NCW Libraries

"Information about rocks and minerals for children"--

From one of our finest and most popular science writers, the bestselling author of "Your Inner Fish," comes the answer to a scientific mystery story as big as the world itself: How have astronomical events that took place millions of years ago created the unique qualities of the human species?

The story of our home planet and the organisms spread across its surface is far more spectacular than any Hollywood blockbuster, filled with enough plot twists to rival a bestselling thriller. But only recently have we begun to piece together the whole mystery into a coherent narrative. Drawing on his decades of field research and up-to-the-minute understanding of the latest science, geologist Andrew H. Knoll delivers a biography of Earth, charting...

"In the tradition of E.H. Gombrich, Stephen Hawking, and Alan Weisman-an entertaining and uniquely informed narration of Life's life story. In the beginning, Earth was an inhospitably alien place-in constant chemical flux, covered with churning seas, crafting its landscape through incessant volcanic eruptions. Amid all this tumult and disaster, life began. The earliest living things were no more than membranes stretched across microscopic gaps in...

"A breakout bestseller in Italy, now available for American readers for the first time, Genesis: The Story of How Everything Began is a short, humanistic tour of the origins of the universe, earth, and life-drawing on the latest discoveries in physics to explain the seven most significant moments in the creation of the cosmos"-- Tonelli reveals the extraordinary story of our genesis: from the origins of the universe, to the emergence of life on Earth,...

"An unforgettable journey into our ancient past, containing powerful lessons to learn about our future. Today there are 20 million species on our planet. Yet what we see is just a snapshot in time. 99% of earth's inhabitants are lost to our deep past. The story of what happened to these lineages--their rise and their fall--is truly remarkable. Accompanying the ground-breaking Netflix series, Life on our Planet uses the latest technology to bring long-extinct...

Specialist scientific fields are developing at incredibly swift speeds, but what can they really tell us about how the universe began and how we as humans evolved to play such a dominant role on Earth? John Hands' extraordinarily ambitious book merges scientific knowledge from multiple disciplines and evaluates without bias or preconception all the theories and evidence about the origin and evolution of matter, consciousness, and mankind. In the clearest...

Explains the source of names in a fun and easy-to-digest way.

Nova and National Geographic present exclusive access to an astounding discovery of ancient fossil human ancestors. Deep in a South African cave, a special team of experts has brought to light an unprecedented wealth of fossils belonging to a crucial gap in the record of our origins that spans the transition between the ape-like australopithecines (such as the famous Lucy) and the earliest members of the human family.

When Arnold wishes he had more information for his family tree, Ms. Frizzle revs up the Magic School Bus and the class zooms back to prehistoric times. First stop: 3.5 billion years ago! There aren't any people around to ask for directions. Luckily Ms. Frizzle has a plan, and the class is right there to watch simple cells become sponges and then fish and dinosaurs, then mammals and early primates and, eventually, modern humans. It's the longest class...