The Wasp That Brainwashed the Caterpillar

The Wasp That Brainwashed the Caterpillar PDF Author: Matt Simon
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 014312868X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 274

Book Description
“A bizarre collection of evolution tales . . . the weirder, the better.” —Entertainment Weekly A fascinating exploration of the awe-inspiring, unsettling ingenuity of evolution from Wired writer Matt Simon, author of Plight of the Living Dead (coming soon from Penguin Books) On a barren seafloor, the pearlfish swims into the safety of a sea cucumber’s anus. To find a meal, the female bolas spider releases pheromones that mimic a female moth, luring male moths into her sticky lasso web. The Glyptapanteles wasp injects a caterpillar with her young, which feed on the victim, erupt out of it, then mind-control the poor (and somehow still living) schmuck into protecting them from predators. These are among the curious critters of The Wasp That Brainwashed the Caterpillar, a jaunt through evolution’s most unbelievable, most ingenious solutions to the problems of everyday life, from trying to get laid to finding food. Join Wired science writer Matt Simon as he introduces you to the creatures that have it figured out, the ones that joust with their mustaches or choke sharks to death with snot, all in a wild struggle to survive and, of course, find true love. Winner of the American Library Association’s Alex Award

The Wasp That Brainwashed the Caterpillar

The Wasp That Brainwashed the Caterpillar PDF Author: Matt Simon
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0698411250
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 274

Book Description
“A bizarre collection of evolution tales . . . the weirder, the better.” —Entertainment Weekly A fascinating exploration of the awe-inspiring, unsettling ingenuity of evolution from Wired writer Matt Simon, author of Plight of the Living Dead (coming soon from Penguin Books) On a barren seafloor, the pearlfish swims into the safety of a sea cucumber’s anus. To find a meal, the female bolas spider releases pheromones that mimic a female moth, luring male moths into her sticky lasso web. The Glyptapanteles wasp injects a caterpillar with her young, which feed on the victim, erupt out of it, then mind-control the poor (and somehow still living) schmuck into protecting them from predators. These are among the curious critters of The Wasp That Brainwashed the Caterpillar, a jaunt through evolution’s most unbelievable, most ingenious solutions to the problems of everyday life, from trying to get laid to finding food. Join Wired science writer Matt Simon as he introduces you to the creatures that have it figured out, the ones that joust with their mustaches or choke sharks to death with snot, all in a wild struggle to survive and, of course, find true love. Winner of the American Library Association’s Alex Award

Plight of the Living Dead

Plight of the Living Dead PDF Author: Matt Simon
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1524705144
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 258

Book Description
A brain-bending exploration of real-life zombies and mind controllers, and what they reveal to us about nature—and ourselves Zombieism isn’t just the stuff of movies and TV shows like The Walking Dead. It’s real, and it’s happening in the world around us, from wasps and worms to dogs and moose—and even humans. In Plight of the Living Dead, science journalist Matt Simon documents his journey through the bizarre evolutionary history of mind control. Along the way, he visits a lab where scientists infect ants with zombifying fungi, joins the search for kamikaze crickets in the hills of New Mexico, and travels to Israel to meet the wasp that stings cockroaches in the brain before leading them to their doom. Nothing Hollywood dreams up can match the brilliant, horrific zombies that natural selection has produced time and time again. Plight of the Living Dead is a surreal dive into a world that would be totally unbelievable if very smart scientists didn’t happen to be proving it’s real, and most troublingly—or maybe intriguingly—of all: how even we humans are affected. “Fantastic . . . You'll be thinking about this book long after you're done reading it.” —Kelly Weinersmith, New York Times bestselling coauthor of Soonish

The Conspiracy against the Human Race

The Conspiracy against the Human Race PDF Author: Thomas Ligotti
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0525504915
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 273

Book Description
In Thomas Ligotti's first nonfiction outing, an examination of the meaning (or meaninglessness) of life through an insightful, unsparing argument that proves the greatest horrors are not the products of our imagination but instead are found in reality. "There is a signature motif discernible in both works of philosophical pessimism and supernatural horror. It may be stated thus: Behind the scenes of life lurks something pernicious that makes a nightmare of our world." His fiction is known to be some of the most terrifying in the genre of supernatural horror, but Thomas Ligotti's first nonfiction book may be even scarier. Drawing on philosophy, literature, neuroscience, and other fields of study, Ligotti takes the penetrating lens of his imagination and turns it on his audience, causing them to grapple with the brutal reality that they are living a meaningless nightmare, and anyone who feels otherwise is simply acting out an optimistic fallacy. At once a guidebook to pessimistic thought and a relentless critique of humanity's employment of self-deception to cope with the pervasive suffering of their existence, The Conspiracy against the Human Race may just convince readers that there is more than a measure of truth in the despairing yet unexpectedly liberating negativity that is widely considered a hallmark of Ligotti's work.

A Week at the Airport

A Week at the Airport PDF Author: Alain De Botton
Publisher: Emblem Editions
ISBN: 0771026285
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 113

Book Description
The bestselling author of The Architecture of Happiness and The Art of Travel spends a week at an airport in a wittily intriguing meditation on the "non-place" that he believes is the centre of our civilization. In the summer of 2009, Alain de Botton was invited by the owners of Heathrow airport to become their first ever writer-in-residence. Given unprecedented, unrestricted access to wander around one of the world's busiest airports, he met travellers from all over the globe, and spoke with everyone from baggage handlers to pilots, and senior executives to the airport chaplain. Based on these conversations he has produced this extraordinary meditation on the nature of travel, work, relationships, and our daily lives. Working with the renowned documentary photographer Richard Baker, he explores the magical and the mundane, and the interactions of travellers and workers all over this familiar but mysterious "non-place," which by definition we are eager to leave. Taking the reader through departures, "air-side," and the arrivals hall, de Botton shows with his usual combination of wit and wisdom that spending time in an airport can be more revealing than we might think.

How to Live Plastic Free

How to Live Plastic Free PDF Author: Luca Bonaccorsi
Publisher: Headline Home
ISBN: 1472259793
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 208

Book Description
Thank you for choosing this book - it shows that you care about the future of our planet. Whether you decide to go plastic free for an hour, a day or a year, this book will equip you with little steps we can each take to make a big difference. Let's turn the tide on plastic now - our oceans will thank you for it. Choking. Starving. Poisoning. This is what plastic litter is doing to marine life. Our oceans are, quite simply, facing environmental disaster. Yet by taking some simple steps and making a few changes to your daily routine, you can help to change this. How to Live Plastic Free will teach you everything you need to know about reducing your plastic usage on a daily basis. The chapters start with a typical morning routine and take you through your day, giving you tips and practical advice for removing unnecessary plastic at every possible opportunity. From the moment you wake up to the time you go to bed, you will learn how easy it can be to use plastic-free cosmetics, how to have plastic-free mealtimes, how to change your shopping habits and how to consider your use of plastic items at work. These simple, practical methods will show that small changes to your lifestyle can make a huge change to the future of our planet.

Super Fly

Super Fly PDF Author: Jonathan Balcombe
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0525506047
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 352

Book Description
Winner of the National Outdoor Book Award for Natural History and a New York Times Editors Choice Pick "After reading Super Fly, you will never take a fly for granted again. Thank you, Jonathan Balcombe, for reminding us of the infinite marvels of everyday creatures." —Sy Montgomery, Author of How to Be a Good Creature From an expert in animal consciousness, a book that will turn the fly on the wall into the elephant in the room. For most of us, the only thing we know about flies is that they're annoying, and our usual reaction is to try to kill them. In Super Fly, the myth-busting biologist Jonathan Balcombe shows the order Diptera in all of its diversity, illustrating the essential role that flies play in every ecosystem in the world as pollinators, waste-disposers, predators, and food source; and how flies continue to reshape our understanding of evolution. Along the way, he reintroduces us to familiar foes like the fruit fly and mosquito, and gives us the chance to meet their lesser-known cousins like the Petroleum Fly (the only animal in the world that breeds in crude oil) and the Chocolate Midge (the sole pollinator of the Cacao tree). No matter your outlook on our tiny buzzing neighbors, Super Fly will change the way you look at flies forever. Jonathan Balcombe is the author of four books on animal sentience, including the New York Times bestselling What A Fish Knows, which was nominated for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Award for Science Writing. He has worked for years as a researcher and educator with the Humane society to show us the consciousness of other creatures, and here he takes us to the farthest reaches of the animal kingdom.

Mother Nature Is Trying to Kill You

Mother Nature Is Trying to Kill You PDF Author: Dan Riskin
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1476767130
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 272

Book Description
A fun exploration of the darker side of the natural world reveals the fascinating, weird, often perverted ways that Mother Nature fends only for herself. It may be a wonderful world, but as Dan Riskin (cohost of Discovery Canada’s Daily Planet) explains, it’s also a dangerous, disturbing, and disgusting one. At every turn, it seems, living things are trying to eat us, poison us, use our bodies as their homes, or have us spread their eggs. In Mother Nature Is Trying to Kill You, Riskin is our guide through the natural world at its most gloriously ruthless. Using the seven deadly sins as a road map, Riskin offers dozens of jaw-dropping examples that illuminate how brutal nature can truly be. From slothful worms that hide in your body for up to thirty years to wrathful snails with poisonous harpoons that can kill you in less than five minutes to lustful ducks that have orgasms faster than you can blink, these fascinating accounts reveal the candid truth about “gentle” Mother Nature’s true colors. Riskin’s passion for the strange and his enthusiastic expertise bring Earth’s most fascinating flora and fauna into vivid focus. Through his adventures— which include sliding on his back through a thick soup of bat guano just to get face-to-face with a vampire bat, befriending a parasitic maggot that has taken root on his head, and coming to grips with having offspring of his own—Riskin makes unexpected discoveries not just about the world all around us but also about the ways this brutal world has shaped us as humans and what our responsibilities are to this terrible, wonderful planet we call home.
Proudly powered by WordPress | Theme: Rits Blog by Crimson Themes.