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Author: Peter D. Ward
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1461219469
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 258
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Book Description
To help us understand what happened during the Ice Age, Peter Ward takes us on a tour of other mass extinctions through earth's history. He presents a compelling account of the great comet crash that killed off the dinosaurs, and describes other extinctions that were even more extensive. In so doing, he introduces us to a profound paradigm shift now taking place in paleontology: rather than arising from the gradual workings of everyday forces, all mass extinctions are due to unique, catastrophic events. Written with an irresistible combination of passion and expertise, The Call of Distant Mammoths is an engaging exploration of the history of life and the importance of humanity as an evolutionary force. "Carefully argued...an intelligent and compelling book."-THE OLYMPIAN, SEATTLE, WASHINGTON "Ward deftly summarizes a large body of scientific literature, simplifying complex ideas for the general reader without condescension."-PUBLISHERS WEEKLY "Did the overkill really happen?...Peter Ward deftly summarizes the arguments...Ward tells (the story) well."-THE NEW SCIENTIST
Author: Peter D. Ward
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1461219469
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 258
Get Book Here
Book Description
To help us understand what happened during the Ice Age, Peter Ward takes us on a tour of other mass extinctions through earth's history. He presents a compelling account of the great comet crash that killed off the dinosaurs, and describes other extinctions that were even more extensive. In so doing, he introduces us to a profound paradigm shift now taking place in paleontology: rather than arising from the gradual workings of everyday forces, all mass extinctions are due to unique, catastrophic events. Written with an irresistible combination of passion and expertise, The Call of Distant Mammoths is an engaging exploration of the history of life and the importance of humanity as an evolutionary force. "Carefully argued...an intelligent and compelling book."-THE OLYMPIAN, SEATTLE, WASHINGTON "Ward deftly summarizes a large body of scientific literature, simplifying complex ideas for the general reader without condescension."-PUBLISHERS WEEKLY "Did the overkill really happen?...Peter Ward deftly summarizes the arguments...Ward tells (the story) well."-THE NEW SCIENTIST
Author: Peter D. Ward
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1461216729
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 402
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Book Description
What is the past? It is a time as well as a place. Acclaimed author Peter D. Ward describes the tools that contemporary scientists use to uncover facts about the past - terrain, climate, and the life forms that once inhabited this planet. Time Machines presents fascinating profiles of the deep past and the scientists who are making it come alive. "...for the general reader, Time Machines may be the most interesting book yet by the University of Washington prof..." -SEATTLE WEEKLY "For anyone interested in how and why as well as the what of paleontology, Time Machines is a must read."-AMERICAN SCIENTIST
Author: Kenneth H. Olson
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1621891216
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 470
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Book Description
This book straddles the fertile middle ground between science and religion at a time when the conversation is dominated by extremists on both sides. Taking seriously the modern view of the universe, including the fossil record for the history of life across millions of years, the author considers our relationship to the rest of nature. In addition, the age-old questions concerning meaning, values, and our place within it all are perhaps more pressing than ever before. This work provides a broad engagement with major ideas, including evolution and earth stewardship, while drawing upon a rich heritage of philosophy and literature and doing so in a manner accessible to the general reader.
Author: William C. Burger
Publisher: Prometheus Books
ISBN: 1615925392
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 345
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Book Description
[A] masterful survey. - Times Literary Supplement[A] concise ... extremely well-written journey about this planet''s history.... Highly recommended. - ChoiceIn a feat that may rival time travel, Burger has condensed 4.5 billion years into 294 eminently readable pages as he builds a case for solitude in our Milky Way galaxy. [Burger] writes with the clarity and humor of one who has had experience communicating complicated ideas to the lay public.-Boston GlobeFor many years the federal government funded the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), later popularized by Carl Sagan''s novel Contact and the movie starring Jodie Foster. Though in actuality SETI never did make contact with signals from an alien civilization, the search continues to this day through privately funded endeavors. How likely is it that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe? This is the intriguing question that has prompted William Burger''s illuminating and absorbing exploration of the unusual circumstances surrounding life on earth.Examining the critical episodes in our planet''s early history and the peculiar trajectory of life on our world, Burger shows that the long odyssey of planet Earth may be utterly unique in our galaxy. For example, he describes features of the sun that are far from average. By some estimates, 95 percent of the other stars in the Milky Way galaxy are smaller, and it is unlikely that any of them could supply the energy requirements for a life-sustaining planet such as our own. Earth, as the third planet from the sun, sits within the Goldilocks orbit: it is in the perfect position to receive not too much heat (like Mercury and Venus) and not too little (like more distant planets of the solar system) but just the right amount to foster the development of life.Turning to the evolution of life itself, Burger points out a host of amazing accidents (for example, the extinction of dinosaurs and the proliferation of flowering plants) that make the steps along the way to Homo sapiens seem like very rare events indeed. He also calls attention to the curious fact that the early hominid brain tripled in size over the relatively short time period leading to the appearance of modern human beings. Finally, he notes aspects of humanity''s cultural evolution that seem unlikely to have been duplicated anywhere else.Burger''s enlightening evaluation of evolutionary and cosmic history, full of fascinating details, shows that the human achievement may be unique in our galaxy.More Praise for Perfect Planet, Clever Species:This is by far the best existing treatment of the SETI problem. Based on the most recent findings of science, it analyzes in full detail all the unique factors that would have to be right for success. Particularly fascinating is Burger''s critical study of the ten thousands of unpredictable steps in the evolution of Homo sapiens after the origin of life. A splendid history of mankind. - Ernst Mayr, Harvard UniversityI believe that this brilliant, richly documented and well-written book, on par in historical influence (or importance) with classics such as Rachel Carson''s Silent Spring, Paul Ehrlich''s The Population Bomb, E.O. Wilson''s On Human Nature or Sarah Blaffer''s Mother Nature, will go down as one of the most significant philosophical guides for us to follow as we stumble blindly into the 21st Century. - Hugh H. Iltis, Emeritus Botany Professor, University of Wisconsin-MadisonWith a lively narrative and at a headlong pace, Bill Burger leads us expertly from the origin of our planet through to the evolutionary history of humankind. Along the way, he repeatedly highlights the part played by chance occurrence of favourable conditions. Such contingency means that we can reconstruct our past but not predict our future. But we can address Burger''s central question: ''Are we alone?'' Soberingly, he builds up step-by-step to his conclusion.... The history of evolution on Earth is a compelling story in its own right and one tha
Author: Robert Williams
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136962395
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 517
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Book Description
Professor Bob Williams examines the essential elements that give ecosystems their durability. These key characteristics are: self-regulating cycles of key materials, a plentiful and durable energy source, an ability to adjust to changing circumstances, and the capacity for resiliency in the face of unpredictable disruptions. In separate chapters, each of these natural attributes are applied to our economy and 20 polices are recommended to shift our economy toward each of these objectives. The policies include marketable waste emission permits, a "carbon" tax, split-rate property taxation, environmental assurance bonds, a revamped home mortgage deduction, and an inheritance tax. These policies function to implement the principle of full-cost pricing in order to ensure market incentives that encourage environmentally temperate behaviour and decisions. This book will be of interest to students of Ecology and Economics, at undergraduate and postgraduate level alike, as well as anyone seeking an understanding of key ecological concepts that are critical to fully appreciating the role of natural capital in our economic affairs
Author: Gregory K. Pregill
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1351020048
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 301
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Book Description
West Southwest: Vertebrate Life in Southern California celebrates an amazingly diverse fauna with description, evolutionary background, geographic insight, and ecological detail. Southern California is a vast region of very different habitats – all with an abundance of unique species of plants and animals and all within a day’s drive. Southern California shares an evolutionary history with other areas of the Southwest, but it has its own identity. The book is not a field identification guide. Instead, the book provides the evolutionary history of species groups, details where the individual species occur and their habitat preferences, and how they avoid the perils of predation and human impact. Key Selling Features: Summarizes the evolutionary background and ecology of southern California’s vertebrates: freshwater fish, amphibians, turtles, snakes, lizards, birds and mammals. Reviews the history of southern California’s biotic communities from the coast to the deserts and their association with other areas of the Southwest. Discusses vertebrate design and how it affects performance and lifestyle. Extends and enhances the content of regional field identification guides. Includes 120 maps, figures and color plates.
Author: David D. Perlmutter
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 1466872500
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 442
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Book Description
Visions of War provides a historical survey, an anatomy, an interpretation, and a polemic about the ways human beings have created pictures of battle and conflict from the Stone Age to the Gulf War. From the dawn of time to the present, from the days of mammoth hunting to the era of Scud-busting, pictures of war constitute the most persistent genre of images human beings have created. In fact, human beings are the only creatures who engage in these two activities--organized violence and the making of pictorial images--and the author shows how both art and war emerge from the same source: the hunter's eye. David D. Perlmutter's Visions of War explores and analyzes the thirteen thousand-year legacy of pictures of war from various cultures over the centuries, from the Stone Age cave paintings and monumental sculpture of the ancient Near East to the art of the classical period and the Middle Ages, from pre-contact Mesoamerican imagery to Napoleonic propaganda and totalitarian art and on to the instantaneous images of the Gulf War.
Author: Richard Malloy
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1000218848
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 623
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Book Description
Typical development in the American Southwest often resulted in scraping the desert lands of the ancient living landscape, to be replaced with one that is human-made and dependent on a large consumption of energy and natural resources. This transdisciplinary book explores the natural and built environment of this desert region and introduces development tools for shaping its future in a more sustainable way. It offers valuable insights to help promote ecological balance between nature and the built environment in the American Southwest-and in other ecologically fragile regions around the world.
Author: Richard Fortey
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN: 0307957411
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 483
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Book Description
From one of the world’s leading natural scientists and the acclaimed author of Trilobite!, Life: A Natural History of Four Billion Years of Life on Earth and Dry Storeroom No. 1 comes a fascinating chronicle of life’s history told not through the fossil record but through the stories of organisms that have survived, almost unchanged, throughout time. Evolution, it seems, has not completely obliterated its tracks as more advanced organisms have evolved; the history of life on earth is far older—and odder—than many of us realize. Scattered across the globe, these remarkable plants and animals continue to mark seminal events in geological time. From a moonlit beach in Delaware, where the hardy horseshoe crab shuffles its way to a frenzy of mass mating just as it did 450 million years ago, to the dense rainforests of New Zealand, where the elusive, unprepossessing velvet worm has burrowed deep into rotting timber since before the breakup of the ancient supercontinent, to a stretch of Australian coastline with stromatolite formations that bear witness to the Precambrian dawn, the existence of these survivors offers us a tantalizing glimpse of pivotal points in evolutionary history. These are not “living fossils” but rather a handful of tenacious creatures of days long gone. Written in buoyant, sparkling prose, Horseshoe Crabs and Velvet Worms is a marvelously captivating exploration of the world’s old-timers combining the very best of science writing with an explorer’s sense of adventure and wonder.
Author: Peter D. Ward
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780805075120
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 260
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Book Description
Planet Earth is middle-aged. Science has worked hard to piece together the story of the evolution of our world up to this point, but only recently have we developed the understanding and the tools to describe the entire life cycle of a planet. Ward and Brownlee, a geologist and an astronomer respectively, combine their knowledge of how the critical sustaining systems of our planet evolve through time with their understanding of the life cycles of stars and solar systems, to tell the story of the second half of Earth's life. The process of evolution will essentially reverse itself: life as we know it will subside until only the simplest forms remain. Eventually, they too will disappear. The oceans will evaporate, the atmosphere will degrade, and, as the sun slowly expands, Earth itself will eventually meet a fiery end. --From publisher description.
