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Tag Archives: natural history
Aerial Geology
Aerial Geology: A High Altitude Tour of North America’s Spectacular Volcanoes, Canyons, Glaciers, Lakes, Craters, and Peaks © 2017 Mary Caperton Morton 308 pages It was love at first sight, me and this book. There I was, cruising BooksAMillion … Continue reading
Dinosaurs, India, and the smartphone
We in the United States recently enjoyed a three-day weekend, ostensibly for the purpose of honoring fallen soldiers, though I suspect for most it’s just an occasion to shop and cook out before the summer heat becomes unbearable. I took … Continue reading
The Ends of the World
The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and Our Quest to Understand Earth’s Past Mass Extinctions© 2017 Peter Brannen336 pages Earth has tried to kill us five times before, and now it’s at it again. (To be fair, … Continue reading
In the Land of the Tiger
In the Land of the Tiger: A Natural History of the Indian Subcontinent© 1997 Valmik Thapar285 pages Imagine a Planet Earth episode focused entirely on India, and then presented in book form. The result is In the Land of the … Continue reading
Week of Enchantment: Epic? Nay, MAMMOTH!
The natural history museum in downtown Albuquerque is monstrously big, and after arriving at its service doors I made my way around the campus (“building” does not suffice), admiring the way the landscape was sculpted and filled with plants to … Continue reading
This week at the library: the cosmos, Jane Austen, zombies, and the Middle Way
— Minireviews — Some zombies like to lurch about groaning for brains. Some zombies like to ride the escalators, listen to Frank Sinatra, and daydream about their past life. That’s R, a zombie who has forgotten most of his life, … Continue reading
Posted in Reviews
Tagged Astronomy, biology, braaaaaains, Buddhism, evolution, fantasy, geology, Jane Austen, natural history, Neil Shubin, philosophy, science
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The Humans Who Went Extinct
The Humans Who Went Extinct: Why Neanderthals Died Out and We Survived© 2010 Clive Finlayson256 pages Whatever happened to the Neanderthals? Did Homo sapiens drive our beefy cousins into extinction in the first of many exercises in genocide as we … Continue reading
Posted in Reviews, science
Tagged anthropology, biology, climate change, evolution, natural history, science
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The Ghosts of Evolution
The Ghosts of Evolution: Nonsense Fruit, Missing Partners, and Other Ecological Anachronisms© 2000 Connie Barlow291 pages Grocery stores are excellent places to encounter ghosts. They lurk in the fruit section, feasting on anachronisms. The biological world is a wondrous web … Continue reading
Posted in Reviews, science
Tagged archaeology, biology, ecology, environmentalism, evolution, natural history, prehuman America, science
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Catching Fire
Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human © 2009 Richard Wrangham309 pages Cooking has created a great many fantastic dish throughout the centuries, but Richard Wrangham holds that the culinary art’s greatest triumph is us — humanity, for the advent of … Continue reading
Posted in Reviews, science
Tagged anthropology, evolution, food, food and drink, natural history, nutrition, science
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The Oceans
The Oceans© 2000 Ellen J. Prager with Sylvia A. Earle314 pages Seventy percent of the Earth’s surface is covered in water, constituting a vast and largely unknown world of its own — vitally important to ours, but scarcely explored and … Continue reading
Posted in Reviews, science
Tagged natural history, Nature, oceanography, planetary science, science
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