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hen Trees Testify: Science, Wisdom, History, and America's Black Botanical Legacy by Beronda L. MontgomeryThis stunning cultural and personal reclamation of Black history and Black botanical mastery offers up lessons from the natural world shared through the stories of long-lived trees. Award-winning plant biologist Beronda L. Montgomery explores the ways seven trees--as well as the cotton shrub--are intertwined with Black history and culture. She reveals how knowledge surrounding these trees has shaped America since the very beginning. Trees are material witnesses to the lives of enslaved Africans and their descendants. Combining the wisdom of science and history with stories from her own path to botany, Montgomery talks to majestic trees, and in this unique and compelling narrative, they answer.
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Nature at Night: Discover the Hidden World That Comes Alive After Dark by Charles HoodNature doesn't simply stop for 12 hours when the sun goes down. This popular science book explores the mysteries of the natural world that most of us never see. In Monterey, night-feeding dolphins chase nocturnal squid which have made a vertical migration to the surface while manta rays beat the waves with their wings to make the bioluminescent plankton light up so they can see (and eat) it. In Borneo, bats nestle into pitcher plants. High above the Indian Ocean, transcontinental dragonflies migrate from India to Africa. Desert plants pulse and flex as they mend tissue and redistribute water in the darkness. Charles Hood takes us on several journeys to observe the rich, diverse wildlife that come alive under the cover of night.
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| The Madness Pill: One Doctor's Quest to Understand Schizophrenia by Justin GarsonPhilosopher Justin Garson’s biography of Dr. Solomon Snyder, a pharmacology professor at Johns Hopkins University, examines Snyder’s research in the 1970s and '80s to isolate the cause of schizophrenia. Although Snyder’s research ultimately failed, he instead discovered the brain’s dopamine receptors, which would in turn lead to the development of a range of useful psychoactive drugs and forever change the practice of psychopharmacology. Read-alike: Lithium: A Doctor, a Drug, and a Breakthrough by Walter A. Brown. |
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Our Wild Familiars: How Animals Are Adapting to Cities and Reshaping the Natural World by Dan WerbA dazzling journey into the hidden lives of synanthropes, the wild animals who've found ingenious ways to survive and thrive in human communities. Through vivid storytelling, Our Wild Familiars brings to spectacular life the world's most successful synanthropes, from bats, raccoons, and crows, to some of its weirdest, including the Giant Pacific Octopus. Acting as a guide to the curious, Werb reveals how the cracks in our millennia-long efforts to shield ourselves against the outside world might just lead us to a new and necessary balance with nature--or to an ever more savage future.
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,When Memory Fades: What to Expect at Every Stage, from Early Signs to Full Support for Alzheimer's and Dementia by Nathaniel ChinA geriatrician, whose perspective on his specialty changed when his own father was diagnosed with dementia, provides clear, calm questions to ask and tasks to tackle from the first moments of concern. When Nate Chin's father, also a doctor, began to feel his mind slipping, even a family as knowledgeable and capable as theirs was knocked back on its heels, disorganized, and unsure of what to do first. Chin, who in addition to his practice, became one of his father's primary caregivers until he died, determined to figure out the best way to move forward, for his own family, his patients, and now for everyone else. Focus on the early stages/transition period to full disease can be determinative to both quality of patient life and interactions.
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| The Infinity Machine: Demis Hassabis, Deepmind, and the Quest for Superintelligence by Sebastian MallabyJournalist and author Sebastian Mallaby’s latest is both a rich examination of the innovations in artificial intelligence being created at Google’s DeepMind project and the story of its enigmatic genius co-founder, Demis Hassabis. Mallaby takes readers inside AI laboratories, filled with relentlessly ambitious researchers and investors chasing the exciting (and for some, terrifying) achievement of artificial general intelligence, or machine “superintelligence.” For fans of: Supremacy: AI, ChatGPT, and the Race That Will Change the World by Parmy Olson. |
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| The Book of Cannabis: The History and Future of the Plant and the Drug by Jeremy NarbyCannabis, a versatile member of the plant kingdom known for its many uses -- recreational and otherwise -- is enjoying a renaissance after more than a century being stigmatized as a social evil. In addition to covering its applications in medicine, agriculture, and as a natural fiber, anthropologist Jeremy Narby discusses cannabis’ intersection with disciplines including religion, sociology, psychology, and geology in a comprehensive and well-researched microhistory. |
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Chain Reaction: How Chemistry Shapes Us and Our World by Ijeoma UchegbuBy one of the world's leading chemists, an entertaining and revealing tour of the chemical bonds that shape our everyday lives and provide the infrastructure for our chaotic world. Bonds between molecules, forged and broken in the blink of an eye, underpin everything from the food we eat and the clothes we wear to the ways we treat illnesses and construct our homes. It's a relationship we nurture, whether we know it or not, and for leading chemist Ijeoma Uchegbu, it was serious from the beginning. The careful interplay of bonds and molecules brings a sense of order and wonder to the chaos of our lives, she shows, and we don't have to wear a lab coat or study solutions in beakers to appreciate it. Chain Reaction is a lively and intimate portrait of the wondrous and under-explored field that shapes our everyday lives.
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Beyond Inheritance: Our Ever-Mutating Cells and a New Understanding of Health by Roxanne KhamsiThis is a captivating exploration of the remarkable ways our DNA mutates over the course of our lives, with radical implications for the future of medicine. Our DNA is the indispensable set of instructions that guides our growth and vitality. The common misconception is that this molecular blueprint stays the same throughout our lives. In reality, the genetic makeup of our cells is continuously mutating, from the moment we are conceived until our last breath. In this groundbreaking book, science writer Roxanne Khamsi describes our bodies as active landscapes of mutation. She reveals how the forces of Darwinian evolution operate within our own tissues. The effects can be devastating but mutations can also make our bodies more resilient: By letting go of the antiquated idea that every cell in a body has the same exact DNA, we can usher in a whole new era of medicine, including better vaccines and treatments that outsmart cancer.
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| In Deep Water: A True Story of Sharks, Survival, and Courage by Michael J. TougiasNonfiction author Michael J. Tougias (Fatal Forecast) tells a terrifying cautionary tale of survival on the open ocean. In 2022, three friends in coastal Louisiana embark on a fishing trip on the Gulf of Mexico in a recently purchased boat that suddenly proves un-seaworthy. The vessel sinks so quickly that the fishermen barely have time to don life vests and cling to a cooler for dear life. They spend the next 28 hours facing down stinging jellyfish, circling sharks, and their own exhaustion before being rescued. For fans of: harrowing ocean rescue stories like A Speck in the Sea by John Aldridge. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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