The Genius of Birds
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The Genius of Birds
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Narrated by:
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Patience Tomlinson
About this listen
In The Genius of Birds, acclaimed author Jennifer Ackerman explores the newly discovered brilliance of birds and how it came about.
Consider, as Ackerman does, the Clark's nutcracker, a bird that can hide as many as 30,000 seeds over dozens of square miles and remember where it put them several months later; the mockingbirds and thrashers, species that can store 200 to 2,000 different songs in a brain a thousand times smaller than ours; the well-known pigeon, which knows where it's going, even thousands of miles from familiar territory; and the New Caledonian crow, an impressive bird that makes its own tools.
This elegant scientific investigation and travelogue weaves personal anecdotes with fascinating science.
©2016 Jennifer Ackerman (P)2016 Isis Publishing LtdListeners also enjoyed...
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 210
New research indicates that crows are among the brightest animals in the world. And professor of Wildlife Science at the University of Washington John Marzluff has done some of the most extraordinary research on crows, which has been featured in the New York Times, National Geographic, and the Chicago Tribune, as well as on NPR and PBS. Now he teams up with artist and fellow naturalist Tony Angell to offer an in-depth look at these incredible creatures - in a book that is brimming with surprises.
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4 out of 5 stars
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You Will Never Look At A Crow The Same Way Again
- By Diane on 06-30-12
By: John Marzluff, and others
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The Wonder of Birds
- What They Tell Us About Ourselves, the World, and a Better Future
- By: Jim Robbins
- Narrated by: Danny Campbell
- Length: 11 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 84
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 80
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 78
Birds, Jim Robbins posits, are our most vital connection to nature. They compel us to look to the skies, both literally and metaphorically, draw us out into nature to seek their beauty, and let us experience vicariously what it is like to be weightless. Birds have helped us in so many of our human endeavors: learning to fly, providing clothing and food, and helping us better understand the human brain and body.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Stories about birds with something for everyone
- By D on 07-24-17
By: Jim Robbins
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Superlative
- The Biology of Extremes
- By: Matthew D. LaPlante
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 9 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 91
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 77
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 77
The world's largest land mammal could help us end cancer. The fastest bird is showing us how to solve a century-old engineering mystery. The oldest tree is giving us insights into climate change. The loudest whale is offering clues about the impact of solar storms. For a long time, scientists ignored superlative life forms as outliers. Increasingly, though, researchers are coming to see great value in studying plants and animals that exist on the outermost edges of the bell curve.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fascinating survey of amazing biology
- By Nerd's-eye view on 12-06-19
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Intelligence in Nature
- An Inquiry into Knowledge
- By: Jeremy Narby
- Narrated by: James Patrick Cronin
- Length: 4 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 209
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 182
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 180
Anthropologist Jeremy Narby has altered how we understand the Shamanic cultures and traditions that have undergone a worldwide revival in recent years. Now, in one of his most extraordinary journeys, Narby travels the globe - from the Amazon Basin to the Far East - to probe what traditional healers and pioneering researchers understand about the intelligence present in all forms of life. Intelligence in Nature presents overwhelming illustrative evidence that independent intelligence is not unique to humanity alone.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Favorite part was untrue :(
- By Al A'scgh on 08-13-18
By: Jeremy Narby
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The Beak of the Finch
- A Story of Evolution in Our Time
- By: Jonathan Weiner
- Narrated by: Victor Bevine
- Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 469
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 379
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 378
Rosemary and Peter Grant and those assisting them have spend 20 years on Daphne Major, an island in the Galapagos, studying natural selection. They recognize each individual bird on the island, when there are 400 at the time of the author's visit or when there are over a thousand. They have observed about 20 generations of finches - continuously.Jonathan Weiner follows these scientists as they watch Darwin's finches and come up with a new understanding of life itself.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fascinating in-depth look at evolution in action
- By Philip on 05-15-11
By: Jonathan Weiner
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Feathers
- The Evolution of a Natural Miracle
- By: Thor Hanson
- Narrated by: Andy Ingalls
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 164
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 149
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 150
Feathers are an evolutionary marvel: Aerodynamic, insulating, beguiling. They date back more than 100 million years. Yet their story has never been fully told. In Feathers, biologist Thor Hanson details a sweeping natural history, as feathers have been used to fly, protect, attract, and adorn through time and place. Applying the research of paleontologists, ornithologists, biologists, engineers, and even art historians, Hanson asks: What are feathers? How did they evolve? What do they mean to us?
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fantastic Science and Fun
- By Chris Reich on 12-28-14
By: Thor Hanson
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A Naturalist at Large
- The Best Essays of Bernd Heinrich
- By: Bernd Heinrich
- Narrated by: Rick Adamson
- Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 54
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 50
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 49
From one of the finest scientists and writers of our time comes an engaging record of a life spent in close observation of the natural world, one that has yielded marvelous, mind-altering insight and discoveries. In essays that span several decades, Bernd Heinrich finds himself at his beloved camp in Maine, plays host to annoying visitors from Europe (the cluster fly) and more helpful guests from Asia (ladybugs), and unravels the far-reaching ecological consequences of elephants in Botswana bruising mopane trees.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Listen and See the World Anew!
- By Thoughtful Learner on 06-03-18
By: Bernd Heinrich
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What a Fish Knows
- The Inner Lives of Our Underwater Cousins
- By: Jonathan Balcombe
- Narrated by: Graham Winton
- Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 505
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 448
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 447
An underwater exploration that overturns myths about fishes and reveals their complex lives, from tool use to social behavior. There are more than 30,000 species of fish - more than all mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians combined. But for all their breathtaking diversity and beauty, we rarely consider how fish think, feel, and behave.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Title misled me
- By Margaret Weidemann on 08-12-17
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How to Build a Dinosaur
- Extinction Doesn't Have to Be Forever
- By: Jack Horner, James Gorman
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 6 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 103
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 61
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 61
In movies, in novels, in comic strips, and on television, we've all seen dinosaurs - or at least somebody's educated guess of what they would look like. But what if it were possible to build, or grow, a real dinosaur without finding ancient DNA? Jack Horner, the scientist who advised Steven Spielberg on the blockbuster film Jurassic Park and a pioneer in bringing paleontology into the 21st century, teams up with the editor of the New York Times's Science Times section to reveal exactly what's in store.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Good book but misplaced title
- By Robert on 06-19-15
By: Jack Horner, and others
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Letters to a Young Scientist
- By: Edward O. Wilxon
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 4 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 314
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 269
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 271
Edward O. Wilson has distilled sixty years of teaching into a book for students, young and old. Reflecting on his coming-of-age in the South as a Boy Scout and a lover of ants and butterflies, Wilson threads these twenty-one letters, each richly illustrated, with autobiographical anecdotes that illuminate his career - both his successes and his failures - and his motivations for becoming a biologist.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Long on biography, short on advice
- By A. Mandelin on 08-02-18
By: Edward O. Wilxon
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In the Company of Bears
- What Black Bears Have Taught Me About Intelligence and Intuition
- By: Benjamin Kilham
- Narrated by: George Backman
- Length: 7 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 50
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 44
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 45
Imagine raising an orphaned bear cub, carefully reintroducing her to the wild, then being welcomed back, almost daily, to observe her wild world for more than 17 years. Imagine visiting her in her feeding spots, watching her with her mates and her young, peering into her den, and, over time, observing the lives of all the other wild bears in her territory and surrounding ones. That is what happened to Ben Kilham.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Best Bear book I have read!
- By Walking With Bears on 06-02-21
By: Benjamin Kilham
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Nature's Nether Regions
- What the Sex Lives of Bugs, Birds, and Beasts Tell Us About Evolution, Biodiversity, and Ourselves
- By: Menno Schithuizen
- Narrated by: Steven Menasche
- Length: 7 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 35
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 32
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 30
The story of evolution as you’ve never heard it before. What’s the easiest way to tell species apart? Check their genitals. Researching private parts was long considered taboo, but scientists are now beginning to understand that the wild diversity of sex organs across species can tell us a lot about evolution. Menno Schilthuizen invites listeners to join him as he uncovers the ways the shapes and functions of genitalia have been molded by complex Darwinian struggles.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A New Favorite
- By S. Pepper on 05-15-15
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I, Mammal
- By: Liam Drew
- Narrated by: Neil Gardner
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 22
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 20
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Story5 out of 5 stars 20
A list of the attributes that define a mammal is a ragbag of things - fur, live birth, three bones in the middle ear, a brain whose two halves are robustly joined together.... But this curious collection of features contain the roots of all the biology that makes us what we are: monkeys with massive brains who parent extensively, enjoy sport and think lots. Which is to say, what makes us mammals makes us human.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Who knew?
- By Fitmen on 04-25-18
By: Liam Drew
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The Ancestor's Tale
- A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution
- By: Richard Dawkins
- Narrated by: Richard Dawkins, Lalla Ward
- Length: 8 hrs and 55 mins
- Abridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 569
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 495
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 487
In The Ancestor's Tale, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins offers a masterwork: an exhilarating reverse tour through evolution, from present-day humans back to the microbial beginnings of life four billion years ago. Throughout the journey, Dawkins spins entertaining, insightful stories and sheds light on topics such as speciation, sexual selection, and extinction. The Ancestor's Tale is at once an essential education in evolutionary theory and riveting in its telling.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Please do an unabridged version!
- By MovieExpertise on 09-29-16
By: Richard Dawkins
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How to Tame a Fox (and Build a Dog)
- Visionary Scientists and a Siberian Tale of Jump-Started Evolution
- By: Lyudmila Trut, Lee Alan Dugatkin
- Narrated by: Joe Hempel
- Length: 7 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 762
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 685
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 687
Tucked away in Siberia, there are furry, four-legged creatures with wagging tails and floppy ears that are as docile and friendly as any lapdog. But, despite appearances, these are not dogs - they are foxes. They are the result of the most astonishing experiment in breeding ever undertaken - imagine speeding up thousands of years of evolution into a few decades. In 1959, biologists Dmitri Belyaev and Lyudmila Trut set out to do just that, by starting with a few dozen silver foxes from fox farms in the USSR and attempting to recreate the evolution of wolves into dogs in real time.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Amazing
- By paul on 10-26-17
By: Lyudmila Trut, and others
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The Most Perfect Thing
- By: Tim Birkhead
- Narrated by: Gareth Armstrong
- Length: 7 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 32
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 30
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 31
How are eggs of different shapes made, and why are they the shapes they are? When does the shell of an egg harden? Why do some eggs contain two yolks? How are the colours and patterns of eggshells created, and why do they vary? And which end of an egg is laid first - the blunt end or the pointy end?
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great book about eggs!!
- By Timothy on 03-24-21
By: Tim Birkhead
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The Lives of a Cell
- Notes of a Biology Watcher
- By: Lewis Thomas
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 4 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 119
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 97
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 96
In The Lives of a Cell, Dr. Lewis Thomas opens up to the listener a universe of knowledge and perception that is perhaps not wholly unfamiliar to the research scientist; but the world he explores is also one of men and women, of complex interrelationships, old ironies, peculiar powers, and intricate languages that give identity to the alienated and direction to the dependent. This remarkable work offers a subtle, bold vision of humankind and the world around us - a sense of what gives life - from a writer who seems to draw grace and strength from the very substance of his subject.
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5 out of 5 stars
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So enlightening and enjoyable!
- By Flora on 03-15-18
By: Lewis Thomas