One of today's most accomplished biologists and gifted storytellers reveals the rules that regulate all life How does life work? How does nature produce the right numbers of zebras and lions on the African savanna, or fish in the ocean? How do our bodies produce the right numbers of cells in our organs and bloodstream? In The Serengeti Rules, award-winning biologist and author Sean Carroll tells the stories of the pioneering scientists who sought the answers to such simple yet profoundly important questions, and shows how their discoveries matter for our health and the health of the planet we depend upon. One of the most important revelations about the natural world is that everything is regulated—there are rules that regulate the amount of every molecule in our bodies and rules that govern the numbers of every animal and plant in the wild. And the most surprising revelation about the rules that regulate life at such different scales is that they are remarkably similar—there is a common underlying logic of life. Carroll recounts how our deep knowledge of the rules and logic of the human body has spurred the advent of revolutionary life-saving medicines, and makes the compelling case that it is now time to use the Serengeti Rules to heal our ailing planet. Bold and inspiring, The Serengeti Rules illuminates how life works at vastly different scales. Read it and you will never look at the world the same way again.

Unprecedented advances in genetics and biotechnology have brought profound new insights into human biological variation. These present challenges and opportunities for understanding the origins of human nature, the nature of difference, and the social practices these sustain. This provides an opportunity for cooperation between the biological and s

In our modern world, it is easy to overlook the natural world all around us. Only major life events, such as birth, injury, disease, and death, remind us that we are still biological organisms. We "interact" with nature in controlled and safe environments, such as zoos, theme parks, or through different forms of media. Television shows, films, and books are nearly always in exotic locations (e.g., the Kalahari Desert, the deep ocean, or Antarctica), but they inadvertently reinforce our separation from nature. Biology happens somewhere else. Author Gary Howard seeks to change that perception. The Biology of Us describes the common but fascinating examples of biology and nature that are hidden in plain sight in our daily lives. It focuses on human biology, but describes animals and plants all around, on, and in us to put human features into an evolutionary context. Many aspects of ourselves and our normal activities are examples of evolution: breathing, eating, standing up, communicating, telling time, and more. This book illustrates evolutionary strategies used successfully by common organisms for hundreds of millions of years. Howard shows that the organisms in our daily lives are not trivial neighbors or even pests but are just as amazing as those in the Serengeti or the Galápagos Islands.

Trivia nights are fun especially when you’re playing as a big group. This ebook contains random facts on the topics of nature, biology, geology and astronomy. Use the information to start a game. If you’re not up for game night, then read to expand your genera knowledge. Grab a copy and start reading today.

Political ecology and science studies have found fertile meeting ground in environmental studies. While the two distinct areas of inquiry approach the environment from different perspectives—one focusing on the politics of resource access and the other on the construction and perception of knowledge—their work is actually more closely aligned now than ever before. Knowing Nature brings together political ecologists and science studies scholars to showcase the key points of encounter between the two fields and how this intellectual mingling creates a lively and more robust ecological framework for the study of environmental politics. The contributors all actively work at the interface between these two fields, and here they use empirical material to explore questions of theoretical and practical import for understanding the politics that surround nature-society relations, from wildlife management in the Yukon to soil fertility in Kenya. In addition, they examine how various environmental knowledge claims are generated, packaged, promoted, and accepted (or rejected) by the different actors involved in specific cases of environmental management, conservation, and development. Finally, they ask what is at stake in the struggles surrounding environmental knowledge, how such struggles shape conceptions of the environment, and whose interests are served in the process.