This pioneering work investigates why endothermy, or "warm-bloodedness", evolved in birds and mammals, despite its enormous energetic costs. Arguing that single-cause hypotheses to explain the origins of endothermy have stalled research since the 197...

In this "personal encyclopedia of nature's seasons", lifetime naturalist Bruce Beehler reflects on his three decades of encountering nature in Washington, D.C. The author takes the reader on a year?long journey through the seasons as he describes the...

At the dawn of the space age, technological breakthroughs in Earth orbit flight were both breathtaking feats of ingenuity and disturbances to a delicate global balance of power. In this short book, aerospace historian Roger D. Launius concisely and e...

Celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission, "Apollo's Muse" honors the rich history of photographic representations of the moon, from rarely seen early daguerreotypes to contemporary video art. Engaging and accessible, the book explore...

In 1910, Mary Acworth Evershed (1867-1949) sat on a hill in southern India staring at the moon as she grappled with apparent mistakes in Dante's "Divine Comedy". Was Dante's astronomy unintelligible? Or was he, for a man of his time and place, as ins...

The commonly held view of Albert Einstein is of an eccentric genius for whom the pursuit of science was everything. But in actuality, the brilliant innovator whose Theory of Relativity forever reshaped our understanding of time was a man of his times...

A romantic description of the second law of thermodynamics is that the universe becomes increasingly disordered. But what does that actually mean? Starting with an overview of the three laws of thermodynamics, MacArthur "genius grant" winner R. Steph...

The colossal plants and animals of our world – dinosaurs, whales, and even trees – are a source of unending fascination, and their sheer scale can be truly impressive. Size is integral to the way that organisms experience the world: a puddle that a h...

Harvard geometer and Fields medalist Shing-Tung Yau has provided a mathematical foundation for string theory, offered new insights into black holes, and mathematically demonstrated the stability of our universe. In this autobiography, Yau reflects on...

This magnificent compendium is the fourth in a series of catalogues describing selections of rare books and other material in the Oak Spring Garden Library, a collection assembled by Mrs. Rachel "Bunny" Lambert Mellon. Herbaria describes sixty-three...