Other books that might interest you

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  Blue - In Search of Nature's...

  Kai Kupferschmidt

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  A globe-trotting quest to find blue in the natural world—and to understand our collective obsession with this bewitching colorBlue is a rare color—natural blue, that is. From morpho butterflies in the rain forest to the blue jay flitting past your window, vanishingly few living things are blue—and most that appear so are doing sleight of hand with physics or complex chemistry. Flowers modify the red pigment anthocyanin to achieve their blue hue. Even the blue sky above us is a trick of the light.Yet this hard-to-spot accent color in our surroundings looms large in our affections. Science journalist Kai Kupferschmidt has been fascinated by blue since childhood. His quest to find and understand his favorite color and its hallowed place in our culture takes him to a gene-splicing laboratory in Japan, a volcanic lake in Oregon, and to Brandenburg, Germany—home of the last Spix's macaws. From deep underground where blue minerals grow into crystals to miles away in space where satellites gaze down at our "blue marble" planet, wherever we do find blue, it always has a story to tell.

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  Scientific American's Ask the...

  American Editors of Scientific

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  Why is the night sky dark? How do dolphins sleep without drowning? Why do hangovers occur? Will time travel ever be a reality? What makes a knuckleball appear to flutter? Why are craters always round?There's only one source to turn to for the answers to the most puzzling and thought-provoking questions about the world of science: Scientific American. Writing in a fun and accessible style, an esteemed team of scientists and educators will lead you on a wild ride from the far reaches of the universe to the natural world right in your own backyard. Along the way, you'll discover solutions to some of life's quirkiest conundrums, such as why cats purr, how frogs survive winter without freezing, why snowflakes are symmetrical, and much more. Even if you haven't picked up a science book since your school days, these tantalizing Q & A's will shed new light on the world around you, inside you, below you, above you, and beyond!

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  Sky Dance - Fighting for the...

  John D. Burns

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  Lord Purdey was shaking with anger. 'Bring back the lynx? Over my dead body!"
  The environmental protestors murmured, and Rory stepped forward. 'Your hunting has destroyed our hills and left them treeless wastes, devoid of wildlife. It's time that changed.'
  'Listen, you lentil-eating cat lover,' Purdey barked through the megaphone, 'men like me own Scotland. If we want to kill anything that moves and turn the whole damn place into a theme park, we'll do it.'
  Someone from the group of protestors hurled a turnip. It struck Purdey and he crumpled to the ground. Just as the archaic class system he represents must eventually fall, Angus thought with a grin.
  In his first two bestselling books, The Last Hillwalker and Bothy Tales, John D. Burns invited readers to join him in the hills and wild places of Scotland. In Sky Dance, he returns to that world to ask fundamental questions about how we relate to this northern landscape – while raising a laugh or two along the way. Anyone who has gazed at the majesty of the Scottish mountains will know this place and want to return to it. Now, as wild land is threatened like never before, it's time we asked ourselves what kind of future we want for the Highlands.

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  Play Anything - The Pleasure of...

  Ian Bogost

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  Life is boring: filled with meetings and traffic, errands and emails. Nothing we'd ever call fun. But what if we've gotten fun wrong? In Play Anything, visionary game designer and philosopher Ian Bogost shows how we can overcome our daily anxiety; transforming the boring, ordinary world around us into one of endless, playful possibilities. The key to this playful mindset lies in discovering the secret truth of fun and games.  
  Play Anything, reveals that games appeal to us not because they are fun, but because they set limitations. Soccer wouldn't be soccer if it wasn't composed of two teams of eleven players using only their feet, heads, and torsos to get a ball into a goal; Tetris wouldn't be Tetris without falling pieces in characteristic shapes. Such rules seem needless, arbitrary, and difficult. Yet it is the limitations that make games enjoyable, just like it's the hard things in life that give it meaning.  
  Play is what happens when we accept these limitations, narrow our focus, and, consequently, have fun. Which is also how to live a good life. Manipulating a soccer ball into a goal is no different than treating ordinary circumstances - like grocery shopping, lawn mowing, and making PowerPoints - as sources for meaning and joy. We can "play anything" by filling our days with attention and discipline, devotion and love for the world as it really is, beyond our desires and fears. Ranging from Internet culture to moral philosophy, ancient poetry to modern consumerism, Bogost shows us how today's chaotic world can only be tamed - and enjoyed - when we first impose boundaries on ourselves.

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  Byways Around San Francisco Bay

  W. E. Hutchinson

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  California, the land of sunshine and roses, with its genial climate, its skies as blue as the far-famed skies of Venice, and its pure, life-giving air, invites the lover of nature to take long tramps over hill and dale, mountain and valley, and to search out new trails in the rugged mountains.(Quote from section 2: Brook and Waterfall).

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  Telling Lies - Clues to Deceit...

  Paul Ekman

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  From breaking the law to breaking a promise, how do people lie and how can they be caught?In this revised edition, Paul Ekman, a renowned expert in emotions research and nonverbal communication, adds a new chapter to present his latest research on his groundbreaking inquiry into lying and the methods for uncovering lies. Ekman has figured out the most important behavioral clues to deceit; he has developed a one-hour self-instructional program that trains people to observe and understand "micro expressions"; and he has done research that identifies the facial expressions that show whether someone is likely to become violent—a self-instructional program to train recognition of these dangerous signals has also been developed.Telling Lies describes how lies vary in form and how they can differ from other types of misinformation that can reveal untruths. It discusses how a person's body language, voice, and facial expressions can give away a lie but still fool professional lie hunters—even judges, police officers, drug enforcement agents, and Secret Service agents.

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