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  Succulents - A Field Guide

  Dr. Kit Carlson

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  A comprehensive audio guide to succulents—a must-have for any houseplant enthusiast. 
  Succulents is a field guide to 50 varieties of succulents. In this book, you will find profiles detailing each plant’s natural habitat, identifying characteristics, care and keeping tips, common pests and diseases, purchasing notes, and more. Whether you want a crash course on succulents or are interested in interior design and potted arrangements, this is the perfect reading companion. 
  Inside you’ll find:White Mexican Rose (Echeveria elegans)Elephant Bush (Portulacaria afra)Spiral Aloe (Aloe polyphylla)Baby Rubber Plant (Peperomia obtusifolia)Burro’s Tail (Sedum morganianum) 
    
  And many, many more! Succulents is an engrossing overview of these diverse species. Use this book as a guide to plant care and learn which houseplants are right for you and your lifestyle. New houseplant parents, experienced botanists, and gardeners alike will find opportunities for discovery. 
  A glossary is included in the audiobook companion PDF download.

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  The Dark Energy Puzzle - Piecing...

  Dirk Fallon

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  In the late 1990s, astronomers made a discovery that completely changed our understanding of the universe. While studying distant supernovae to measure how fast the universe was expanding, researchers expected to see signs that the expansion was slowing down due to gravity. Instead, they found the opposite—the expansion was speeding up. This unexpected observation pointed to something completely unknown, an unseen force that counteracts gravity and drives galaxies apart at an accelerating rate. That force was given the name "dark energy." 
  The term "dark" doesn't mean this energy is black or shadowy, but rather that it's unknown and mysterious. Scientists still don’t know what it really is, only that it seems to make up around 68 percent of the total energy in the universe. That’s a huge amount, especially considering that everything we can see—stars, planets, gas, dust—makes up less than 5 percent. The rest is made of dark matter, another unknown component, but dark energy is even more puzzling. It doesn’t clump like matter does, and it seems to be spread evenly through space. 
  Astronomers began piecing this together by observing Type Ia supernovae, which are exploding stars that always reach roughly the same brightness. Because of that consistency, they can be used like cosmic measuring sticks. When scientists looked at supernovae that were billions of light-years away, they saw that those objects were dimmer than expected. That meant they were farther away than predicted, and the only explanation was that the universe had expanded more than anyone thought. It wasn’t just expanding—it was accelerating.

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  Tracking Giants - Big Trees Tiny...

  Amanda Lewis, Dr. Diana...

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  Amanda Lewis was an overachieving, burned-out book editor most familiar with trees as dead blocks of paper. A dedicated "indoorswoman," she could barely tell a birch from a beech. But that didn't stop her from pledging to visit all of the biggest trees in British Columbia, a Canadian province known for its rugged terrain and gigantic trees. 
   
   
   
  The "Champion" trees on Lewis's ambitious list ranged from mighty Western red cedars to towering arbutus. The only problem? Well, there were many . . . 
   
   
   
  Climate change and a pandemic aside, Lewis's lack of wilderness experience, the upsetting reality of old-growth logging, the ever-changing nature of trees, and the pressures of her one-year time frame complicated her quest. Burned out again—and realizing that her "checklist" approach to life might be the problem—she reframed her search for trees to something humbler and more meaningful: getting to know forests in an interconnected way. 
   
   
   
  Weaving in insights from writers and artists, Lewis uncovers what we're really after when we pursue the big things—revealing that sometimes it's the smaller joys, the mindsets we have, and the companions we're with that make us feel more connected to the natural world.

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  The Shocking Truth about...

  Zoey Fraisers

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  For decades, renewable energy has been marketed as the ultimate solution to climate change, pollution, and our reliance on fossil fuels. Solar panels and wind turbines fill the landscape, promising a cleaner, greener future. Governments, corporations, and activists push the narrative that renewables are not only necessary but inevitable. Billions of dollars have been poured into the transition, with incentives and subsidies encouraging the mass adoption of so-called “clean energy.” On the surface, this movement appears to be a global success.  
    
  Yet, beneath the optimistic rhetoric lies a far more complex and inconvenient truth. While renewable energy offers undeniable benefits, it also comes with significant drawbacks that are rarely discussed. Solar farms consume vast amounts of land, wind turbines disrupt ecosystems, and hydropower alters entire river systems, sometimes with devastating consequences. The environmental cost of producing, maintaining, and disposing of renewable energy infrastructure is frequently overlooked. Furthermore, the idea that renewables alone can sustain modern society is built on a foundation of wishful thinking rather than reality.  
    
  One of the biggest challenges facing renewables is reliability. The sun doesn’t always shine, and the wind doesn’t always blow. Unlike fossil fuels, which provide a constant and controllable energy supply, renewables fluctuate unpredictably. This intermittency creates enormous challenges for electrical grids, often requiring backup from coal, natural gas, or nuclear power. Energy storage technology, such as batteries, is still far from capable of bridging this gap at the scale necessary. The result is an energy system that is fragile, expensive, and, in some cases, even more dependent on fossil fuels than before. 

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  Superfoods Silkworms and Spandex...

  Joe Schwarcz

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  In this new collection of bite-size pop science essays, bestselling author, chemistry professor, and radio broadcaster Dr. Joe Schwarcz shows that you can find science virtually anywhere you look. And the closer you look, the more fascinating it becomes. In this volume, we look through our magnifying glass at maraschino cherries, frizzy hair, duct tape, pickle juice, yellow school buses, aphrodisiacs, dental implants, and bull testes. If those don’t tickle your fancy, how about aconite murders, shot towers, book smells, Swarovski crystals, French wines, bees, or head transplants? You can also learn about the scientific escapades of James Bond, California’s confusing Proposition 65, the problems with oxygen on Mars, Valentine’s Meat Juice, the benefits of pasteurization, the pros and cons of red light therapy, the controversy swirling around perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), why English cucumbers are wrapped in plastic, and how probiotics may have seeded Hitler’s downfall. 
  		 
  Superfoods, Silkworms, and Spandex answers all your burning questions about the science of everyday life, like:
  		
  		why “superfood” is a marketing term, not a scientific one;
  		why plastic wrap is sometimes the environmental choice;
  		why supplements to reduce inflammation may just reduce your bank account;
  		how maraschino cherries went from a luxury good to a cheap sundae topper;
  		what’s behind “old book smell”;
  		how margarine became a hot item for bootleggers;
  		why duct tape is useful, but not on ducts; and
  		how onstage accidents led to fireproof fabrics.

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  Planta Sapiens - The New Science...

  Paco Calvo, Natalie Lawrence

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  An astonishing window into the inner world of plants, and the cutting-edge science in plant intelligence. 
   
   
   
  Decades of research document plants' impressive abilities: they communicate with one another, manipulate other species, and move in sophisticated ways. Lesser known, however, is the new evidence that plants may actually be sentient. Although plants may not have brains, their microscopic commerce exposes a system not unlike the neuronal networks running through our own bodies. They can learn and remember, possessing an intelligence that allows them to behave in adaptive, flexible, anticipatory, and goal-directed ways. 
   
   
   
  A leading figure in the philosophy of plant signaling and behavior, Paco Calvo offers an entirely new perspective on plant biology. In Planta Sapiens, he shows for the first time how we can use tools developed in animal cognition studies in a quest to deeply understand plant intelligence. He illuminates how plants inspire technological advancements: from robotics and AI to tackling the ecological crisis. Most importantly, he demonstrates that plants are neither objects nor resources; they are agents in themselves, and for themselves.

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