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Nature and Science December 2020
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| The Secret Lives of Planets: Order, Chaos, and Uniqueness in the Solar System by Paul MurdinWhat happens: Astronomer Paul Murdin takes readers on an accessible tour of the solar system.
Further reading: Mark Thompson's A Space Traveler's Guide to the Solar System or Erik Asphaug's When the Earth Had Two Moons.
Did you know? "The bottom line is that our solar system has no parallel among the known planetary systems. Astronomy has no fully accepted explanation for this yet." |
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| Ice Walker: A Polar Bear's Journey Through the Fragile Arctic by James RaffanIntroducing: Nanurjuk ("Nanu"), a seven-year-old polar bear, and her cubs, Siu and King, who live in the wilderness surrounding Hudson Bay.
What it's about: In this "bear's-eye view of a changing Arctic" (Kirkus Reviews), Canadian author Raffan vividly evokes a rapidly transforming landscape while documenting its inhabitants' struggle to survive.
Did you know? Although they've existed since the Pleistocene, polar bears have left almost no fossil record due to the fact that most have never set foot on land. |
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A cat's tale : a journey through feline history
by Paul Koudounaris
"A CAT'S TALE is a history of feline kind: its origins, the evolution of the relationship with their human companions, and the surprising ways in which feline history parallels that of humanity. From the prehistoric Felis (a large mammal from which all domestic cats have descended) to ancient Egyptian cat goddess, key cats of the Enlightenment to swashbuckling pirate felines and infamous American tabbies, the story of catkind is told here in its totality"
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Flight lines : across the globe on a journey with the astonishing ultramarathon birds
by Andrew Darby
"In a luminous new book, Andrew Darby follows the odysseys of two seemingly-humble Grey Plovers, little-known migratory shorebirds, as they take previously uncharted ultramarathon flights from the southern coast of Australia to Arctic breeding grounds. On these death-defying flights they dodge predators, typhoons, exhaustion, and countless other dangers before they can breed...and then survive the journey all over again and return south to their feeding grounds. But the greatest threat to these, and other long-distance migrants on the flyway, is China's "dragon economy," which is engulfing their vital Yellow Sea staging spots"
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World wild vet : encounters in the animal kingdom
by Evan Antin
World renowned animal expert and host of Animal Planet’s Evan Goes Wild offers humorous stories and descriptions of dangerous encounters with some of the most exotic species on earth, including sharks, venomous snakes and crocodiles. 125,000 first printing. Illustrations.
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Future sea : how to rescue and protect the world's oceans
by Deborah Rowan Wright
"Rather than continue to focus on discrete, geographically bounded bodies of water, ocean advocate and marine-policy researcher Deborah Wright urges a Plan Sea, which reimagines the oceans as the continuous ecosystem it is, not disconnected buckets of salt and plankton. This book proposes that the global marine environment be protected under the precautionary principle. It argues that the policy framework for such protection already exists -- it just needs to be enforced. In a series of case studies, with first-person vignettes woven throughout, Wright encourages us to begin every conversation about ocean policy with the assumption that any extractive or polluting activities in the world's oceans should require special permission. Her argument invokes the Public Trust Doctrine already embedded in many constitutions, and hinges on the Law of the Sea, which was established by the U.N. in 1982 to protect the "high seas," or the remote parts of the ocean considered international waters. To some, Wright's plan may seem idealistic, but its audacity might also be seen as a welcome nudge to our collective imagination. Many scientists are convinced that ocean ecosystems are on the brink of collapse -- there's something to be said, then, for a book that's radical enough to unlock new thinking about what might be possible, and maybe necessary, in terms of their protection"
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| Molly: The True Story of the Amazing Dog Who Rescues Cats by Colin ButcherMeet: Molly, a rescue dog trained to track down lost pets; Molly's human partner, Colin, the former police officer who started the UK Pet Detective Agency, which has so far reunited 74 cats, 6 dogs and one tortoise with their families.
Read it for: Molly and Colin's heartwarming bond, details of Molly's rigorous on-the-job training, and an eye-opening tale of how they tracked down an Eastern European dognapping ring.
Other working dogs: Cat Warren's What the Dog Knows, Susannah Charleson's Scent of the Missing, or Melissa Fay Greene's The Underdogs. |
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| Into the Planet: My Life as a Cave Diver by Jill HeinerthWho: Canadian cave diver, explorer, and filmmaker Jill Heinerth, who proudly claims that adventure is in her DNA.
Where she's been: Florida's extensive network of caverns; Mexico's Sistema Huautla, the Western Hemisphere's deepest cave network; the interior of Antarctic iceberg B-15, at the time the largest free-floating object on Earth.
You might also like: Julie Hauserman's Drawn to the Deep; William Stone's Beyond the Deep. |
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| The Plant Messiah: Adventures in Search of the World's Rarest Species by Carlos MagdalenaMeet: Carlos Magdalena, dubbed "El Mesías de las Plantas" by the media, who travels the world to save rare plants from extinction by propagating them.
Read it for: the author's enthusiasm for tropical plants, his unconventional career path and his travels to Mauritius, the Nazca Plains of Peru, and the Australian outback.
About the author: Carlos Magdalena is a senior botanical horticulturist at the Royal Botanic Garden at Kew, England. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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Culpeper County Library 271 Southgate Shopping Center Culpeper, Virginia 22701 540-825-8691
www.cclva.org
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