Pilcher, Helen – The Bell Bookshop

How nature keeps time

Emma — Thu, 25 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

An accessible and thought-provoking introduction to timespans in the natural world, featuring more than 80 beautifully designed diagrams and charts.Which organisms live the longest? How does the natural world recover from wildfires? How long do eggs take to hatch? What are the world’s fastest- and slowest- growing plants? Which species invest the most in parental care?The graphic number line is a potent pattern that explains much of our world, from the life cycle of immortal jellyfish to the perfect amount of time for a ‘good sleep’. Beautifully illustrated with reader-friendly infographics and stunning colour photography, How Nature Keeps Time visually maps the amounts of time bounded by growth, distance, age, reproduction, sleep, death and other key behaviours. Join science and comedy writer Helen Pilcher as she examines a broad range of species from across the world and throughout time. As our natural world draws our attention to its plight, this fascinating book offers a calm, clear-thinking series of visual explanations based on the ultimate objective measure – time.

Life Changing

Emma — Thu, 24 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE FOR WRITING ON GLOBAL CONSERVATION‘Pilcher is both very funny and very, very clever.’ Gillian Burke‘Richly entertaining throughout.’ Sunday TimesFor the last three billion years or so, life on Earth was shaped by natural forces. Evolution tended to happen slowly, with species crafted across millennia. Then, a few hundred thousand years ago, along came a bolshie, big-brained, bipedal primate we now call Homo sapiens, and with that, the Earth’s natural history came to an abrupt end. We are now living through the post-natural phase, where humans have become the leading force shaping evolution. This thought-provoking book considers the many ways that we’ve altered the DNA of living things and changed the fate of life on earth. We have carved chihuahuas from wolves and fancy chickens from jungle fowl. We’ve added spider genes to goats and coral genes to tropical fish. It’s possible to buy genetically-modified pets, eat genetically-modified fish and watch cloned ponies thunder up and down the polo field. Now, as our global dominance grows, our influence extends far beyond these species. As we warm our world and radically reshape the biosphere, we affect the evolution of all living things, near and far, from the emergence of novel hybrids such as the pizzly bear, to the entirely new strains of animals and plants that are evolving at breakneck speed to cope with their altered environment.In Life Changing, Helen introduces us to these post-natural creations and talks to the scientists who create, study and tend to them. At a time when the future of so many species is uncertain, we meet some of the conservationists seeking to steer evolution onto firmer footings with novel methods like the ‘spermcopter’, coral IVF and plans to release wild elephants into Denmark. Helen explores the changing relationship between humans and the natural world, and reveals how, with evidence-based thinking, humans can help life change for the better.

Pocket Book Of Garden Experiments

Emma — Thu, 30 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

With 80 experiments for the whole family to discover and enjoy,The Pocket Book of Garden Experiments contains easy-to-follow instructions for activities that will stretch your imagination and bring out your inner scientist.x Make an ecosystem in a jarx Find out why leaves change colourx Turn potatoes into slimex Calculate the heights of treesx Make a sound map of your gardenEach experiment takes inspiration from the natural world and the fascinating things that live in it.