-
Darwin's Backyard
- How Small Experiments Led to a Big Theory
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 14 hrs and 36 mins
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Darwin's Backyard
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5 out of 5 stars
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5 out of 5 stars
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Darwin portrait.
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By: David Quammen
Publisher's Summary
James T. Costa takes listeners on a journey from Darwin's youth and travels on the HMS Beagle to Down House, his bustling home of 40 years.
To test his insights into evolution, Darwin devised an astonishing array of hands-on experiments using his garden and greenhouse, surrounding meadows and woodlands, even taking over the cellar, study, yard, and hallways of his home-turned-field-station.
Darwin engaged his children, friends, and neighbors as assistants and encouraged fellow naturalists to follow his lead. His inventive experiments yielded universal truths about nature and evidence for his revolutionary arguments in On the Origin of Species and other watershed works.
We accompany Darwin in his myriad pursuits against the backdrop of his enduring marriage, chronic illness, grief at the loss of three children, and joy in scientific revelation. At each chapter's end, Costa shows how we, too, can investigate the wonders of nature at work, with directions on how to re-create Darwin's experiments.
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- Charles Darwin and the Making of His Theory of Evolution
- By: David Quammen
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 7 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 377
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 262
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 262
In September 1838, a young Englishman named Charles Darwin hit upon the idea that "natural selection" among competing individuals would lead to wondrous adaptations and species diversity. Twenty-one years passed between that epiphany and publication of On the Origin of Species. The human drama and scientific controversy of that time constitute a fascinating, tangled tale that illuminates this cautious naturalist who sparked an intellectual revolution.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Darwin portrait.
- By J B Tipton on 11-06-07
By: David Quammen
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The Cabaret of Plants
- Forty Thousand Years of Plant Life and the Human Imagination
- By: Richard Mabey
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 11 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 95
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 83
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Story4 out of 5 stars 83
A rich, sweeping, and compelling work of botanical history, The Cabaret of Plants explores dozens of plant species that for millennia have challenged our imaginations, awoken our wonder, and upturned our ideas about history, science, beauty, and belief. Going back to the beginnings of human history, Richard Mabey shows how flowers, trees, and plants have been central to human experience not just as sources of food and medicine but as objects of worship, actors in creation myths, and symbols of war and peace, life and death.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Can't wait to listen to again!
- By hyacinthgirl on 12-27-16
By: Richard Mabey
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Letters to a Young Scientist
- By: Edward O. Wilxon
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 4 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 306
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 266
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 268
Edward O. Wilson has distilled sixty years of teaching into a book for students, young and old. Reflecting on his coming-of-age in the South as a Boy Scout and a lover of ants and butterflies, Wilson threads these twenty-one letters, each richly illustrated, with autobiographical anecdotes that illuminate his career - both his successes and his failures - and his motivations for becoming a biologist.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Long on biography, short on advice
- By A. Mandelin on 08-02-18
By: Edward O. Wilxon
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Improbable Destinies
- Fate, Chance, and the Future of Evolution
- By: Jonathan B. Losos
- Narrated by: Marc Cashman
- Length: 12 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 83
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 71
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 71
Improbable Destinies will change the way we think and talk about evolution. Losos' insights into natural selection and evolutionary change have far-reaching applications for protecting ecosystems, securing our food supply, and fighting off harmful viruses and bacteria. This compelling narrative offers a new understanding of ourselves and our role in the natural world and the cosmos.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Too much trivia.
- By Anthony W. Shallin on 07-08-18
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The Most Perfect Thing
- By: Tim Birkhead
- Narrated by: Gareth Armstrong
- Length: 7 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 28
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 26
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 27
How are eggs of different shapes made, and why are they the shapes they are? When does the shell of an egg harden? Why do some eggs contain two yolks? How are the colours and patterns of eggshells created, and why do they vary? And which end of an egg is laid first - the blunt end or the pointy end?
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great book about eggs!!
- By Timothy on 03-24-21
By: Tim Birkhead
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The Sixth Extinction
- An Unnatural History
- By: Elizabeth Kolbert
- Narrated by: Anne Twomey
- Length: 9 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 5,391
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 4,730
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 4,697
A major audiobook 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.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Lifts you out of the ordinary
- By Regina on 04-28-14
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Earth Moved
- On the Remarkable Achievements of Earthworms
- By: Amy Stewart
- Narrated by: Heather Henderson
- Length: 6 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,187
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,058
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Story4 out of 5 stars 1,047
They destroy plant diseases. They break down toxins. They plough the earth. They transform forests. They’ve survived two mass extinctions, including the one that wiped out the dinosaur. Not bad for a creature that’s deaf, blind, and spineless. Who knew that earthworms were one of our planet’s most important caretakers? Or that Charles Darwin devoted his last years to studying their remarkable achievements?
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4 out of 5 stars
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I bow down to our benevolent worm overlords
- By Kirstin on 04-17-14
By: Amy Stewart
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Darwin Comes to Town
- How the Urban Jungle Drives Evolution
- By: Menno Schilthuizen
- Narrated by: Chris Nayak
- Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 51
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 47
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 47
Menno Schilthuizen is one of a growing number of “urban ecologists” studying how our man-made environments are accelerating and changing the evolution of the animals and plants around us. In Darwin Comes to Town, he takes us around the world for an up-close look at just how stunningly flexible and swift-moving natural selection can be.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Interesting Overview
- By metasynergy on 06-11-19
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The Triumph of Seeds
- How Grains, Nuts, Kernels, Pulses & Pips Conquered the Plant Kingdom and Shaped Human History
- By: Thor Hanson
- Narrated by: Marc Vietor
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,635
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,452
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,457
We live in a world of seeds. From our morning toast to the cotton in our clothes, they are quite literally the stuff and staff of life, supporting diets, economies, and civilizations around the globe. Just as the search for nutmeg and the humble peppercorn drove the Age of Discovery, so did coffee beans help fuel the Enlightenment and cottonseed help spark the Industrial Revolution. And from the fall of Rome to the Arab Spring, the fate of nations continues to hinge on the seeds of a Middle Eastern grass known as wheat.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Delightfully simplistic!
- By Adrian on 03-30-16
By: Thor Hanson
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The Greatest Show on Earth
- The Evidence for Evolution
- By: Richard Dawkins
- Narrated by: Richard Dawkins, Lalla Ward
- Length: 14 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 3,135
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,212
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,189
The Greatest Show on Earth is a stunning counterattack on advocates of "Intelligent Design," explaining the evidence for evolution while exposing the absurdities of the creationist "argument". Dawkins sifts through rich layers of scientific evidence: from living examples of natural selection to clues in the fossil record; from natural clocks that mark the vast epochs wherein evolution ran its course to the intricacies of developing embryos; from plate tectonics to molecular genetics.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Back to His Strong Suit
- By Dalton on 09-23-09
By: Richard Dawkins
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A Brief History of Creation
- Science and the Search for the Origin of Life
- By: Bill Mesler, H. James Cleaves II
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 419
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 370
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 365
How did life begin? It is perhaps the most important question science has ever asked. Over the centuries, the search for an answer has been entwined with some of science's most revolutionary advances, including van Leeuwenhoek's microscope, Darwin's theory of evolution, and Crick and Watson's unveiling of DNA.
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3 out of 5 stars
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5 stars for the history, 2 stars for current theor
- By serine on 04-03-16
By: Bill Mesler, and others
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Undeniable
- Evolution and the Science of Creation
- By: Bill Nye
- Narrated by: Bill Nye
- Length: 9 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 6,396
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 5,816
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 5,795
Sparked by a provocative comment to BigThink.com last fall, and fueled by a highly controversial debate with Creation Museum curator Ken Ham, Bill Nye's campaign to confront the scientific shortcoming of creationism has exploded in just a few months into a national crusade.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Leasurly read for those who don't want equations
- By AxeanaB on 02-05-15
By: Bill Nye
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The Revolutionary Genius of Plants
- A New Understanding of Plant Intelligence and Behavior
- By: Stefano Mancuso
- Narrated by: Gibson Frazier
- Length: 4 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 326
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 273
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 271
Do plants have intelligence? Do they have memory? Are they better problem solvers than people? The Revolutionary Genius of Plants - a fascinating, paradigm-shifting work that upends everything you thought you knew about plants - makes a compelling scientific case that these and other astonishing ideas are all true.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Inaccurate book description
- By windelbo on 02-18-19
By: Stefano Mancuso
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How to Build a Dinosaur
- Extinction Doesn't Have to Be Forever
- By: Jack Horner, James Gorman
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 6 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 98
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 56
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 56
In movies, in novels, in comic strips, and on television, we've all seen dinosaurs - or at least somebody's educated guess of what they would look like. But what if it were possible to build, or grow, a real dinosaur without finding ancient DNA? Jack Horner, the scientist who advised Steven Spielberg on the blockbuster film Jurassic Park and a pioneer in bringing paleontology into the 21st century, teams up with the editor of the New York Times's Science Times section to reveal exactly what's in store.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Good book but misplaced title
- By Robert on 06-19-15
By: Jack Horner, and others
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The Plant Messiah
- Adventures in Search of the World's Rarest Species
- By: Carlos Magdalena
- Narrated by: Roy McMillan
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 48
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 46
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 46
Carlos Magdalena is not your average horticulturist. He's a man on a mission to save the world's most endangered plants. First captivated by the flora of his native Spain, he has traveled to the remotest parts of the globe in search of exotic species. Renowned for his pioneering work, he has committed his life to protecting plants from man-made ecological destruction and thieves hunting for wealthy collectors.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Very informative, sometimes irritating
- By F Shaw on 07-08-18
By: Carlos Magdalena
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The Tangled Tree
- A Radical New History of Life
- By: David Quammen
- Narrated by: Jacques Roy
- Length: 13 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,165
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,026
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,026
In the mid-1970s, scientists began using DNA sequences to reexamine the history of all life. Perhaps the most startling discovery to come out of this new field is horizontal gene transfer (HGT), or the movement of genes across species lines. For instance, we now know that roughly eight percent of the human genome arrived not through traditional inheritance from directly ancestral forms, but sideways by viral infection - a type of HGT. In The Tangled Tree David Quammen chronicles these discoveries through the lives of the researchers who made them.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Very Enjoyable and Readable
- By Dennis on 08-18-18
By: David Quammen