Bibliothèque publique Eleanor London Côte Saint-Luc Public Library: Nature and Science: October 2025

Recent Releases

The Genius of Trees : How They Mastered the Elements and Shaped the World
by Harriet Rix

Challenges the notion of trees as passive organisms, exploring how trees actively shape their environments through complex biochemical and ecological interactions, and revealing their roles as inventive agents that influence ecosystems, microclimates and even climate change.

If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies : Why Superhuman Ai Would Kill Us All
by Eliezer Yudkowsky

As the global race toward superintelligent AI accelerates, two longtime researchers warn that such machines could develop goals misaligned with human survival, offering a stark evidence-based scenario of extinction and a plea for urgent preventive action.

The Lobster Trap : The Global Fight for a Seafood on the Brink
by Greg Mercer

Lobster has been a phenomenal success story, with a commercial fishery that has generated enormous wealth and fueled global appetites for one of the world's most recognizable luxury foods. The great lobster boom that began in the 1990s has also led to violent fights over who has the right to catch North America's most valuable seafood, including for Canada's Indigenous people who until now have been excluded from this industry. But overfishing and climate change are pushing lobster toward a cliff.

Rocket dreams : Musk, Bezos, and the inside story of the new, trillion-dollar space race
by Christian Davenport

Offers a riveting, fly-on-the-wall account of the grit-fueled global battle to push humankind further into the cosmos—revealing that the science fiction dreams of the last century may soon become our reality.

Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy : Adventures in Human Anatomy
by Mary Roach

From the New York Times best-selling author of Stiff and Fuzz comes a rollicking exploration of the quest to recreate the impossible complexities of human anatomy including difficult questions prompted by the human body's failings.

This Is for Everyone : The Unfinished Story of the World Wide Web
by Tim Berners-Lee

The inventor of the World Wide Web offers an account of the rise of the digital world and a crucial guide to the future of the internet.

Alexander von Humboldt : a concise biography
by Andreas W. Daum

"In this lucid biography, Andreas Daum offers a succinct and novel interpretation of the life and oeuvre of Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859). A Prussian nobleman born into the age of European Enlightenment, Humboldt was a contemporary of Napoleon, Simâon Bolâivar, and Charles Darwin. As a naturalist and scholar, he travelled the world, from the Americas to Central Asia, and recorded his observations in multiple volumes. Humboldt is still admired today for his interdisciplinary outreach and ecological awareness. Moving beyond the conventional views of Humboldt as either intellectual superhero or gentleman coloniser, Daum's incisive account focuses on Humboldt in the context of the tumultuous period of history in which he lived. Humboldt embodied the contradictions that marked the age of Atlantic Revolutions. He became a critic of slavery and embraced the emerging civil society but remained close to authoritarian rulers. He dedicated his life to scientific research yet was driven by emotional impulses and pleaded for an aesthetic appreciation of nature. Daum introduces a man passionately striving to establish a "cosmic" understanding of nature while grappling with the era's explosion of knowledge. This book provides the first concise biography of Humboldt, covering all periods of his life, exploring his personality, the vast range of his works, and his intellectual networks. Daum helps us understand Humboldt as a seminal historical figure and illuminates the role of science at the dawn of the global world"

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