every bit as mythic as it is scientific, as sacred as it is historical, as clever as it is wise” (Elizabeth Gilbert). Drawing on her life as an indigenous scientist, and as a woman, Kimmerer shows how other living beings—asters and goldenrod, strawberries and squash, salamanders, algae, and sweetgrass—offer us gifts and lessons, even if we've forgotten how to hear their voices. In reflections that range from the creation of Turtle Island to the forces that threaten its flourishing today, she circles toward a central argument: that the awakening of ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings will we be capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learn to give our own gifts in return.

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What If We Get It Right? - Ayana Elizabeth Johnson Cover Art

What If We Get It Right?

What If We Get It Right? Visions of Climate Futures by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “With a thoughtfully curated series of essays, poetry, and conversations, the brilliant scientist and climate expert Ayana Elizabeth Johnson has assembled a group of dynamic people who are willing to imagine what seems impossible, and articulate those visions with enthusiastic clarity.”—Roxane Gay Our climate future is not yet written. What if we act as if we love the future? A SMITHSONIAN BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR Sometimes the bravest thing we can do while facing an existential crisis is imagine life on the other side. This provocative and joyous book maps an inspiring landscape of possible climate futures. Through clear-eyed essays and vibrant conversations, infused with data, poetry, and art, Ayana Elizabeth Johnson guides us through solutions and possibilities at the nexus of science, policy, culture, and justice. Visionary farmers and financiers, architects and advocates, help us conjure a flourishing future, one worth the effort it will take—from every one of us, with whatever we have to offer—to create. If you haven’t yet been able to picture a transformed and replenished world—or to see yourself, your loved ones, and your community in it—this book is for you. If you haven’t yet found your role in shaping this new world or you’re not sure how we can actually get there, this book is for you. With grace, humor, and humanity, Johnson invites readers to ask and answer this ultimate question together: What if we get it right? On possibility and transformation with: Paola Antonelli • Xiye Bastida • Jade Begay • Wendell Berry • Régine Clément • Steve Connell • Erica Deeman • Abigail Dillen • Brian Donahue • Jean Flemma • Kelly Sims Gallagher • Rhiana Gunn-Wright • Olalekan Jeyifous • Corley Kenna • Bryan C. Lee Jr. • Franklin Leonard • Adam McKay • Bill McKibben • Kate Marvel • Samantha Montano • Kate Orff • Leah Penniman • Marge Piercy • Colette Pichon Battle • Kendra Pierre-Louis • Judith D. Schwartz • Jigar Shah • Ayisha Siddiqa • Bren Smith • Oana Stănescu • Mustafa Suleyman • Jacqueline Woodson

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Until the End of Time - Brian Greene Cover Art

Until the End of Time

Until the End of Time Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe by Brian Greene

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A captivating exploration of deep time and humanity's search for purpose, f rom the world-renowned physicist and best-selling author of The Elegant Universe. "Few humans share Greene’s mastery of both the latest cosmological science and English prose." — The New York Times Until the End of Time is Brian Greene's breathtaking new exploration of the cosmos and our quest to find meaning in the face of this vast expanse. Greene takes us on a journey from the big bang to the end of time, exploring how lasting structures formed, how life and mind emerged, and how we grapple with our existence through narrative, myth, religion, creative expression, science, the quest for truth, and a deep longing for the eternal. From particles to planets, consciousness to creativity, matter to meaning—Brian Greene allows us all to grasp and appreciate our fleeting but utterly exquisite moment in the cosmos.

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Sapiens - Yuval Noah Harari Cover Art

Sapiens

Sapiens A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari

#1 New York Times Bestseller • New York Times Readers’ Pick: Top 100 Books of the 21st Century • The Summer Reading Pick for President Barack Obama and Bill Gates Official U.S. edition with full color illustrations throughout. From renowned historian Yuval Noah Harari comes a groundbreaking narrative of humanity’s creation and evolution—a #1 international bestseller—that explores the ways in which biology and history have defined us and enhanced our understanding of what it means to be “human.” One hundred thousand years ago, at least six different species of humans inhabited Earth. Yet today there is only one—homo sapiens. What happened to the others? And what may happen to us? Most books about the history of humanity pursue either a historical or a biological approach, but Dr. Yuval Noah Harari breaks the mold with this highly original book that begins about 70,000 years ago with the appearance of modern cognition. From examining the role evolving humans have played in the global ecosystem to charting the rise of empires, Sapiens integrates history and science to reconsider accepted narratives, connect past developments with contemporary concerns, and examine specific events within the context of larger ideas. Dr. Harari also compels us to look ahead, because over the last few decades humans have begun to bend laws of natural selection that have governed life for the past four billion years. We are acquiring the ability to design not only the world around us, but also ourselves. Where is this leading us, and what do we want to become? Featuring 27 photographs, 6 maps, and 25 illustrations/diagrams, this provocative and insightful work is sure to spark debate and is essential reading for aficionados of Jared Diamond, James Gleick, Matt Ridley, Robert Wright, and Sharon Moalem.

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Is a River Alive? - Robert Macfarlane Cover Art

Is a River Alive?

Is a River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane

A New York Times Bestseller A #1 Sunday Times (UK) Bestseller Finalist for the 2025 Banff Mountain Book Competition in Environmental Literature A New York Times "New Nonfiction to Read This Spring" Recommendation • A Financial Times "Best Summer Book of 2025" • A Guardian "Nonfiction to Look Forward To in 2025" Pick • A Washington Post "Book to Watch For" in 2025 From the best-selling author of Underland and "the great nature writer…of this generation" (Wall Street Journal), a revelatory book that transforms how we imagine rivers—and life itself. Hailed in the New York Times as “a naturalist who can unfurl a sentence with the breathless ease of a master angler,” Robert Macfarlane brings his glittering style to a profound work of travel writing, reportage, and natural history. Is a River Alive? is a joyful, mind-expanding exploration of an ancient, urgent idea: that rivers are living beings who should be recognized as such in imagination and law. Macfarlane takes readers on three unforgettable journeys teeming with extraordinary people, stories, and places: to the miraculous cloud-forests and mountain streams of Ecuador, to the wounded creeks and lagoons of India, and to the spectacular wild rivers of Canada—imperiled respectively by mining, pollution, and dams. Braiding these journeys is the life story of the fragile chalk stream a mile from Macfarlane’s house, a stream who flows through his own years and days. Powered by dazzling prose and lit throughout by other minds and voices, Is a River Alive? will open hearts, challenge perspectives, and remind us that our fate flows with that of rivers—and always has.

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The Old Ways - Robert Macfarlane Cover Art

The Old Ways

The Old Ways A Journey on Foot by Robert Macfarlane

From the acclaimed author of The Wild Places and Underland , an exploration of walking and thinking In this exquisitely written book, Robert Macfarlane sets off from his Cambridge, England, home to follow the ancient tracks, holloways, drove roads, and sea paths that crisscross both the British landscape and its waters and territories beyond. The result is an immersive, enthralling exploration of the ghosts and voices that haunt old paths, of the stories our tracks keep and tell, and of pilgrimage and ritual. Told in Macfarlane’s distinctive voice, The Old Ways folds together natural history, cartography, geology, archaeology and literature. His walks take him from the chalk downs of England to the bird islands of the Scottish northwest, from Palestine to the sacred landscapes of Spain and the Himalayas. Along the way he crosses paths with walkers of many kinds—wanderers, pilgrims, guides, and artists. Above all this is a book about walking as a journey inward and the subtle ways we are shaped by the landscapes through which we move.  Macfarlane discovers that paths offer not just a means of traversing space, but of feeling, knowing, and thinking.

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Homo Deus - Yuval Noah Harari Cover Art

Homo Deus

Homo Deus A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari

Official U.S. edition with full color illustrations throughout. NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Yuval Noah Harari, author of the critically-acclaimed New York Times bestseller and international phenomenon Sapiens, returns with an equally original, compelling, and provocative book, turning his focus toward humanity’s future, and our quest to upgrade humans into gods. Over the past century humankind has managed to do the impossible and rein in famine, plague, and war. This may seem hard to accept, but, as Harari explains in his trademark style—thorough, yet riveting—famine, plague and war have been transformed from incomprehensible and uncontrollable forces of nature into manageable challenges. For the first time ever, more people die from eating too much than from eating too little; more people die from old age than from infectious diseases; and more people commit suicide than are killed by soldiers, terrorists and criminals put together. The average American is a thousand times more likely to die from binging at McDonalds than from being blown up by Al Qaeda. What then will replace famine, plague, and war at the top of the human agenda? As the self-made gods of planet earth, what destinies will we set ourselves, and which quests will we undertake? Homo Deus explores the projects, dreams and nightmares that will shape the twenty-first century—from overcoming death to creating artificial life. It asks the fundamental questions: Where do we go from here? And how will we protect this fragile world from our own destructive powers? This is the next stage of evolution. This is Homo Deus. With the same insight and clarity that made Sapiens an international hit and a New York Times bestseller, Harari maps out our future.

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The Elephant Whisperer - Lawrence Anthony & Graham Spence Cover Art

The Elephant Whisperer

The Elephant Whisperer My Life with the Herd in the African Wild by Lawrence Anthony & Graham Spence

When South African conservationist Lawrence Anthony was asked to accept a herd of "rogue" wild elephants on his Thula Thula game reserve in Zululand, his common sense told him to refuse. But he was the herd's last chance of survival: they would be killed if he wouldn't take them. In order to save their lives, Anthony took them in. In the years that followed he became a part of their family. And as he battled to create a bond with the elephants, he came to realize that they had a great deal to teach him about life, loyalty, and freedom. The Elephant Whisperer is a heartwarming, exciting, funny, and sometimes sad account of Anthony's experiences with these huge yet sympathetic creatures. Set against the background of life on an African game reserve, with unforgettable characters and exotic wildlife, it is a delightful book that will appeal to animal lovers and adventurous souls everywhere.

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The Big One - Michael T. Osterholm & Mark Olshaker Cover Art

The Big One

The Big One How We Must Prepare for Future Deadly Pandemics by Michael T. Osterholm & Mark Olshaker

As bad as Covid-19 was, the next pandemic could be worse—but we have the tools to prepare, as revealed in this urgent, gripping warning by the New York Times bestselling authors of Deadliest Enemy . The Covid-19 pandemic was the most devastating natural event of the last century, killing more than 7 million people around the globe, straining the fabric of societies internationally, and shaking the foundations of the global economy. And yet, as horrifying as the experience was, Covid-19 was not actually “the Big One” — the dreaded potential pandemic that haunts the nightmares of epidemiologists and public health officials everywhere, and which will alter life across the world on every meaningful level unless we are ready to deal with it. Indeed, even as we learn to live with Covid-19 and continue to recover from its worst effects, the next pandemic is already lurking around the corner—and it may very well be worse.   In The Big One , founding director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy Michael T. Osterholm and Mark Olshaker examine past pandemics, highlighting the ways societies both succeeded and failed to address them; trace the Covid-19 pandemic and evaluate how it was handled; and look to the future, projecting what the next pandemics might look like and what must be done to mitigate them. Drawing on years of high-level research as well as cutting-edge analysis and an innovative hypothetical scenario threaded throughout each chapter, The Big One is a gripping, comprehensive, and urgent wake-up call. Because Covid-19 was just a taste of what’s to come. If we’re going to survive the next big pandemic, we need to be prepared.  

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A Planet of Viruses - Carl Zimmer Cover Art

A Planet of Viruses

A Planet of Viruses by Carl Zimmer

"A captivating primer to the world of viruses that requires zero background in biology . . . a suitable first introduction to this fascinating part of our world." — The Inquisitive Biologist   In 2020, an invisible germ—a virus—emerged and wholly upended our lives. We've now become familiar with the new virus that gave us Covid-19—but viruses also cause a vast range of other diseases, including one disorder that makes people sprout branch-like growths as if they were trees. Viruses have been a part of our lives for so long that we are actually part virus: the human genome contains more DNA from viruses than our own genes. Meanwhile, scientists are discovering viruses everywhere they look: in the soil, in the ocean, even in deep caves miles underground.   Fully revised and updated, with new illustrations and a new chapter about coronaviruses and the spread of Covid-19, this third edition of Carl Zimmer's "information-packed, superbly readable"  A Planet of Viruses  ( Booklist , starred review) pulls back the veil on this hidden world. It presents the latest research on how viruses hold sway over our lives and our biosphere, how viruses helped give rise to the first life-forms, how viruses are producing new diseases, how we can harness viruses for our own ends, and how viruses will continue to control our fate as long as life endures.   "Zimmer is one of the best science writers we have today." —Rebecca Skloot,  New York Times– bestselling author of  The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

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Fuzz - Mary Roach Cover Art

Fuzz

Fuzz When Nature Breaks the Law by Mary Roach

An Instant New York Times Bestseller #1 Los Angeles Times Bestseller #1 Indie Hardcover Nonfiction Bestseller A Publishers Weekly Best Nonfiction Book of 2021 Longlisted for the 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction Join "America's funniest science writer" (Peter Carlson, Washington Post ), Mary Roach, on an irresistible investigation into the unpredictable world where wildlife and humans meet. 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.

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The Order of Time - Carlo Rovelli Cover Art

The Order of Time

The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli

One of TIME’s Ten Best Nonfiction Books of the Decade "Meet the new Stephen Hawking . . . The Order of Time is a dazzling book." -- The Sunday Times From the bestselling author of Seven Brief Lessons on Physics , Reality Is Not What It Seems , Helgoland , and Anaximander comes a concise, elegant exploration of time. Why do we remember the past and not the future? What does it mean for time to "flow"? Do we exist in time or does time exist in us? In lyric, accessible prose, Carlo Rovelli invites us to consider questions about the nature of time that continue to puzzle physicists and philosophers alike. For most readers this is unfamiliar terrain. We all experience time, but the more scientists learn about it, the more mysterious it remains. We think of it as uniform and universal, moving steadily from past to future, measured by clocks. Rovelli tears down these assumptions one by one, revealing a strange universe where at the most fundamental level time disappears. He explains how the theory of quantum gravity attempts to understand and give meaning to the resulting extreme landscape of this timeless world. Weaving together ideas from philosophy, science and literature, he suggests that our perception of the flow of time depends on our perspective, better understood starting from the structure of our brain and emotions than from the physical universe. Already a bestseller in Italy, and written with the poetic vitality that made Seven Brief Lessons on Physics so appealing, The Order of Time offers a profoundly intelligent, culturally rich, novel appreciation of the mysteries of time.

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The Human Brain Book - Rita Carter Cover Art

The Human Brain Book

The Human Brain Book An Illustrated Guide to its Structure, Function, and Disorders by Rita Carter

The Human Brain Book is a complete guide to the one organ in the body that makes each of us what we are - unique individuals. It combines the latest findings from the field of neuroscience with expert text and state-of-the-art illustrations and imaging techniques to provide an incomparable insight into every facet of the brain. Layer by layer, it reveals the fascinating details of this remarkable structure, covering all the key anatomy and delving into the inner workings of the mind, unlocking its many mysteries, and helping you to understand what's going on in those millions of little gray and white cells. Tricky concepts are illustrated and explained with clarity and precision, as The Human Brain Book looks at how the brain sends messages to the rest of the body, how we think and feel, how we perform unconscious actions (for example breathing), explores the nature of genius, asks why we behave the way we do, explains how we see and hear things, and how and why we dream. Physical and psychological disorders affecting the brain and nervous system are clearly illustrated and summarized in easy-to-understand terms.

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Science Under Siege - Michael E. Mann & Peter J. Hotez Cover Art

Science Under Siege

Science Under Siege How to Fight the Five Most Powerful Forces that Threaten Our World by Michael E. Mann & Peter J. Hotez

In this “well-researched guide,” two of the world’s most respected scientists reveal the forces behind the dangerous anti-science movement—and offer “powerful ideas about how to fight back” (Bill McKibben, author of Here Comes the Sun ) “Science is indeed under siege, and that’s not good for any of us. Here, Peter Hotez and Michael Mann name names...It’s not too late to do something; it’s time to get things done. Read on” (Bill Nye, science educator) From pandemics to the climate crisis, humanity faces tougher challenges than ever. Whether it’s the health of our people or the health of our planet, we know we are on an unsustainable path. But our efforts to effectively tackle these existential crises are now hampered by a common threat: politically and ideologically motivated opposition to science. Michael E. Mann and Peter J. Hotez are two of the most respected and well-known scientists in the world and have spent the last twenty years on the front lines of the battle to convey accurate, reliable, and trustworthy information about science in the face of determined and nihilistic opposition. In this powerful manifesto, they reveal the five main forces threatening science: plutocrats, pros, petrostates, phonies, and the press. It is a call to arms and a road map for dismantling the forces of anti-science. Armed with the information in this book, we can be empowered to promote scientific truths, shine light on channels of dark money, dismantle the corporations poisoning the planet, and ultimately avert disaster.  

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The Case Against Reality - Donald Hoffman Cover Art

The Case Against Reality

The Case Against Reality Why Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes by Donald Hoffman

Can we trust our senses to tell us the truth? Challenging leading scientific theories that claim that our senses report back objective reality, cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman argues that while we should take our perceptions seriously, we should not take them literally. From examining why fashion designers create clothes that give the illusion of a more “attractive” body shape to studying how companies use color to elicit specific emotions in consumers, and even dismantling the very notion that spacetime is objective reality, The Case Against Reality dares us to question everything we thought we knew about the world we see.

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The Golden Spruce - John Vaillant Cover Art

The Golden Spruce

The Golden Spruce A True Story of Myth, Madness, and Greed by John Vaillant

A tale of obsession so fierce that a man kills the thing he loves most: the only giant golden spruce on earth. When a shattered kayak and camping gear are found on an uninhabited island in the Pacific Northwest, they reignite a mystery surrounding a shocking act of protest. Five months earlier, logger-turned-activist Grant Hadwin had plunged naked into a river in British Columbia's Queen Charlotte Islands, towing a chainsaw. When his night's work was done, a unique Sitka spruce, 165 feet tall and covered with luminous golden needles, teetered on its stump. Two days later it fell. As vividly as John Krakauer puts readers on Everest, John Vaillant takes us into the heart of North America's last great forest.

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The Backyard Bird Chronicles - Amy Tan Cover Art

The Backyard Bird Chronicles

The Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of The Joy Luck Club comes a gorgeous and witty exploration of birding and nature. This inspiring work cultivates hope and connection, revealing the rhythms of our world and uncovering its beauty hidden in plain sight. • With a foreword by David Allen Sibley “Unexpected and spectacular” —Ann Patchett, best-selling author of These Precious Days "The drawings and essays in this book do a lot more than just describe the birds. They carry a sense of discovery through observation and drawing, suggest the layers of patterns in the natural world, and emphasize a deep personal connection between the watcher and the watched. The birds that inhabit Amy Tan’s backyard seem a lot like the characters in her novels.” —David Allen Sibley, from the foreword Tracking the natural beauty that surrounds us, The Backyard Bird Chronicles maps the passage of time through daily entries, thoughtful questions, and beautiful original sketches. With boundless charm and wit, author Amy Tan charts her foray into birding and the natural wonders of the world. In 2016, Amy Tan grew overwhelmed by the state of the world: Hatred and misinformation became a daily presence on social media, and the country felt more divisive than ever. In search of peace, Tan turned toward the natural world just beyond her window and, specifically, the birds visiting her yard. But what began as an attempt to find solace turned into something far greater—an opportunity to savor quiet moments during a volatile time, connect to nature in a meaningful way, and imagine the intricate lives of the birds she admired.

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Frankenstein's Cat - Emily Anthes Cover Art

Frankenstein's Cat

Frankenstein's Cat Cuddling Up to Biotech's Brave New Beasts by Emily Anthes

Winner of 2014 AAAS/Subaru SB&F Prize for Best Young Adult Science Book Longlisted for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award One of Nature 's Summer Book Picks One of Publishers Weekly 's Top Ten Spring 2013 Science Books For centuries, we've toyed with our creature companions, breeding dogs that herd and hunt, housecats that look like tigers, and teacup pigs that fit snugly in our handbags. But what happens when we take animal alteration a step further, engineering a cat that glows green under ultraviolet light or cloning the beloved family Labrador? Science has given us a whole new toolbox for tinkering with life. How are we using it? In Frankenstein ' s Cat , the journalist Emily Anthes takes us from petri dish to pet store as she explores how biotechnology is shaping the future of our furry and feathered friends. As she ventures from bucolic barnyards to a "frozen zoo" where scientists are storing DNA from the planet's most exotic creatures, she discovers how we can use cloning to protect endangered species, craft prosthetics to save injured animals, and employ genetic engineering to supply farms with disease-resistant livestock. Along the way, we meet some of the animals that are ushering in this astonishing age of enhancement, including sensor-wearing seals, cyborg beetles, a bionic bulldog, and the world's first cloned cat. Through her encounters with scientists, conservationists, ethicists, and entrepreneurs, Anthes reveals that while some of our interventions may be trivial (behold: the GloFish), others could improve the lives of many species-including our own. So what does biotechnology really mean for the world's wild things? And what do our brave new beasts tell us about ourselves? With keen insight and her trademark spunk, Anthes highlights both the peril and the promise of our scientific superpowers, taking us on an adventure into a world where our grandest science fiction fantasies are fast becoming reality.

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The Tiger - John Vaillant Cover Art

The Tiger

The Tiger A True Story of Vengeance and Survival by John Vaillant

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A gripping story of man pitted against nature’s most fearsome and efficient predator. This "travelogue about tiger poaching in Russia’s far east opens up a new genre ... [the] conservation thriller" ( Nature ). Outside a remote village in Russia’s Far East a man-eating tiger is on the prowl. The tiger isn’t just killing people, it’s murdering them, almost as if it has a vendetta. A team of trackers is dispatched to hunt down the tiger before it strikes again. They know the creature is cunning, injured, and starving, making it even more dangerous. As John Vaillant re-creates these extraordinary events, he gives us an unforgettable and masterful work of narrative nonfiction that combines a riveting portrait of a stark and mysterious region of the world and its people, with the natural history of nature’s most deadly predator.

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A Brief History of Intelligence - Max S. Bennett Cover Art

A Brief History of Intelligence

A Brief History of Intelligence Evolution, AI, and the Five Breakthroughs That Made Our Brains by Max S. Bennett

“I found this book amazing. I read it through quickly because it was so interesting, then turned around and read much of it again.”—Daniel Kahneman, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics and bestselling author of Thinking Fast & Slow “I've been recommending A Brief History of Intelligence to everyone I know. A truly novel, beautifully crafted thesis on what intelligence is and how it has developed since the dawn of life itself."—Angela Duckworth, bestselling author of Grit Equal parts Sapiens, Behave, and Superintelligence, but wholly original in scope, A Brief History of Intelligence offers a paradigm shift for how we understand neuroscience and AI. Artificial intelligence entrepreneur Max Bennett chronicles the five “breakthroughs” in the evolution of human intelligence and reveals what brains of the past can tell us about the AI of tomorrow.  In the last decade, capabilities of artificial intelligence that had long been the realm of science fiction have, for the first time, become our reality. AI is now able to produce original art, identify tumors in pictures, and even steer our cars. And yet, large gaps remain in what modern AI systems can achieve—indeed, human brains still easily perform intellectual feats that we can’t replicate in AI systems. How is it possible that AI can beat a grandmaster at chess but can’t effectively load a dishwasher? As AI entrepreneur Max Bennett compellingly argues, finding the answer requires diving into the billion-year history of how the human brain evolved; a history filled with countless half-starts, calamities, and clever innovations. Not only do our brains have a story to tell—the future of AI may depend on it. Now, in A Brief History of Intelligence, Bennett bridges the gap between neuroscience and AI to tell the brain’s evolutionary story, revealing how understanding that story can help shape the next generation of AI breakthroughs. Deploying a fresh perspective and working with the support of many top minds in neuroscience, Bennett consolidates this immense history into an approachable new framework, identifying the “Five Breakthroughs” that mark the brain’s most important evolutionary leaps forward. Each breakthrough brings new insight into the biggest mysteries of human intelligence. Containing fascinating corollaries to developments in AI, A Brief History of Intelligence shows where current AI systems have matched or surpassed our brains, as well as where AI systems still fall short. Simply put, until AI systems successfully replicate each part of our brain’s long journey, AI systems will fail to exhibit human-like intelligence. Endorsed and lauded by many of the top neuroscientists in the field today, Bennett’s work synthesizes the most relevant scientific knowledge and cutting-edge research into an easy-to-understand and riveting evolutionary story. With sweeping scope and stunning insights, A Brief History of Intelligence proves that understanding the arc of our brain’s history can unlock the tools for successfully navigating our technological future. 

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The Biggest Ideas in the Universe - Sean Carroll Cover Art

The Biggest Ideas in the Universe

The Biggest Ideas in the Universe Space, Time, and Motion by Sean Carroll

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “Most appealing... technical accuracy and lightness of tone ... Impeccable. ” —Wall Street Journal “ A porthole into another world. ” —Scientific American “ Brings science dissemination to a new level. ” —Science The most trusted explainer of the most mind-boggling concepts pulls back the veil of mystery that has too long cloaked the most valuable building blocks of modern science. Sean Carroll, with his genius for making complex notions entertaining, presents in his uniquely lucid voice the fundamental ideas informing the modern physics of reality.   Physics offers deep insights into the workings of the universe but those insights come in the form of equations that often look like gobbledygook. Sean Carroll shows that they are really like meaningful poems that can help us fly over sierras to discover a miraculous multidimensional landscape alive with radiant giants, warped space-time, and bewilderingly powerful forces. High school calculus is itself a centuries-old marvel as worthy of our gaze as the Mona Lisa. And it may come as a surprise the extent to which all our most cutting-edge ideas about black holes are built on the math calculus enables.    No one else could so smoothly guide readers toward grasping the very equation Einstein used to describe his theory of general relativity. In the tradition of the legendary Richard Feynman lectures presented sixty years ago, this book is an inspiring, dazzling introduction to a way of seeing that will resonate across cultural and generational boundaries for many years to come.

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Hvac & R Hands on Troubleshooting - Jose C. Jimenez Cover Art

Hvac & R Hands on Troubleshooting

Hvac & R Hands on Troubleshooting by Jose C. Jimenez

By the time I decided to start writing this book, I had worked in the HVAC & R industry for more than forty-five years. In this span of time, I had worked as a service technician in an NYC service company and as a trade instructor in several schools (see profile). I had written books and works; among them are RAC & E test-books, preparation for the EPAs certification, and the RMO's License for the NYC Fire Department, which had been used in the schools in which I worked. Regardless of the years that had passed, the refrigeration system used in Air Conditioning, systems as well as in Commercial Refrigeration, Domestic Refrigeration, etc., and in the equipment in general used today contains the same mechanical-electrical components as then.

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The Man Who Walked Through Time - Colin Fletcher Cover Art

The Man Who Walked Through Time

The Man Who Walked Through Time The Story of the First Trip Afoot Through the Grand Canyon by Colin Fletcher

The remarkable classic of nature writing by the first man ever to have walked the entire length of the Grand Canyon.

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Stiff - Mary Roach Cover Art

Stiff

Stiff The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach

A New York Times forensic science bestseller, "this quirky, funny read offers perspective and insight about life, death and the medical profession."*  For two thousand years, cadavers—some willingly, some unwittingly—have been involved in science's boldest strides and weirdest undertakings. They've tested France's first guillotines, ridden the NASA Space Shuttle, been crucified in a Parisian laboratory to test the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin, and helped solve the mystery of TWA Flight 800. For every new surgical procedure, from heart transplants to gender confirmation surgery, cadavers have helped make history in their quiet way.  "Delightful—though never disrespectful" ( Time Out New York ), science writer Mary Roach's Stiff investigates the strange lives of our bodies postmortem and answers the question: What should we do after we die? "You can close this book with an appreciation of the miracle that the human body really is." —* Wall Street Journal "Acutely entertaining, morbidly fascinating." — Forbes  "One of the funniest and most unusual books of the year. . . . Gross, educational, and unexpectedly sidesplitting." — Entertainment Weekly With an Epilogue by the Author

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Beyond Weird - Philip Ball Cover Art

Beyond Weird

Beyond Weird Why Everything You Thought You Knew about Quantum Physics Is Different by Philip Ball

A journey into the mysteries and meaning of quantum theory: "Gorgeously lucid text . . . easily the best book I've read on the subject." — The Washington Post "Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it." Since Niels Bohr said this many years ago, quantum mechanics has only been getting more shocking. We now realize that it's not really telling us that "weird" things happen out of sight, on the tiniest level, in the atomic world: rather, everything is quantum. But if quantum mechanics is correct, what seems obvious and right in our everyday world is built on foundations that don't seem obvious or right at all—or even possible. An exhilarating tour of the contemporary quantum landscape, Beyond Weird is a book about what quantum physics really means—and what it doesn't. Philip Ball offers an up-to-date, accessible account of the quest to come to grips with the most fundamental theory of physical reality, and to explain how its counterintuitive principles underpin the world we experience. Over the past decade it's become clear that quantum physics is less a theory about particles and waves, uncertainty and fuzziness, than a theory about information and knowledge—about what can be known, and how we can know it. Discoveries and experiments over the past few decades have called into question the meanings and limits of space and time, cause and effect, and, ultimately, of knowledge itself. The quantum world Ball shows us isn't a different world. It is our world, and if anything deserves to be called "weird," it's us. "Weighs up the competing interpretations, and the misconceptions, that have attached themselves to quantum theory in its 100-year history. . . . [A] laudable achievement."— Sunday Times "Ball is one of the finest contemporary writers about science. . . . His prose is a pleasure to read."— Wall Street Journal

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A New Science of Heaven - Robert Temple Cover Art

A New Science of Heaven

A New Science of Heaven How the new science of plasma physics is shedding light on spiritual experience by Robert Temple

'This book is an important contribution, and I hope it will open many minds. What is particularly important in it are the discussions of David Bohm, of bioplasma, biophotons, and bioelectronics.' - PROFESSOR ZBIGNIEW WOLKOWSKI, Sorbonne University, Paris "Answers so many questions, scientific and esoteric, about the true nature of our reality... A seminal work... Will revolutionise how we frame reality and the thinking of everyone on this planet. Kudos to Professor Temple for striking the first match to light the fire." - NEW DAWN The story of the science of plasma and its revolutionary implications for the way we understand the universe and our place in it. Histories of science in the 20th century have focused on relativity and quantum mechanics. But, quietly in the background, there has been a third area of exploration which has equally important implications for our understanding of the universe. It is unknown to the general public despite the fact that many Nobel prize winners, senior academics and major research centres around the world have been devoted to it - it is the study of plasma Plasma is the fourth state of matter and the other three - gas, liquid and solids - emerge out of plasma. This book will reveal how over 99% of the universe is made of plasma and how there are two gigantic clouds of plasma, called the Kordylewski Clouds, hovering between the Earth and the Moon, only recently discovered by astronomers in Hungary. Other revelations not previously known outside narrow academic disciplines include the evidence that in certain circumstances plasma exhibits features that suggest they may be in some sense alive: clouds of plasma have evolved double helixes, banks of cells and crystals, filaments and junctions which could control the flow of electric currents, thus generating an intelligence similar to machine intelligence. We may, in fact, have been looking for signs of extra-terrestrial life in the wrong place. Bestselling author Robert Temple has been following the study of plasma for decades and was personally acquainted with several of the senior scientists - including Nobel laureates - at its forefront, including Paul Dirac, David Bohm, Peter Mitchell and Chandra Wickramasinghe (who has co-written an academic paper with Temple).

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The Genetic Book of the Dead - Richard Dawkins & Jana Lenzová Cover Art

The Genetic Book of the Dead

The Genetic Book of the Dead by Richard Dawkins & Jana Lenzová

From a renowned biologist and best-selling author, a whole new way of looking at living organisms: reading them as documents describing ancient worlds   A Financial Times Best Book of 2024: Science • Named Science Book of the Year by Times (UK) • A Guardian Best Ideas Book of 2024   “Intellectually sparkling and beautifully crafted.”—Adrian Woolfson, Wall Street Journal   “A glorious affair. . . . Arguably [Dawkins’s] most joyous ode to the wonders that evolution has wrought in the animal world.”—Philip Ball, Science   An exquisitely camouflaged lizard has a desiccated landscape of sand and stones “painted” on its back. Its skin can be read as a description of an ancient desert, a world in which its ancestors survived. Such descriptions are more than skin deep, however. They penetrate the very warp and woof of the entire animal.   In this groundbreaking exploration of the power of Darwinian evolution and what it can reveal about the past, Richard Dawkins shows how the body, behavior, and genes of every living creature can be read as a book—an archive of the worlds of its ancestors. In the future, a zoologist presented with a hitherto unknown animal will be able to decode its ancestral history, to read its unique “book of the dead.” Such readings are already uncovering the remarkable ways animals overcome obstacles, adapt to their environments, and, again and again, develop remarkably similar ways of solving life’s problems.   From the author of The Selfish Gene comes a revolutionary, richly illustrated book that unlocks the door to a past more vivid, nuanced, and fascinating than anything we have seen.

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The Future of the Mind - Michio Kaku Cover Art

The Future of the Mind

The Future of the Mind The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the Mind by Michio Kaku

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The renowned theoretical physicist and national bestselling author of The God Equation tackles the most fascinating and complex object in the known universe: the human brain. “Compelling…Kaku thinks with great breadth, and the vistas he presents us are worth the trip.” — The New York Times Book Review The Future of the Mind brings a topic that once belonged solely to the province of science fiction into a startling new reality. This scientific tour de force unveils the astonishing research being done in top laboratories around the world—all based on the latest advancements in neuroscience and physics—including recent experiments in telepathy, mind control, avatars, telekinesis, and recording memories and dreams. The Future of the Mind is an extraordinary, mind-boggling exploration of the frontiers of neuroscience. Dr. Kaku looks toward the day when we may achieve the ability to upload the human brain to a computer, neuron for neuron; project thoughts and emotions around the world on a brain-net; take a “smart pill” to enhance cognition; send our consciousness across the universe; and push the very limits of immortality.

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Every Living Thing - Jason Roberts Cover Art

Every Living Thing

Every Living Thing The Great and Deadly Race to Know All Life by Jason Roberts

PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • An epic, extraordinary account of scientific rivalry and obsession in the quest to survey all of life on Earth “[An] engaging and thought-provoking book, one focused on the theatrical politics and often deeply troubling science that shape our definitions of life on Earth.”— The New York Times “A fluent and engaging account of the eighteenth-century origins of Darwinism before Darwin.”— The Wall Street Journal 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.

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The Greatest Show on Earth - Richard Dawkins Cover Art

The Greatest Show on Earth

The Greatest Show on Earth The Evidence for Evolution by Richard Dawkins

Richard Dawkins transformed our view of God in his blockbuster, The God Delusion, which sold millions of copies in English alone. He revolutionized the way we see natural selection in the seminal bestseller The Selfish Gene . Now, he launches a fierce counterattack against proponents of "Intelligent Design" in his New York Times bestseller, The Greatest Show on Earth . "Intelligent Design" is being taught in our schools; educators are being asked to "teach the controversy" behind evolutionary theory. There is no controversy. Dawkins sifts through rich layers of scientific evidence—from living examples of natural selection to clues in the fossil record; from natural clocks that mark the vast epochs wherein evolution ran its course to the intricacies of developing embryos; from plate tectonics to molecular genetics—to make the airtight case that "we find ourselves perched on one tiny twig in the midst of a blossoming and flourishing tree of life and it is no accident, but the direct consequence of evolution by non-random selection." His unjaded passion for the natural world turns what might have been a negative argument, exposing the absurdities of the creationist position, into a positive offering to the reader: nothing less than a master’s vision of life, in all its splendor.

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How the Body Works - DK Cover Art

How the Body Works

How the Body Works The Facts Simply Explained by DK

This book takes you on the ultimate anatomical adventure around your own body, revealing how little you know about yourself in mind-blowing depth and detail. As part of the best-selling How Things Work series, this biological bonanza uses dynamic graphics, simple science, and accessible text to explore and explain this tricky subject as never before. If you've ever wondered why your blood is red, how your reflexes work, what makes you feel dizzy, and where exactly are the butterflies in your tummy, then wonder no more. The answers to all these questions and many others are included in this essential visual guide. From body basics to advanced anatomy, How the Body Works introduces all your weird and wonderful parts and processes, alongside fascinating facts and easy explanations across hundreds of pages. Guaranteed to get your brain in gear, you'll get to know your physical self in terms of cells, skin, bones, and blood, as well as getting to grips with your emotional side in the psychology of emotions, memories, and dreams. Understand how our bodies keep us alive and thriving with How the Body Works.

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Growing a Revolution - David R. Montgomery Cover Art

Growing a Revolution

Growing a Revolution Bringing Our Soil Back to Life by David R. Montgomery

Finalist for the PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award "A call to action that underscores a common goal: to change the world from the ground up." —Dan Barber, author of The Third Plate For centuries, agricultural practices have eroded the soil that farming depends on, stripping it of the organic matter vital to its productivity. Now conventional agriculture is threatening disaster for the world’s growing population. In Growing a Revolution, geologist David R. Montgomery travels the world, meeting farmers at the forefront of an agricultural movement to restore soil health. From Kansas to Ghana, he sees why adopting the three tenets of conservation agriculture—ditching the plow, planting cover crops, and growing a diversity of crops—is the solution. When farmers restore fertility to the land, this helps feed the world, cool the planet, reduce pollution, and return profitability to family farms.

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The Soul of an Octopus - Sy Montgomery Cover Art

The Soul of an Octopus

The Soul of an Octopus A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness by Sy Montgomery

A New York Times bestseller from the author of The Good Good Pig , this “fascinating...informative” ( The Daily Beast ) book dives into the intelligence, behavior, and emotional world of the octopus—one of the ocean’s most complex and captivating creatures—and the extraordinary bonds it forms with humans. Finalist for the National Book Award for Nonfiction * New York Times Bestseller * A Huffington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of the Year * One of the Best Books of the Month on Goodreads * Library Journal Best Sci-Tech Book of the Year * An American Library Association Notable Book of the Year “Sy Montgomery’s The Soul of an Octopus does for the creature what Helen Macdonald’s H Is for Hawk did for raptors.” — New Statesman , UK “One of the best science books of the year.” — Science Friday , NPR In pursuit of the wild, solitary, predatory octopus, popular naturalist Sy Montgomery has practiced true immersion journalism. From New England aquarium tanks to the reefs of French Polynesia and the Gulf of Mexico, she has befriended octopuses with strikingly different personalities—gentle Athena, assertive Octavia, curious Kali, and joyful Karma. Each creature shows her cleverness in myriad ways: escaping enclosures like an orangutan; jetting water to bounce balls; and endlessly tricking companions with multiple “sleights of hand” to get food. Scientists have only recently accepted the intelligence of dogs, birds, and chimpanzees but now are watching octopuses solve problems and are trying to decipher the meaning of the animal’s color-changing techniques. With her “joyful passion for these intelligent and fascinating creatures” ( Library Journal Editors’ Spring Pick), Montgomery chronicles the growing appreciation of this mollusk as she tells a unique love story. By turns funny, entertaining, touching, and profound, The Soul of an Octopus reveals what octopuses can teach us about the meeting of two very different minds.

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