The Exultant Ark

Author : Jonathan Peter Balcombe
Publisher : Univ of California Press
ISBN 13 : 0520948645
Total Pages : 225 pages
Book Rating : 4.48/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Exultant Ark written by Jonathan Peter Balcombe and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2011-05-09 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nature documentaries often depict animal life as a grim struggle for survival, but this visually stunning book opens our eyes to a different, more scientifically up-to-date way of looking at the animal kingdom. In more than one hundred thirty striking images, The Exultant Ark celebrates the full range of animal experience with dramatic portraits of animal pleasure ranging from the charismatic and familiar to the obscure and bizarre. These photographs, windows onto the inner lives of pleasure seekers, show two polar bears engaged in a bout of wrestling, hoary marmots taking time for a friendly chase, Japanese macaques enjoying a soak in a hot spring, a young bull elk sticking out his tongue to catch snowflakes, and many other rewarding moments. Biologist and best-selling author Jonathan Balcombe is our guide, interpreting the images within the scientific context of what is known about animal behavior. In the end, old attitudes fall away as we gain a heightened sense of animal individuality and of the pleasures that make life worth living for all sentient beings.

Author : Stephen Baxter
Publisher : Del Rey
ISBN 13 : 0345457900
Total Pages : 482 pages
Book Rating : 4.05/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Exultant written by Stephen Baxter and published by Del Rey. This book was released on 2004-10-26 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Baxter has an uncanny gift for mixing a punchy, cyberpunk cynicism with his resolutely hard SF story base. . . . [Exultant] rivals Asimov in its boundless vision for the future evolution of humanity.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review) For more than twenty thousand years, humans have been at war with the alien race of Xeelee. Faced with certain death, a young pilot, Pirius, disobeys orders and travels into the future. Upon his return, Pirius is court-martialed and sentenced to penal servitude. But it is not only Pirius who pays the price. In flying into the future and back again, Pirius returned to a time before he’d left, a time inhabited by his younger self, who also receives punishment. Commissary Nilis believes that the elder Pirius, whom he dubs Pirius Blue, may know how to defeat the Xeelee. But Nilis can do nothing for Pirius Blue. Instead, he takes the younger Pirius—Pirius Red—back to Earth. There Pirius Red will discover truths that shatter his preconceived notions of all that he is fighting for, while Pirius Blue will learn even harsher truths. But the most shocking revelation of all is still to come. “Absurdly ambitious, technically brilliant, and downright exciting.”—SFX Magazine “Striking . . . chilling . . . [with] a triumphant conclusion.”—Starburst

Author : Jonathan Balcombe
Publisher : St. Martin's Press
ISBN 13 : 0230552277
Total Pages : 292 pages
Book Rating : 4.72/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Pleasurable Kingdom written by Jonathan Balcombe and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2006-05-02 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The recognition of animal pain and stress, once controversial, is now acknowledged by legislation in many countries, but there is no formal recognition of animals' ability to feel pleasure. Pleasurable Kingdom is the first book for lay-readers to present new evidence that animals--like humans--enjoy themselves. It debunks the popular perception that life for most is a continuous, grim struggle for survival and the avoidance of pain. Instead it suggests that creatures from birds to baboons feel good thanks to play, sex, touch, food, anticipation, comfort, aesthetics, and more. Combining rigorous evidence, elegant argument and amusing anecdotes, leading animal behavior researcher Jonathan Balcombe proposes that the possibility of positive feelings in creatures other than humans has important ethical ramifications for both science and society.

Author : Stephen Baxter
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 1101187573
Total Pages : 450 pages
Book Rating : 4.79/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Ark written by Stephen Baxter and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2010-05-04 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It's the year 2030. The oceans have risen rapidly, and soon the entire planet will be submerged. But the discovery of another life-sustaining planet light years away gives those who remain alive hope. Only a few will be able to make the journey-Holle Groundwater is one of the candidates. If she makes the cut, she will live. If not, she will be left to face a watery death...

Author : Jonathan Balcombe
Publisher : Macmillan
ISBN 13 : 0230613624
Total Pages : 257 pages
Book Rating : 4.21/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Second Nature written by Jonathan Balcombe and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2010-03-16 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jonathan Balcombe, animal behaviorist and author of the critically acclaimed "Pleasurable Kingdom," draws on the latest research, observational studies and personal anecdotes to reveal the full gamut of animal experience--from emotions, to problem solving, to moral judgment, while at the same time challenging the widely held idea that nature is red in tooth and claw and highlighting animal traits we have disregarded until now.

Author : J. Patrick Lewis
Publisher : Charlesbridge
ISBN 13 : 160734453X
Total Pages : 34 pages
Book Rating : 4.37/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Last Laughs written by J. Patrick Lewis and published by Charlesbridge. This book was released on 2012-07-01 with total page 34 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offers morbidly-humorous, pun-filled, illustrated epitaphs for animals that poetically describe how they met their ends.

Author : Jonathan Balcombe
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0525506047
Total Pages : 352 pages
Book Rating : 4.41/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Super Fly written by Jonathan Balcombe and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-05-25 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the National Outdoor Book Award for Natural History and a New York Times Editors Choice Pick "After reading Super Fly, you will never take a fly for granted again. Thank you, Jonathan Balcombe, for reminding us of the infinite marvels of everyday creatures." —Sy Montgomery, Author of How to Be a Good Creature From an expert in animal consciousness, a book that will turn the fly on the wall into the elephant in the room. For most of us, the only thing we know about flies is that they're annoying, and our usual reaction is to try to kill them. In Super Fly, the myth-busting biologist Jonathan Balcombe shows the order Diptera in all of its diversity, illustrating the essential role that flies play in every ecosystem in the world as pollinators, waste-disposers, predators, and food source; and how flies continue to reshape our understanding of evolution. Along the way, he reintroduces us to familiar foes like the fruit fly and mosquito, and gives us the chance to meet their lesser-known cousins like the Petroleum Fly (the only animal in the world that breeds in crude oil) and the Chocolate Midge (the sole pollinator of the Cacao tree). No matter your outlook on our tiny buzzing neighbors, Super Fly will change the way you look at flies forever. Jonathan Balcombe is the author of four books on animal sentience, including the New York Times bestselling What A Fish Knows, which was nominated for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Award for Science Writing. He has worked for years as a researcher and educator with the Humane society to show us the consciousness of other creatures, and here he takes us to the farthest reaches of the animal kingdom.

Author : Dale Peterson
Publisher : Univ of California Press
ISBN 13 : 0520942949
Total Pages : 749 pages
Book Rating : 4.43/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Elephant Reflections written by Dale Peterson and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2023-12-22 with total page 749 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Elephant Reflections brings award-winning wildlife photographer Karl Ammann's gorgeous images together with a revelatory text by writer Dale Peterson to illuminate one of nature's greatest and most original works of art: the elephant. The photographs move from the purely aesthetic to the informative, depicting animals who are at once enigmatic, individual, mysterious, elusive, and iconic. In riveting prose, Peterson introduces the work of field scientists in Africa and explains their recent astonishing discoveries. He then explores the natural history and conservation status of African elephants and discusses the politics of ivory. Elephant Reflections is a book that could change the way the world thinks about elephants while we still have some measure of control over their fate.

Author : Jonathan Balcombe
Publisher : Scientific American / Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN 13 : 0374714339
Total Pages : 304 pages
Book Rating : 4.38/5 ( download)

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Download or read book What a Fish Knows written by Jonathan Balcombe and published by Scientific American / Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2016-06-07 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Bestseller Do fishes think? Do they really have three-second memories? And can they recognize the humans who peer back at them from above the surface of the water? In What a Fish Knows, the myth-busting ethologist Jonathan Balcombe addresses these questions and more, taking us under the sea, through streams and estuaries, and to the other side of the aquarium glass to reveal the surprising capabilities of fishes. Although there are more than thirty thousand species of fish—more than all mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians combined—we rarely consider how individual fishes think, feel, and behave. Balcombe upends our assumptions about fishes, portraying them not as unfeeling, dead-eyed feeding machines but as sentient, aware, social, and even Machiavellian—in other words, much like us. What a Fish Knows draws on the latest science to present a fresh look at these remarkable creatures in all their breathtaking diversity and beauty. Fishes conduct elaborate courtship rituals and develop lifelong bonds with shoalmates. They also plan, hunt cooperatively, use tools, curry favor, deceive one another, and punish wrongdoers. We may imagine that fishes lead simple, fleeting lives—a mode of existence that boils down to a place on the food chain, rote spawning, and lots of aimless swimming. But, as Balcombe demonstrates, the truth is far richer and more complex, worthy of the grandest social novel. Highlighting breakthrough discoveries from fish enthusiasts and scientists around the world and pondering his own encounters with fishes, Balcombe examines the fascinating means by which fishes gain knowledge of the places they inhabit, from shallow tide pools to the deepest reaches of the ocean. Teeming with insights and exciting discoveries, What a Fish Knows offers a thoughtful appraisal of our relationships with fishes and inspires us to take a more enlightened view of the planet’s increasingly imperiled marine life. What a Fish Knows will forever change how we see our aquatic cousins—the pet goldfish included.

Author : Jules Evens
Publisher : Univ of California Press
ISBN 13 : 0520242548
Total Pages : 395 pages
Book Rating : 4.48/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Introduction to California Birdlife written by Jules Evens and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2005-04-07 with total page 395 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An introduction to the behavior and natural history of California's birds, organized by their habitats.