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Nature and Science August 2025 |
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Bringing Up Beaver: Two Orphaned Beaver Kits, Their Humans, and Our Journey Back to the Wild
by John Aberth
On May 10, 2020, an orphaned beaver kit was found in St. Albans, Vermont and handed over to John Aberth, a licensed volunteer wildlife rehabilitator. Over the next two years, John raised the kit, whom he nicknamed "BK," and prepared him for release back into the wild. During that time, John and BK developed a special and unique bond, which John documented in a daily diary. That diary became the basis for Bringing Up Beaver, a lively and engaging account of one human's relationship with a wild animal. Bringing Up Beaver is more than just a feel-good story about human encounters with nature. Full of fascinating observations about beaver behavior and biology, Bringing Up Beaver also documents the unique challenges and obstacles to be faced and overcome in rehabbing a wild beaver kit. Populating the story are plenty of other wild creatures that John encounters in the course of his journey with BK, including other beavers--one of whom became BK's mate--as well as hawks, owls, mink, and weasels.
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Ocean: Earth's Last Wilderness
by David Attenborough
Through personal stories, history and cutting-edge science, Ocean uncovers the mystery, the wonder, and the frailty of the most unexplored habitat on our planet--the one which shapes the land we live on, regulates our climate, and creates the air we breathe. This book showcase the oceans' remarkable resilience: they can, and in some cases have, recovered the fastest, if we only give them the chance. Drawing a course across David Attenborough's own lifetime, Ocean takes readers on an adventure-laden voyage through eight unique ocean habitats, countless intriguing species, and the most astounding discoveries of the last 100 years, to a future vision of a fully restored marine world--one even more spectacular than we could possibly hope for. Ocean reveals the past, present and potential future of our blue planet. It is a book almost a century in the making, but one that has never been more urgently needed.
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The Shortest History of the Dinosaurs: The 230-Million-Year Story of Their Reign and Their World
by Riley Black
The Shortest History of the Dinosaurs tells the 230-million-year epic of these staggeringly fascinating prehistoric creatures, covering their small beginnings, spectacular golden periods, and stunning evolutionary success--before an unthinkable asteroid event brought everything to a screeching halt. But this history digs deeper, using numerous recent fossil discoveries and fresh understandings of genetics and evolution to show how we've gleaned so much about a long-lost world from mere fragments of fossil. Marshaling the evidence, award-winning author Riley Black reveals the startling relationships that dinosaurs shared with one another, the land they lived on, and other animal species. By conjuring a more complete picture of Earth in the age of the dinosaurs, she shows us how these massive monsters owe their rise to luck as much as to their cunning--and the many surprising ways they left an indelible mark on their dramatically changing world.
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| Slither: How Nature's Most Maligned Creatures Illuminate Our World by Stephen S. HallScience writer Stephen S. Hall has been fascinated by snakes since childhood, and his enthusiasm comes through in this sweeping overview of all things herpetological. Hall covers topics including people’s fear of snakes, snake venom, locomotion, evolutionary history, religious symbolism, and the ease with which snakes adapt to their surroundings. An enticing choice for snake lovers (and haters!). |
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The Elephant in the Room: How to Stop Making Ourselves and Other Animals Sick
by Liz Kalaugher
Origin stories for today's viruses often start with animals; HIV in humans begins with a chimpanzee, or our COVID-19 pandemic with possible transmission from bats. But it often works the other way around-humans have caused diseases in other animals countless times throughout history. In this eye-opening and timely book, science journalist Liz Kalaugher explores the invisible crosscurrents between humans, other animals, and disease. Offering readers a front-row seat to today's research on wildlife diseases, each chapter focuses on a single example and incorporates interviews with scientists and other experts. As the book unfolds, we see how humans have spread diseases directly to other animals, and indirectly by altering ecosystems, transporting life around the globe, and changing the planet's climate. In one chapter, Kalaugher examines the role of high-density poultry farms in creating virulent new forms of bird flu that spilled back into the wild and have spread around the world, potentially putting humans at risk of another pandemic. In another chapter, we learn an infectious cancer-canine transmissible venereal tumor-may have wiped out North America's very first dogs, after Europeans' domesticated canid companions introduced the disease. Later, Kalaugher offers evidence that rising global temperatures will further spread diseases like West Nile, which already affects not only crows and humans, but also horses, gray wolves, skunks, squirrels, little brown bats, and alligators. West Nile has trouble spreading at the cooler temperatures (for now) where seventy percent of the US population lives. But as global temperatures increase, so does risk. All these stories make clear that a better understanding of wildlife diseases-and humans' roles in spreading them-is essential for a better and healthier future for all animals, including people.
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Insectopolis: A Natural History
by Peter Kuper
Award-winning cartoonist Peter Kuper transports readers through the 400-million-year history of insects and the remarkable entomologists who have studied them.
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| Dimming the Sun: The Urgent Case for Geoengineering by Thomas RamgeTechnologist Thomas Ramge advances the provocative argument for slowing global warming through short-term geoengineering projects, like human-made clouds that would temporarily dampen the greenhouse effect. Ramge contends that such measures, though widely criticized, could buy valuable time, considering the high stakes of environmental disasters. For more controversial perspectives on climate change, try False Alarm: How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions, Hurts the Poor, and Fails to Fix the Planet by Bjorn Lomborg. |
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The Salmon Cannon and the Levitating Frog: and Other Serious Discoveries of Silly Science
by Carly Anne York
Why would anyone research how elephants pee? Or study worms who tie themselves into a communal knot? Or quantify the squishability of a cockroach? It all sounds pointless, silly, or even disgusting. Maybe it is. But in The Salmon Cannon and the Levitating Frog, Carly Anne York shows how unappreciated, overlooked, and simply curiosity-driven science has led to breakthroughs big and small. Got wind power? You might have humpback whales to thank. Know anything about particle physics? Turns out there is a ferret close to the heart of it all. And if you want to keep salmon around, be thankful for that cannon! The research itself can seem bizarre. But it drives our economy. And what's more, this stuff is simply cool. York invites readers to appreciate the often unpredictable journey of scientific exploration, highlighting that the heart of science lies in the relentless pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. Emphasizing the hard work of the people behind the discoveries, this is an accessible, story-driven book that shows how important and exciting it is to simply let curiosity run wild.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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Michigan City Public Library
100 E. 4th Street
Michigan City, Indiana 46360
219-873-3044mclib.org/ |
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