The Last Extinction PDF Download

Author: Les Kaufman
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262610896
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
An expanded, updated edition of this classic study on biodiversity and species loss.

Author: Elizabeth Kolbert
Publisher: Henry Holt and Company
ISBN: 0805099794
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW'S 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR A major book about the future of the world, blending intellectual and natural history and field reporting into a powerful account of the mass extinction unfolding before our eyes Over the last half a billion years, there have been five mass extinctions, when the diversity of life on earth suddenly and dramatically contracted. Scientists around the world are currently monitoring the sixth extinction, predicted to be the most devastating extinction event since the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs. This time around, the cataclysm is us. In The Sixth Extinction, two-time winner of the National Magazine Award and New Yorker writer Elizabeth Kolbert draws on the work of scores of researchers in half a dozen disciplines, accompanying many of them into the field: geologists who study deep ocean cores, botanists who follow the tree line as it climbs up the Andes, marine biologists who dive off the Great Barrier Reef. She introduces us to a dozen species, some already gone, others facing extinction, including the Panamian golden frog, staghorn coral, the great auk, and the Sumatran rhino. Through these stories, Kolbert provides a moving account of the disappearances occurring all around us and traces the evolution of extinction as concept, from its first articulation by Georges Cuvier in revolutionary Paris up through the present day. The sixth extinction is likely to be mankind's most lasting legacy; as Kolbert observes, it compels us to rethink the fundamental question of what it means to be human.

Author: Riley Black
Publisher: The History Press
ISBN: 1803990724
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 246

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Book Description
Some 66 million years ago, an asteroid some seven miles across slammed into the Earth, leaving a geologic wound over 50 miles in diameter. In the terrible mass extinction that followed, more than half of known species vanish seemingly overnight. But this worst single day in the history of life of Earth was as critical for us as it was for the dinosaurs, as it allowed for evolutionary opportunities that were closed for the previous 100 million years. In The Last Days of the Dinosaurs, Riley Black walks readers through what happened in the days, the years, the centuries and the million years after the impact. Life's losses were sharp and deeply felt, but the hope carried by the beings that survived sets the stage for the world as we know it now.

Author: Colin Tudge
Publisher: Island Press
ISBN: 9781559631570
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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In Last Animals at the Zoo, Colin Tudge argues that zoos have become an essential part of modern conservation strategy, and that the only real hope for saving many endangered species is through creative use of zoos in combination with restoration of natural habitats. From the genetics of captive breeding to techniques of behavioral enrichment, Tudge examines all aspects of zoo conservation programs and explains how the precarious existence of so many animals can best be protected.

Author: Annalee Newitz
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0385535929
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
In its 4.5 billion–year history, life on Earth has been almost erased at least half a dozen times: shattered by asteroid impacts, entombed in ice, smothered by methane, and torn apart by unfathomably powerful megavolcanoes. And we know that another global disaster is eventually headed our way. Can we survive it? How? As a species, Homo sapiens is at a crossroads. Study of our planet’s turbulent past suggests that we are overdue for a catastrophic disaster, whether caused by nature or by human interference. It’s a frightening prospect, as each of the Earth’s past major disasters—from meteor strikes to bombardment by cosmic radiation—resulted in a mass extinction, where more than 75 percent of the planet’s species died out. But in Scatter, Adapt, and Remember, Annalee Newitz, science journalist and editor of the science Web site io9.com explains that although global disaster is all but inevitable, our chances of long-term species survival are better than ever. Life on Earth has come close to annihilation—humans have, more than once, narrowly avoided extinction just during the last million years—but every single time a few creatures survived, evolving to adapt to the harshest of conditions. This brilliantly speculative work of popular science focuses on humanity’s long history of dodging the bullet, as well as on new threats that we may face in years to come. Most important, it explores how scientific breakthroughs today will help us avoid disasters tomorrow. From simulating tsunamis to studying central Turkey’s ancient underground cities; from cultivating cyanobacteria for “living cities” to designing space elevators to make space colonies cost-effective; from using math to stop pandemics to studying the remarkable survival strategies of gray whales, scientists and researchers the world over are discovering the keys to long-term resilience and learning how humans can choose life over death. Newitz’s remarkable and fascinating journey through the science of mass extinctions is a powerful argument about human ingenuity and our ability to change. In a world populated by doomsday preppers and media commentators obsessively forecasting our demise, Scatter, Adapt, and Remember is a compelling voice of hope. It leads us away from apocalyptic thinking into a future where we live to build a better world—on this planet and perhaps on others. Readers of this book will be equipped scientifically, intellectually, and emotionally to face whatever the future holds.

Author: Douglas H. Erwin
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691165653
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description
Some 250 million years ago, the earth suffered the greatest biological crisis in its history. Around 95 percent of all living species died out—a global catastrophe far greater than the dinosaurs' demise 185 million years later. How this happened remains a mystery. But there are many competing theories. Some blame huge volcanic eruptions that covered an area as large as the continental United States; others argue for sudden changes in ocean levels and chemistry, including burps of methane gas; and still others cite the impact of an extraterrestrial object, similar to what caused the dinosaurs' extinction. Extinction is a paleontological mystery story. Here, the world's foremost authority on the subject provides a fascinating overview of the evidence for and against a whole host of hypotheses concerning this cataclysmic event that unfolded at the end of the Permian. After setting the scene, Erwin introduces the suite of possible perpetrators and the types of evidence paleontologists seek. He then unveils the actual evidence--moving from China, where much of the best evidence is found; to a look at extinction in the oceans; to the extraordinary fossil animals of the Karoo Desert of South Africa. Erwin reviews the evidence for each of the hypotheses before presenting his own view of what happened. Although full recovery took tens of millions of years, this most massive of mass extinctions was a powerful creative force, setting the stage for the development of the world as we know it today. In a new preface, Douglas Erwin assesses developments in the field since the book's initial publication.

Author: Instaread
Publisher: CreateSpace
ISBN: 9781517373238
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 32

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PLEASE NOTE: This is key takeaways and analysis of the book and NOT the original book. The Sixth Extinction: by Elizabeth Kolbert | Key Takeaways, Analysis & Review Preview: The Sixth Extinction is a book by award winning journalist, Elizabeth Kolbert. In this book, the author demonstrates that species are dying out at a rate comparable to the previous mass extinctions, and if the trend of global warming, deforestation, and pollution continues in its present course, the numbers of extinct species will meet or exceed that rate of destruction. This event will include the extinction of humanity. What this means is that the current loss of life today will soon justify the term "The Sixth Extinction," a mass extinction like the one that destroyed the dinosaurs 65 million years ago When humans originated about 100,000 years ago, they began to hunt some species into extinction. Their ability to outcompete other early hominids for food led to the extinction of those species, including Neanderthals. The extinction of species picked up steam when humans began transforming great swaths of forest and plains into farmland about 10,000 years ago... Inside this Instaread of The Sixth Extinction: Overview of the book Important People Key Takeaways Analysis of Key Takeaways About the Author With Instaread, you can get the key takeaways and analysis of a book in 15 minutes. We read every chapter, identify the key takeaways and analyze them for your convenience.

Author: Peter Brannen
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062364820
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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One of Vox’s Most Important Books of the Decade New York Times Editors' Choice 2017 Forbes Top 10 Best Environment, Climate, and Conservation Book of 2017 As new groundbreaking research suggests that climate change played a major role in the most extreme catastrophes in the planet's history, award-winning science journalist Peter Brannen takes us on a wild ride through the planet's five mass extinctions and, in the process, offers us a glimpse of our increasingly dangerous future Our world has ended five times: it has been broiled, frozen, poison-gassed, smothered, and pelted by asteroids. In The Ends of the World, Peter Brannen dives into deep time, exploring Earth’s past dead ends, and in the process, offers us a glimpse of our possible future. Many scientists now believe that the climate shifts of the twenty-first century have analogs in these five extinctions. Using the visible clues these devastations have left behind in the fossil record, The Ends of the World takes us inside “scenes of the crime,” from South Africa to the New York Palisades, to tell the story of each extinction. Brannen examines the fossil record—which is rife with creatures like dragonflies the size of sea gulls and guillotine-mouthed fish—and introduces us to the researchers on the front lines who, using the forensic tools of modern science, are piecing together what really happened at the crime scenes of the Earth’s biggest whodunits. Part road trip, part history, and part cautionary tale, The Ends of the World takes us on a tour of the ways that our planet has clawed itself back from the grave, and casts our future in a completely new light.

Author: Charles Officer
Publisher: Addison Wesley Publishing Company
ISBN:
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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In 1980 Nobel Laureate Luis Alvarez announced his theory of the dinosaurs final demise: a gigantic meteorite crashed into the earth and raised a cloud of dust that caused darkness for years, suppressing photosynthesis, which impeded plant growth, and eventually starved the dinosaurs. This idea exploded into common awareness with almost unprecedented speed, and was instantly embraced by the media and the public. Almost without question, it quickly became the hottest scientific "fact". Unfortunately for Alvarez, many in the scientific community did to support this theory, and in fact later research showed the impossibility of such an idea. The Great Dinosaur Extinction Controversy chronicles the fantastic story of how this hypothesis became so widespread, the way it became "common knowledge" - from the pages of Science to The New York Times to Parade Magazine, the controversy it caused, and the ample scientific research that proves the theory wrong. Officer and Page also present an attractive and carefully investigated alternative explanation for the mass extinctions that occurred at the end of the Cretaceous period. Through this account they show the ways that sound science should be performed and the findings transmitted.

Author: Britt Wray
Publisher: Greystone Books Ltd
ISBN: 1771641630
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 233

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Book Description
Jurassic Park meets The Sixth Extinction in Rise of the Necrofauna, a provocative look at de-extinction from acclaimed documentarist and science writer Britt Wray. A New Yorker “The Books We Loved in 2017” Selection A Science News Favorite Book of 2017 A Sunday Times "Must Read" What happens when you try to recreate a woolly mammoth—fascinating science, or conservation catastrophe? In Rise of the Necrofauna, Wray takes us deep into the minds and labs of some of the world's most progressive thinkers to find out. She introduces us to renowned futurists like Stewart Brand and scientists like George Church, who are harnessing the powers of CRISPR gene editing in the hopes of "reviving" extinct passenger pigeons, woolly mammoths, and heath hens. She speaks with Nikita Zimov, who together with his eclectic father Sergey, is creating Siberia's Pleistocene Park—a daring attempt to rebuild the mammoth's ancient ecosystem in order to save earth from climate disaster. Through interviews with these and other thought leaders, Wray reveals the many incredible opportunities for research and conservation made possible by this emerging new field. But we also hear from more cautionary voices, like those of researcher and award-winning author Beth Shapiro (How to Clone a Woolly Mammoth) and environmental philosopher Thomas van Dooren. Writing with passion and perspective, Wray delves into the larger questions that come with this incredible new science, reminding us that de-extinction could bring just as many dangers as it does possibilities. What happens, for example, when we bring an "unextinct" creature back into the wild? How can we care for these strange animals and ensure their comfort and safety—not to mention our own? And what does de-extinction mean for those species that are currently endangered? Is it really ethical to bring back an extinct passenger pigeon, for example, when countless other birds today will face the same fate? By unpacking the many biological, technological, ethical, environmental, and legal questions raised by this fascinating new field, Wray offers a captivating look at the best and worst of resurrection science. A captivating whirlwind tour through the birth and early life of the scientific idea known as “de-extinction.”—Beth Shapiro, author of How to Clone a Mammoth: The Science of De-Extinction Published in Partnership with the David Suzuki Institute.