"Can birds smell?" "Is this the same cardinal that was at my feeder last year?" "Do robins 'hear' worms?" In "What It's Like to Be a Bird," David Sibley answers the most frequently asked questions about the birds we see most often. This special, large-format volume is geared as much to nonbirders as it is to the out-and-out obsessed, covering more than two hundred species and including more than 330 new illustrations by the author. While its focus...

"Where does math come from? From a textbook? From rules? From deduction? From logic? Not really, Eugenia Cheng writes in Is Math Real?: it comes from curiosity, from instinctive human curiosity, "from people not being satisfied with answers and always wanting to understand more." And most importantly, she says, "it comes from questions": not from answering them, but from posing them. Nothing could seem more at odds from the way most of us were taught...

"The history of Mars is drawn not just on its surface, but also down into its broken bedrock and up into its frigid air. Most of all, it stretches back into deep time, where the trackways of the past have been obliterated and there is no discernible trace of where they started from or how they travelled, only where they ended up. From the planet's formation 4.5 billion years ago, through eras that featured cataclysmic meteor strikes, explosive volcanoes...

Using a bold, graphic-led approach, The Ecology Book explores and explains over 90 of the key ideas, movements, and acts that have defined ecology and ecological thought. The book has a simple chronological structure, with early chapters ranging from the ideas of classical thinkers to attempts by Enlightenment thinkers to systematically order the natural world. Later chapters trace the evolution of modern thinking, from the ideas of Thomas Malthus,...

An innovative and accessible guide to theories in technology and nature. Learning about science can be daunting, but this book makes it easier by giving you all the big ideas simply explained. Simple explanations and stylish infographics open up the world of science to even the complete novice.

From the award-winning author of The Triumph of Seeds and Feathers, a natural and cultural history of the buzzing wee beasties that make the world go round. Bees are like oxygen: ubiquitous, essential, and, for the most part, unseen. While we might overlook them, they lie at the heart of relationships that bind the human and natural worlds. In Buzz, the beloved Thor Hanson takes us on a journey that begins 125 million years ago, when a wasp first...

"From the New York Times bestselling author of How Not to Hate Your Husband After Kids comes a deeply researched and incredibly entertaining guide to navigating the still-taboo topic of menopause"--

"A fun how-to guide to the world of math, offering insight into quirky questions like 'Why is a rainbow curved?'; 'Why aren't left-handers extinct?'; 'How is a sunflower like a synchronized swimmer?' and a look into (and explanation of) interesting mathematical marvels such as sine waves in music and prime numbers essential to data encryption"--

"Despite being a physician and a bioethicist, Tia Powell wasn't prepared to address the challenges she faced when her grandmother, and then her mother, were diagnosed with dementia--not to mention confronting the hard truth that her own odds aren't great. In the U.S., 10,000 baby boomers turn 65 every day; by the time a person reaches 85, their chances of having dementia approach 50 percent. And the truth is, there is no cure, and none coming soon,...

What defines who we are? For decades, the biological answer has been our genes. In The Master Builder, leading biologist Alfonso Martinez Arias breaks with decades of scientific and popular tradition to make a bold argument: what defines us is our cells. Drawing on new research from his lab and others, Martinez Arias reveals that we are composed of a thrillingly complex, constantly rearranging symphony of cells that know how to count, feel, and ultimately...