Washoe County Library System

The author of Stiff and Bonk explores the irresistibly strange universe of space travel and life without gravity. Space is a world devoid of the things we need to live and thrive: air, gravity, hot showers, fresh produce, privacy, beer. Space exploration is in some ways an exploration of what it means to be human. How much can a person give up? How much weirdness can they take? What happens to you when you can't walk for a year? have sex? smell flowers?...

"In this astonishing book from the author of the bestselling memoir The Good Good Pig, Sy Montgomery explores the emotional and physical world of the octopus--a surprisingly complex, intelligent, and spirited creature--and the remarkable connections it makes with humans. Sy Montgomery's popular 2011 Orion magazine piece, "Deep Intellect," about her friendship with a sensitive, sweet-natured octopus named Athena and the grief she felt at her death,...

"A group of kids discovers they were cloned from the DNA of some of the greatest criminal masterminds in history for a sociological experiment"--

Explains how rising rates of obesity, heart disease, and other life-threatening conditions are reflecting how the human body is out of sync with the modern environment, and makes recommendations for changing causative lifestyle habits.

"Look at all these stripes and spots! From cheetahs to zebras, honeybees to coral snakes, some animals have amazing markings in different colors, shapes, and sizes. Young readers will learn all about animals with stripes and spots and how these markings help them survive in this fun Pre-reader. Through text features such as the vocabulary tree and the wrap-up activity, kids will be introduced to new words and concepts, helping them expand their understanding...

"We live in a time of momentous scientific leaps; a time when it's possible to sell our eggs and sperm online for thousands of dollars or test our spouses for genetic maladies. We live in a time when one fifth of all our genes are owned by someone else, and an unsuspecting person and his family can be pursued cross-country because they happen to have certain valuable genes within their chromosomes."

When you've clawed your way to the top of the food chain, you have to fight to stay there. Experience this harsh reality through the eyes of the determined predators that rely on skill, instinct, and evolution to survive. But while they may be masters of their domains, that doesn't mean things always go their way, and with young mouths to feed, the pressure is on.

Intelligent design-the idea that an intelligent cause, rather than an undirected process, best explains key features of life and the universe-continues to ignite controversy around the world. In Signature in the Cell, Stephen Meyer shows that digital code embedded in DNA points to a designing intelligence and helps unravel a mystery that Charles Darwin did not address: how did life begin? Meyer tells the story of the successive attempts to explain...

"Superheroes and villains do battle over the human heart in this delightful anthology featuring all-new stories from a wide range of contributors, all set in the Wild Cards universe, where an alien virus mutates some and grants superpowers to others, created by the #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Game of Thrones. An alien virus ravages the world, its results as random as a hand of cards. Those infected either draw the black queen and die,...