| Impact: How Rocks from Space Led to Life, Culture, and Donkey Kong by Greg BrenneckaContains: everything you ever wanted to know about meteorites!
Why you might like it: Cosmochemist Greg Brennecka presents a comprehensive yet accessible look at how meteorites have (literally!) shaped our planet and changed the trajectory of life on Earth.
Further reading: Tim Gregory's Meteorite: How Stones from Outer Space Made Our World or Simone Marchi's Colliding Worlds: How Cosmic Encounters Shaped Planets and Life. |
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| Sentient: How Animals Illuminate the Wonder of Our Human Senses by Jackie HigginsWhat it's about: Documentary filmmaker Jackie Higgins explores animal sensory perception and what it can tell us about human senses.
Contains: Twelve essays, each dedicated to a specific sense and an animal that exemplifies it.
Try these next: Diane Ackerman's A Natural History of the Senses, or Ed Yong's forthcoming An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us. |
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Beasts before us : the untold story of mammal origins and evolution by Elsa PanciroliPalaeontologist Elsa Panciroli charts the emergence of the mammal lineage, Synapsida, beginning at their murky split from the reptiles in the Carboniferous period, over three-hundred million years ago. They made the world theirs long before the rise of dinosaurs. Travelling forward into the Permian and then Triassic periods, we learn how our ancient mammal ancestors evolved from large hairy beasts with accelerating metabolisms to exploit miniaturisation, which was key to unlocking the traits that define mammals as we now know them.
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Revelations in air : a guidebook to smell by Jude StewartAn extraordinary, strange, and startlingly beautiful exploration of smell, the least understood of our five senses Overlapping with taste yet larger in scope, smell is the sense that comes closest to pure perception. Smell can collapse space and time, unlocking memories and transporting us to worlds both new and familiar. Yet as clearly as each of us can recognize different smells--the bright tang of citrus, freshly sharpened pencils, parched earth after rain--few of us understand how and why we smell. In Revelations in Air, Jude Stewart takes us on a fascinating journey into the weird and wonderful world of smell.
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Frequently asked questions about the universe by Jorge ChamA physics professor and a popular online cartoonist use their signature brand of humor honed on their podcast “Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe” to provide short, accessible and lighthearted answers to questions about time, space, gravity, and wormholes.
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| A Molecule Away from Madness: Tales of the Hijacked Brain by Sara Manning PeskinWhat it is: a "captivating and convincing" (Library Journal) survey of the molecular causes of neurological diseases, complete with case studies and historical context.
What you'll learn: Cognitive neurologist Sara Manning Peskin discusses genetic mutations (such as that which causes Huntington's disease), "problematic proteins" (including prion diseases such as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease), and "invaders-evaders" (everything from toxins to vitamin deficiencies).
You might also like: Oliver Sacks' An Anthropologist on Mars or Helen Thomson's Unthinkable. |
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| Off the Edge: Flat Earthers, Conspiracy Culture, and Why People Will Believe Anything by Kelly WeillWhat it is: journalist Kelly Weill's "timely and disturbing study" (Kirkus Reviews) of conspiracy theories, which explains what they are, why people believe in them, and how the “conspiratorial melting pot” of the internet has brought them increasingly into the mainstream.
Contains: incisive analyses of Y2K, 9/11 trutherism, and QAnon, as well as an immersive investigation of Flat Earth theory from its origins in 1830s England to the present day. |
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| Heartbreak: A Personal and Scientific Journey by Florence WilliamsLove hurts: In the aftermath of divorce, journalist Florence Williams embarks on a journey of healing and self-discovery, resulting in a "raw and exhaustively reported exploration" (Washington Post) of the science of heartbreak.
What becomes of the brokenhearted? According to the research, an elevated risk of disease and premature death.
How can you mend a broken heart? Strategies employed by the author include therapy, connecting with a larger purpose, finding a new relationship, MDMA, and, of course, letting time heal all wounds. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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