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Nature and Science April 2026 |
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| 99 Ways to Die: And How to Avoid Them by Ashely Alker, MDAs a physician specializing in emergency services, Ashely Alker knows a thing or two about the myriad ways that humans can perish. Including pithy advice about how to avoid premature death and job-related anecdotes that are unsettling, funny, and flat-out scary, Alker’s book is “enormously informative and exceedingly entertaining” (Library Journal). For another witty read about dark topics, try The Chick and the Dead: Life and Death Behind Mortuary Doors by Carla Valentine. |
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On Natural Capital: The Value of the World Around Us
by Partha Dasgupta
From the man that the New York Times calls the most important person you've never heard of, renowned Cambridge University economist Sir Partha Dasgupta, comes a paradigm shifting treatise, asking a simple yet profound question--what if we put a value on nature, just as we put a value on everything else? For just about everything of value in life, there is an economic model. If it matters to us, we have found a way to put a dollar amount on it--to quantify its importance in our lives and society. These models and metrics tell us that our economies are healthy because they are growing. And yet for as long as they have existed, our economic models have served us an incomplete picture; they fail to account for the fact that our growth is driven by a resource that we take for free and treat as infinite: nature. Indeed, for centuries we have been using nature as if it were limitless, but more than ever, we are recognizing that our demands on the natural world are unsustainable. In On Natural Capital, award-winning Cambridge University economist Sir Partha Dasgupta lays out a seminal new approach to economics that asks, what if we were to put a value on nature just as we value everything else? Rooted in mankind's struggle against climate change, Dasgupta's approach examines the existential need to rethink our relationship to nature and see its preservation as an economic imperative. Challenging much of economic thought that has come before, Dasgupta presents an urgent call to transform the focus and structures of global economics with a profound new model--one so radical that only an economist of his stature could make the world take it seriously. On Natural Capital is a bold and groundbreaking book that could, truly, change everything.
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Original Sin: On the Genetics of Vice, the Problem of Blame, and the Future of Forgiveness
by Kathryn Paige Harden
A daring and intimate exploration of how genetics complicates our ideas about blame, punishment, and moral responsibility, from acclaimed psychologist and author of The Genetic Lottery Kathryn Paige Harden. An extraordinary book, the very best of science writing, because it is about not just science--it is memoir, history, bleeding-edge genetics, and a completely original take on original sin.--Adam Rutherford, author of A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived As one of the world's leading scientists examining how our DNA shapes differences in temperament, temptation, and behavior, Kathryn Paige Harden has seen firsthand how we continue to struggle--in public and in our most private relationships--with the ancient tensions between nature and nurture, freedom and constraint, the desire to punish and the longing to forgive. In Original Sin, she weaves together insights from her own experience as a daughter, mother, wife, and scientist with cutting-edge research in genetics and psychology to grapple with some of the most important questions in modern life: How do we take responsibility for the people we become, knowing how we are shaped by both biology and experience? How should we respond when people hurt each other--or themselves? And has science made guilt obsolete? Navigating the psychological and biological terrain of addiction, antisocial behavior, and violence, Harden confronts the disorienting ways science unsettles our understanding of wrongdoing and choice. In doing so, she asks us not to absolve but to reckon differently with notions of fairness and blame. A revelatory inquiry into the uneasy space where human behavior meets inherited biology, Original Sin challenges us to imagine a more humane vision of accountability--for ourselves and for one another.
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Grasshoppers, Locusts, and Crickets of the World
by Martin Husemann
A highly illustrated and authoritative introduction to the world's Orthoptera Grasshoppers, locusts, crickets, bush crickets, and katydids make up the order of insects known as Orthoptera. Although there are about 30,000 species of Orthoptera around the world, many people pay little attention to them and even scientists know relatively little about them. Yet the world of grasshoppers is a fascinating and diverse one. In this richly illustrated book, leading researchers from around the world detail the many facets of these insects, including their evolution, life cycles, and mating behavior. The book presents interesting facts and stories about species such as monkey hoppers, Cooloola monsters, king crickets, wetas, and sandgropers. It also describes efforts to protect grasshoppers and the relationship between humans and these insects. The book features four main sections: Orthoptera in space and time: fossil record, evolution, and systematicsThe biology of Orthoptera: life cycle, ecology, and bioacousticsThe diversity of Orthoptera by geographic regionOrthoptera and humans: locusts, Orthoptera as food, Orthoptera as pets, and conservation
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| Winter: The Story of a Season by Val McDermidAs we brace for another “hottest ever” summer, readers wistful for winter coziness will want to immerse themselves in Scottish crime novelist Val McDermid’s ode to the season of cold, rest, and reflection. McDermid’s beloved Edinburgh comes to life with her vivid childhood recollections of busy street scenes, sprinkled with Scottish holiday traditions and a few soup recipes. For fans of: The Light in the Dark: A Winter Journal by Horatio Clare. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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