A ground-breaking investigation into newly discovered evidence showing that remarkable things happen to our bodies and our minds when our senses connect with the natural world.We all take for granted the idea that being in nature makes us feel better. But if you were a skeptical scientist—or indeed any kind of sceptic—who wanted hard scientific evidence for this idea, where would you look? And how would that evidence be gathered?It wasn’t until Dr. Kathy Wi...

Our peculiarly British obsession with gardens goes back a long way and Plants: From Roots to Riches takes us back to where it all began. Across 25 vivid episodes, Kathy Willis, Kew's charismatic Head of Science, shows us how the last 250 years transformed our relationship with plants.Behind the scenes at the Botanical Gardens all kinds of surprising things have been going on. As the British Empire painted the atlas red, explorers, adventurers and scientists brought the mos...

An illuminating journey through the past, present and future of the botanical worldHow did plants shape the modern world? And what can they tell us about our future?Our peculiarly British obsession with gardens goes back a long way and Plants: From Roots to Riches takes us back to where it all began. Across 25 fascinating episodes, Professor Kathy Willis, former Director of Science at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, explores our changing relation...

We all take for granted the idea that being in nature makes us feel better. But if you were a skeptic who wanted hard scientific evidence for this idea, where would you look? And how would that evidence be gathered? It wasn't until Dr. Kathy Willis was asked to contribute to an international project looking for the societal benefits we gain from plants that she stumbled across a study that radically changed the way she saw the natural world. In the study there was clear proof that patients...

A blend of history, science, philosophy, and environmentalism, The Tree is an engaging and elegant look at the life of the tree and what modern research tells us about their future.There are redwoods in California that were ancient by the time Columbus first landed, and pines still alive that germinated around the time humans invented writing. There are Douglas firs as tall as skyscrapers, and a banyan tree in Calcutta as big as a football field.Fr...

A world without bees would be much less colourful, with fewer plants and flowers. But that's not all -- food would be in much shorter supply, and available in much less variety. While the media focuses on colony-collapse disorder and the threats to honey bees specifically, the real danger is much greater: all bees are at risk. And because of the integral role these insects play in the ecology of our planet, we may be at risk as well.The life of Laurence Packer, a melittologist at T...

This ebook edition does not include illustrations.An awe-inspiring journey through the eons and across the globe, in search of visible traces of evolution in the living creatures which have survived from earlier times and whose stories speak to us of seminal events in the history of life.The history of life on Earth is far older – and far odder – than many of us realise. In ‘Survivors’, acclaimed author Richard Fortey traces this history not through fossil records, but in t...

Only God can make a tree,” wrote Joyce Kilmer in one of the most celebrated of poems. In Tree: A Life Story, authors David Suzuki and Wayne Grady extend that celebration in a biography” of this extraordinary - and extraordinarily important - organism. A story that spans a millennium and includes a cast of millions but focuses on a single tree, a Douglas fir, Tree describes in poetic detail the organism’...

In the tradition of The Botany of Desire and Wicked Plants, a witty and engaging history of the first botanists interwoven with stories of today's extraordinary plants found in the garden and the lab.In Paradise Under Glass, Ruth Kassinger recounted with grace and humor her journey from brown thumb to green, sharing lessons she learned from building a home conservatory in the wake of a devastating personal crisis.In A Garden of Marvels, s...

Alice Roberts has been travelling the world - from Ethiopian desert to Malay peninsula and from Russian steppes to Amazon basin - in order to understand the challenges that early humans faced as they tried to settle continents. On her travels she has witnessed some of the daunting and brutal challenges our ancestors had to face: mountains, deserts, oceans, changing climates, terrifying giant beasts and volcanoes. But she discovers that perhaps the most serious threat of all came from other...

The ecologist and author of Do We Need Pandas? "presents a stimulating challenge to our perceptions of nature" and non-native species (George Monbiot).You may be surprised to learn that camels evolved and lived for tens of millions of years in North America—and also that the leek, national symbol of Wales, was a Roman import to Britain, as were chickens, rabbits and pheasants. These classic examples highlight the issues of "native" and "invasive" species. ...

Africa does not give up its secrets easily. Buried there lie answers about the origins of humankind. And yet, though vital clues still remain hidden, scientists have over the last century transformed our understanding about the beginnings of human life. In Born in Africa, Martin Meredith follows scientists' trail of discoveries about human origins, recounting their intense rivalry, personal feuds, and fierce controversies as well as their feats of skill and endurance. And he limns...