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      • MAMMOTH AND OTHER ANCIENT ANIMALS OF SIBERIA

        by Albert Protopopov et al

        Asian Northeast has been excavating over 75% of all mammoth bones globally. There is a research centre focused on these ancient animals here. Palaeontologists of the Fauna Department of the Academy of Sciences of the Sakha Republic (Yakutia) worked to compile this encyclopaedia. This book presents unique contents related to sensational findings of mammoth’s, cave lion’s, woolly rhino’s and other ancient animals’ bones excavated in the northern Siberia. Text bodies go along with illustrations visualizing the animals’ images, as well as with real photos of paleontological findings. The book would be a real catch for those who take interest in the history of the Earth and its ancient inhabitants.

      • Biography: science, technology & engineering

        Charles Doolittle Walcott, Paleontologist

        by Ellis Yochelson (author)

        Charles Doolittle Walcott (1850–1927) is one of the most important and highly respected figures in the history of geology. This in-depth biography documents his career and life from birth to retirement from the U.S. Geological Survey in 1907, when he became Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.With very little formal education (he did not complete high school), Walcott became special assistant to James Hall, State Paleontologist of New York, and made a fundamental contribution to the study of trilobites by describing their limbs. He joined the new U.S. Geological Survey in 1879 and rose through the ranks to become its director in 1894, a position he held for 13 years. Walcott is known best for having documented in detail the “Cambrian,” the oldest richly fossiliferous rocks in the world. His primary efforts for the U.S. Geological Survey were in keying fossils to the sequence of rocks, and he brought new precision to the biostratigraphy of the older rocks of North America.A talented and productive scientist, he also applied his talents to administration and made the USGS the most successful scientific organization in the world. At one time he was Director of the USGS, Chief of the Reclamation Service (effectively in charge of national forests), Secretary of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, and chairman of two committees appointed by President Theodore Roosevelt. The publication of his biography will serve to illuminate the life of an important but little-known American scientist.[tab:Author]Ellis Yochelson is past-president of the Paleontological Society and cofounder and past-president of the History of Earth Sciences Society. He is the author of The National Museum of Natural History: Seventy-Five Years in the Natural History Building and editor of the two-volume Proceedings of the North American Paleontological Convention.“Ellis Yochelson leads us to a new, much deeper understanding of Charles D. Walcott and the institutions with which he was associated. He captures an era of geology that is gone, and in so doing may help educate modern readers about the goals and rigors of geoscience in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.”—Kennard Bork, past editor of History of Earth Science

      • Biography: science, technology & engineering

        Charming The Bones

        A Portrait of Margaret Matthew Colbert

        by Anne Brimacombe Elliot (author)

        Born in 1911 to an unconventional, free-spirited artist mother and an eminent paleontologist father, Margaret Matthew chose a career as an artist specializing in restorations of extinct animals. She began her career at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City drawing fossil bones, and there she met her husband, the noted paleontologist Edwin (Ned) Colbert.Charming the Bones portrays Margaret’s life as the wife of a famous man and the mother of five sons and, later in her life, as a respected restoration artist, illustrator, and sculptor.Margaret Matthew Colbert’s paintings, drawings, and sculptures grace museums worldwide and enable the general public, as well as professional paleontologists, to visualize extinct creatures.

      • Children's & YA
        August 2021

        Dinosaur

        by John Allan

        We know much more about dinosaurs today than when they were first studied over 200 years ago. The answers are not always easy to find and some guesswork has been used by experts in the past. The next discovery may confirm if the guess was right or wrong. Piece by piece, as the answers  have come together we find out more about these fascinating prehistoric beasts. Find the answers to all your dinosaur questions that have been puzzling you and many more you would never have thought of asking. Essential facts to gory details it’s all you need to know about Dinosaurs!

      • Earth Adventures – Tracking Chinese Dinosaurs

        by Xing Lida

        The most important stop on the “Earth Adventure” is China. In China, 166 named dinosaurs have been found. With the passage of time and the continuous digging and discovery by the archaeologists, we believe that more dinosaurs will be found. Let's follow Xing Lida who is a paleontologist to “Track Chinese Dinosaurs” through mysterious fossils and footprints.

      • Biography: science, technology & engineering

        Smithsonian Institution Secretary, Charles Doolittle Walcott

        by Ellis Yochelson (author)

        Charles Doolittle Walcott (1850-1927) is a highly respected figure in the history of geology and paleontology. Perhaps his most notable contribution to his field was his discovery of the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale, one of the most important fossil discoveries ever made. In addition to his distinguished field work, Walcott’s career included years of service as an administrative leader in the scientific community: as director of the U.S. Geological Survey, as secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, as organizer of the National Space and Aeronautics Administration, as a founding member of the National Academy of Sciences.Smithsonian Institution Secretary continues the story Ellis L. Yochelson began in Charles Doolittle Walcott, Paleontologist (1998). Using Walcott’s letters and journals and the recollections of friends and colleagues, Yochelson discusses Walcott’s life and career as secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.Accompanied by illustrations and photographs from private collection

      • History

        Fossils, Apes and Humans

        by Carlo GInzburg

        Today we regard paleontology and connoisseurship as very distant spheres of knowledge. But are they not sharing a commitment to the decipherment of clues, either natural or cultural? This richly illustrated collection of essays will substantiate this argument through a series of case studies, starting from Agostino Scilla, a painter and collector, author of an early work on paleontology: La vana speculazione disingannata dal senso (Empty speculation disproven by senses, 1670). The reconstruction of this complex intellectual trajectory will go on, focusing on two friends, Petrus Camper (1722-1789) and François-Xavier de Burtin (1743-1818). The former, a well-known Dutch anatomist, was interested in painting and physiognomy: his argument about “facial lines” was reworked (and distorted) by 19th and 20th century racism. The latter, a paleontologist and a collector, moved from the study of fossils in the region of Brussels to the study of paintings. Burtin’s work inspired on the one hand, Georges Cuvier, the founder of comparative anatomy; on the other, Giovanni Morelli, the founder of “scientific” connoisseurship. This divergent, but connected reception will throw much light on the central theme of the book: the intricate relationship between paleontology and connoisseurship.

      • Humanities & Social Sciences
        January 2021

        Vanished Giants

        The Lost World of the Ice Age

        by Stuart, Anthony J.

        After the extinction of dinosaurs and before the rise of humans, there existed another group of incredible creatures. Among its ranks were woolly rhinos, mastodons, sabre-tooth tigers, giant ground sloths, and many other spectacularly large animals that are no longer with us. Today, we think of these animals as part of a group known as “Pleistocene megafauna,” named for the geological era in which they lived, also known as the Ice Age. In Vanished Giants: The Lost World of the Ice Age, palaeontologist Anthony Stuart explores the lives and environments of these animals, moving between five continents and several key islands that showcase their variety and evolution. Stuart examines the animals themselves via what we’ve learned from fossil remains, and he describes the landscapes, climates, vegetation, ecological interactions, and other likely aspects of their surroundings. It’s a picture of the world as it was at the dawn of our arrival. Unlike the case of dinosaurs, however, there is no asteroid to blame for the end of that world. Instead, it seems likely that the giants of the Ice Age were driven extinct by climate change, human evolution, or perhaps both. Stuart discusses the possibilities using the latest evidence provided by radiocarbon dating, a record that is incomplete but vast and growing. Throughout, a question arises: was the extinction of Ice Age megafauna the beginning of the so-called Sixth Extinction, which is happening now? If so, what might it teach us about contemporary climate change and its likely course?

      • Hobbies, quizzes & games (Children's/YA)
        February 2021

        My Dinosaur Activity Book

        Fun Facts and Puzzle Play

        by Dougal Dixon, Jean Claude

        My Dinosaur Activity Book is bursting with fun, colourful and fact-filled activities for kids who are wild about dinosaurs. My Dinosaur Activity Book is the first title in Buster’s new ‘Learn and Play’ activity book series – where fun, playful activities for young children and a love of learning meet.

      • Children's & YA
        October 2018

        Dinosaur Scalebook

        The vividly colourful scalebooks put things – and us humans! – in proportion by scaling different animals to everyday objects and distances.

        by Carlos da Cruz & Maija Karala

        Carlos da Cruz’s Scalebooks are inspiring children’s science books about the amazing size of animals. Some creatures make human beings feel like giants, others like Tom Thumb.   In Dinosaur Scalebook you learn how large was a microraptor, one of the smallest dinosaurs, and how small is a human compared to the largest found fossil of a dinosaur. But which dinosaur had feathers similar to a chicken?

      • Geography & the Environment

        Ice

        Tales from a Disappearing Continent

        by Marco Tedesco, Alberto Flores D’Arcais

        When people think about the Arctic, they think about a monotone expanse of white snow, devoid of distinguishing figures. They could not be more wrong. Snow can be blue, or purple, or even green under the right light, and in tiny holes under the surface of the ice a strange kind of biome flourishes, which may hold the solution to the mystery of life. Marco Tedesco is one of the scientists living among the fast-disappearing ice. Every facet of his life revolves around it, whether mapping the geography of rivers or studying the bacteria inside the cryoconite holes or the remains of the High Arctic camel. Ice. Tales from a Disappearing Continent is an exciting scientific adventure much like Charles Darwin’s The Voyage of the Beagle, but, at the same time, it is a heartfelt plea to treasure ice, because without it we would lose not only the roots of our past, but also our future.

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