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Author : Les Kaufman
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 9780262610896
Total Pages : 264 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (18 download)
Download or read book The Last Extinction written by Les Kaufman and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 1993 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An expanded, updated edition of this classic study on biodiversity and species loss.
Author : Elizabeth Kolbert
Publisher : Henry Holt and Company
ISBN 13 : 0805099794
Total Pages : 336 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (5 download)
Download or read book The Sixth Extinction written by Elizabeth Kolbert and published by Henry Holt and Company. This book was released on 2014-02-11 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW'S 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR A major book about the future of the world, blending intellectual and natural history and field reporting into a powerful account of the mass extinction unfolding before our eyes Over the last half a billion years, there have been five mass extinctions, when the diversity of life on earth suddenly and dramatically contracted. Scientists around the world are currently monitoring the sixth extinction, predicted to be the most devastating extinction event since the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs. This time around, the cataclysm is us. In The Sixth Extinction, two-time winner of the National Magazine Award and New Yorker writer Elizabeth Kolbert draws on the work of scores of researchers in half a dozen disciplines, accompanying many of them into the field: geologists who study deep ocean cores, botanists who follow the tree line as it climbs up the Andes, marine biologists who dive off the Great Barrier Reef. She introduces us to a dozen species, some already gone, others facing extinction, including the Panamian golden frog, staghorn coral, the great auk, and the Sumatran rhino. Through these stories, Kolbert provides a moving account of the disappearances occurring all around us and traces the evolution of extinction as concept, from its first articulation by Georges Cuvier in revolutionary Paris up through the present day. The sixth extinction is likely to be mankind's most lasting legacy; as Kolbert observes, it compels us to rethink the fundamental question of what it means to be human.
Author : Colin Tudge
Publisher : Island Press
ISBN 13 : 9781559631570
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (315 download)
Download or read book Last Animals at the Zoo written by Colin Tudge and published by Island Press. This book was released on 1993-01-01 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Last Animals at the Zoo, Colin Tudge argues that zoos have become an essential part of modern conservation strategy, and that the only real hope for saving many endangered species is through creative use of zoos in combination with restoration of natural habitats. From the genetics of captive breeding to techniques of behavioral enrichment, Tudge examines all aspects of zoo conservation programs and explains how the precarious existence of so many animals can best be protected.
Author : Peter Brannen
Publisher : HarperCollins
ISBN 13 : 0062364820
Total Pages : 305 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (623 download)
Download or read book The Ends of the World written by Peter Brannen and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2017-06-13 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of Vox’s Most Important Books of the Decade New York Times Editors' Choice 2017 Forbes Top 10 Best Environment, Climate, and Conservation Book of 2017 As new groundbreaking research suggests that climate change played a major role in the most extreme catastrophes in the planet's history, award-winning science journalist Peter Brannen takes us on a wild ride through the planet's five mass extinctions and, in the process, offers us a glimpse of our increasingly dangerous future Our world has ended five times: it has been broiled, frozen, poison-gassed, smothered, and pelted by asteroids. In The Ends of the World, Peter Brannen dives into deep time, exploring Earth’s past dead ends, and in the process, offers us a glimpse of our possible future. Many scientists now believe that the climate shifts of the twenty-first century have analogs in these five extinctions. Using the visible clues these devastations have left behind in the fossil record, The Ends of the World takes us inside “scenes of the crime,” from South Africa to the New York Palisades, to tell the story of each extinction. Brannen examines the fossil record—which is rife with creatures like dragonflies the size of sea gulls and guillotine-mouthed fish—and introduces us to the researchers on the front lines who, using the forensic tools of modern science, are piecing together what really happened at the crime scenes of the Earth’s biggest whodunits. Part road trip, part history, and part cautionary tale, The Ends of the World takes us on a tour of the ways that our planet has clawed itself back from the grave, and casts our future in a completely new light.
Author : Errol Fuller
Publisher : A&C Black
ISBN 13 : 1408160013
Total Pages : 257 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (81 download)
Download or read book Lost Animals written by Errol Fuller and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2013-11-21 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Caught on camera prior to their demise, this book reveals the surprisingly rich photographic record of now-extinct animals. A photograph of an animal long-gone evokes a feeling of loss more than a painting ever can. Often tinted sepia or black-and-white, these images were mainly taken in zoos or wildlife parks, and in a handful of cases featured the last known individual of the species. There are some familiar examples, such as Martha, the last Passenger Pigeon, or the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, recently fledged and perching happily on the hat of one of the biologists that had just ringed it. But for every Martha there are a number of less familiar extinct birds and mammals that were caught on camera. The photographic record of extinction is the focus of this remarkable book, written by the world's leading authority on vanished animals, Errol Fuller. Lost Animals features photographs dating from around 1870 to as recently as 2004, the year that saw the demise of the Hawaiian Po'ouli. From a mother Thylacine and her pups to now-extinct birds such as the Heath Hen and Carolina Parakeet, Fuller tells the tale of each animal, why it became extinct, and discusses the circumstances surrounding the photography itself, in a book rich with unique images. The photographs themselves are poignant and compelling. They provide a tangible link to animals that have now vanished forever, in a book that brings the past to life while delivering a warning for the future.
Author : J. David Archibald
Publisher : JHU Press
ISBN 13 : 0801898056
Total Pages : 121 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (18 download)
Download or read book Extinction and Radiation written by J. David Archibald and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2011-03-15 with total page 121 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study identifies the fall of dinosaurs as the factor that allowed mammals to evolve into the dominant tetrapod form. It refutes the single-cause impact theory for dinosaur extinction and demonstrates that multiple factors--massive volcanic eruptions, loss of shallow seas, and extraterrestrial impact--likely led to their demise. While their avian relatives ultimately survived and thrived, terrestrial dinosaurs did not. Taking their place as the dominant land and sea tetrapods were mammals, whose radiation was explosive following nonavian dinosaur extinction. The author argues that because of dinosaurs, Mesozoic mammals changed relatively slowly for 145 million years compared to the prodigious Cenozoic radiation that followed. Finally out from under the shadow of the giant reptiles, Cenozoic mammals evolved into the forms we recognize today in a mere ten million years after dinosaur extinction.
Author : Douglas H. Erwin
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691165653
Total Pages : 314 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (911 download)
Download or read book Extinction written by Douglas H. Erwin and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2015-03-22 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Some 250 million years ago, the earth suffered the greatest biological crisis in its history. Around 95 percent of all living species died out—a global catastrophe far greater than the dinosaurs' demise 185 million years later. How this happened remains a mystery. But there are many competing theories. Some blame huge volcanic eruptions that covered an area as large as the continental United States; others argue for sudden changes in ocean levels and chemistry, including burps of methane gas; and still others cite the impact of an extraterrestrial object, similar to what caused the dinosaurs' extinction. Extinction is a paleontological mystery story. Here, the world's foremost authority on the subject provides a fascinating overview of the evidence for and against a whole host of hypotheses concerning this cataclysmic event that unfolded at the end of the Permian. After setting the scene, Erwin introduces the suite of possible perpetrators and the types of evidence paleontologists seek. He then unveils the actual evidence--moving from China, where much of the best evidence is found; to a look at extinction in the oceans; to the extraordinary fossil animals of the Karoo Desert of South Africa. Erwin reviews the evidence for each of the hypotheses before presenting his own view of what happened. Although full recovery took tens of millions of years, this most massive of mass extinctions was a powerful creative force, setting the stage for the development of the world as we know it today. In a new preface, Douglas Erwin assesses developments in the field since the book's initial publication.
Author : Richard E. Leakey
Publisher : Anchor
ISBN 13 : 0385468091
Total Pages : 290 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (854 download)
Download or read book The Sixth Extinction written by Richard E. Leakey and published by Anchor. This book was released on 1996-10-01 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Richard Leakey, One Of The World's Foremost Experts On Man's Evolutionary Past, Now Turns His Eye To The Future And Doesn't Like What He Sees. To the philosophical the earth is eternal, while the human race -- presumptive keeper of the world's history -- is a mere speck in the rich stream of life. It is known that nothing upon Earth is forever; geography, climate, and plant and animal life are all subject to radical change. On five occasions in the past, catastrophic natural events have caused mass extinctions on Earth. But today humans stand alone, in dubious distinction, among Earth's species: Homo Sapiens possesses the ability to destroy entire species at will, to trigger the sixth extinction in the history of life. In The Sixth Extinction, Richard Leakey and Roger Lewin consider how the grand sprawl of human life is inexorably wreaking havoc around the world. The authors of Origins and Origins Reconsidered, unimpeachable authorities on the human fossil record, turn their attention to the most uncharted anthropological territory of all: the future, and man's role in defining it. According to Leakey and Lewin, man and his surrounding species are end products of history and chance. Now, however, humans have the unique opportunity to recognize their influence on the global ecosystem, and consciously steer the outcome in order to avoid triggering an unimaginable upheaval.
Author : Thom Hartmann
Publisher : Waterfront Digital Press
ISBN 13 : 9781629213644
Total Pages : 60 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (136 download)
Download or read book The Last Hours of Humanity written by Thom Hartmann and published by Waterfront Digital Press. This book was released on 2013-11 with total page 60 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Humanity, as we know it, is on the verge of extinction. There's a common thread to every single mass extinction in our planet's history. It's global warming. From the Permian Mass Extinction 250 million years ago that killed off 95% of all life on Earth to the K/T mass extinction 65 million years ago that killed off the dinosaurs, all were brought about by a sudden warming of the planet. New research shows that once that warming hits a tipping point of 5-6 degrees Celsius, it triggers a cataclysmic melting of sea ice and the release of noxious methane gasses stored deep in the oceans around the world and below the permafrost in the Arctic, which further accelerates the warming of the planet to temperatures unsuitable to life. This book, The Last Hours of Humanity, goes where far too few researchers have been willing to go, which is addressing global warming not as an economic or political problem, but as a geological problem that threatens the survival of every living thing on the planet, including us humans. By bringing together climate scientists, geologists, and cutting edge research too often left out of the global warming debate, the Last Hours of Humanity exposes the dangerous future of planet Earth, and what we humans have to do right now to save our species.
Author : Ursula K. Heise
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022635816X
Total Pages : 299 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (263 download)
Download or read book Imagining Extinction written by Ursula K. Heise and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2016-08-10 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We are currently facing the sixth mass extinction of species in the history of life on Earth, biologists claim—the first one caused by humans. Heise argues that understanding these stories and symbols is indispensable for any effective advocacy on behalf of endangered species. More than that, she shows how biodiversity conservation, even and especially in its scientific and legal dimensions, is shaped by cultural assumptions about what is valuable in nature and what is not.
Author : National Academy of Sciences
Publisher : National Academies Press
ISBN 13 : 0309444225
Total Pages : 433 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (94 download)
Download or read book In the Light of Evolution written by National Academy of Sciences and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2017-01-01 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Biodiversity-the genetic variety of life-is an exuberant product of the evolutionary past, a vast human-supportive resource (aesthetic, intellectual, and material) of the present, and a rich legacy to cherish and preserve for the future. Two urgent challenges, and opportunities, for 21st-century science are to gain deeper insights into the evolutionary processes that foster biotic diversity, and to translate that understanding into workable solutions for the regional and global crises that biodiversity currently faces. A grasp of evolutionary principles and processes is important in other societal arenas as well, such as education, medicine, sociology, and other applied fields including agriculture, pharmacology, and biotechnology. The ramifications of evolutionary thought also extend into learned realms traditionally reserved for philosophy and religion. The central goal of the In the Light of Evolution (ILE) series is to promote the evolutionary sciences through state-of-the-art colloquia-in the series of Arthur M. Sackler colloquia sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences-and their published proceedings. Each installment explores evolutionary perspectives on a particular biological topic that is scientifically intriguing but also has special relevance to contemporary societal issues or challenges. This tenth and final edition of the In the Light of Evolution series focuses on recent developments in phylogeographic research and their relevance to past accomplishments and future research directions.
Author : Ashley Dawson
Publisher : OR Books
ISBN 13 : 1682190412
Total Pages : 114 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (821 download)
Download or read book Extinction written by Ashley Dawson and published by OR Books. This book was released on 2016-08-01 with total page 114 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Some thousands of years ago, the world was home to an immense variety of large mammals. From wooly mammoths and saber-toothed tigers to giant ground sloths and armadillos the size of automobiles, these spectacular creatures roamed freely. Then human beings arrived. Devouring their way down the food chain as they spread across the planet, they began a process of voracious extinction that has continued to the present. Headlines today are made by the existential threat confronting remaining large animals such as rhinos and pandas. But the devastation summoned by humans extends to humbler realms of creatures including beetles, bats and butterflies. Researchers generally agree that the current extinction rate is nothing short of catastrophic. Currently the earth is losing about a hundred species every day. This relentless extinction, Ashley Dawson contends in a primer that combines vast scope with elegant precision, is the product of a global attack on the commons, the great trove of air, water, plants and creatures, as well as collectively created cultural forms such as language, that have been regarded traditionally as the inheritance of humanity as a whole. This attack has its genesis in the need for capital to expand relentlessly into all spheres of life. Extinction, Dawson argues, cannot be understood in isolation from a critique of our economic system. To achieve this we need to transgress the boundaries between science, environmentalism and radical politics. Extinction: A Radical History performs this task with both brio and brilliance.
Author : Anthony D. Barnosky
Publisher : Univ of California Press
ISBN 13 : 0520274377
Total Pages : 254 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (22 download)
Download or read book Dodging Extinction written by Anthony D. Barnosky and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2014-10-01 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Paleobiologist Anthony D. Barnosky weaves together evidence from the deep past and the present to alert us to the looming Sixth Mass Extinction and to offer a practical, hopeful plan for avoiding it. Writing from the front lines of extinction research, Barnosky tells the overarching story of geologic and evolutionary history and how it informs the way humans inhabit, exploit, and impact Earth today. He presents compelling evidence that unless we rethink how we generate the power we use to run our global ecosystem, where we get our food, and how we make our money, we will trigger what would be the sixth great extinction on Earth, with dire consequences. Optimistic that we can change this ominous forecast if we act now, Barnosky provides clear-cut strategies to guide the planet away from global catastrophe. In many instances the necessary technology and know-how already exist and are being applied to crucial issues around human-caused climate change, feeding the worldÕs growing population, and exploiting natural resources. Deeply informed yet accessibly written, Dodging Extinction is nothing short of a guidebook for saving the planet.
Author : James Rollins
Publisher : Hachette UK
ISBN 13 : 1409113957
Total Pages : 434 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (91 download)
Download or read book The Sixth Extinction written by James Rollins and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2014-08-28 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author returns with a gripping, high-concept adventure thriller in the Sigma Force series - for fans of Dan Brown and Michael Crichton. A remote military research station in Utah sends out a frantic distress call, ending with a chilling final command: Kill us all! By the time help arrives every living thing for fifty miles has been annihilated. And blight is spreading. To halt the inevitable, Commander Gray Pierce and Sigma must unravel a threat that rises out of the distant past, to a time when Antarctica was green and life on Earth balanced on a knife edge. Following clues from an ancient map rescued from the lost Library of Alexandria, Sigma will discover the truth about an ancient continent, about a new form of death buried under miles of ice, and the coming extinction of mankind.
Author : Matteo Bacchin
Publisher : Dinosaurs (Abbeville Kids)
ISBN 13 : 9780789210142
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (11 download)
Download or read book T. Rex and the Great Extinction written by Matteo Bacchin and published by Dinosaurs (Abbeville Kids). This book was released on 2010 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contains a story about a Tyrannosaurus rex searching for food in the last days before extinction, and provides information about dinosaur evolution and the Cretaceous period.
Author : Robert Paddle
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780521531542
Total Pages : 284 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (315 download)
Download or read book The Last Tasmanian Tiger written by Robert Paddle and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2002-09-04 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This insightful examination of the history and extinction of one of Australia's most enduring folkloric beasts--the thylacine, (or Tasmanian tiger)-- challenges conventional theories. It argues that rural politicians, ineffective political action by scientists, and a deeper intellectual prejudice about the inferiority of marsupials actually resulted in the extinction of this once proud species. Hb ISBN (2000):0-521-78219-8
Author : Charles Officer
Publisher : Addison Wesley Publishing Company
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 232 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (318 download)
Download or read book The Great Dinosaur Extinction Controversy written by Charles Officer and published by Addison Wesley Publishing Company. This book was released on 1996-06-30 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1980 Nobel Laureate Luis Alvarez announced his theory of the dinosaurs final demise: a gigantic meteorite crashed into the earth and raised a cloud of dust that caused darkness for years, suppressing photosynthesis, which impeded plant growth, and eventually starved the dinosaurs. This idea exploded into common awareness with almost unprecedented speed, and was instantly embraced by the media and the public. Almost without question, it quickly became the hottest scientific "fact". Unfortunately for Alvarez, many in the scientific community did to support this theory, and in fact later research showed the impossibility of such an idea. The Great Dinosaur Extinction Controversy chronicles the fantastic story of how this hypothesis became so widespread, the way it became "common knowledge" - from the pages of Science to The New York Times to Parade Magazine, the controversy it caused, and the ample scientific research that proves the theory wrong. Officer and Page also present an attractive and carefully investigated alternative explanation for the mass extinctions that occurred at the end of the Cretaceous period. Through this account they show the ways that sound science should be performed and the findings transmitted.
