Author: Hermann Heinzel Publisher: Univ of California Press ISBN: 9780520228368 Category : Nature Languages : en Pages : 276
Book Description
A renowned illustrator and a wildlife photographer team up to capture in words and images the stunning birds and other wildlife of the Galapagos Islands. The first half of the book provides an overall tour of the islands, while the second half serves as a detailed, illustrated field guide. 640 color photos.
Author: Margret Wittmer Publisher: ISBN: 9781559213998 Category : Natural history Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
The remarkable first-hand account of Margret Wittmer, who settled the island of Floreana in the Galapagos-600 miles from the mainland of Ecuador. It took Wittmer and her family weeks to travel to the island in 1932; they battled with the ties for three full days before they could land. Wittmer and her husband left their home and family in Germany, seeking a new life in a place not yet touched by civilization. Their first home was a cave, previously abandoned by pirates. They planted their first garden, only to find it torn up continually by wild boars. Five months pregnant when she arrived, Wittmer found the beauty of the tropical island constantly tempered by the traumas of attempting everyday life in a wild and lonely spot. From the mysterious disappearance of a stranger linked to another recluse on the island, to a missed opportunity to meet President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The 56 years recalled in this memoir are full of exotic adventures and the joys and tragedies of a lifetime.
Author: K. Thalia Grant Publisher: Princeton University Press ISBN: 0691142106 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 376
Book Description
Recreates the scientist's historic visit to the Galapagos Islands using his original notebooks and logs, the latest findings by scholars and researchers, and the authors' first-hand knowledge of the archipelago.
Author: Michael Shermer Publisher: Macmillan ISBN: 1429900903 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 230
Book Description
A creationist-turned-scientist demonstrates the facts of evolution and exposes Intelligent Design's real agenda Science is on the defensive. Half of Americans reject the theory of evolution and "Intelligent Design" campaigns are gaining ground. Classroom by classroom, creationism is overthrowing biology. In Why Darwin Matters, bestselling author Michael Shermer explains how the newest brand of creationism appeals to our predisposition to look for a designer behind life's complexity. Shermer decodes the scientific evidence to show that evolution is not "just a theory" and illustrates how it achieves the design of life through the bottom-up process of natural selection. Shermer, once an evangelical Christian and a creationist, argues that Intelligent Design proponents are invoking a combination of bad science, political antipathy, and flawed theology. He refutes their pseudoscientific arguments and then demonstrates why conservatives and people of faith can and should embrace evolution. He then appraises the evolutionary questions that truly need to be settled, building a powerful argument for science itself. Cutting the politics away from the facts, Why Darwin Matters is an incisive examination of what is at stake in the debate over evolution.
Author: Henry Nicholls Publisher: Basic Books ISBN: 0465035957 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 226
Book Description
Charles Darwin called it "a little world within itself." Sailors referred to it as "Las Encantadas"- the enchanted islands. Lying in the eastern Pacific Ocean, straddling the equator off the west coast of South America, the Galágos is the most pristine archipelago to be found anywhere in the tropics. It is so remote, so untouched, that the act of wading ashore can make you feel like you are the first to do so. Yet the Galágos is far more than a wild paradise on earth-it is one of the most important sites in the history of science. Home to over 4,000 species native to its shores, around 40 percent of them endemic, the islands have often been called a "laboratory of evolution." The finches collected on the Galágos inspired Darwin's revolutionary theory of natural selection. In The Galágos, science writer Henry Nicholls offers a lively natural and human history of the archipelago, charting its course from deserted wilderness to biological testing ground and global ecotourism hot spot. Describing the island chain's fiery geological origins as well as our species' long history of interaction with the islands, he draws vivid portraits of the life forms found in the Galágos, capturing its awe-inspiring landscapes, understated flora, and stunning wildlife. Nicholls also reveals the immense challenges facing the islands, which must continually balance conservation and ever encroaching development. Beautifully weaving together natural history, evolutionary theory, and his own experience on the islands, Nicholls shows that the story of the Galágos is not merely an isolated concern, but reflects the future of our species' relationship with nature-and the fate of our planet.
Author: Rita Golden Gelman Publisher: Crown ISBN: 0307421740 Category : Travel Languages : en Pages : 322
Book Description
The true story of an ordinary woman living an extraordinary existence all over the world. “Gelman doesn’t just observe the cultures she visits, she participates in them, becoming emotionally involved in the people’s lives. This is an amazing travelogue.” —Booklist At the age of forty-eight, on the verge of a divorce, Rita Golden Gelman left an elegant life in L.A. to follow her dream of travelling the world, connecting with people in cultures all over the globe. In 1986, Rita sold her possessions and became a nomad, living in a Zapotec village in Mexico, sleeping with sea lions on the Galapagos Islands, and residing everywhere from thatched huts to regal palaces. She has observed orangutans in the rain forest of Borneo, visited trance healers and dens of black magic, and cooked with women on fires all over the world. Rita’s example encourages us all to dust off our dreams and rediscover the joy, the exuberance, and the hidden spirit that so many of us bury when we become adults.
Author: Dore Strauch Publisher: CreateSpace ISBN: 9781497424326 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 310
Book Description
Darwin meets Hitchcock in this true-crime tale of paradise found and lost. A extraordinary portrait of a 1930s murder mystery as strange and alluring as the famous archipelago itself. Fleeing conventional society, a Berlin doctor and his mistress start a new life on uninhabited Floreana Island. But after the international press sensationalizes the exploits of the island's 'Adam and Eve,' others flock there, including a self-styled Swiss Family Robinson.
Author: Corinne Heyning Laverty Publisher: ISBN: 9781607817291 Category : Channel Islands (Calif.) Languages : en Pages : 384
Book Description
"Laverty has researched and written about the Channel Islands Biological Survey conducted just prior to World War II off the coast of southern California and aborted due to the war and island location. The manuscript illuminates the scientific process and delves into the realities and difficulties of scientific fieldwork in the late 1930s. It also tells the behind-the-scenes story of the work of a natural history museum. The eight Channel Islands each support different ecosystems, both flora and fauna, and human histories. Five of the eight islands comprise Channel Islands National Park. The expedition researchers--John Adams Comstock, Art Woodward, Jack von Bloeker Jr., and Don Meadows--hoped to achieve the exhilaration and recognition from new discoveries but were thwarted by the war and their inability to complete and publish the survey data. However, early archaeology done on the islands, some by the biological survey crew, initiated on-going work there. Prehistoric sites found on the islands have less pothunting and destruction than those on the mainland, hence they are more productive for addressing numerous questions. Today, they are helping to answer questions about the routes and timing for the peopling of the Americas"--Provided by publisher.
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Author: Hermann Heinzel
Author: Randy Moore
Author: Charles Darwin
Author: Margret Wittmer
Author: K. Thalia Grant
Author: Michael Shermer
Author: Henry Nicholls
Author: Rita Golden Gelman
Author: Dore Strauch
Author: Corinne Heyning Laverty