science

This book features selected writings from CJ Cornish’s contributions to Spectator magazine. These are short articles, often with a humorous slant on natural history, emphasizing the interaction of animal with humans. Among the many topics are a discussion on the suitability of goats living in large towns, animal "kindergartens," "dainty" treats for domestic animals, and the incursion of crocodiles into human communities. Please note: The money from this adoption will go to National Zoological Park library for book purchases.

This book is a comprehensive guide to zoo management covering all key aspects of the field. It includes beautiful photographs, both color and black-and-white, plus illustrations and charts. This book is used by Zoo curators and keepers as a reference guide for their work. It also serves as an excellent training guide for interns, volunteers, and new hires by providing a thorough introduction to the field. The authors embrace the precepts of modern zoo management science, encouraging a real appreciation for natural diversity, conservation, and its modern challenges.

Written by a professional zookeeper, this is an invaluable book for all those who keep reptiles, including zookeepers and private owners. It uses a practical, hands-on approach. Illustrated in black-and-white, it opens with helpful taxonomy, nomenclature, and physical descriptions. There are chapters of practical advice on selecting, handling, transporting, hygiene, feeding, housing, breeding, disorders, and health maintenance. The appendixes provide details on each species (its origin, habits, habitats, average adult size), diet, and therapies, as well as a glossary and bibliography.   

This fascicle has detailed, thorough descriptions and explanatory notes of the various nervous system tumors, cross-referenced to high-quality photomicrographs of each (some slides in color, some black-and-white). It is highly referenced to related publications. This is one of a valuable, and very well-used, series on tumor classification of the different organ systems.

This fascicle has detailed descriptions and explanatory notes of various endocrine system tumors, cross-referenced to corresponding high-quality color photomicrographs. It is highly referenced to related publications, very well laid-out, and systematic.  The material is exhaustive, thoroughly covering all of the major tumors, by system, and detailing how to distinguish between them for diagnosis.  This is one of a valuable, and very well-used, series on tumor classification of the different organ systems.  

This stunningly illustrated book is the work of distinguished German mineralogist Gustav Adolph Kenngott (1818-1897). Particularly interested in crystallography, Kenngott was the first to describe enstatite, a rare green mineral which can be cut as a gemstone. This volume is a distillation of his work intended for “the visual instruction of the young in school and with family.” In addition to its gorgeous multi-colored plates, it is significant in that it remains in its original pictorial binding, complete with advertisements for other natural history books!

This rare second edition of Journal of researches... is the final definitive text of Darwin's "first literary child," revised to reflect his developing ideas on evolution. It chronicles his historic five-year voyage on the Beagle to Brazil, Argentina, Tierra del Fuego, Chile, Peru, the Galapagos Islands, New Zealand, Australia, and other countries and islands along the way. This journey was the most important event in Darwin's intellectual life.

Despite dying at only 28, Edward M. Haight (1863-1891) established a busy career as an enthusiastic naturalist, collector, taxidermist, and publisher. The Golden State Scientist is one of three serials that he edited in the late 1880s, and it is by far the scarcest. This was the only issue ever published, and only 450 copies made it into print, owing to “the many blunders made in the advertisements." Only about a dozen copies survive in libraries today.

“The basic premise of this book is that mathematical procedures are useful, and sometimes necessary, for the description and understanding of biological systems,” writes author Harvey J. Gold. Biological systems are among the most complex systems studied by scientists. Models are used to explain systems and to study different variables in an objective way. Today most mathematical models are run on computers, but when this book was published in the 1970s, computer information systems were relatively new and most equations were calculated manually.

This little astronomical work contains 104 beautifully hand-colored lithographs of the moon, planets, and constellations, along with eclipses and atmospheric phenomena. The constellations dotted with golden stars are great examples of the elegance and simplicity of the book’s execution. Author Charles Blunt’s introduction to the book explains that it was created so that a family need not “quit their own parlour, or drawing-room fireside, to enjoy the sublime ‘beauty of the heavens.’” With every plate comes a ‘lecture’ or description designed to be read aloud, facilitating at-home learning.

David Rickard gives gold’s poor relation the royal treatment in this scholarly work on the mineral pyrite. Rickard presents both the social uses of pyrite—from historical accounts—and the scientific nature of the mineral. Whether a scientist is researching the history of an older piece of metalwork or the chemical properties of the raw material, Rickard’s work is useful for the scholar and layman alike. This nicely illustrated book is from the Minerals Library at the National Museum of Natural History.

This is the second of a series of sketches and life histories of birds told in a unique way—by the birds themselves as "autobiographies." This makes it especially interesting to the young readers for whom it was written, but also contributes valuable information for older naturalists. Author Arthur Allen was a professor of ornithology at Cornell University, which is renowned for its Laboratory of Ornithology. The book is illustrated with 240 of Allen's own photographs, and there are eight color plates by George Miksch Sutton. One of Sutton’s images is used for this entry.

Published in 2005, this work celebrates 50 years of space exploration, from its Cold War beginnings of satellites and manned missions into space, to orbiting space stations and unmanned exploratory missions to other planets in our solar system. Published by Smithsonian Books, this beautifully illustrated work features histories from participants in both the Soviet Union and the United States space programs. It was written by science journalist and space historian Piers Bizony, with a foreword by Sir Arthur C. Clarke.

Written by former National Air and Space Museum curator for rocketry Frank H. Winter, this Smithsonian publication is considered to be the first comprehensive history of the use of rockets as artillery in the late-18th and 19th centuries. Englishmen William Congreve and William Hale developed and refined the rocket as a piece of technology. Gunpowder rockets have been used in a variety of military and non-military applications, including life-saving (rescues at sea), whaling, and torpedoes.