
Natural Acts
A Sidelong View of Science and Nature
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Narrated by:
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Patrick Lawlor
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By:
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David Quammen
About this listen
"Lively writing about science and nature depends less on the offering of good answers, I think, than on the offering of good questions," said David Quammen in the original introduction to Natural Acts. For more than two decades, he has stuck to that credo. In this updated version of Natural Acts, curiosity leads him from New Mexico to Romania, from the Congo to the Amazon, asking questions about mosquitoes (what are their redeeming merits?), dinosaurs (how did they change the life of a dyslexic Vietnam vet?), and cloning (can it save endangered species?).
This revised and expanded edition best-loved "Natural Acts" columns, which first appeared in Outside magazine in the early 1980s, and includes recent pieces such as "Planet of Weeds," an influential new Natural Acts is an eye-opening journey that will please both Quammen fans and newcomers to his work.
©1985, 2008 David Quammen (P)2022 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
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- Length: 11 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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At once a spirited defense of Darwinian explanations of biology and an elegant primer on evolution for the general listener, What Evolution Is poses the questions at the heart of evolutionary theory and considers how our improved understanding of evolution has affected the viewpoints and values of modern man.
By: Ernst Mayr
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Kraken
- The Curious, Exciting, and Slightly Disturbing Science of Squid
- By: Wendy Williams
- Narrated by: Christina Moore
- Length: 6 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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The ocean is the last remaining source of profound mystery and discovery on Earth. With eighty percent of it still largely unexplored, it is endlessly fascinating. In Kraken: The Curious, Exciting, and Slightly Disturbing Science of Squid, journalist Wendy Williams introduces one of the ocean’s most charismatic, monstrous, and enigmatic inhabitants: the squid. More than just calamari, squid species are fascinatingly odd creatures, with much to teach us about our own species.
By: Wendy Williams
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The Reluctant Mr. Darwin
- Charles Darwin and the Making of His Theory of Evolution
- By: David Quammen
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 7 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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In September 1838, a young Englishman named Charles Darwin hit upon the idea that "natural selection" among competing individuals would lead to wondrous adaptations and species diversity. Twenty-one years passed between that epiphany and publication of On the Origin of Species. The human drama and scientific controversy of that time constitute a fascinating, tangled tale that illuminates this cautious naturalist who sparked an intellectual revolution.
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Darwin portrait.
- By J B Tipton on 11-06-07
By: David Quammen
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Becoming Wild
- How Animal Cultures Raise Families, Create Beauty, and Achieve Peace
- By: Carl Safina
- Narrated by: Carl Safina
- Length: 13 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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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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Tisha
- The Story of a Young Teacher in the Alaskan Wilderness
- By: Robert Specht, Anne Purdy
- Narrated by: Caroline McLaughlin
- Length: 11 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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The author tells the story as told to him of Anne Hobbs, a woman who went to Alaska in the 1920s to teach, but who had trouble due to her kindness to the Indians there.
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Life is Better than Fiction
- By Betababe on 01-12-18
By: Robert Specht, and others
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The Invention of Nature
- Alexander von Humboldt's New World
- By: Andrea Wulf
- Narrated by: David Drummond
- Length: 14 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) was an intrepid explorer and the most famous scientist of his age. His restless life was packed with adventure and discovery, whether climbing the highest volcanoes in the world or racing through anthrax-infested Siberia. He came up with a radical vision of nature, that it was a complex and interconnected global force and did not exist for man's use alone. Ironically, his ideas have become so accepted and widespread that he has been nearly forgotten.
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Poignant origin story
- By Jeremy Fairbanks on 03-03-16
By: Andrea Wulf
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Mountain Man
- John Colter, the Lewis & Clark Expedition, and the Call of the American West
- By: David Weston Marshall
- Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
- Length: 6 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1804, John Colter set out with Meriwether Lewis and William Clark on the first US expedition to traverse the North American continent. During the 28-month ordeal, Colter served as a hunter and scout, and honed his survival skills on the western frontier. But when the journey was over, Colter stayed behind. He spent two more years trekking alone through dangerous and unfamiliar territory, charting some of the West's most treasured landmarks.
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Piqued Curoisty
- By Julie on 01-30-22
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What Is Life?
- With Mind and Matter and Autobiographical Sketches
- By: Erwin Schrödinger, Roger Penrose - foreword
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 6 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Nobel laureate Erwin Schrödinger's What is Life? is one of the great science classics of the 20th century. A distinguished physicist's exploration of the question which lies at the heart of biology, it was written for the layman but proved one of the spurs to the birth of molecular biology and the subsequent discovery of the structure of DNA. It appears here together with "Mind and Matter", his essay investigating a relationship which has eluded and puzzled philosophers since the earliest times.
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An extraordinary look at life by a Physicist
- By Philomath on 01-25-19
By: Erwin Schrödinger, and others
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The World-Ending Fire
- The Essential Wendell Berry
- By: Wendell Berry
- Narrated by: Nick Offerman
- Length: 16 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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In a time when our relationship to the natural world is ruled by the violence and greed of unbridled consumerism, Wendell Berry speaks out in these prescient essays, drawn from his 50-year campaign on behalf of American lands and communities. The writings gathered in The World-Ending Fire are the unique product of a life spent farming the fields of rural Kentucky with mules and horses, and of the rich, intimate knowledge of the land cultivated by this work.
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Vital. Timely. Timeless.
- By David M. on 06-15-20
By: Wendell Berry
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The Trees in My Forest
- By: Bernd Heinrich
- Narrated by: Tom Perkins
- Length: 5 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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In a book destined to become a classic, biologist and acclaimed nature writer Bernd Heinrich takes listeners on an eye-opening journey through the hidden life of a forest. A lifetime observer of the natural world shares his vast knowledge and reflections on the trees of the Northeast woodlands and the rhythms of their seasons, from the DNA contained in an apple seed to the great branches beyond reach.
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Trees, woods, forests, pines and apples, and Maine
- By Lynn Spann Bowditch on 08-30-24
By: Bernd Heinrich
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The Forest Unseen
- A Year's Watch in Nature
- By: David George Haskell
- Narrated by: Michael Healy
- Length: 9 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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In this wholly original audiobook, biologist David Haskell uses a one-square-meter patch of old-growth Tennessee forest as a window into the entire natural world. Visiting it almost daily for one year to trace nature's path through the seasons, he brings the forest and its inhabitants to vivid life. Each of this audiobook's short chapters begins with a simple observation: a salamander scuttling across the leaf litter; the first blossom of spring wildflowers.
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Delightful stories
- By Eleanor B. Hildreth on 08-03-15
Bite sized stories
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