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Biomimicry
Innovation Inspired by Nature
By Janine M. Benyus
Biomimicry is a revolutionary new science that analyzes nature's
best ideas -- spider silk and prairie grass, seashells and brain
cells -- and adapts them for human use. Science writer and lecturer
Janine Benyus takes us into the lab and out in the field with the
maverick researchers who are applying nature's ingenious solutions
to the problem of human survival: stirring vats of proteins to
unleash their signaling power in computers; analyzing how spiders
manufacture a waterproof fiber five times stronger than steel;
studying how electrons in a leaf cell convert sunlight to fuel in
trillionths of a second; discovering miracle drugs by observing what
animals eat -- and much more.
The products of biomimicry are things we can all use -- medicines,
"smart" computers, super-strong materials, profitable and
earth-friendly business. Biomimicry eloquently shows that the
answers are all around us.
Links to interview with
Janine M. Benyus:
http://www.annonline.com/interviews/971218/
Link to information on award winning video based on book:
http://www.bullfrogfilms.com/catalog/bmic.html
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Peak Experiences
Walking Meditations on Literature, Nature, and Need (Under the Sign
of Nature)
by
Ian Marshall (Author)
Nature’s ability to satisfy deep human needs is familiar to anyone
who has hiked up a mountain, canoed a river, or hung a bird feeder
outside the kitchen window. In Story Line, his groundbreaking work
of narrative ecocriticism, Ian Marshall explores how natural
surroundings inspired works of literature set along the Appalachian
Trail. In his new work, Peak Experiences, Marshall sets out on a far
more personal and at the same time far-reaching journey, to discover
how our modern estrangement from the natural world has affected our
mental well-being.
Taking as his starting point the psychologist Abraham Maslow’s
“hierarchy of human needs”—a pyramid familiar to anyone who ever
cracked a textbook for Psych 101—Marshall asks how his own
experience of deep satisfaction in nature may or may not fit
Maslow’s theory. In chapters focused on the needs identified by
Maslow, Marshall finds evidence for the healing power of nature in
literature and in his own experiences in the wild.
“I
offer myself as test subject,” Marshall writes: “recently divorced,
a father sharing custody of two children, someone with a high regard
for the written word, . . . a little too stressed-out these days, no
more self-actualized than the next person but just as curious about
it—and what I have going for me are a lot of well-read books, a good
pair of broken-in hiking boots, and a thing for mountains.”
Embracing the exciting new field of ecopsychology, Marshall leads us
on a personal and intellectual odyssey, from the dream mountain of
Henry David Thoreau to the high slopes of John Muir’s beloved Mount
Shasta. Always, Marshall returns to his own challenges as father and
reader, and to his own humble but rewarding mountain, Bald Eagle
Ridge, in the Pennsylvania countryside outside his back door.
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Why
Birds Sing
A Journey Through the
Mystery of Bird Song
by David Rothenberg (Author)
From Booklist
The question of why birds sing has kept humans entranced for
millennia. Most scientists would answer that birds sing to claim
territories and to attract mates. But why is so much of birdsong
beautiful? In a unique approach to the study of birdsong, jazz
musician and philosopher Rothenberg attacks this question through
the medium of music. When a musician friend invited him to come and
play music with the birds at the National Aviary in Pittsburgh,
Rothenberg's music attracted a white-crested laughing thrush. The
bird began to sing along with the author's clarinet and to actually
improvise as he improvised. This interaction led to a journey, both
intellectual and physical, as Rothenberg investigated birdsong.
Mixed throughout the narrative is the author's sheer joy at the
musicality of birds' songs, illustrated with musical notations made
by both the author and previous researchers. This lovely amalgam of
science and music will appeal to both left- and right-brained
readers. Nancy Bent
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or
unavailable edition of this title.
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