Environment Food

Filled with catchall research, American Hemp examines what this new domestic crop can be used for, what makes it a superior product, and what made it illegal in the first place; the book also delves into the many health and medical benefits of the plant. Hobbs weighs in on how hemp can improve existing industries, from farming to energy to 3D printing, plus how it can make a serious impact on climate change by removing toxins from the soil and by decreasing our dependence on plastics and fossil fuels.

How a miracle treatment turned deadly and changed the course of the AIDS crisis. By the mid 1980s, AIDS hysteria was so rampant that a fearful and prejudiced public ignored stories of gay men falling ill with lesions and mouth ulcers. President Reagan avoided mentioning the disease entirely...

"The Greatest Story Ever ToldDispute over land and kingdom may lie at the heart of this story of war between cousins-the Pandavas and the Kouravas-but the Mahabharata is about conflicts of dharma. These conflicts are immense and various, singular and commonplace. Throughout the epic, characters...

When Charles and Perrine Hervé-Gruyer set out to create their farm in an historic Normandy village, they had no idea just how much their lives would change. Neither one had ever farmed before. Charles had been circumnavigating the globe by sail, operating a floating school that taught students about ecology and indigenous cultures. Perrine had been an international lawyer in Japan. Each had returned to France to start a new life.

The tundra ecosystem is vast, covering a large part of the far north. Countless animals and plants live there. So what difference could the loss of one animal species make? Follow the chain reaction, and discover how important lemmings are.

Better sex, glowing skin, and more money…by going vegan Did you know that if you adopt a vegan diet you can enjoy better sex? Save money? Have glowing skin? You can ward off Alzheimer’s, Type 2 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, and other metabolic diseases. You can eat delicious burgers. Help...

Before the global financial meltdown of 2008, India's economy was thriving and its GDP growth was cruising at an impressive 8.8 per cent. The economic boom impacted a large section of Indians, even if unequally. With sustained high growth over an extended period, India could have achieved what...

This new book by Spencer Wells, the internationally known geneticist, anthropologist, author, and director of the Genographic Project, focuses on the seminal event in human history: mankind's decision to become farmers rather than hunter-gatherers.

Eat What Elephants Eat is a vegan cookbook featuring an unforgettable personal narrative, eighty recipes, and easy meal plans. Dominick (Dom) Thompson comes from the West Side of Chicago, where he was lured into the drug trade, as much for comradeship as for power and money. One summer, he...

When Bob Quinn was a kid, a stranger at a county fair gave him a few kernels of an unusual grain. Little did he know, that grain would change his life. Years later, after finishing a PhD in plant biochemistry and returning to his family's farm in Montana, Bob started experimenting with organic wheat. In the beginning, his concern wasn't health or the environment; he just wanted to make a decent living and some chance encounters led him to organics.

The New York Times bestselling author of The Price of Privilege and Teach Your Children Well explores how today’s parenting techniques and our myopic educational system are failing to prepare children for their certain-to-be-uncertain future—and how we can reverse course to ensure their...

When we humans love foods, we love them a lot. In fact, we have often eaten them into extinction, whether it is the megafauna of the Paleolithic world or the passenger pigeon of the last century. In Lost Feast, food expert Lenore Newman sets out to look at the history of the foods we have loved to death and what that means for the culinary paths we choose for the future.

"If you want to understand the strange workings of the human body, and the future of medicine, you must read this illuminating, engaging book." —Siddhartha Mukherjee, author of The Gene In 2014, James Hamblin launched a series of videos for The Atlantic called "If Our Bodies Could Talk." ...

From bestselling author Kenneth C. Davis comes a treasure trove of answers to questions about our world. Was there an Atlantis? What's the smallest country in the world? What's the difference between a jungle and a rain forest? Kenneth C. Davis, author of Don't Know Much About History, Don't...

An exquisite exploration of the power of flowers, placing them at the center of the story of how evolution created the world we know today We live on a floral planet, yet flowers don’t get the credit they deserve. We admire them for their aesthetics, not their power. In this exquisite...

Reconnect to the wisdom of the land, animals and the moon, and be inspired to find your power and freedom in this poetic memoir. Do you long to be amongst nature, in the wild, remote, untouched places, where the moon nears full, and the energy is visible and present? Do you feel as if you...

Climate change manifests in many ways across America, but few as dramatic as the attacks on our western pine forests. In Trees in Trouble, Daniel Mathews tells the urgent story of this loss, accompanying burn crews and forest ecologists as they study the myriad risk factors and refine techniques for saving this important, limited resource.

Imagine a world in which the excess energy from one business would be used to heat another. Where buildings need less and less energy around the world, and where “regenerative” commercial buildings – ones that create more energy than they use – are being designed. A world in which...

“Lucid, quietly urgent, and relentlessly logical . . . this is Bigthink with a capital B.” —The New York Times Book Review “Common Wealth explains the most basic economic reckoning that the world faces.” —Al Gore, winner of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize and former vice president of...

The first definitive natural history of the Indian subcontinent. Did you know that the exquisite caves of Ellora were hewn from rock formed in the greatest lava floods the world has known—eruptions so enormous that they may well have obliterated dinosaurs? Or that Bengaluru owes its unique...