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Born and raised in Russia, I watched my grandfather fertilize our family’s organic orchard with composted sewage every fall. “You have to feed the earth the way you feed people,” he said, essentially describing what today we call a circular economy. I thought the whole world did the same—until I grew up and learned that most people flush their humanure down the toilet. That hurts the planet’s ecology in multiple ways. It depletes farmlands that must be replenished by syntenic fertilizers which are polluting to produce, and it overfertilizes rivers, lakes, and the ocean, causing toxic algae blooms. I wanted humans to know about People’s Own Organic Power aka POOP!
I love this book because it turns everything we think we know about poo on its head. If there was one definitive pathogen-laden substance your mother told you to never touch, poop is it! We’re all naturally disgusted by it. But feces, whether human or animal, are as natural as air, and are absolutely essential for thriving ecosystems, for soil health, and even for climate change. In nature, what’s one species trash is the other species treasure, and no one portrays this better than David Waltner-Toews, as he describes why dung beetles feast on doodies and why some animals eat their own droppings. The planet has a use for everybody’s poo, including ours, so you will have a newfound appreciation of excrement after reading this book.
The Origin of Feces takes an important subject out of locker-rooms, potty-training manuals, and bio-solids management boardrooms into the fresh air of everyone’s lives. With insight and wit, David Waltner-Toews explores what has been too often ignored and makes a compelling argument for a deeper understanding of human and animal waste. Approaching the subject from a variety of perspectives ― evolutionary, ecological, and cultural ― The Origin of Feces shows us how integral excrement is to biodiversity, agriculture, public health, food production and distribution, and global ecosystems. From the primordial ooze to dung beetles, from bug frass, cat scats, and…
I have written four books of popular science, and edited a fifth collection of my favorite science writers. I have been a judge for the 2022 Science in Society Book Awards for the National Association of Science Writers. I taught popular science writing for 34 years to undergraduates and graduates alike. Most of all, I love the wonder and awe of understanding the world around us.
This is a fascinating and compelling journey through the most neglected and significant public health innovation since vaccines and nutritional guidelines, the modern toilet.
Author Chelsea Flanagan takes us on a wild ride through the history of this neglected and highly significant home appliance, including contemporary efforts to make toilets more environmentally friendly and even less expensive. Relatively inexpensive, safe sewage saves millions of lives a year, more than all our modern medicines combined.
Finalist for the 2022 NASW Science in Society Journalism Award Longlisted for the 2022 AAAS/Subaru SB&F Prize for Excellence in Science Books
From an award-winning science journalist, a “deeply researched, entertaining, and impassioned exploration of sanitation” (Nature) and the future of the toilet—for fans of popular science bestsellers by Mary Roach.
Most of us do not give much thought to the centerpiece of our bathrooms, but the toilet is an unexpected paradox. On the one hand, it is a modern miracle: a ubiquitous fixture in a vast sanitation system that has helped add decades to the human life span by…
I’m a trained microbiologist who received my doctorate from the University of Washington and who has long been fascinated by the natural world—whether microscopic or gigantic, within us or all around us. For more than 20 years, I’ve also been an award-winning science writer who has written for publications like The New York Times, Nature, Wired, and Scientific American. Ever since I wrote about the incredible ability of fecal transplants to cure a deadly bacterial infection, I’ve been obsessed with books that explore how the seemingly gross or ordinary things we often dismiss as lacking value have the power to transform both us and the planet.
This superb book was one of the first to raise the issue of how poorly we’ve considered our waste and what to do with it, and it was a big inspiration for me.
It’s thoughtful and incredibly well-researched, packed full of amazing historical details, and provides a compelling case for how and why we should get our shit together—literally. I learned so much from this book, and it really encouraged me to keep digging and exploring how we might reimagine our human output. Just an excellent read and a compelling case for change.
Produced behind closed doors, disposed of discreetly, hidden by euphemism, shit is rarely out in the open in 'civilized' society, but the world of waste - and the people who deal with it, work with it and in it - is a rich one.This book takes us underground to the sewers of New York and London and overground to meet the heroes of India's sanitation movement, American sewage schoolteachers, the Japanese genius at the cutting edge of toilet technology and the biosolids lobbying team. With a journalist's nose for story and a campaigner's desire for change, Rose George also addresses…
I’m a trained microbiologist who received my doctorate from the University of Washington and who has long been fascinated by the natural world—whether microscopic or gigantic, within us or all around us. For more than 20 years, I’ve also been an award-winning science writer who has written for publications like The New York Times, Nature, Wired, and Scientific American. Ever since I wrote about the incredible ability of fecal transplants to cure a deadly bacterial infection, I’ve been obsessed with books that explore how the seemingly gross or ordinary things we often dismiss as lacking value have the power to transform both us and the planet.
Shawn is fearless, good-hearted, and laugh-out-loud funny.
As an educator, performance artist, and founder of the POOP Project, he has dedicated much of his work to reducing the taboo and stigma of talking about our own bodies, especially the natural act of pooping. Mixing in his trademark humor with historical anecdotes and a genuine love of both people and the planet, this book will make you smile, laugh, and feel a deeper connection with a part of your body that deserves far more attention.
It’s a very fun and inspiring read about rejecting shame and celebrating your own inner power.
Poop is a big deal. All people and all beings do it on any good day. It's basically at the center of everything. Know Your Shit lifts the lid off the potty taboo and breaks the stall doors down in search of the Perfect Poo. Along the way, learn what happens inside your body to make poo, how the process can go wrong, and simple fixes to make sure you stay in the Goldiplops Zone. Now, let us hold these poos to be self-evident; not all are created equal. But it is important…
I've been in love with biology since first playing with earthworms and marveling at the sprouting of radish seeds as a five-year-old. Further interest and curiosity led me to positions as nature counselor at summer camps and an eventual college degree in biology. Medical school was at times tedious, but the efficient, compact, durable mechanics of the musculoskeletal system totally engaged my interest. A residency in orthopedic surgery and a fellowship in hand surgery were natural follow-ons. My other passion is a love of teaching, taking a learner from where ever their understanding is presently and guiding them to what they need to know next. And they should have fun in the process.
Any author who voluntarily has his nose packed and totally obstructed for over a week attracts my awe as one who is committed to walking the walk of his subject.
Nestor’s descriptions of this experience and the immense joy he encounters when his nasal airways were unblocked and his sense of smell restored sets the stage for an engaging tour through the science and art of a vital bodily function that we mostly ignore—respiration.
He posits that humans have been ignoring breath for centuries at our detriment and which accounts for sleep apnea, snoring, asthma, and autoimmune diseases. He poses means of relief. What a fresh breath.
THE PHENOMENAL INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER - OVER A MILLION COPIES SOLD WORLDWIDE
SHORTLISTED FOR THE ROYAL SOCIETY BOOK PRIZE
'Who would have thought something as simple as changing the way we breathe could be so revolutionary for our health, from snoring to allergies to immunity? A fascinating book, full of dazzling revelations' Dr Rangan Chatterjee
There is nothing more essential to our health and wellbeing than breathing: take air in, let it out, repeat 25,000 times a day. Yet, as a species, humans have lost the ability to breathe correctly, with grave consequences. In Breath, journalist James Nestor travels the world…
I've been in love with biology since first playing with earthworms and marveling at the sprouting of radish seeds as a five-year-old. Further interest and curiosity led me to positions as nature counselor at summer camps and an eventual college degree in biology. Medical school was at times tedious, but the efficient, compact, durable mechanics of the musculoskeletal system totally engaged my interest. A residency in orthopedic surgery and a fellowship in hand surgery were natural follow-ons. My other passion is a love of teaching, taking a learner from where ever their understanding is presently and guiding them to what they need to know next. And they should have fun in the process.
Now turning to the human body, Bryson continues his long tradition of combining loads of engaging, thoroughly researched information with ironic humor.
He dissects his subject system by system, starting with the normal structure and function of the skin and eventually moving to the “nether regions.” He follows with chapters on what can go wrong and what can go very wrong. Whereas other books focus on single systems, e.g., skeleton or gut, The Body is broader in its scope but understandably not so thorough.
For a single book to heighten a reader’s marvel and understanding of the human workings, this is the one.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Bill Bryson, bestselling author of A Short History of Nearly Everything, takes us on a head-to-toe tour of the marvel that is the human body—with a new afterword for this edition.
Bill Bryson once again proves himself to be an incomparable companion as he guides us through the human body—how it functions, its remarkable ability to heal itself, and (unfortunately) the ways it can fail. Full of extraordinary facts (your body made a million red blood cells since you started reading this) and irresistible Brysonesque anecdotes, The Body will lead you to a deeper understanding…
I've been in love with biology since first playing with earthworms and marveling at the sprouting of radish seeds as a five-year-old. Further interest and curiosity led me to positions as nature counselor at summer camps and an eventual college degree in biology. Medical school was at times tedious, but the efficient, compact, durable mechanics of the musculoskeletal system totally engaged my interest. A residency in orthopedic surgery and a fellowship in hand surgery were natural follow-ons. My other passion is a love of teaching, taking a learner from where ever their understanding is presently and guiding them to what they need to know next. And they should have fun in the process.
Although skin is highly visible and a good indicator of health, habits, and age, its complexity and significance for overall health are often overlooked. Dermatologist, historian, and world traveler, Lyman demystifies the body’s largest organ.
He explains commonly encountered conditions such as blushing, goosebumps, and itching. With engaging stories, Lyman also informs about rarely encountered conditions, past and present, that illustrate the amazing capacity of the skin to fend off infection, dehydration, and other perils of the outside world as well as assaults from within.
Additionally, skin is rich with social and psychological significance. You will be compelled to take better care of your body’s wrapping having read the book.
- Shortlisted for the Royal Society Science Book Prize 2019 - A Sunday Times 'MUST READ' - 'An exciting introduction to a little-known microscopic universe.' Sunday Times - 'A seriously entertaining book.' Melanie Reid, The Times - As read on RADIO 4's BOOK OF THE WEEK _______________
How does our diet affect our skin? What makes the skin age? And why can't we tickle ourselves?
Providing a cover for our delicate and intricate bodies, the skin is our largest, fastest growing and yet least understood organ. We see it, touch it and live in it every day. It's a habitat…
I've been in love with biology since first playing with earthworms and marveling at the sprouting of radish seeds as a five-year-old. Further interest and curiosity led me to positions as nature counselor at summer camps and an eventual college degree in biology. Medical school was at times tedious, but the efficient, compact, durable mechanics of the musculoskeletal system totally engaged my interest. A residency in orthopedic surgery and a fellowship in hand surgery were natural follow-ons. My other passion is a love of teaching, taking a learner from where ever their understanding is presently and guiding them to what they need to know next. And they should have fun in the process.
Since zoologist Bill Schutt previously wrote the very popular Cannibalism, A Perfectly Natural History, you might expect that his more recent expose of the heart would be equally wide-ranging, engaging, and touched with macabre. It is.
With clarity and wit, Schutt describes circulation from worms to bats to whales along with the curious adaptations that explain why frog hearts can freeze solid and resume function and why the blood of horseshoe crabs is favored by researchers. Schutt not only describes this living pump across the animal kingdom but also through time as philosophers and scientists have pondered, and eventually discovered, its true function.
If you have an interest in biology, history of science, or your own inner workings, Pump will make your heart throb.
"Fascinating . . . Surprising entertainment, combining deep learning with dad jokes . . . [Schutt] is a natural teacher with an easy way with metaphor.”—The Wall Street Journal
In this lively, unexpected look at the hearts of animals—from fish to bats to humans—American Museum of Natural History zoologist Bill Schutt tells an incredible story of evolution and scientific progress.
We join Schutt on a tour from the origins of circulation, still evident in microorganisms today, to the tiny hardworking pumps of worms, to the golf-cart-size hearts of blue whales. We visit beaches where horseshoe crabs are being harvested for…
I am a skin MD, family physician, and an adjunct professor at the Auckland University of Technology. My peers awarded me the Ko Awatea International Excellence Award for Leading Health on a Global Scale for “improving management, education and patient-centered care internationally, across several countries.” I have often said, “One cannot have bad health and good skin” and therefore my interests are using skin, our only universal organ, to help us understand not only human health and wellness, but also issues that affect humanity such as the changing climate, pollution, aging, and skin color. I am a global citizen as I was born in England, grew up in India, and I now live in New Zealand.
This is the only “How to” book in this selection that literally spoon-feeds us.Love Your Gut has over 50 recipes: from banana and fig breakfast loaves to chickpea crêpes, spinach pesto pasta to tofu satay skewers—there’s something for everyone. However, at the guts of it, this book deals with how our gastrointestinal tract is also inherently linked to our immunity. Taking charge of what we place in our guts, Rossi feels, is one of the best ways we can take control of our health and wellbeing.
Support your immunity and fuel your metabolism with this revolutionary guide to gut health, including 50 fiber-packed recipes to nourish your microbiome—from the award-winning Gut Health Doctor (@TheGutHealthDoctor) and author of the forthcoming How to Eat More Plants
Publisher’s Note: Love Your Gut was previously published in the UK under the title Eat Yourself Healthy.
The path to health and happiness is inside you—literally. It’s your gut! When you eat well, you feed the helpful gut microbes that nourish your metabolism, your immunity, and even your mood. But your microbiome is as unique as you are, so how to eat…
I’m a trained microbiologist who received my doctorate from the University of Washington and who has long been fascinated by the natural world—whether microscopic or gigantic, within us or all around us. For more than 20 years, I’ve also been an award-winning science writer who has written for publications like The New York Times, Nature, Wired, and Scientific American. Ever since I wrote about the incredible ability of fecal transplants to cure a deadly bacterial infection, I’ve been obsessed with books that explore how the seemingly gross or ordinary things we often dismiss as lacking value have the power to transform both us and the planet.
This book not only provides a fascinating look at how we actually digest food, pluck out essential nutrients, and produce poop from the leftovers passing through the gut, but also includes charming and witty illustrations of many of these steps by the author’s sister, Jill.
An entire book about the gut? Yes, and it’s so interesting, with some gentle humor and well-thought-out analogies that help demystify what you’ll come to believe is a superhero of an organ.
I made notes, highlighted particularly illuminating sections, and found myself saying, “Wow! I didn’t know that!” throughout the book. It definitely gave me a new sense of wonder and appreciation for the intricate abilities of my own body.
“Everything you ever wanted to know about the gut (and then some).” —SELF
Discover the secrets of your digestive system—and how to hone a healthy gut—plus new research on the mind-gut connection.
With quirky charm, science star and medical doctor Giulia Enders explains the gut’s magic, answering questions like: What’s really up with gluten and lactose intolerance? How does the gut affect obesity? What's the connection between our microbiome and mental health? Why does acid reflux happen? In this revised edition of her beloved bestseller, Enders includes a new section on the brain-gut connection,…
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