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The story of bold adventurers who risked death to discover strange life forms in the farthest corners of planet Earth. Beginning with Linnaeus, a colorful band of explorers made it their mission to travel to the most perilous corners of the planet and bring back astonishing new life forms. They attracted followers ranging from Thomas Jefferson, who laid out mastodon bones on the White House floor, to twentieth-century doctors who used their knowledge of new species to conquer epidemic diseases. Acclaimed science writer Richard Conniff brings these daredevil "species seekers" to vivid life. Alongside their globe-spanning tales of adventure, he recounts some of the most dramatic shifts in the history of human thought. At the start, everyone accepted that the Earth had been created for our benefit. We weren't sure where vegetable ended and animal began, we couldn't classify species, and we didn't understand the causes of disease. But all that changed as the species seekers introduced us to the pantheon of life on Earth—and our place within it.
This fascinating book tells the story of how one museum changed ideas about dinosaurs, dynasties, and even the story of life on earth. The Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, now celebrating its 150th anniversary, has remade the way we see the world. Delving into the museum’s storied and colorful past, award-winning author Richard Conniff introduces a cast of bold explorers, roughneck bone hunters, and visionary scientists. Some became famous for wresting Brontosaurus, Triceratops, and other dinosaurs from the earth, others pioneered the introduction of science education in North America, and still others rediscovered the long-buried glory of Machu Picchu. In this lively tale of events...
Conniff probes the age-old question "Are the rich different from you and me?" This marvelously entertaining field guide captures in vivid detail the behaviors and habitats of the world's most captivating yet elusive creature.
"Despite the efforts of many earnest and life-affirming people to persuade me that the vampire bat is our friend and that Native Americans enjoyed true harmony with Brother Wolf, I have never quite overcome the gut feeling that fear of nature is normal....It can also be pleasurable....What I really find creepy and wonderful about nature are not its great terrors, but its weird, unsuspected minutiae...for instance, that some sharks practice sibling cannibalism in the womb, or that a mole will paralyze earthworms, ball them up in a knot, and seal them away in individual cells in the walls of its chambered mound, still living, to be eaten at leisure. I am captivated by the sight of a keyhole li...
An award-winning nature writer takes readers on a thrilling journey deep intothe domains of strange--and often dangerous--animals.
Both serious and highly entertaining, The Natural History of the Rich is a field guide like no other. Richard Conniff sees the very rich as human, except more so; genetically identical to ordinary people, they nonetheless display exaggerated and extreme behaviours, a result of exposure to excessive resources. The very rich display all the hallmarks of a dominant animal: even at their most leisurely they show an extraordinary evolutionary urge to achieve and sustain status, prime habitat, reproductive success and wasteful display. Conniff explains why Aristotle Onassis had the stools of his private bar covered with whale scrotums; why serial monogamy is seen as the key to business success by Donald Trump and Jean Paul Getty; and what the selective display of certain moths and butterflies, disguising themselves as everything from twigs to bird droppings, can reveal about the incognito rich, with their elaborate codes of references that only those deemed worthy can understand.
This witty, practical guide applies the latest scientific research to the workplace issues people really care about: status obsession, bosses, climbing the ladder, and the game of survival.
Blending natural history and human lore, Ric hard Conniff relates some of his knowledge of the world of i nvertebrates. Spineless Wonders marvels at the skills of the housefly, looks at the world of the fire ant, and meets a m an who loves beetles. '
Whatever your ambitions, ideas and challenges, this book will revolutionize the way you live, think and work today, and tomorrow. Pirates didn't just break the rules, they rewrote them. They didn't just reject society, they reinvented it. Pirates didn't just challenge the status-quo, they changed everyfuckingthing. Pirates faced a self-interested establishment, a broken system, industrial scale disruption and an uncertain future. Sound familiar? Pirates stood for MISCHIEF, PURPOSE and POWER. And you can too. In Be More Pirate, Sam Conniff Allende unveils the innovative strategies of Golden Age pirates, drawing parallels between the tactics and teachings of legends like Henry Morgan and Black...
Shows a variety of stone walls in various parts of Ireland, looks at cashels, castles, demesnes, and false ruins, and discusses the role of walls in rural Ireland