Join us on a literary world trip!
Add this book to bookshelf
Grey
Write a new comment Default profile 50px
Grey
Subscribe to read the full book or read the first pages for free!
All characters reduced
Nature Strange and Beautiful - How Living Beings Evolved and Made the Earth a Home - cover

Nature Strange and Beautiful - How Living Beings Evolved and Made the Earth a Home

Christian Ziegler, Egbert Giles Leigh

Publisher: Yale University Press

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

Summary

A beautifully written exploration of how cooperation shaped life on earth, from its single-celled beginnings to complex human societiesIn this rich, wide-ranging, beautifully illustrated volume, Egbert Leigh explores the results of billions of years of evolution at work. Leigh, who has spent five decades on Panama’s Barro Colorado Island reflecting on the organization of various amazingly diverse tropical ecosystems, now shows how selection on “selfish genes” gives rise to complex modes of cooperation and interdependence.With the help of such artists as the celebrated nature photographer Christian Ziegler, natural history illustrator Deborah Miriam Kaspari, and Damond Kyllo, Leigh explains basic concepts of evolutionary biology, ranging from life’s single-celled beginnings to the complex societies humans have formed today. The book covers a range of topics, focusing on adaptation, competition, mutualism, heredity, natural selection, sexual selection, genetics, and language. Leigh’s reflections on evolution, competition, and cooperation show how the natural world becomes even more beautiful when viewed in the light of evolution.
Available since: 08/20/2019.
Print length: 305 pages.

Other books that might interest you

  • Jai Mata Di My Book On Human Welfare - cover

    Jai Mata Di My Book On Human...

    Rajesh D Sanghvi

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    Rajesh’s new book Jai Mata Di, achieves what the title claims in its dedication to Mataji, on Human Welfare. The author maintains clarity in thinking and devising solutions to many critical problems that plague our world today, from a totally new perspective! And they are practical to implement! One of his best chapters starts by exploring an Intriguing Question-Could Hitler have been like Jesus, if he knew how to be one? He answers the question, why do we suffer in life? and what is the Elixir of life?  
    The book examines social problems, unemployment, and abject poverty in India, raising questions on how to establish peace in the world, like the Syrian war, the failures of our modern educational systems, He discusses about Health and Immunity from a Spiritual perspective, about environment that threatens our Mother earth today, and many other crucial issues vital to Humanity. 
    Rajesh presents his innovative solutions and ideas, his prime motive being to promote Human welfare, to reduce or end Human Suffering. Surely a matter for our society to introspect, and a must read for all, the book is filled with rich solutions to fundamental problems, presented in a simple fashion, to execute to solve. Indeed, a provocative read filled with practical solutions to implement!
    Show book
  • American Fire - Love Arson and Life in a Vanishing Land - cover

    American Fire - Love Arson and...

    Monica Hesse

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    Shocked by a five-month arson spree that left rural Virginia reeling, Washington Post reporter Monica Hesse drove down to Accomack County to cover the trial of Charlie Smith, who pled guilty to sixty-seven counts of arson. But Charlie wasn't lighting fires alone: he had an accomplice, his girlfriend Tonya Bundick. Through her depiction of the dangerous shift that happened in their passionate relationship, Hesse brilliantly brings to life the once-thriving coastal community and its distressed inhabitants, who had already been decimated by a punishing economy before they were terrified by a string of fires they could not explain. Incorporating this drama into the long-overlooked history of arson in the United States, American Fire re-creates the anguished nights that this quiet county spent lit up in flames, mesmerizingly evoking a microcosm of rural America - a land half gutted before the fires even began.
    Show book
  • Socrates and the Jews - Hellenism and Hebraism from Moses Mendelssohn to Sigmund Freud - cover

    Socrates and the Jews -...

    Miriam Leonard

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    "What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?” Asked by the early Christian Tertullian, the question was vigorously debated in the nineteenth century. While classics dominated the intellectual life of Europe, Christianity still prevailed and conflicts raged between the religious and the secular. Taking on the question of how the glories of the classical world could be reconciled with the Bible, Socrates and the Jews explains how Judaism played a vital role in defining modern philhellenism.Exploring the tension between Hebraism and Hellenism, Miriam Leonard gracefully probes the philosophical tradition behind the development of classical philology and considers how the conflict became a preoccupation for the leading thinkers of modernity, including Matthew Arnold, Moses Mendelssohn, Kant, Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud. For each, she shows how the contrast between classical and biblical traditions is central to writings about rationalism, political subjectivity, and progress. Illustrating how the encounter between Athens and Jerusalem became a lightning rod for intellectual concerns, this book is a sophisticated addition to the history of ideas.
    Show book
  • Daughter of Spies - cover

    Daughter of Spies

    Elizabeth Winthrop Alsop

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    As a child, Elizabeth Winthrop Alsop, along with her five brothers, was raised to revere the tribal legends of the Alsop and Roosevelt families. Her parents’ marriage, lived in the spotlight of 1950s Washington where the author’s father, journalist Stewart Alsop, grew increasingly famous, was not what either of her parents had imagined it would be. Her mother’s strict Catholicism and her father’s restless ambition collided to create a strangely muted and ominous world, one that mirrored the whispered conversations in the living room as the power brokers of Washington came and went through their side door. Through it all, her mother, trained to keep secrets as a decoding agent with MI5, said very little. In this brave memoir, the author explores who her mother was, why alcohol played such an important role in her mother’s life, and why her mother held herself apart from all her children, especially her only daughter. In the author’s journey to understand her parents, particularly her mother, she comes to realize that the secrets parents keep are the ones that reverberate most powerfully in the lives of their children.
    Show book
  • Emotional Intelligence - Mastering the Skills of Self-Awareness Empathy and Relationship Management - cover

    Emotional Intelligence -...

    May Francis

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    Emotional Intelligence is a groundbreaking book that explores the concept of emotional intelligence and how it can be used to improve relationships, communication, and overall success in life.  
    This book delves into the key components of emotional intelligence, including self-awareness, empathy, and relationship management.  
    Through a combination of research, real-life examples, and practical exercises, readers will learn how to develop and enhance their emotional intelligence, leading to better relationships, more effective communication, and greater success in both their personal and professional lives.  
    Whether you are looking to improve your relationships with friends and family, excel in your career, or simply become a more well-rounded individual, Emotional Intelligence is the perfect guide to help you achieve your goals.
    Show book
  • America a Redemption Story - Choosing Hope Creating Unity - cover

    America a Redemption Story -...

    Senator Tim Scott

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    Read by the author. 
    The American Dream isn’t a thing of the past, but a miracle of the present. 
    Now more than ever it’s easy to focus on the divisions that plague our nation. It may seem as if our best days are behind us, but bestselling author and senator Tim Scott believes we have yet to realize the fullness of our identity. We are in the midst of a story that’s still unfolding. And beautiful opportunities await. 
    In this powerful memoir, Scott recounts formative events of his life alongside the inspiring stories of other Americans who have risen above hardship and embodied the values that make our nation great. Together these personal and inspirational accounts call readers to embracethe mountaintops as well as the valleys on the journey to a more perfect union;a path marked by optimism, hope, and resolve; anda future characterized by endurance, unity, and strength. 
    Both a clear-eyed reckoning with our nation’s failures and an ode to its accomplishments, America, a Redemption Story issues a clarion call for all of us to rise courageously to the greatness within our reach. 
    Photos are included in the audiobook companion PDF download.
    Show book