Underbug
Underbug

Author: Lisa Margonelli

Publisher: Scientific American / Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Published: 2018-08-21

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 0374712387

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The award-winning journalist Lisa Margonelli, national bestselling author of Oil on the Brain: Petroleum’s Long, Strange Trip to Your Tank, investigates the environmental and economic impact termites inflict on human societies in this fascinating examination of one of nature’s most misunderstood insects. Are we more like termites than we ever imagined? In Underbug, the award-winning journalist Lisa Margonelli introduces us to the enigmatic creatures that collectively outweigh human beings ten to one and consume $40 billion worth of valuable stuff annually—and yet, in Margonelli’s telling, seem weirdly familiar. Over the course of a decade-long obsession with the little bugs, Margonelli pokes around termite mounds and high-tech research facilities, closely watching biologists, roboticists, and geneticists. Her globe-trotting journey veers into uncharted territory, from evolutionary theory to Edwardian science literature to the military industrial complex. What begins as a natural history of the termite becomes a personal exploration of the unnatural future we’re building, with darker observations on power, technology, historical trauma, and the limits of human cognition. Whether in Namibia or Cambridge, Arizona or Australia, Margonelli turns up astounding facts and raises provocative questions. Is a termite an individual or a unit of a superorganism? Can we harness the termite’s properties to change the world? If we build termite-like swarming robots, will they inevitably destroy us? Is it possible to think without having a mind? Underbug burrows into these questions and many others—unearthing disquieting answers about the world’s most underrated insect and what it means to be human.

Oil on the Brain
Oil on the Brain

Author: Lisa Margonelli

Publisher: Nan A. Talese

Published: 2007-01-30

Total Pages: 338

ISBN-13: 0385520050

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Oil on the Brain is a smart, surprisingly funny account of the oil industry—the people, economies, and pipelines that bring us petroleum, brilliantly illuminating a world we encounter every day. Americans buy ten thousand gallons of gasoline a second, without giving it much of a thought. Where does all this gas come from? Lisa Margonelli’s desire to learn took her on a one-hundred thousand mile journey from her local gas station to oil fields half a world away. In search of the truth behind the myths, she wriggled her way into some of the most off-limits places on earth: the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the New York Mercantile Exchange’s crude oil market, oil fields from Venezuela, to Texas, to Chad, and even an Iranian oil platform where the United States fought a forgotten one-day battle. In a story by turns surreal and alarming, Margonelli meets lonely workers on a Texas drilling rig, an oil analyst who almost gave birth on the NYMEX trading floor, Chadian villagers who are said to wander the oil fields in the guise of lions, a Nigerian warlord who changed the world price of oil with a single cell phone call, and Shanghai bureaucrats who dream of creating a new Detroit. Deftly piecing together the mammoth economy of oil, Margonelli finds a series of stark warning signs for American drivers.

Animal Architecture
Animal Architecture

Author: Paul Dobraszczyk

Publisher: Reaktion Books

Published: 2023-05-17

Total Pages: 269

ISBN-13: 1789147247

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A provocative call for architects to remember and embrace the nonhuman lives that share our spaces. A spider spinning its web in a dark corner. Wasps building a nest under a roof. There’s hardly any part of the built environment that can’t be inhabited by nonhumans, and yet we are extremely selective about which animals we keep in or out. This book imagines new ways of thinking about architecture and the more-than-human and asks how we might design with animals and the other lives that share our spaces in mind. Animal Architecture is a provocative exploration of how to think about building in a world where humans and other animals are already entangled, whether we acknowledge it or not.

Never Home Alone
Never Home Alone

Author: Rob Dunn

Publisher: Basic Books

Published: 2018-11-06

Total Pages: 380

ISBN-13: 154164574X

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A natural history of the wilderness in our homes, from the microbes in our showers to the crickets in our basements Even when the floors are sparkling clean and the house seems silent, our domestic domain is wild beyond imagination. In Never Home Alone, biologist Rob Dunn introduces us to the nearly 200,000 species living with us in our own homes, from the Egyptian meal moths in our cupboards and camel crickets in our basements to the lactobacillus lounging on our kitchen counters. You are not alone. Yet, as we obsess over sterilizing our homes and separating our spaces from nature, we are unwittingly cultivating an entirely new playground for evolution. These changes are reshaping the organisms that live with us -- prompting some to become more dangerous, while undermining those species that benefit our bodies or help us keep more threatening organisms at bay. No one who reads this engrossing, revelatory book will look at their homes in the same way again.

The Mosquito
The Mosquito

Author: Timothy C. Winegard

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2019-08-06

Total Pages: 639

ISBN-13: 1524743437

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**The instant New York Times bestseller.** *An international bestseller.* Finalist for the Lane Anderson Award Finalist for the RBC Taylor Award “Hugely impressive, a major work.”—NPR A pioneering and groundbreaking work of narrative nonfiction that offers a dramatic new perspective on the history of humankind, showing how through millennia, the mosquito has been the single most powerful force in determining humanity’s fate Why was gin and tonic the cocktail of choice for British colonists in India and Africa? What does Starbucks have to thank for its global domination? What has protected the lives of popes for millennia? Why did Scotland surrender its sovereignty to England? What was George Washington's secret weapon during the American Revolution? The answer to all these questions, and many more, is the mosquito. Across our planet since the dawn of humankind, this nefarious pest, roughly the size and weight of a grape seed, has been at the frontlines of history as the grim reaper, the harvester of human populations, and the ultimate agent of historical change. As the mosquito transformed the landscapes of civilization, humans were unwittingly required to respond to its piercing impact and universal projection of power. The mosquito has determined the fates of empires and nations, razed and crippled economies, and decided the outcome of pivotal wars, killing nearly half of humanity along the way. She (only females bite) has dispatched an estimated 52 billion people from a total of 108 billion throughout our relatively brief existence. As the greatest purveyor of extermination we have ever known, she has played a greater role in shaping our human story than any other living thing with which we share our global village. Imagine for a moment a world without deadly mosquitoes, or any mosquitoes, for that matter? Our history and the world we know, or think we know, would be completely unrecognizable. Driven by surprising insights and fast-paced storytelling, The Mosquito is the extraordinary untold story of the mosquito’s reign through human history and her indelible impact on our modern world order.

How to Walk on Water and Climb up Walls
How to Walk on Water and Climb up Walls

Author: David Hu

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2020-03-03

Total Pages: 242

ISBN-13: 0691204160

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"Insects walk on water, snakes slither, and fish swim. Animals move with astounding grace, speed, and versatility: how do they do it, and what can we learn from them? In How to Walk on Water and Climb up Walls, David Hu takes readers on an accessible, wondrous journey into the world of animal motion. From basement labs at MIT to the rain forests of Panama, Hu shows how animals have adapted and evolved to traverse their environments, taking advantage of physical laws with results that are startling and ingenious. In turn, the latest discoveries about animal mechanics are inspiring scientists to invent robots and devices that move with similar elegance and efficiency. Hu follows scientists as they investigate a multitude of animal movements, from the undulations of sandfish and the way that dogs shake off water in fractions of a second to the seemingly crash-resistant characteristics of insect flight. Not limiting his exploration to individual organisms, Hu describes the ways animals enact swarm intelligence, such as when army ants cooperate and link their bodies to create bridges that span ravines. He also looks at what scientists learn from nature's unexpected feats--such as snakes that fly, mosquitoes that survive rainstorms, and dead fish that swim upstream. As researchers better understand such issues as energy, flexibility, and water repellency in animal movement, they are applying this knowledge to the development of cutting-edge technology. Integrating biology, engineering, physics, and robotics, [this book] demystifies the remarkable mechanics behind animal locomotion"--Page 4 of cover.

Insecta
Insecta

Author: Charles Nesbit

Publisher: TeNeues

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9783961710003

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"Insecta presents a spectacular array of super high-resolution, 'hyper-real' color photographs of bugs and insects, magnified by 500% or more. As a graphic and educational counterpart, the insect name is translated into five main languages (German, Italian, English, French, and Spanish) and paired with each sculptural, jewel-like close-up image of the bug in this visually-arresting, large-format photography book."--

Mind vs. Matter
Mind vs. Matter

Author: Konrad Koenigsmann

Publisher: Outskirts Press

Published: 2016-03-30

Total Pages: 213

ISBN-13: 1478765984

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The year is 2067. World War III has come and gone, and the world has been carved into empires. Its people are oppressed and suffering more than ever before. When a mysterious man named Karl von Liebnitz, the leader of a shadowy organization known as Tyrannei, makes plans to take over the planet, there is nothing the empires can do to stop him...until, that is, a new force emerges. Will Hartford and his son, Pierre, have unparalleled mental capabilities, and soon Karl, Will, and Pierre begin to use their mental prowess to battle for control of the world. But as the two sides move closer to their final clash, questions begin to arise. What if the two factions cannot save the world from themselves? What if there is no scenario where the destruction of the world does not happen? Mind vs. Matter is a gripping and thought-provoking novel by an up-and-coming new voice in fiction.

What Is a Human?
What Is a Human?

Author: James Paul Gee

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2020-09-17

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 3030503828

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In a sweeping synthesis of new research in a number of different disciplines, this book argues that we humans are not who we think we are. As he explores the interconnections between cutting-edge work in bioanthropology, evolutionary biology, neuroscience, human language and learning, and beyond, James Paul Gee advances, also, a personal philosophy of language, learning, and culture, informed by his decades of work across linguistics and the social sciences. Gee argues that our schools, institutions, legal systems, and societies are designed for creatures that do not exist, thus resulting in multiple, interacting crises, such as climate change, failing institutions, and the rise of nationalist nationalism. As Gee constructs an understanding of the human that takes into account our social, collective, and historical nature, as established by recent research, he inspires readers to reflect for themselves on the very question of who we are—a key consideration for anyone interested in society, government, schools, health, activism, culture and diversity, or even just survival.

Art at the Speed of Life
Art at the Speed of Life

Author: Pam Carriker

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2013-06-15

Total Pages: 144

ISBN-13: 1620333775

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Need high-energy inspiration when your life gets crazy and your art keeps getting pushed to the back burner? Offering terrific mixed-media art projects, as well as tips for getting organized and inspired, Art at the Speed of Life is a treasure chest of ideas for the artist whose creative goals sometimes get stymied by the frantic pace of modern life. Author and mixed-media artist Pam Carriker proves that art and life can coexist peacefully, productively, and happily. Making things every day can be a joyful reality instead of just wishful thinking. Each chapter in Art at the Speed of Life includes both essays and project ideas from a variety of contributors, including Suzi Blu, Lisa Bebi, Christy Hydeck, Paulette Insall, Cate Calacous Prato. The projects are inspiring, yet easy to complete on a tight schedule, and include techniques such as assemblage, image transfer, and collage. A bonus seven-day journal project helps you track your work as you go. With a unique combination of time management tips and advice, inspiring essays, and projects designed to fit into busy schedules, Art at the Speed of Life will help you live your dream of making art every day.