Natural Science

Does the Creator of the Universe resemble the anthropomorphic description of God as depicted by the main religions? And does such a supreme being really care about the fate of mankind? If life senselessly ends at death, what purpose does a human strive for during his brief passage on Earth? Shouldn’t he strive to contribute to mankind’s collective well-being, and incidentally his own, rather than dogmatically obeying commands from a bygone era? In short, is it possible to be both realistic and happy? And what is true happiness beyond what religion or capitalism tries to sell us? With ...

Mary Roach meets Sam Kean and Bill Bryson in this uproarious tour of the basest instincts and biggest mysteries of the animal world. In The Truth About Animals, Lucy Cooke takes us on a worldwide journey to meet everyone from a Colombian hippo castrator to a Chinese panda porn peddler, all to lay bare the secret - and often hilarious - habits of the animal kingdom. Charming and at times downright weird, this modern bestiary is perfect for anyone who has ever suspected that virtue might be unnatural.

The exciting sequel to Good Intentions! Alex Carlisle has enough to deal with even on quiet days. Living with an angel and a succubus is no easy feat. One has divine responsibilities she can't explain, and the other tempts him toward a decadent lifestyle he's not sure he can manage. Add to that the stresses of college and trying to hold down a job, and it's lucky Alex can even keep his head on straight.

Alec began his 18th birthday with the temple monks. By day's end, he discovers he possesses magical abilities. Except his magic is unique. He doesn't require grimoires and incantations to cast spells. Alec's magic is entirely natural. He can, somehow, absorb the elements from objects and manipulate them according to his will. This power is incredible, but difficult to master. If he's going to learn how to use his natural magic, it'll take the tutelage of Archmage Diamondspear, one of the most adept magic users in the kingdom.

In The Worst Hard Time, Timothy Egan put the environmental disaster of the Dust Bowl at the center of a rich history, told through characters he brought to indelible life. Now he performs the same alchemy with the Big Burn, the largest-ever forest fire in America and the tragedy that cemented Teddy Roosevelt's legacy in the land.

Most of us have instinctive evidence the world is ending - balmy December days, face-to-face conversation replaced with heads-to-screens zomboidism, a world at constant war, a political system in disarray. We hear some myths and lies so frequently that they feel like truths: Civilization is humankind’s greatest accomplishment. Progress is undeniable. Count your blessings. You’re lucky to be alive here and now. Civilized to Death counters the idea that progress is inherently good, arguing that the "progress" defining our age is analogous to an advancing disease.

During the real estate crash of the late 2000s, Christopher Brown purchased an empty lot in an industrial section of Austin, Texas. The property—a brownfield site bisected with an abandoned petroleum pipeline and littered with concrete debris and landfill trash—was an unlikely site for a home. Along with his son, Brown had explored similar empty lots around Austin, so-called “ruined” spaces once used for agriculture and industry awaiting their redevelopment as Austin became a 21st century boom town.

From foraging and hunting for food to (more recently) finding solace and peace in a beautiful vista, humans have long interacted with the natural world. Though a connection to nature runs deep in our DNA, however, people of the modern age are indoors almost 93 percent of the day. With that said, there is a growing evidence suggests that the natural world promotes mental and physical well-being, including stress relief, improved mood, and neurological benefits.

"What should we have for dinner?" To one degree or another, this simple question assails any creature faced with a wide choice of things to eat. Anthropologists call it the omnivore's dilemma. Choosing from among the countless potential foods nature offers, humans have had to learn what is safe, and what isn't. Today, as America confronts what can only be described as a national eating disorder, the omnivore's dilemma has returned with an atavistic vengeance.

At stake in 1896 was the new idea that some landscapes should be collectively, permanently owned by a democratic government. Although many people today think of public lands as an American birthright, their very existence was then in doubt and dependent on a merger of the talents of these two men. Natural Rivals examines a time of environmental threat and political dysfunction not unlike our own and reveals the complex dynamic that gave birth to America’s rich public lands legacy.

Vince Beiser explores the Achilles’ heel of “green power” and digital technology–that manufacturing computers, cell phones, electric cars, and other technologies demand skyrocketing amounts of lithium, copper, cobalt, and other materials. Around the world, businesses and governments are scrambling for new places and new ways to get those metals, at enormous cost to people and the planet. Beiser crisscrossed the world to talk to the people involved and report on the damage this race is inflicting, the ways it could get worse, and how we can minimize the damage.

In Nature's Wild Ideas, Kristy Hamilton goes behind the scenes of some of our most unexpected innovations. She traverses frozen waterfalls, treks through cloudy forests, discovers nests in the Mojave desert, scours intertidal zones, and takes us to the deepest oceans and near volcanoes to introduce us to the animals and plants that have inspired everything from cargo routing systems to non-toxic glues, and the men and women who followed that first spark of "I wonder" all the way to its conclusion, sometimes against all odds.

1 Dead in Attic is a collection of stories by Times-Picayune columnist Chris Rose, recounting the first harrowing year and a half of life in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Celebrated as a local treasure and heaped with national praise, Rose provides a rollercoaster ride of observation, commentary, emotion, tragedy, and even humor - in a way that only he could find in a devastated wasteland. They are stories of the dead and the living, stories of survivors and believers, stories of hope and despair.

In her groundbreaking reporting, Naomi Klein introduced the term "disaster capitalism." Whether covering Baghdad after the U.S. occupation, Sri Lanka in the wake of the tsunami, or New Orleans post-Katrina, she witnessed something remarkably similar. People still reeling from catastrophe were being hit again, this time with economic "shock treatment," losing their land and homes to rapid-fire corporate makeovers. The Shock Doctrine retells the story of the most dominant ideology of our time, Milton Friedman's free market economic revolution.

The past is past, but it does leave clues, and Thomas Halliday has used cutting-edge science to decipher them more completely than ever before. In Otherlands, Halliday makes sixteen fossil sites burst to life.

In this classic work, Leo Strauss examines the problem of natural right and argues that there is a firm foundation in reality for the distinction between right and wrong in ethics and politics. On the centenary of Strauss's birth, and the fiftieth anniversary of the Walgreen Lectures which spawned the work, Natural Right and History remains as controversial and essential as ever.

Ten thousand years after humans figured out how to stop wandering and plant crops, veteran investigative journalist Mark Schapiro plunges into the struggle already underway for control of seeds, the ground-zero ingredient for our food. Three-quarters of the seed varieties on Earth in 1900 had become extinct by 2015. In Seeds of Resistance, Schapiro takes us onto the frontlines of a struggle over the seeds that remain, one that will determine the long-term security of our food supply in the face of unprecedented climate volatility. More than half of all commercially-traded seeds have fallen under the control of just three multinational agri-chemical companies....

A fascinating investigation of the origin of humans based on incredible new discoveries and advanced scientific technology.

In this meditation on the music of the natural world, Moore celebrates the call of loons, howl of wolves, bellow of whales, laughter of children, and shriek of frogs, even as she warns of the threats against them. Each group of essays moves, as Moore herself has been moved, from celebration to lamentation to bewilderment and finally to the determination to act in defense of wild songs and the creatures who sing them.

A Short History of Nearly Everything is Bill Bryson's quest to understand everything that has happened from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization. He takes subjects that normally bore the pants off most of us, like geology, chemistry, and particle physics, and aims to render them comprehensible to people who have never thought they could be interested in science. In the company of some extraordinary scientists, Bill Bryson reveals the world in a way most of us have never seen it before.