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Mother Nature Is Trying to Kill You
- A Lively Tour Through the Dark Side of the Natural World
- Narrated by: Dan Riskin
- Length: 5 hrs and 52 mins
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Publisher's summary
It may be a wonderful world, but as Dan Riskin explains, it's also a dangerous, disturbing, and disgusting one. At every turn, it seems, living things are trying to eat us, poison us, use our bodies as their homes, or have us spread their eggs. In Mother Nature Is Trying to Kill You, Riskin is our guide through the natural world at its most gloriously ruthless. Using the seven deadly sins as a road map, Riskin offers dozens of jaw-dropping examples that illuminate how brutal nature can truly be. From slothful worms that hide in your body for up to 30 years to wrathful snails with poisonous harpoons that can kill you in less than five minutes to lustful ducks that have orgasms faster than you can blink, these fascinating accounts reveal the candid truth about "gentle" Mother Nature's true colors. Riskin's passion for the strange and his enthusiastic expertise bring Earth's most fascinating flora and fauna into vivid focus. Through his adventures - which include sliding on his back through a thick soup of bat guano just to get face-to-face with a vampire bat, befriending a parasitic maggot that has taken root on his head, and coming to grips with having offspring of his own - Riskin makes unexpected discoveries not just about the world all around us but also about the ways this brutal world has shaped us as humans and what our responsibilities are to this terrible, wonderful planet we call home.
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Some people insist that culture is strictly a human feat. What are they afraid of? This book looks into three cultures of other-than-human beings in some of Earth's remaining wild places. It shows how if you're a sperm whale, a scarlet macaw, or a chimpanzee, you too experience your life with the understanding that you are an individual in a particular community. You too are who you are not by genes alone; your culture is a second form of inheritance. And your culture, too, changes and evolves.
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It all sinks in over the story—highly recommend
- By Knitting Fisherman on 06-13-20
By: Carl Safina
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I, Mammal
- By: Liam Drew
- Narrated by: Neil Gardner
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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A list of the attributes that define a mammal is a ragbag of things - fur, live birth, three bones in the middle ear, a brain whose two halves are robustly joined together.... But this curious collection of features contain the roots of all the biology that makes us what we are: monkeys with massive brains who parent extensively, enjoy sport and think lots. Which is to say, what makes us mammals makes us human.
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Who knew?
- By Fitmen on 04-25-18
By: Liam Drew
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Human Errors
- A Panorama of Our Glitches, from Pointless Bones to Broken Genes
- By: Nathan H. Lents
- Narrated by: L.J. Ganser
- Length: 7 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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We humans like to think of ourselves as highly evolved creatures. But if we are supposedly evolution's greatest creation, why do we have such bad knees? Why do we catch head colds so often - 200 times more often than a dog does? How come our wrists have so many useless bones? And are we really supposed to swallow and breathe through the same narrow tube? Surely there's been some kind of mistake. As professor of biology Nathan H. Lents explains in Human Errors, our evolutionary history is nothing if not a litany of mistakes, each more entertaining and enlightening than the last.
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From Pointless Bones to Broken Genes to...Aliens?
- By Katy.LED on 12-04-18
By: Nathan H. Lents
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The Thing with Feathers
- The Surprising Lives of Birds and What They Reveal About Being Human
- By: Noah Strycker
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 8 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Birds are highly intelligent animals, yet their intelligence is dramatically different from our own and has been little understood. As we learn more about the secrets of bird life, we are unlocking fascinating insights into memory, relationships, game theory, and the nature of intelligence itself. The Thing with Feathers explores the astonishing homing abilities of pigeons, the good deeds of fairy-wrens, the influential flocking abilities of starlings, the deft artistry of bowerbirds, the extraordinary memories of nutcrackers, and other mysteries.
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Interesting book, terrible reader
- By MGM123 on 03-16-18
By: Noah Strycker
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Cannibalism
- By: Bill Schutt
- Narrated by: Tom Perkins
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Eating one's own kind is a completely natural behavior in thousands of species, including humans. Throughout history we have engaged in cannibalism for reasons related to famine, burial rites, and medicine. Cannibalism has also been used as a form of terrorism and as the ultimate expression of filial piety. With unexpected wit and a wealth of knowledge, Bill Schutt takes us on a tour of the field, exploring exciting new avenues of research and investigating questions like why so many fish eat their offspring and some amphibians consume their mothers' skin.
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Ruined it at the end
- By Kimberly Ames on 12-07-17
By: Bill Schutt
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The Book of General Ignorance
- By: John Mitchinson, John Lloyd
- Narrated by: uncredited
- Length: 4 hrs and 20 mins
- Abridged
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Misconceptions, misunderstandings, and flawed facts finally get the heave-ho in this humorous, downright humiliating book of reeducation based on the phenomenal British best seller. Challenging what most of us assume to be verifiable truths in areas like history, literature, science, nature, and more, The Book of General Ignorance is a witty “gotcha” compendium of how little we actually know about anything. It’ll have you scratching your head wondering why we even bother to go to school.
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Interesting.
- By A. Hawkbird on 12-07-08
By: John Mitchinson, and others
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What a Fish Knows
- The Inner Lives of Our Underwater Cousins
- By: Jonathan Balcombe
- Narrated by: Graham Winton
- Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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An underwater exploration that overturns myths about fishes and reveals their complex lives, from tool use to social behavior. There are more than 30,000 species of fish - more than all mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians combined. But for all their breathtaking diversity and beauty, we rarely consider how fish think, feel, and behave.
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Title misled me
- By Margaret Weidemann on 08-12-17
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The Hidden Life of Trees
- What They Feel, How They Communicate - Discoveries from a Secret World
- By: Peter Wohlleben
- Narrated by: Mike Grady
- Length: 7 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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How do trees live? Do they feel pain or have awareness of their surroundings? Research is now suggesting trees are capable of much more than we have ever known. In The Hidden Life of Trees, forester Peter Wohlleben puts groundbreaking scientific discoveries into a language everyone can relate to.
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Tree Hugger
- By Darwin8u on 04-18-19
By: Peter Wohlleben
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The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs
- A New History of a Lost World
- By: Steve Brusatte
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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In this stunning narrative spanning more than 200 million years, Steve Brusatte, a young American paleontologist who has emerged as one of the foremost stars of the field - discovering 10 new species and leading groundbreaking scientific studies and fieldwork - masterfully tells the complete, surprising, and new history of the dinosaurs, drawing on cutting-edge science to dramatically bring to life their lost world and illuminate their enigmatic origins, spectacular flourishing, astonishing diversity, cataclysmic extinction, and startling living legacy.
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"The Rise of the Scientists Who Study Dinosaurs"
- By Daniel Powell on 09-16-18
By: Steve Brusatte
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This Is Your Brain on Parasites
- How Tiny Creatures Manipulate Our Behavior and Shape Society
- By: Kathleen McAuliffe
- Narrated by: Nicol Zanzarella
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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A riveting investigation of the myriad ways that parasites control how other creatures - including humans - think, feel, and act. These tiny organisms can live only inside another animal, and, as McAuliffe reveals, they have many evolutionary motives for manipulating their host's behavior. Far more often than appreciated, these puppeteers orchestrate the interplay between predator and prey.
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Entertaining but questionable studies
- By mdkoci on 01-02-17
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Sex in the Sea
- Our Intimate Connection with Kinky Crustaceans, Sex-Changing Fish, Romantic Lobsters and Other Salty Erotica of the Deep
- By: Marah J. Hardt
- Narrated by: Carla Mercer-Meyer
- Length: 9 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Forget the Kama Sutra. When it comes to inventive sex acts, just look to the sea. There we find the elaborate mating rituals of armored lobsters; giant right whales engaging in a lively threesome while holding their breath; full-moon sex parties of groupers; and daily mating blitzes by blueheaded wrasse. Deep-sea squid perform inverted 69s while hermaphrodite sea slugs link up in giant sex loops.
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How to laugh while learning/ learn while laughing
- By Miamigrrl on 07-27-16
By: Marah J. Hardt
What listeners say about Mother Nature Is Trying to Kill You
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Dr. Amen-Ra
- 03-25-18
The fundamental philosophy of biology writ large
An encapsulation of the pervasive pain, waste, greed and death extant in the natural world and an intelligent admonishment to defy the dumb domination of our genes. Dr. Riskin convincingly counsels Mankind to become essentially Aristotelian, accentuating what is quintessentially human in our nature and subordonating the naturalness of being brute beasts. Adhering to this unnatural ethic extracted from both evolutionary biology and ironclad logic will mitigate the misery that is the measure of all mortals.
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- Placeholder
- 03-31-14
Nature Couldn't Care Less
Would you listen to Mother Nature Is Trying to Kill You again? Why?
Yes. A wide variety of animals and plants are featured in this audiobook. Also, it was an easy, informative listen throughout. This is a perfect audio listen for that long drive.
Who was your favorite character and why?
As far as animal species are characters, I guess the parasite whose larvae gives you Elephantiasis can't really be called my favorite character, that would be a smidge morbid. But it takes the "wow that's interesting" prize. The author described in some detail its life cycle and how after decades things really go south for people who have the tiitanic misfortune of suffering this debilitating and disfiguring malady. There are scores of other nasty, opportunistic and ingenious little buggers squiggling around just waiting for you to take that quick dip in the pond over there, or even clean out your cat's litter box - you will be shocked, then worried and ultimately resigned to the fact that your cat has exposed you to............. buy the audiobook and discover for yourself. And don't kid yourself, the cat knew all along.
What does Dan Riskin bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
An easy to listen to voice from the author himself. He has some endearing anecdotes of his family sprinkled throughout the book and you can tell he really digs his wife and loves his son with all of his heart. I was impressed with his narration skills.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
I don't know if I planned to listen to this book in one go, but I listened to it straight through while I was fishing at a local lake. Caught 4 largemouth bass, tossed a couple rocks at some pesky crows, climbed up a rock outcrop and stared at a beautiful Osprey that was sitting on a tree branch screeching away for a hour all while listening to the author describe the 1001 ways nature is truly "red in tooth and claw".
Any additional comments?
Tons of info about hordes of different animals from the microscopic to the largest animal in the history of animals. Learning can be fun, and this audiobook proves it!
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- Amazon Customer
- 08-20-20
Fantastic
Please read this book. So good. I wish it were essential reading for the whole of humanity.
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- Occasional Critic
- 04-12-21
Very educational and totally entertaining
I enjoyed this book so much I look the author up YouTube and watch videos of him on late night TV Talking about science and other venues. I highly suggest you do the same!
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- driftwood2
- 02-10-21
best science book I've read.
I saw Dan on some old Craig Ferguson shows. Found him very interesting. His book lived up to expectations.
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- Melissa Hood
- 10-04-19
This was stunning!
I absolutely loved it! weird facts, gross but amazing details, I had a difficult time pausing!
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- Marsha L. Woerner
- 06-12-16
"All-natural" is NOT synonymous with "good for you"
Would you consider the audio edition of Mother Nature Is Trying to Kill You to be better than the print version?
No idea
Any additional comments?
This is a great book –
It fills in the picture of "All Natural", the catchphrase that retailers use to encourage certain kinds of purchases. It's underlying theme is that the phrase "all-natural" is not synonymous with "good for you". "Natural" may actually be good for something, but that something is not necessarily human!
Survival of the fittest encourages "nature" to adapt to all – and I do mean ALL – organisms, not just humans. I personally was always suspicious of the phrase "all-natural" because I could always use deadly nightshade as an example of something "all-natural" that I was NOT interested in having in my breakfast! This book expands on that.
Mr. Riskin makes a humorous and somewhat touching essay about nature in general and what ALL organisms are doing – and how they're adapting – to survive and grow their species. Most of it has nothing to do with keeping humans healthy. The book has the added plus of answering the question "is my love of my son solely because of DNA?"
The book is well thought out and comprehensive. It's an excellent choice!
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- Komlanvi
- 07-14-20
A Book you must read
No matter what is your field of interest or study, this should be one of your top 10 important books.
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- kemar simpson
- 12-24-15
awesome
loved it... it's too bad it's his only book found on audible but I recommend to anyone interested in biology
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- Benji Serrano
- 03-31-14
One of the best
If you could sum up Mother Nature Is Trying to Kill You in three words, what would they be?
Seven Deadly Sins
What other book might you compare Mother Nature Is Trying to Kill You to and why?
It's in a class of its own
Which scene was your favorite?
I thoroughly enjoyed the book but my favorite part would be When Dan Riskin shares his bot fly incident.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
If I had the time.
Any additional comments?
I enjoyed reading the book, now I can have the author himself(Dan Riskin) Narrrated and enjoy it even more
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