Natural Science

At 5:12 am on April 18, 1906, a 7.9 magnitude earthquake struck San Francisco, catching most of the city asleep. For approximately forty-eight seconds, shock waves buckled streets, shattered water mains, collapsed buildings, crushed hundreds of residents to death, and trapped many alive. Matthew Davenport draws on letters, diaries, unpublished memoirs, and previously unearthed archival records, as well as interviews with engineers and geologists, to combine history and science to tell the dramatic true story of one of the greatest disasters in American history.

It may be unlikely that a Swedish karate champion, family man, and cancer scientist could be at the center of developing a systems approach to life on Earth that could revolutionize the way humans operate in the world, but this is the story of just that: the idea, and the man behind it. As a cancer specialist, Karl-Henrik Robèrt faced a stream of parents who would sacrifice anything to save their children. Yet that same selflessness did not seem to extend to saving the environment.

Green Growth That Works is the first practical guide to bring together pragmatic finance and policy tools that can make investment in natural capital both attractive and commonplace. The authors present six mechanisms that demonstrate a range of approaches used around the globe to conserve and restore earth's myriad ecosystems, including: government subsidies; regulatory-driven mitigation; voluntary conservation; water funds; market-based transactions; and bilateral and multilateral payments.

Across the world, invasive species pose a danger to ecosystems. The UN Convention on Biological Diversity ranks them as a major threat to biodiversity on par with habitat loss, climate change, and pollution. Tackling this isn't easy, and no one knows this better than Hugh Warwick, a conservationist who loathes the idea of killing, harming, or even eating animals. Yet as an ecologist, he is acutely aware of the need, at times, to kill invasive species whose presence harms the wider environment.

Discover the new science and ancient wisdom on why nature makes us healthier and happier in body and soul from the co-author of The Spirit Almanac and mindbodygreen’s Senior Sustainability Editor. For centuries, we have known that getting outside is good for us. Yet we have become increasingly...

Somewhere between myths and hard facts you find Nome, poised also between yesterday and tomorrow. Drawing on his background in anthropology and an equal passion for history, Michael Engelhard surveys the seam that links two neighboring continents through the lens of one pivotal city. The region's legacy of millennia shines on pages enriched by this writer's recollections—from mammoths to Cold War monuments, from a spa turned orphanage, to cyclist miners and shaman hoards.

Ignited by a lightning strike in a remote forest, the Currowan fire was one of the most terrifying episodes of Australia's Black Summer. It burnt for 74 days, consuming nearly 5,000 square kilometres of land, destroying well over 500 homes and leaving many people shattered. In the aftermath, there were questions. Why were resources so few that many faced the flames alone? Why was there back-burning on a day of extreme fire danger? Why weren’t they better prepared?

A team of marine scientists is on the verge of making the most stunning discovery in the history of man: a previously unknown predatory species, alive now, evolving just like the dinosaurs, and being forced out of its world and into man's for a violent first encounter.

Forty-eight stories of brave sparrows, wilds winds, and how to live in times of climate change. A prize-winning book by the natural storyteller Georgiana Keable, sharing long experience with children in the forests and snows of Norway. Meet the girl who became a fish, married a bear, and had a tree as her mum and dad. Meet the boy who tried to stop the wind, fetched fire from the center of the earth on the back of a bird, and whose father was the river.

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.

Tristan Fairholm has always liked fixing things. It makes up for everything in his life he can't mend - his parents' divorce, his father's alcoholism, and his little brother's weak heart. But when he kills his brother in a car accident, he destroys the only thing he truly cared for. He has nearly given up when a mysterious woman appears and offers him a place at her school. Along with 15 other juvenile delinquents, Tristan is given a chance to escape penitentiary while he studies magic in the wild mountains of Canada.

Okay, so I might be a badass immortal psychic, but everywhere I turn, something is getting between me and Blake. I’m really jonesing for some alone time with my recently reconnected soulmate but having supernatural powers like mine comes with an annoying price. Between the incessant visions and revenants running wild, having time to act on our desires is next to impossible. Even when things seem like they’re about to go our way, I’m slammed with a premonition that puts me into helluva tailspin. Blake’s time is up. He’s gonna die.

For decades, coal has been crucial to America's culture, society, and environment, an essential ingredient in driving out winter's cold, cooking meals, and lighting the dark. In the coalfields and beyond, Bob Wyss describes how this magical elixir sparked the Industrial Revolution, powered railroads, and built urban skylines, while providing home comforts for families.

As a child in the foothills of the Himalayas, Priyanka Kumar was entranced by forest-like orchards of diverse and luscious fruit—especially apples. These biodiverse orchards seemed worlds away from the cardboard apples that lined supermarket shelves. Yet on a small patch of woods near her home in Santa Fe, Kumar discovered a wild apple tree—and the seeds of an odyssey were planted.

The secret stories of what leaves mean - and what they mean to us. Leaves are one of nature's marvels. We watch them turn red in Autumn, make medicine from them, invent folklore around them, and mark the passing of time by them. But how do they grow? Why are they the shapes they are? What makes...

Optimistic field notes from the new normal for nature One thing has become clear this year - we need nature more than ever. And although the natural world has never been more under pressure, there are still reasons to be hopeful. Through personal stories, conservation breakthroughs and...

From the Newbery Award-winning, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The One and Only Ivan and Odder comes a stunning new middle grade standalone novel about compassion, resilience, and surprising friendships, following a dog named Wombat in the aftermath of a catastrophic fire. Wombat...

Mage Kermon struggles to stay loyal to Mielitta, the Queen of the Warrior Bees, in the ongoing war between the oppressive Citadel and the vibrant Forest. His secret dual role in the Citadel is threatened when his students trespass into the mysterious world beyond the walls and, in the back-stabbing climate of Citadel politics, he’s the sacrifice everyone is prepared to make. Little do those around him know that the future of both Forest and Citadel depends on his survival.

Years after complete antibiotic resistance has brought about global devastation, Kit ekes out an existence on a remote island alongside the taciturn Crevan, who has more recently fled the mainland. With once-curable diseases running riot, desperate measures are in place there: Those not yet infected are given experimental vaccines, and those for whom it's already too late are culled. But Kit and Crevan are safe, protected on their island by a collapsing castle that holds a greenhouse and a well-stocked bunker within its ruins.

Caught robbing the governor’s mansion, Blythe is given a choice: steal the crown jewel of Ostrait’s greatest enemy, or her papa and friends all die. Forced undercover as a candidate in the Fletch King’s marital competition, she must survive the cut-throat court under the watchful eye of the governor’s pet assassin. But how much of herself will this mission cost her? Kalen got her into this mess. And now they must keep their head down in the servants’ quarters, enduring their new superior’s brutality and confronted with the terrors of their past.