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NEW @ the Library: Books & eBooks

Astronomy

Astronomy

Biology

Ecology (new)

Canopy of Titans : the life and times of the great North American Temperate Rainforest Creator Koberstein, Paul, author.

Drawing on years of on-the-ground reporting, Koberstein and Applegate pull back the curtain on policies of governmental bodies that have seriously diminished the rainforest's capacity to store carbon, and uncover industry practices that have led to the destruction of swaths of a major ecological resource. 

Environments of Empire: networks and agents of ecological change

The age of European high imperialism was characterized by the movement of plants and animals on a historically unprecedented scale. The human migrants who colonized territories around the world brought a variety of other species with them, from the crops and livestock they hoped to propagate, to the parasites, invasive plants, and pests they carried unawares, producing a host of unintended consequences that reshaped landscapes around the world. 

Elemental: how five elements changed Earth's past and will shape our future

An ecologist explores how life itself shapes Earth using the elemental constituents we all share It is rare for life to change Earth, yet three organisms have profoundly transformed our planet over the long course of its history. Elemental reveals how microbes, plants, and people used the fundamental building blocks of life to alter the climate, and with it, the trajectory of life on Earth in the past, present, and future. 

The Ghost Forest: racists, radicals, and real estate in the California redwoods

The definitive story of the California redwoods, their discovery and their exploitation, as told by an activist who fought to protect their existence against those determined to cut them down. 

Cracked : The Future of Dams in a Hot, Chaotic World

The ugly truth about dams is about to be revealed.  During the first two decades of the twenty-first century, the whole messy truth about the legacy of last century's big dam building binge has come to light. What started out as an arguably good government project has drifted oceans away from that original virtuous intent. 

Mathematics

Oceanography

The Blue Machine: how the ocean works

 In The Blue Machine, physicist and oceanographer Helen Czerski illustrates the mechanisms behind this defining feature of our planet, voyaging from the depths of the ocean floor to tropical coral reefs, estuaries that feed into shallow coastal seas, and Arctic ice floes. Through stories of history, culture, and animals, she explains how water temperature, salinity, gravity, and the movement of Earth's tectonic plates all interact in a complex dance, supporting life at the smallest scale--plankton--and the largest--giant sea turtles, whales, humankind. 

Physics

In a Flight of Starlings: the wonders of complex systems

With In a Flight of Starlings, celebrated physicist Giorgio Parisi guides us through his unorthodox yet exhilarating work, starting with investigating the principles of physics by observing the flight of flocks of birds. Studying the movements of these communities, he has realized, proves an illuminating way into understanding complex systems of all kinds-collections of everything from atoms and planets to other animals, such as ourselves. 

Scientists

Writing for Their Lives : America's pioneering female science journalists

A breathtaking history of America's trail-blazing female science journalists-and the timely lessons they can teach us about equity, access, collaboration, and persistence. Writing for Their Livestells the stories of women who pioneered the nascent profession of science journalism from the 1920s through the 1950s. 

Uncharted : how scientists navigate their own health, research, and experiences of bias

People with disabilities are underrepresented in STEM fields, and all too often, they face isolation and ableism in academia. Uncharted is a collection of powerful first-person stories by current and former scientists with disabilities or chronic conditions who have faced changes in their careers, including both successes and challenges, because of their health. It gives voice to common experiences that are frequently overlooked or left unspoken. 

Zoology

Animal City : the domestication of America

Why do America's cities look the way they do? If we want to know the answer, we should start by looking at our relationship with animals. Americans once lived alongside animals. They raised them, worked them, ate them, and lived off their products. This was true not just in rural areas but also in cities, which were crowded with livestock and beasts of burden. But as urban areas grew in the nineteenth century, these relationships changed. Slaughterhouses, dairies, and hog ranches receded into suburbs and hinterlands. 

Zoo World : essays

 In Zoo World, Mary Quade examines our propensity for damage, our relationships with other species, our troubling belief in our own dominion, and the reality that when you put something in a cage, it becomes your responsibility. Her subjects are as eclectic as mallard ducks, ancient churches, monarch butterflies, classrooms, tourism, street markets, zoos, and dairy cows and as global as migration, war, language, and climate change.