A thoughtful, accessible look at the rapidly growing issue of invasive plants, animals, and microbes around the globe with a focus on the scientific issues and ecological, health, and other challenges From an award-winning adventure and science journalist comes an eye-opening exploration of a burgeoning environmental phenomenon and the science coalescing around it.

In the heart of the worst U.S. earthquake zones, an alarming number of older, low-rise concrete buildings have not been retrofitted for earthquake safety. These two-story to five-story structures may meet the building-code standards of their day, but that day is long past. Today's building codes reflect later earthquake engineering research and incorporate structural elements that allow concrete buildings to bend and stretch a bit during an earthquake. Older designs lack those details. "There are hundreds of thousands of buildings that have not been retrofitted that ... are very dangerous," said structural engineer Reginald DesRoches, chair and professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Georgia Tech.

Physicist Daniel Goldman and his fellow researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology shed light on a relatively unexplored subject--how organisms such as sea turtles and lizards move on (or within) sand. If you've ever struggled to walk with even a modicum of grace on a soft, sandy beach, you may appreciate the question. The answers that Goldman's CRAB lab (Complex Rheology and Biomechanics Laboratory) uncovers--with the help of living animals and biologically inspired robots--deepen our understanding not only of animal survival, evolution and ecology, but also, potentially, the evolution of complex life forms on Earth. The lab's research also assists the design and engineering of robots that must traverse unstable, uneven terrain--those used in search and rescue operations at disaster sites, for example.

In this fascinating book, Raymond Pierotti and Brandy Fogg change the narrative about how wolves became dogs and in turn, humanity’s best friend. Rather than describe how people mastered and tamed an aggressive, dangerous species, the authors describe coevolution and mutualism.