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A SUNDAY TIMES NATURE BOOK OF THE YEAR It's flight and egg and feathers and song. It's the demure plumage of a mountain thornbill and the extravagant tail feathers of an Indian paradise flycatcher, the solo song of a superb lyrebird and the perfectly timed duets of canebrake wrens, an osprey's hurtling dive toward the sea, and a long-legged heron's still, patient eyeing of the dark water. There is no single bird way of being. Drawing on personal observations, the latest science, and her bird-related travel around the world, Jennifer Ackerman playfully explores our dramatically shifting understanding of these magnificent animals. 'Jennifer Ackerman knows what she's talking about...Her knack for catching the personalities of different species in gorgeous, playful prose further collapses comfortable barriers between the human and the birdlike' Daily Telegraph 'The real joy of [this] book is its close attention to some of the specialists of the region... Ackerman is alive to the humour at play in field research ' Mark Cocker, Spectator
Birds are astonishingly intelligent creatures. In fact, according to revolutionary new research, some birds rival primates and even humans in their remarkable forms of intelligence. Like humans, many birds have enormous brains relative to their size. Although small, bird brains are packed with neurons that allow them to punch well above their weight. In The Genius of Birds, acclaimed author Jennifer Ackerman explores the newly discovered brilliance of birds and how it came about. As she travels around the world to the most cutting-edge frontiers of research - the distant laboratories of Barbados and New Caledonia, the great tit communities of the United Kingdom and the bowerbird habitats of ...
Some colds are like mice, timid and annoying; others like dragons, accompanied by body aches and deep misery. In AH-CHOO!, Jennifer Ackerman explains what, exactly, a cold is, how it works, and whether it's really possible to "fight one off." Scientists call this the Golden Age of the Common Cold because Americans suffer up to a billion colds each year, resulting in 40 million days of missed work and school and 100 million doctor visits. They've also learned over the past decade much more about what cold viruses are, what they do to the human body, and how symptoms can be addressed. In this ode to the odious cold, Ackerman sifts through the chatter about treatments-what works, what doesn't, and what can't hurt. She dispels myths, such as susceptibility to colds reflects a weakened immune system. And she tracks current research, including work at the University of Virginia at Charlottesville, a world-renowned center of cold research studies, where the search for a cure continues.
Recent discoveries in molecular biology have shown that genes governing life processes in widely different organisms from yeast to humans are essentially alike. That is the underlying theme of this book as it looks for meaning in the natural world while exploring complex questions in molecular genetics. Ackerman, a former staff writer for National Geographic and a nature author (Notes from the Shore), weaves her own personal experiences into this popular account of the natural history of heredity. (When she is pregnant with her first child, Ackerman worries that the baby will inherit the gene that caused the retardation of her younger sister.) Topics range from development and sex determination to biological clocks and cell death, and more.
From the bestselling author of The Genius of Birds, the revised and reissued edition of her beloved book of essays describing her forays along the Delaware shore For three years, Jennifer Ackerman lived in the small coastal town of Lewes, Delaware, in the sort of blue-water, white-sand landscape that draws summer crowds up and down the eastern seaboard. Birds by the Shore is a book about discovering the natural life at the ocean's edge: the habits of shorebirds and seabirds, the movement of sand and water, the wealth of creatures that survive amid storm and surf. Against this landscape's rhythms, Ackerman revisits her own history--her mother's death, her father's illness and her hopes to have children of her own. This portrait of life at the ocean's edge will be relished by anyone who has walked a beach at sunset, or watched a hawk hover over a winter marsh, and felt part of the natural world. With a quiet passion and friendly, generous intelligence, it explores the way that landscape shapes our thoughts and perceptions and shows that home ground is often where we feel the deepest response to the planet.
Far more than a word processor, Scrivener helps you organize and brainstorm even the most complex writing project, bring together your research, and write more efficiently and successfully than ever before. Long available for Mac, there’s now a Windows version, too. Thousands of writers and aspiring writers are discovering this powerful, low-cost tool. Now, there’s an up-to-the-minute, easy guide to the latest versions of Scrivener for both Mac and Windows: Scrivener Absolute Beginner’s Guide. Written by working novelist and experienced computer book author Jennifer Kettell, this guide doesn’t just present features and menus: it presents Scrivener in the context of your creative work...
Ackerman delivers a book about discovering natural life at the ocean's edge--Cape Henlopen, at the southern lip of the Delaware Bay across from Cape May, New Jersey--and the habits of shorebirds and seabirds, the movement of sand and water, the wealth of creatures that survive amid storm and surf. It weaves together science and description with personal observation and reflection, exploring the way that landscape shapes our thoughts and perceptions.
"Race is a visual phenomenon, the ability to see "difference." At least that is what conventional wisdom has lead us to believe. Yet, The Sonic Color Line argues that American ideologies of white supremacy are just as dependent on what we hear-voices, musical taste, volume-as they are on skin color or hair texture. Reinforcing compelling new ideas about the relationship between race and sound with meticulous historical research, Jennifer Lynn Stoever helps us to better understand how sound and listening not only register the racial politics of our world, but actively produce them. Through analysis of the historical traces of sounds of African American performers, Stoever reveals a host of racialized aural representations operating at the level of the unseen-the sonic color line-and exposes the racialized listening practices she figures as "the listening ear."" --New York University Press.
This book is your key to unlocking the mysteries and complexities of bird behavior. Written in an informal, conversational style, with technical jargon kept to a minimum, John Kricher takes the "observation-explanation" approach. After noting particular behaviors that you might easily observe in the field, he explains the science and adaptation underlying those actions. Birds think; their actions are purposeful, not random. Why is that bird doing what it is doing? After a brief primer on how to watch behavior in birds and an overview of their biology, the remainder of the book highlights the most distinctive behaviors you will likely observe as you encounter and watch birds of various famili...