Natural Science

Few ideas have been as influential in the development of moral, political, legal, and economic thought in the broad Western tradition as the idea of natural law. It is also true that the understanding of natural law and its influence on specific norms and institutions—rights, justice, private property, rule of law, limited government—is not anywhere near as widespread in the 21st century as it was just 100 years ago.

Ruppel Shell follows the elusive eel from Maine to the Sargasso Sea, stalking riversides, fishing holes, laboratories, restaurants, courtrooms, and America's first commercial eel "family farm." This is an enthralling, globe-spanning look at an animal that you may never come to love, but which will never fail to astonish you.

A Natural History of North American Trees gives us a picture of life in America from its earliest days to the middle of the last century. The information is always interesting, though often heartbreaking. While Peattie looks for the better side of man's nature, he reports sorrowfully on the greed and waste that have doomed so much of America's virgin forest.

How to use the insights of neuroscience and the techniques of mindfulness to get a good night's sleep. Everyone's familiar with the consequences of lost sleep: you're groggy and irritable, your focus is off, you don't perform at your best, and you're likely to dump sugary foods and caffeine into...

Think your job is purgatory? Try working for the afterlife. For former man of science and very unhappy medium, Dr. Newton Barlow, the frontline between good and evil is starting to get old. With Purgatory a mess of hopeless bureaucracy, banal amateurism and unreliable excitement, he's beginning to crave a challenge. Something big.

Bioethics and the Human Goods offers students and general listeners a brief introduction to bioethics from a "natural law" philosophical perspective. This perspective, which traces its origins to classical antiquity, has profoundly shaped Western ethics and law and is enjoying an exciting renaissance. While compatible with much in the ethical thought of the great religions, it is grounded in reason, not religion.

The story of how our ancestors made the first tentative steps towards becoming human, how we lost our fur but gained language, fire and tools, and how we strode out of Africa, invented farming and cities and ultimately created modern civilisation. Where did we come from? Where are we going? Homo sapiens is the most successful, the most widespread and the most influential species ever to walk the Earth.

In 1969, five young men from Montana set out to accomplish what no one had before: to scale the sheer north face of Mt. Cleveland, Glacier National Park’s tallest mountain, in winter. Two days later tragedy struck: They were buried in an avalanche so deep that their bodies would not be discovered until the following June. The White Death is the riveting account of that fated climb and of the breathtakingly heroic rescue attempt that ensued.

From the celebrated author of Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich explores how we are killing ourselves to live longer, not better. A razor-sharp polemic which offers an entirely new understanding of our bodies, ourselves, and our place in the universe, Natural Causes describes how we...

Among scientists who write, no one illuminates as well as Stephen Jay Gould does the wonderful workings of the natural world. Now in a new volume of collected essays—his sixth since Ever Since Darwin—Gould speaks of the importance of unbroken connections within our own lives and to our ancestral generations. Along with way, he opens to us the mysteries of fish tails, frog calls, and other matters, and shows once and for all why we must take notice when a seemingly insignificant creature is threatened, like the land snail Partula from Moorea, whose extinction he movingly relates.

It is difficult to conceive of the vast scale of the history of life on Earth, from the very first living organisms sparking into life in hydrothermal deep-sea vents to the dizzying diversity of life today. The evolution of life is a sweeping epic of a tale, with twists and turns, surprising heroes and unlikely survivors. The Earth beautifully distils this complex story into a meaningful scale. In taking a closer look at 47 carefully selected organisms over 15 periods in our planetary history, this audiobook tells the whole story of life on Earth.

When HurricaneKatrina struck New Orleans, Abdulrahman Zeitoun - a prosperous Syrian-American and father of four - chose to stay through the storm to protect his house and contracting business. In the eerie days after the storm, he traveled the flooded streets in a secondhand canoe, passing on supplies and rescuing those he could. A week later, on September 6, 2005, Zeitoun abruptly disappeared.

Wasted is a riveting exploration of the complicated, and often surprising, ways that waste occurs in our businesses, our communities, and our lives “A smart, unconventional book that takes readers far beyond what they think they know about a complex subject.”—Kari Byron, former cast member...

The never-before-told story of the horned rabbit - the myths, the hoaxes, the very real scientific breakthrough it inspired - and how it became a cultural touchstone of the American West.

A stunningly illustrated portrait of life and death in a hostile, high-altitude environment where no human can survive for long, Everest invites you to join Breashears, his climbers, and his crew as they make photographic history. Author Broughton Coburn traces each step of the team's progress toward a rendezvous with history - and suddenly you're on the scene of a disaster that riveted the world's attention.

Ofelia Archer is a witch about town. That town happens to be New Orleans. Magic has always been part of her life, but now it’s the creed she lives by, as she runs her supernatural bar Krewe in the heart of the city. Zacharias Sully left a life of luxury to protect and serve. His panther-shifter background means he’s ready for a fight. He just never thought he would be doing it alongside a witch. Ofelia and Sully weren’t looking for love, but they found each other. Now they just have to survive the darkness that is constantly threatening New Orleans.

The date is January 11, 1911. A young German paleontologist, accompanied only by a guide, a cook, four camels, and a couple of camel drivers, reaches the lip of the vast Bahariya Depression after a long trek across the bleak plateau of the western desert of Egypt. The scientist, Ernst Freiherr...

When Alex Kaine scores a job with a small but lucrative travel agency, he discovers its secret: that Mystic Getaways actually controls the Mystic Gateways, a series of portals that open wormholes to dramatically altered, far-flung versions of our own world.

Nines Lives is a multivoiced biography of a dazzling, surreal, and imperiled city, told through the lives of nine unforgettable characters and bracketed by two epic storms: Hurricane Betsy, which transformed New Orleans in the 1960s, and Hurricane Katrina, which nearly destroyed it. Dan Baum brings this kaleidoscopic portrait to life, showing us what was lost in the storm and what remains to be saved.

Finalist, Balsillie Prize for Public Policy and Victoria Butler Book Prize A Globe and Mail Top 100 Book The Big One and what we can do to get ready for it. Mention the word earthquake and most people think of California. But while the Golden State shakes on a regular basis, Washington State...