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Merciless Mermaids: Tails from the Deep
Think deep. The deep of the sea, the deep of space, the deep of our souls, our fears … ourselves. Fear not the monsters under your bed—but the mermaids under your boat. Merciless Mermaids: Tails from the Deep?features thirty original stories and poems by Mercedes Lackey, Rick Wilber, D.J. Butler, Gama Ray Martinez, Julia Vee, Ken Bebelle, and many others. From Japanese legends to mafia mermen, from carnival freaks to flying aces, from bayou legends to kraken-like behemoths, these tales explore the darker side of merfolk: desire, envy, love unfulfilled, grace ungranted, loneliness turned to rage…. Can you see the shapes in the waters that watch you? Do you hear the lure of a siren’s call?
Mercury Stories: Understanding Sustainability through a Volatile Element
by Henrik Selin Noelle Eckley SelinAn interdisciplinary analysis of human interactions with mercury through history that sheds light on efforts to promote and achieve sustainability.In Mercury Stories, Henrik Selin and Noelle Eckley Selin examine sustainability through analyzing human interactions with mercury over thousands of years. They explore how people have made beneficial use of this volatile element, how they have been harmed by its toxic properties, and how they have tried to protect themselves and the environment from its damaging effects. Taking a systems approach, they develop and apply an analytical framework that can inform other efforts to evaluate and promote sustainability.
Merde
by Ralph A. LewinMerde is an unusual (very unusual) and witty investigation into a subject you may always have wondered about--but didn't know quite what to ask. History, biology, anthropology, culture, animal behavior--all of these are the real subjects of Merde. Why can some animals do it on the run, and others can't? Why does camel dung make good fires? What are the fascinating stories of the dung beetles? Myths and legends, physical features, health and disease, uses for construction and as fertilizers--even nutritional values!--Ralph Lewin writes about them all in the most ingratiating and sophisticated and yet scientific way. Merde is also full of personal adventures and observations, as well as anecdotes and examples. The scattered literature on this subject is voluminous, but until now no one has perused and compiled it all and given it a personal touch, so to speak. It will be hard not to talk about this treasure trove of a book after you've finished it--or perhaps even when you're in the middle of it.From the Hardcover edition.
Mere Environmentalism: A Biblical Perspective on Humans and the Natural World (Values and Capitalism)
by Steven F. HaywardThe book provides an insightful reflection on the relationship between humans and the natural world and offers a Christian approach to environmental policy.
Meridian Hill: A History (Landmarks)
by Stephen R. McKevittIn the nineteenth century, Commodore David Porter built his mansion on a prominent hill sitting directly north of the White House, and the rest of Meridian Hill's history is indelibly tied to the fabric of Washington. John Quincy Adams once resided in Porter's mansion. Union troops used the estate and its lands during the Civil War. Later, part of the old estate was famously developed by Mary Henderson into a noted group of embassy mansions, and the extraordinary Meridian Hill Park was created. The rest of the land became a diverse, thriving residential neighborhood. Join local author Stephen McKevitt as he chronicles the fascinating story of this interesting urban locale in the nation's capital.
Merle's Door: Lessons from a Freethinking Dog
by Ted KerasoteWhile on a camping trip, Ted Kerasote met a dog—a Labrador mix—who was living on his own in the wild. They became attached to each other, and Kerasote decided to name the dog Merle and bring him home. There, he realized that Merle’s native intelligence would be diminished by living exclusively in the human world. He put a dog door in his house so Merle could live both outside and in. A deeply touching portrait of a remarkable dog and his relationship with the author, Merle’s Door explores the issues that all animals and their human companions face as their lives intertwine, bringing to bear the latest research into animal consciousness and behavior as well as insights into the origins and evolution of the human-dog partnership. Merle showed Kerasote how dogs might live if they were allowed to make more of their own decisions, and Kerasote suggests how these lessons can be applied universally.
Mermaid Kenzie: Protector of the Deeps
by Charlotte Watson ShermanKenzie turns her fierce love for the ocean into action, resourcefully cleaning up the beach after her mermaid-tail swimsuit tangles in floating plastic bags.When Kenzie slips on her mermaid tail, she becomes Mermaid Kenzie, protector of the deeps. One day as Kenzie snorkels around a shipwreck, she discovers more plastic bags than fish. Grabbing her spear and mermaid net, she begins to clean up the water and the shore--inspiring other kids to help. Beautifully written in African American Vernacular English, this poetic picture book includes back matter with information about how plastic winds up in our oceans and examples of people--some of them kids, like Kenzie--who have worked to protect the sea. Mermaid Kenzie celebrates the ways that all of us, no matter how small, can make a difference.
Mermaid's Blood
by Susan DickinsonAfter finding an article about an old woman he used to know, a young man reminisces about the pieces of sea glass he would hunt for on the beach and sell to her. Unbeknownst to him, however, was just how special those unusual little gems would turn out to be.
Mermaids On Mars
by Nancy GuettierA captivating, eco-conscious story about water-wasting mermaids—and the basis for the award-winning, stop-motion animated short film. Mermaids on Mars is a sweet tale that educates children on the importance of water conservation. Beautifully illustrated, it includes simple water-saving tips that our Martian mermaid friends want to share with kids all over the world—after ignoring them on their own home planet and learning a most important lesson. Their story and their wisdom will help everyone save Earth’s most precious resource. “A whimsical story about mermaids—when they lived on Mars. Mermaids thrived in Mars’ crater pools and used up all of the water resources, splashing around. Thanks to a very cool rocket ship, the mermaids traveled to Earth and settled in our oceans. Mermaids also helps children learn the importance of water conservation.” —MySocialGoodNews.com “Author Nancy Guettier teaches a valuable lesson to children to cherish the resources around them and to use and consume wisely. It’s a perfect lesson for the modern child. Illustrator Tina Cash-Walsh draws beautifully and will captivate the reader.” —TheBabySpot.ca “This book helps explain that we don’t need to excessively waste water when going potty or when brushing our teeth . . . We love the bright colors and whimsical illustrations in this book.” —The Naptime Reviewer “I applaud Nancy Guettier for writing books that have an educational bent to them. Any book that teaches conservation to kids definitely has a leg up on the competition in my mind. Mermaids on Mars is definitely a solid kids book with a good lesson behind it.” —Sci-Fi & Scary
Merry Merry Holly Holly (Cork and Fuzz #11)
by Dori ChaconasCelebrate ten years of this popular easy-to-read series with the best friends' first-ever picture book--a lovely holiday tale. Cork the muskrat knows there&’s something special about today, but he just can&’t figure out what it is. So he and his best friend, the possum Fuzz, go on a search to find a tree for a little &“piece of quiet,&” so they can think about what makes this day so special. But the first tree has too many birds, and the next has too many squirrels--they're not quiet at all! At last, when the snow begins to fall, Cork and Fuzz find the perfect place to rest their heads: under a lovely outdoor Christmas tree. In the end, Cork realizes what makes this day so special is that he is &“in a beautiful place with my friend.&”
Mesa Verde National Park
by Duane A. SmithMesa Verde National Park was America's first cultural park and also the world's first cultural heritage park. Created in 1906, it preserves the sites and materials of the prehistoric Puebloan people. Located in southwestern Colorado near the famous Four Corners, where the states of Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico meet, the magnificent Mesa Verde is situated in Montezuma County, just south of Cortez and directly west of Durango. The park's rich archaeological history was played out amid some of the most ruggedly beautiful landscapes in the West. The greater story of the evolution of the park encompasses the Ute people, Theodore Roosevelt, novelist Willa Cather, and other personalities. These remarkable vintage photographs tell that saga, which is as fascinating as that of the Puebloans.
Meso-Neoproterozoic Geology and Petroleum Resources in China (Springer Geology)
by Tieguan WangThis book focuses on Meso- to Neoproterozoic geology and Petroleum resources in China. It offers the oldest sediments knowledge for petroleum generation, accumulation, alteration and preservation in the world. It provides a valuable contribution to the understanding of a potential Precambrian oil and gas exploration realm through well-developed Meso- to Neoproterozoic sedimentary strata with petroleum resources. This work will appeal to a wide readership, from geologists, geochemists, petroleum prospector, university faculty members to advanced students working for Precambrian and petroleum geological and geochemical research.
Mesophotic Coral Ecosystems (Coral Reefs of the World #12)
by Yossi Loya Kimberly A. Puglise Tom C.L. BridgeThis book summarizes what is known about mesophotic coral ecosystems (MCEs) geographically and by major taxa. MCEs are characterized by light-dependent corals and associated communities typically found at depths ranging from 30-40 m. and extending to over 150 m. in tropical and subtropical ecosystems. They are populated with organisms typically associated with shallow coral reefs, such as macroalgae, corals, sponges, and fishes, as well as specialist species unique to mesophotic depths. During the past decade, there has been an increasing scientific and management interest in MCEs expressed by the exponential increase in the number of publications studying this unique environment. Despite their close proximity to well-studied shallow reefs, and the growing evidence of their importance, our scientific knowledge of MCEs is still in its early stages. The topics covered in the book include: regional variation in MCEs; similarities and differences between mesophotic and shallow reef taxa, biotic and abiotic conditions, biodiversity, ecology, geomorphology, and geology; potential connectivity between MCEs and shallow reefs; MCE disturbances, conservation, and management challenges; and new technologies, key research questions/knowledge gaps, priorities, and future directions in MCE research.
Mesquite: An Arboreal Love Affair
by Gary Paul NabhanWinner of a 2019 Southwest Book Award (BRLA)An homage to the useful and idiosyncratic mesquite treeIn his latest book, Mesquite, Gary Paul Nabhan employs humor and contemplative reflection to convince readers that they have never really glimpsed the essence of what he calls &“arboreality.&”As a Franciscan brother and ethnobotanist who has often mixed mirth with earth, laughter with landscape, food with frolic, Nabhan now takes on a large, many-branched question: What does it means to be a tree, or, accordingly, to be in a deep and intimate relationship with one?To answer this question, Nabhan does not disappear into a forest but exposes himself to some of the most austere hyper-arid terrain on the planet—the Sonoran and Chihuahuan deserts along the US/Mexico border—where even the most ancient perennial plants are not tall and thin, but stunted and squat.There, in desert regions that cover more than a third of our continent, mesquite trees have become the staff of life, not just for indigenous cultures, but for myriad creatures, many of which respond to these &“nurse plants&” in wildly intelligent and symbiotic ways.In this landscape, where Nabhan claims that nearly every surviving being either sticks, stinks, stings, or sings, he finds more lives thriving than you could ever shake a stick at. As he weaves his arid yarns, we suddenly realize that our normal view of the world has been turned on its head: where we once saw scarcity, there is abundance; where we once perceived severity, there is whimsy. Desert cultures that we once assumed lived in &“food deserts&” are secretly savoring a most delicious world.Drawing on his half-century of immersion in desert ethnobotany, ecology, linguistics, agroforestry, and eco-gastronomy, Nabhan opens up for us a hidden world that we had never glimpsed before. Along the way, he explores the sensuous reality surrounding this most useful and generous tree.Mesquite is a book that will delight mystics and foresters, naturalists and foodies. It combines cutting-edge science with a generous sprinkling of humor and folk wisdom, even including traditional recipes for cooking with mesquite.
Message In A Bottle
by Nicholas SparksIn a moment of desolation on a windswept beach, Garrett bottles his words of undying love for a lost woman, and throws them to the sea. My dearest Catherine, I miss you my darling, as I always do, but today is particularly hard because the ocean has been singing to me, and the song is that of our life together . . .But the bottle is picked up by Theresa, a mother with a shattered past, who feels unaccountably drawn to this lonely man. Who are this couple? What is their story? Beginning a search that will take her to a sunlit coastal town and an unexpected confrontation, it is a tale that resonates with everlasting love and the enduring promise of redemption.
Message In A Bottle
by Nicholas SparksIn a moment of desolation on a windswept beach, Garrett bottles his words of undying love for a lost woman, and throws them to the sea. My dearest Catherine, I miss you my darling, as I always do, but today is particularly hard because the ocean has been singing to me, and the song is that of our life together . . .But the bottle is picked up by Theresa, a mother with a shattered past, who feels unaccountably drawn to this lonely man. Who are this couple? What is their story? Beginning a search that will take her to a sunlit coastal town and an unexpected confrontation, it is a tale that resonates with everlasting love and the enduring promise of redemption.
Message in a Bottle: Ocean Dispatches from a Seabird Biologist
by Holly HoganFrom the heart of the Labrador Current to the furthest reaches of our global oceans, Message in a Bottle conjures an exquisite diversity of marine life and warns of a central threat to its survival: ocean plastic.The dovekie is a stocky seabird the size of a child&’s heart that spends its winters on the coast of Newfoundland, thriving in one of the toughest climates on Earth. The polar bear is an apex predator, designed to persevere in the Arctic's extreme conditions. The North Atlantic right whale outweighs the humpback by more than twenty tons and feeds on enormous quantities of tiny plankton in northeastern waters before migrating south for the winter. In Message in a Bottle, wildlife biologist and writer Holly Hogan brings to extraordinary life the wonder and resilience of these creatures and many other birds, fish and marine mammals she has encountered in sea voyages from the Arctic to the Antarctic oceans. However, in her travels she has noticed a troubling pattern: the constant presence of plastic, in the form of adrift fishing gear ("ghost gear"), garbage and micro-plastics which form an invisible but pervasive smog in our oceans and threaten even the most seemingly resilient forms of sea life.Bringing together nature, science and adventure writing, Hogan shines a light on our plastic-addicted lifestyle and offers a compelling, eyewitness account of its devastating effects on the marine environment—70% of our planet. With lyrical prose and a reverential eye for the majesty and fragility of our natural world, Message in a Bottle is a clarion call to protect global oceans and the life they sustain, including our own.
Messages from Frank's Landing: A Story of Salmon, Treaties, and the Indian Way
by Charles WilkinsonIn 1974 Federal Judge George H. Boldt issued one of the most sweeping rulings in the history of the Pacific Northwest, affirming the treaty rights of Northwest tribal fishermen and allocating to them 50 percent of the harvestable catch of salmon and steelhead. Among the Indians testifying in Judge Boldt’s courtroom were Nisqually tribal leader Billy Frank, Jr., and his 95-year-old father, whose six acres along the Nisqually River, known as Frank’s Landing, had been targeted for years by state game wardens in the so-called Fish Wars. <p><p>By the 1960s the Landing had become a focal point for the assertion of tribal treaty rights in the Northwest. It also lay at the moral center of the tribal sovereignty movement nationally. The confrontations at the Landing hit the news and caught the conscience of many. Like the schoolhouse steps at Little Rock or the bridge at Selma, Frank’s Landing came to signify a threshold for change, and Billy Frank, Jr., became a leading architect of consensus, a role he continues today as one of the most colorful and accomplished figures in the modern history of the Pacific Northwest. <p><p>In Messages from Frank’s Landing, Charles Wilkinson explores the broad historical, legal, and social context of Indian fishing rights in the Pacific Northwest, providing a dramatic account of the people and issues involved. He draws on his own decades of experience as a lawyer working with Indian people, and focuses throughout on Billy Frank and the river flowing past Frank’s Landing. In all aspects of Frank’s life as an activist, from legal settlements negotiated over salmon habitats destroyed by hydroelectric plants, to successful negotiations with the U.S. Army for environmental protection of tribal lands, Wilkinson points up the significance of the traditional Indian world view - the powerful and direct legacy of Frank’s father, conveyed through generations of Indian people who have crafted a practical working philosophy and a way of life. <p><p>Drawing on many hours spent talking and laughing with Billy Frank while canoeing the Nisqually watershed, Wilkinson conveys words of respect and responsibility for the earth we inhabit and for the diverse communities the world encompasses. These are the messages from Frank’s Landing. Wilkinson brings welcome clarity to complex legal issues, deepening our insight into a turbulent period in the political and environmental history of the Northwest.
Messages from Islands: A Global Biodiversity Tour
by Ilkka HanskiFrom a small island in the Baltic Sea to the large tropical islands of Borneo and Madagascar, Messages from Islands is a global tour of these natural, water-bound laboratories. In this career-spanning work, Ilkka Hanski draws upon the many islands on which he performed fieldwork to convey key themes in ecology. By exploring the islands’ biodiversity as an introduction to general issues, Hanski helps us to learn how species and communities interact in fragmented landscapes, how evolution generates biodiversity, and how this biodiversity is maintained over time. Beginning each chapter on a particular island, Hanski dives into reflections on his own field studies before going on to pursue a variety of ecological questions, including: What is the biodiversity crisis? What are extinction thresholds and extinction debts? What can the biodiversity hypothesis tell us about rapidly increasing allergies, asthma, and other chronic inflammatory disorders? The world’s largest island, Greenland, for instance, is the starting point for a journey into the benefits that humankind acquires from biodiversity, including the staggering biodiversity of microbes in the ecosystems that are closest to us—the ecosystems in our guts, in our respiratory tracts, and under our skin. Conceptually oriented but grounded in an adventurous personal narrative, Messages from Islands is a landmark work that lifts the natural mysteries of islands from the sea, bringing to light the thrilling complexities and connections of ecosystems worldwide.
Messages from an Owl
by Max R. TermanFrom the Book Jacket: When zoologist Max Terman came to the rescue of a great horned owlet in the park of a small Kansas town, he embarked on an adventure that would test his scientific ingenuity and lead to unprecedented observations of an owl's hidden life in the wild. In Messages from an Owl, Terman not only relates his experiences nursing the starving owlet, "Stripey," back to health and teaching it survival skills in his barn, but he also describes the anxiety and elation of letting a companion loose into an uncertain world. Once Terman felt that Stripey knew how to dive after prey, he set the owl free. At this point his story could have ended, with no clue as to what the young bird's fate would be--had it not been for Terman's experimentation with radio tags. By strapping the tags to Stripey, the author actually managed to follow the owl into the wild and observe for himself the behavior of a hand-reared individual reunited with its natural environment. Through this unique use of telemetry, Terman tracked Stripey for over six years after the bird left the scientist's barn and took up residence in the surrounding countryside on the Kansas prairie. The radio beacon provided him with information on the owl's regular patterns of playing, hunting, exploring, and protecting. It enabled him to witness the moments when Stripey was bantered and mobbed by crows, when other owls launched fierce attacks, and when a prospective mate caught Stripey's eye. Stripey checked in occasionally with Terman back at the barn, following him around as he performed chores, usually waiting for a handout. Until now, scientists have generally believed that an owl nurtured by humans becomes ill-adapted for meeting the challenges of life in the wild. Terman's research proves otherwise. Stripey surpassed all expectations by becoming a totally independent wild creature. With Terman, however, Stripey remained tame, allowing the author to explore something one rarely sees in owls: a warm interest in humanity. Terman engagingly recreates this dimension of Stripey as he describes with humor and compassion the daily challenges of probing the life of a "phantom winged tiger."
Messages from the Wild: An Almanac of Suburban Natural and Unnatural History
by Frederick R. GehlbachSeeking a closer connection with nature than the manicured lawns of suburbia, naturalist Fred Gehlbach and his family built a house on the edge of a wooded ravine in Central Texas in the mid-1960s. On daily walks over the hills, creek hollows, and fields of the ravine, Gehlbach has observed the cycles of weather and seasons, the annual migrations of birds, and the life cycles of animals and plants that also live in the ravine.<P><P>In this book, Gehlbach draws on thirty-five years of journal entries to present a composite, day-by-day almanac of the life cycles of this semiwild natural island in the midst of urban Texas. Recording such events as the hatching of Eastern screech owl chicks, the emergence of June bugs, and the first freeze of November, he reminds us of nature's daily, monthly, and annual cycles, from which humans are becoming ever more detached in our unnatural urban environments. The long span of the almanac also allows Gehlbach to track how local and even global developments have affected the ravine, from scars left by sewer construction to an increase in frost-free days probably linked to global warming.
Messages from the Wild: An Almanac of Suburban Natural and Unnatural History
by Frederick R. GehlbachSeeking a closer connection with nature than the manicured lawns of suburbia, naturalist Fred Gehlbach and his family built a house on the edge of a wooded ravine in Central Texas in the mid-1960s. On daily walks over the hills, creek hollows, and fields of the ravine, Gehlbach has observed the cycles of weather and seasons, the annual migrations of birds, and the life cycles of animals and plants that also live in the ravine. In this book, Gehlbach draws on thirty-five years of journal entries to present a composite, day-by-day almanac of the life cycles of this semiwild natural island in the midst of urban Texas. Recording such events as the hatching of Eastern screech owl chicks, the emergence of June bugs, and the first freeze of November, he reminds us of nature’s daily, monthly, and annual cycles, from which humans are becoming ever more detached in our unnatural urban environments. The long span of the almanac also allows Gehlbach to track how local and even global developments have affected the ravine, from scars left by sewer construction to an increase in frost-free days probably linked to global warming. This long-term record of natural cycles provides one of only two such baseline data sets for North America. At the same time, the book is an eloquent account of one keen observer’s daily interactions with his wild and human neighbors and of the lessons in connectedness and the "play of life" that they teach.
Metagenomics and Microbial Ecology: Techniques and Applications
by Nachimuthu Senthil Kumar Surajit De Mandal Amrita Kumari Panda Satpal Singh Bisht Fengliang JinMicroorganisms comprise the greatest genetic diversity in the natural ecosystem, and characterization of these microbes is an essential step towards discovering novel products or understanding complex biological mechanisms. The advancement of metagenomics coupled with the introduction of high-throughput, cost-effective NGS technology has expanded the possibilities of microbial research in various biological systems. In addition to traditional culture and biochemical characteristics, omics approaches (metagenomics, metaproteomics, and metatranscriptomics) are useful for analyzing complete microbial communities and their functional attributes in various environments. Metagenomics and Microbial Ecology: Techniques and Applications explores the most recent advances in metagenomics research in the landscape of next-generation sequencing technologies. This book also describes how advances in sequencing technologies are used to study invisible microbes as well as the relationships between microorganisms in their respective environments. Features: Covers a wide range of concepts, investigations, and technological advancement in metagenomics at the global level. Highlights the novel and recent approaches to analyze microbial diversity and its functional attributes. Features a range of chapters that present an introduction to the field and functional insight into various ecosystems.
Metagovernance for Sustainability: A Framework for Implementing the Sustainable Development Goals (Routledge Studies in Sustainable Development)
by Louis MeulemanThe 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which were adopted by the United Nations in September 2015 are universally applicable in all 193 UN Member States and connect the big challenges of our time, such as hunger and poverty, climate change, health in an urbanised environment, sustainable energy, mobility, economic development and environmental degradation. Sustainability has the characteristics of a ‘wicked problem’, for which there are no one-size-fits-all solutions. This book tests the hypothesis that the implementation of sustainable development, and in particular the 2015 SDGs, requires tailor-made metagovernance or ‘governance of governance’. This is necessary to develop effective governance and high quality and inclusive public administration and to foster policy and institutional coherence to support implementing the SDGs. Based on the growing literature on governance and metagovernance, and taking into account the specificities of societal factors such as different values and traditions in different countries, the book presents a framework for the design and management of SDG implementation. It shows how hierarchical, network and market governance styles can be combined and how governance failure can be prevented or dealt with. The book presents an overview of fifty ‘shades of governance’ which differ for each governance style, and a sketch of a concrete method to apply sustainability metagovernance. Metagovernance for Sustainability is relevant to academic and practitioner fields across many disciplines and problem areas. It will be of particular interest to scholars, students and policy-makers studying Sustainable Development, Governance and Metagovernance, Public Management and Capacity Building.
Metal Removal and Recovery from Mining Wastewater and E-waste Leachate (IHE Delft PhD Thesis Series)
by Suthee JanyasuthiwongMetal contamination in the environment is a persisting global issue. The metal reservoirs in the earth have declined due to society’s needs and due to uncontrolled mining activities. Therefore, the idea to recover metals from waste streams has emerged. In this thesis, cost competitive technologies such as adsorption using agro-wastes and precipitation using an inverse fluidized bed (IFB) reactor were investigated, with special emphasis on the recovery of base metals. Groundnut shell showed good potential for metal (Cu, Pb and Zn) removal. From artificial neural network modeling, the performance of the sulfate reducing bacteria (SRB) was found to be strongly pH dependent; the removal efficiency of Cu and Zn in the IFB at pH 5.0 was >97%. Electronic waste is a good candidate as secondary metal resource. The recovery of Cu from computer printed circuited boards (PCBs) using biogenic sulfide precipitation was investigated as well. Using this technology, Cu could be recovered at ~0.48 g Cu/g PCBs.