Science: Biology Books

AND THE WATERS TURNED TO BLOOD (With Update)
by Rodney Barker. Condition: UNREAD 1998 Touchstone Trade Paperback, reprint. Includes "an update on the 'Cell From Hell'." Very light & small diagonal crease bottom front cover corner tip. Interior perfect. Content: Want a real horror to keep you up at night? Well, this is the book for you. "Don't drink the water. Don't swim in it, fish in it, or even bathe in it. Rodney Barker's book details the latest plague to visit our shores: Pfiesteria piscicida, the "cell from hell," an aquatic microorganism that causes sufferers to exhibit symptoms similar to Alzheimers or multiple sclerosis. As it follows the fortunes of Dr. JoAnn Burkholder, one of the first scientists to recognize the danger of Pfiesteria, Barker's book reads like a cross between science fiction and conspiracy theory: Dr. Burkholder discovers that excessive pollution in the rivers and coastal waters of the Southeastern United States causes a deadly microorganism to breed like crazy; state and federal government attempts to suppress the report. An investigative reporter by training, Mr. Barker presents this book like a thriller, revealing pieces of the puzzle judiciously as he builds tension. Unlike in a literary thriller, however, there is no tidy ending to this story. Readers will be left with the disturbing knowledge that fish are still dying, fishermen are still getting sick, and the potential for disaster in this latest scourge is still unmeasured." [1 copy available]
$ 7.49 + $ 3.19 media shipping.

ARACHNOMANIA: The General Care and Maintenace of Tarantulas & Scorpions
by Philippe de Vosjoli. Cover art by Russ Gurley. B&W photos & drawings illustrate. Condition: UNREAD 1991 Advanced Vivarium Systems Special Edition, 16th printing. Light taning to white cover edges but NOT to interior glossy pages. Content: These creatures are relatively long-lived with life-spans of up to 20 years or more, as well as hardy and easy to maintain with the proper information. This book presents an overview of methods for the husbandry of a variety of tarantulas and scorpions. Selection, housing & maintenance, feeding, molting, handling, breeding, raising babies and more. So if you wish to breed and maintain these frightening creatures, this is the book for you. [1 copy available]
$ 5.49 + $2.89 media shipping. Priority & International shipping available.

THE BUG BOOK: Harmless Insect Controls
by Helen and John Philbrick. B&W illustrations by Cathy Baker. Condition: Gently pre-rad, if at all, 1991 Storey Communications Trade Paperback, 21st printing. Interior clean & tight, but there is a name on the top Title Page. Content: This book, first published in 1971, is already a classic among dedicated gardeners. It tells and shows how to identify both the helpful and the destructive insects that inhabit your gardens. Learn how to take advantage of the "good" bugs and how to eliminate the bad ones safely. [1 copy available]
$ 4.49 + $ 3.09 media shipping. Priority shipping available.

A FISH CAUGHT IN TIME: The Search for the Coelacanth
by Samantha Weinberg. B&W photos & drawings illustrate. Condition: UNREAD 2003 Perennial Trade Paperback, 4th printing. Light tanning to page edges. Remainder mark bottom edges. Content: In 1938, an alert young South African museum curator named Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer came upon a curious specimen in a fisherman's nets: a fish with "four limb-like fins and a strange little puppy dog tail," one that she thought resembled not a living being so much as a china ornament. When she could turn up no written descriptions of the find, she turned to other scientists for help, touching off a worldwide wave of interest in the creature that would come to be called the "coelacanth," long thought to be extinct, and now celebrated as one of the world's oldest species. That interest took many forms, writes journalist Samantha Weinberg in her entertaining and instructive case study in scientific detective work. It spurred the development of new deep-sea craft to explore the farthest reaches of the ocean; it touched off more than one controversy over the coelacanth's lineage, and even over which nation claimed sovereignty over its oceanic haunts; and it launched or advanced the careers of dozens of researchers. The coelacanth continues to make news. In 1998, a young American scholar found a specimen in Indonesia, far from the western Indian Ocean waters where the coelacanth was thought to dwell. Although some scientists decried the discovery as a hoax at worst and an aberration at best, the find showed that the creature's range was widespread. It demonstrated, too, that international cooperation was necessary if the coelacanth were to be protected in the future, "continuing to exist," as Weinberg writes, "after this extraordinary duration of time." [1 copy available]
$ 4.49 + $ 3.19 media shipping. Priority shipping available.

HEN'S TEETH AND HORSE'S TOES: Further Reflections in Natural History
by Stephen Jay Gould. B&W illustrations & photos. Condition: NEW 1982 W. W. Norton paperback, first printing. Pale tanning to white cover edges, but none to interior pages (excellent paper!). Content: What color is a zebra? Does the changing size of a Hershey bar hold a lesson of adaptive significance? Did an asteroid bring mass extinction to the earth 65 million years ago? Why do animals walk, fly, swim and slither but never roll? Human beings not withstanding, why are the females of most species larger than the males? Behind each question and each answer lie concepts central to science and in particular to an understanding of evolution, the centerpiece of biology. Science is the art of the doable, and the science of evolutionary biology has changed our view of the world. It is important to remember that natural selection is not a perfecting principle, but a means of making sense of our earth as we find it today. [1 copy available]
$ 6.49 + $ 3.09 media shipping.

THE HOT ZONE: A Terrifying True Story
by Richard Preston. Condition: Good only 1995 Anchor Books paperback, 5th printing. Spine & hinge crease with edgewear. Interior clean & tight with tanning to interior page edges. Content: The dramatic and chilling story of an Ebola virus outbreak in a surburban Washington, D.C. laboratory, with descriptions of frightening historical epidemics of rare and lethal viruses. More hair-raising than anything Hollywood could think of, because it's all true. [1 copy available]
$ 1.25 + $ 2.94 media shipping.

THE HOT ZONE: A Terrifying True Story
by Richard Preston. B&W photos. Condition: Gently pre-read, IF at all, 1995 Random House hardcover & DJ (in mylar jacket), 5th priting. Content: Far more infectious than AIDS, filoviruses (thread viruses) are relentless killer machines that consume a human body in days, causing a gruesome death. Symptoms include liquefying flesh, spurts of blood, black vomit and brain sludge. Outbreaks of the Ebola filovirus devasted Sudan and Zaire in 1976. And in 1989 Philippine monkeys in a Reston, Va., research lab, found to be infected with Ebola, were the target of a U.S. Army-led biohazard task force that decontaminated the lab, exterminating hundreds of monkeys to prevent the possible airborne spread of the disease to humans. In a horrifying and riveting report, portions of which appeared in the New Yorker , Preston exposes a real-life nightmare potentially as lethal as the fictive runaway germs in Michael Crichton's The Andromeda Strain. Preston plausibly argues that the emergence of AIDS, Ebola and other highly adaptable rain-forest viruses is a consequence of ecological ruin of the tropics. Questions welcome. [3 copies available]
$ 2.49 + $ 3.19 media shipping.

MUSHROOMS AND TRUFFLES OF THE SOUTHWEST
by Jack S. States. Color photos & maps plus B&W drawings. Condition: NEW 1990 Univ. of Arizona Press Trade Paperback, first printing. Lovely production - slick, heavy paper making this book weigh quite a bit. Content: The American Southwest is not usually thought of as a habitat for mushrooms, yet its various life zones are home to a surprising number of fungi and related species. This first book on the region's mushrooms and truffles provides descriptions and color illustrations for 156 major species and additional descriptive references for 155 more. Also included are selected slime molds and lichens, which, like truffles, usually are not covered in mushroom guides at all. The book's range is Arizona, New Mexico, and parts of Colorado, Utah, Nevada, California, and northern Mexico. It is designed to help fungiphiles not only identify mushrooms but also find them. The author describes the life zones where fungi can be found in association with characteristic plant communities and provides maps--with major landmarks indicated--designating conifer forests on public land where mushrooms are most often found. The major classifications covered are Club Fungi (Basidiomycetes), Stomach Fungi (Gasteromycetes), Sac Fungi (Ascomycetes), and Tuberlike Ascomycetes and Basidiomycetes. A special feature of the guide is the provision of cross references to other field guides, reinforcing the need to confirm identification before consuming mushrooms. Notations on toxicity and edibility are provided. Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
$ 6.29 + $ 3.09 media shipping.

THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK OF INSECTS (Revised & Expanded Edition)
edited by Nicholas Wade. B&W insect "portraits." Condition: NEW 2003 Lyons Press large soft cover, revised & expanded edition, first printing. Content: "I am delighted with this collection. The writing is crystal-clear and entertaining, the detail accurate, and the selection of topics wide enough to compose a virtual entomological textbook. Read it, and an insect will never be a bug to you again." - Edward Wilson. [2 copies available]
$ 3.49 + $ 3.39 media shipping.

PHANTASTICA: A Classic Survey on the Use and Abuse of Mind-Altering Plants
by Louis Lewin, M.D. B&W charts. Condition: NEW 1998 Park Street Press Trade Paperback, first printing. Content: "Phantastica has weathered the test of time quite well, and it continues to bear testimony to the scientific dedication and keen wisdom of one of the world's great psychopharmacologists. [An] open-minded, scientific approach to the study of psychoactives." "This book gives the reader a worldwide tour of inebriation, addiction, and devotional ecstasy along with his insightful perspective of human nature." Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
$ 8.89 + $ 3.19 media shipping. Priority & International shipping available.

SCIENCE ON TRIAL: The Case for Evolution
by Douglas J. Futuyma. B&W charts, drawings, & photos illustrate. Condition: UNREAD 1983 Pantheon Trade Paperback, 4th printing. Light foxing to edges. Content: The author strikes a telling blow for biology in the ongoing war of words with the 'creationists'. He provides a convincing explanation of the evolutionary process and at the same time an insight into the nature of scientific inquiry. "...can be read for pleasure and profit by people at all levels of biological sophistication ...a first-class book." The Quarterly Review of Biology [1 copy available]
$ 10.79 + $ 3.19 media shipping.

SIX-LEGGED SEX: The Erotic Lives of Bugs
by James K. Wangberg. Detailed B&W bug drawings by Marjorie Leggitt. Condition: NEW 2001 Fulcrum Trade Paperback, first printing. Tiny shelfwear bottom edge at hinge. Content: Entomologist Wangberg knows that many scientists write up their observations on the sexual lives of insects in erudite entomological journals that circulate mainly among the initiated. Believing that, for example, a paper entitled "Sexual Selection in Resource Defense Polygyny" belies a bawdy tale just screaming to be told, Wangberg "translated" technical jargon into dozens of stories about the way boys meet girls in the insect world. Jazzed up by whimsical illustrations of bugs in action, Wangberg's vignettes anthropomorphize to humorous effect a variety of mating instincts, such as serenading, proffering gifts, and dancing -- the latter apparently all the rage among fruit flies. Alas, courtship is not always so courtly: a good deal of fighting, raping, killing, and cannibalizing occurs among insects. Scientists have also studied the shapes of insect penises, couplings of tantric duration, and the swarming orgies of mayflies -- and they get paid for it! But their efforts provide our amusement in this informative, slightly tongue-in-cheek look at the scientific literature. [Oh, come on, what more delightful use of your time than reading about the love life of bugs!] [2 copies available]
$ 6.49 + $ 3.19 media shipping.

WILDLIFE-FRIENDLY PLANTS
by Rosemary Creeser. Beautiful full-color photos illustrate. Condition: NEW 2004 Firefly Books Trade Paperback, first printing. Content: No matter what size the garden or where it's located, attracting and supporting wildlife is one of the most beneficial of gardening activities. Although the common perception is that wildlife can only be found on large tracts of country land, Creeser demonstrates that, in nature, the "field of dreams" rule applies: if you build it, she says, they will come. By they, she means insects, birds, butterflies, and amphibians that can add life to the garden, and that need a garden habitat in order to survive. Knowing how to encourage wildlife is only part of a successful approach. The other is determining which plants are wildlife-friendly, and to that end, Creeser provides a comprehensive plant directory of perennials, trees, and shrubs. Complemented by breathtaking color photographs, each entry features informative symbols for at-a-glance reference. As beneficial wildlife populations diminish, it is more important than ever that gardeners plan and plant with these creatures in mind. Creeser's compact new guide makes that easy to do. Questions welcome [1 copy available]
$ 5.49 + $ 3.29 media shipping.