How does a slug use its slime to travel from place to place? Why does a slug’s sticky slime help keep it safe from hungry birds and toads? And why is it so tricky to wash a slug’s gooey slime from your fingers? In this brand-new title, learn the answers to these questions and more—and prepare to get slimed! This new Science Slam! title will introduce readers to the slippery, slimy world of slugs! The book is expertly crafted to meet early elementary and science curriculum standards, as well as introduce children to bizarre and interesting facts. Innovative, grade-appropriate activities and experiments, critical-thinking questions, and fascinating fact boxes will hold readers’ interests with a viselike grip. And, best of all, the activities are gooey and fun!
How does a hagfish use clouds of milky slime to stay safe from fierce predators? And is it true that this eel-like fish can produce up to five gallons of slime when under attack? In this brand-new title, learn the answers to these questions and more—and prepare to get slimed! This new Science Slam! title will introduce readers to the slimy and disgusting world of hagfish. The book is expertly crafted to meet early elementary and science curriculum standards, as well as introduce children to bizarre and interesting facts. Innovative, grade-appropriate activities and experiments, critical-thinking questions, and fascinating fact boxes will hold readers’ interests with a viselike grip. And, best of all, the activities are gooey and fun!
Why does a colorful parrotfish spend the night in a bubble of slime? And how does the fish produce its slimy sleeping bag? In this brand-new title, learn the answers to these questions and more—and prepare to get slimed! This new Science Slam! title will introduce readers to the fascinating, slimy world of parrotfish. The book is expertly crafted to meet early elementary and science curriculum standards, as well as introduce children to bizarre and interesting facts. Innovative, grade-appropriate activities and experiments, critical-thinking questions, and fascinating fact boxes will hold readers’ interests with a viselike grip. And, best of all, the activities are gooey and fun!
New age travelers are an alternative lifestyle movement that has influenced many young people in Britain. Drawing on first-hand research, this book describes the emergence and character of the travelers' way of life over the past twenty years. It also considers the identity they have created for themselves in relation to ideas of ethnicity and class and notions of Englishness.
How does a poison dart frog release its deadly, toxic mucus when a predator attacks? And which underwater slime producer shoots sticky, poisonous, spaghetti-like threads from its butt to repel its enemies? In this brand-new title, learn the answers to these questions and more—and prepare to get slimed! This new Science Slam! title will introduce readers to some of the world’s most toxic slimers. The book is expertly crafted to meet early elementary and science curriculum standards, as well as introduce children to bizarre and interesting facts. Innovative, grade-appropriate activities and experiments, critical-thinking questions, and fascinating fact boxes will hold readers’ interests with a viselike grip. And, best of all, the activities are gooey and fun!
Animal, plant, fungus—just what kind of living thing is a slime mold? How do these slimy blobs move from place to place? And how do slime molds help clean up rotting leaves and other dead stuff in backyards and forests? In this brand-new title, learn the answers to these questions and more—and prepare to get slimed! This new Science Slam! title will introduce readers to the secret, oozy world of slime molds. The book is expertly crafted to meet early elementary and science curriculum standards, as well as introduce children to bizarre and interesting facts. Innovative, grade-appropriate activities and experiments, critical-thinking questions, and fascinating fact boxes will hold readers’ interests with a viselike grip. And, best of all, the activities are gooey and fun!
"No organisms are more important to life as we know it than algae. In Slime, Ruth Kassinger gives this under-appreciated group its due." --Elizabeth Kolbert Say "algae" and most people think of pond scum. What they don't know is that without algae, none of us would exist. There are as many algae on Earth as stars in the universe, and they have been essential to life on our planet for eons. Algae created the Earth we know today, with its oxygen-rich atmosphere, abundant oceans, and coral reefs. Crude oil is made of dead algae, and algae are the ancestors of all plants. Today, seaweed production is a multi-billion dollar industry, with algae hard at work to make your sushi, chocolate milk, beer, paint, toothpaste, shampoo and so much more. In Slime we'll meet the algae innovators working toward a sustainable future: from seaweed farmers in South Korea, to scientists using it to clean the dead zones in our waterways, to the entrepreneurs fighting to bring algae fuel and plastics to market. With a multitude of lively, surprising science and history, Ruth Kassinger takes readers on an around-the-world, behind-the-scenes, and into-the-kitchen tour. Whether you thought algae was just the gunk in your fish tank or you eat seaweed with your oatmeal, Slime will delight and amaze with its stories of the good, the bad, and the up-and-coming.
Jean-Baptiste Tavernier (1605-89) was one of the most renowned travelers of 17th century Europe. The son of a French Protestant who had fled Antwerp to escape religious persecution, Tavernier was a jewel merchant who between 1632 and 1668 made six voyages to the East. The countries he visited (most more than once) included present-day Cyprus, Malta, Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, and Indonesia. In 1676 he published his two-volume Les six voyages de Jean Baptiste Tavernier (The six voyages of Jean Baptiste Tavernier). An abridged and very imperfect English translation of the book appeared in 1677. The first modern scholarly edition in English, presented here, was published in 1889, with translation, notes, and a biographical sketch of Tavernier by Dr. Valentine Ball (1843-95), a British civil servant with the Indian Geological Service. Among the most memorable chapters in the book are those that recount Tavernier's visits to the diamond mines of India and his inspection of the jewels of the Great Mogul. Tavernier was not a scholar or an educated linguist, and after his initial popularity in the 17th century his authority waned, as historians and others questioned the accuracy of his observations. In the 20th century, however, Tavernier's reputation rose, as such important historians as Lucien Febvre and Fernand Braudel used the detailed information he recorded about the prices and qualities of goods and about business and commercial practices in their pioneering studies of economic and social history. The book contains several appendices by Ball about famous diamonds (including the historic Koh-i-Noor Diamond now belonging to the British royal family), diamond mines in India and Borneo, ruby mines in Burma, and sapphire washings in Ceylon (Sri Lanka). A fold-out map shows Tavernier's voyages in India and the mines he visited.
With cheaper publishing costs and the explosion of periodical publishing, the influence of New World travel narratives was greater during the nineteenth century than ever before, as they offered an understanding not only of America through British eyes, but also a lens though which nineteenth-century Britain could view itself. Despite the differences in purpose and method, the writers and artists discussed in Nineteenth-Century British Travelers in the New World-from Fanny Wright arriving in America in 1818 to the return of Henry James in 1904, and including Charles Dickens, Frances Trollope, Isabella Bird, Fanny Kemble, Harriet Martineau, and Robert Louis Stevenson among others, as well as artists such as Eyre Crowe-all contributed to the continued building of America as a construct for audiences at home. These travelers' stories and images thus presented an idea of America over which Britons could crow about their own supposed sophistication, and a democratic model through which to posit their own future, all of which suggests the importance of transatlantic travel writing and the ’idea of America’ to nineteenth-century Britain.
