September 2018 by L. Berube
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Buzz: The Nature and Necessity of Bees
by Thor Hanson
From honeybees and bumbles to lesser-known diggers, miners, leafcutters, and masons, bees have long been central to our harvests, our mythologies, and our very existence. They've given us sweetness and light, the beauty of flowers, and as much as a third of the foodstuffs we eat. And, alarmingly, they are at risk of disappearing. As informative and enchanting as the waggle dance of a honeybee, Buzz shows us why all bees are wonders to celebrate and protect. Read this book and you'll never overlook them again.
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Chasing the Demon: Chuck Yeager and the Band of American Aces Who Conquered the Sound Barrier
by Dan Hampton
Dan Hampton reveals in-depth the numerous potential hazards that emerged with the Air Force's test flights: controls broke down, engines flamed out, wings snapped, and planes and pilots disintegrated as they crashed into the desert floor. He also introduces the men who pushed the envelope taking the cockpits of these jets, including World War II ace Major Dick Bong and twenty-four-year-old Captain Chuck Yeager, who made history flying the Bell X-1 plane faster than the speed of sound on October 14, 1947.
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Chesapeake Requiem: A Year With the Watermen of Vanishing Tangier Island
by Earl Swift
A brilliant, soulful, and timely portrait of a two-hundred-year-old crabbing community in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay as it faces extinction from rising sea levels—part natural history of an extraordinary ecosystem, starring the beloved blue crab; part paean to a vanishing way of life; and part meditation on man's relationship with the environment—from the acclaimed author, who reported this story for more than two years. Tangier Island, Virginia, is a community unique on the American landscape.
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Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter
by Ben Goldfarb
Eager is a powerful story about one of the world’s most influential species, how North America was colonized, how our landscapes have changed over the centuries, and how beavers can help us fight drought, flooding, wildfire, extinction, and the ravages of climate change. Ultimately, it’s about how we can learn to coexist, harmoniously and even beneficially, with our fellow travelers on this planet.
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The Poisoned City: Flint's Water and the American Urban Tragedy
by Anna Clark
Recounts the gripping story of Flint's poisoned water through the people who caused it, suffered from it, and exposed it. It is a chronicle of one town, but could also be about any American city, all made precarious by the neglect of infrastructure.
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The Promise of the Grand Canyon: John Wesley Powell's Perilous Journey and His Vision for the American West
by John F. Ross
When John Wesley Powell became the first person to navigate the entire Colorado River, through the Grand Canyon, he completed what Lewis and Clark had begun nearly 70 years earlier--the final exploration of continental America. The son of an abolitionist preacher, a Civil War hero (who lost an arm at Shiloh), and a passionate naturalist and geologist, in 1869 Powell tackled the vast and dangerous gorge carved by the Colorado River and known today (thanks to Powell) as the Grand Canyon.
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Ruthless Tide: The Tragic Epic of the Johnstown Flood
by Al Roker
Presents a narrative history of the 1889 Johnstown Flood to chronicle key events, the damage that rendered the flood one of America's worst disasters, and the pivotal contributions of key figures, from dam engineer John Parke to American Red Cross founder Clara Barton.
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The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life
by David Quammen
In the mid-1970s, scientists began using DNA sequences to reexamine the history of all life. Perhaps the most startling discovery to come out of this new field—the study of life's diversity and relatedness at the molecular level—is horizontal gene transfer (HGT), or the movement of genes across species lines. It turns out that HGT has been widespread and important. For instance, we now know that roughly eight percent of the human genome arrived not through traditional inheritance from directly ancestral forms, but sideways by viral infection—a type of HGT.
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The Gene: An Intimate History
by Siddhartha Mukherjee
Presents a history of gene science that examines current debates about gene resequencing, tracing the author's family experiences with mental illness and the contributions of key scientists and philosophers. A #1 New York Times best-seller. A New York Times Notable Book. One of the Washington Post's Ten Best Books of 2016.
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Herding Hemingway's Cats: Understanding How Our Genes Work
by Kat Arney
This title offers a clear look at the current state of scientific understanding about how genes work, covering recent discoveries that show that genes are not the fixed, deterministic blueprints that they were previously thought to be.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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