What happens when ideas presented as science lead us in the wrong direction?History is filled with brilliant ideas that gave rise to disaster, and this book explores the most fascinating—and significant—missteps: from opium's heyday as the pain reliever of choice to recognition of opioids as a major cause of death in the U.S.; from the rise of trans fats as the golden ingredient for tastier, cheaper food to the heart disease epidemic that followed; and from the cries to ban DDT for ...

Addressing the explosive growth in ancestral travel, this compelling narrative combines intriguing tales of discovery with tips on how to begin your own explorations. Actor and award-winning travel writer Andrew McCarthy's featured story recounts his recent quest to uncover his family's Irish history, while twenty-five other prominent writers tell their own heartfelt stories of connection. Spanning the globe, these stories offer personal takes on journeying home, whether the authors are ac...

Following in the paw prints of the successful first DogTown book, companion to the hit show on the National Geographic Channel, Dog Tips from Dogtown is the pet owner's practical guide to building a healthy, happy relationship with a dog. Relying on the unparalleled expertise of the trainers at the Best Friends Animal Society, this manual shows, with step-by-step illustrations, how to apply the power of positive reinforcement to train a pet. From adoption tips to canine communication lesso...

For animal lovers, nature enthusiasts, and the vast readership for gripping true-life stories, this African saga is a must-read adventure. It chronicles the unique Harnas Wildlife Foundation in Namibia, where Marieta van der Merwe and her family, former wealthy cattle farmers, have sold land to buy and care for embattled wildlife. We meet Sam, the "AIDS" lion infected by mistake at a vet clinic. Boerjke, a baboon with epilepsy and Down syndrome. Savanna, the one-eyed lioness. And Marieta v...

"The division between conventional and traditional medicine is as artificial as the division between science and nature. They can be woven together in a fashion that meets our physical, emotional, and spiritual needs. This is the foundation upon which integrative medicine is built." -- Tieraona Low Dog, M.D. In Life Is Your Best Medicine, Dr. Low Dog weaves together the wisdom of traditional medicine and the knowledge of modern-day medicine into an elegant message of health and self-affirm...

Get the how, when, and why of getting better and staying well with homemade remedies that the doctor orders. National Geographic helps you take charge of health care guided by a physician expert in natural healing, herbal medicine, and home remedies. Never have we needed this advice more than now, as worries about hospital-borne infections, antibiotic resistance, and pandemic threats make us yearn for the days of doctor home visits and mother's chicken soup. We need to rediscover the speci...

No Stopping for Lions is an unforgettable adventure that is sure to inspire us all to step outside our comfort zone. When Joanne Glynn and her husband Neil travelled around Africa for a year, the warmth of the people, beauty of the landscape and awe-inspiring diversity of the wildlife soon worked their way into the travellers' hearts and souls.From encounters with waterlogged warthogs to conversations with street kids orphaned by the AIDS epidemic and Maasai warriors grapp...

Jenna Butler draws on her own experiences of her grandmother's disappearance into senile dementia to reassemble a sensual world in longpoem form that positively crackles with imagery and rhythm. Identities and memories flow and flicker as she strings together fragments of narrative into stories that comprise one woman's life. It entwines her disappearing life with that of the persona of the woman's granddaughter through a choreographed confusion of identities: of she's and I's. Few poets c...

It's the middle of the night in the Namibian desert when zoologist Tammie Matson wakes with a start to find two elephants standing beside her tiny tent. She makes a promise: "If you just let me survive tonight I will give up Africa. I'll give it all up. Just don't let them stand on me."It's not a promise she will easily keep. At 29, Tammie has spent nearly half her life in Africa, her first love, working as a conservationist. But as her 30s approach, Tammie is conscious of...

German-born artist Vic Guhrs came to Africa at the age of twenty-two to fulfil his boyhood dream of a life in wild places among wild animals. He lived for twenty-five years in an isolated bush camp in the Luangwa Valley in Zambia and knows that, despite its paradoxes and its mysteries, he can never leave Africa. The trouble with Africa, he says, is that once it is in your blood, like malaria, it is almost impossible to get rid of. And the trouble with Africa is also the trouble with those ...

When I was 10, I was taken from my quiet, safe corner of old Europe and deposited into an exotic new world. Africa, at once breathtaking and soul-destroying, from the snow-capped mountains and teeming game plains of Kenya and Tanzania to the haunted hunger-stalked dustbowls of Ethiopia and the Sudan – the hideous and the magnificent have always gone hand in hand there.Nobody who has once set foot on the soil of Africa will ever be quite free of it again. When I first went there, I ...

When she was fifteen, Tammie Matson went on safari with her father to Zimbabwe - and it changed her forever. Back in Australia she turned her life upside down to build her future in Africa.Returning to the safari camps - this time as a worker - she out-ran a charging lioness, played with a cheetah, stumbled across poachers and watched with amazement as a witchdoctor struck fear into his victims' hearts. This was the adventure she was looking for and deciding to study zoology gave h...