Category: Biology

Staff Picks: 2021 UNC Press Holiday Gift Guide

We hope you’ve got your hot chocolate and eggnog ready for this winter season! Today we wanted to share some holiday gift recommendations from our staff. Don’t forget, we’re having a Holiday Sale too! Save 40% on any of these great stocking stuffers and all of our other UNC Press print books. You’ll also receive free shipping on orders of… Continue Reading Staff Picks: 2021 UNC Press Holiday Gift Guide

Grampa Fed Me Nettles

The following is a guest blog post by Lytton John Musselman, co-author of Edible Wild Plants of the Carolinas: A Forager’s Companion. With Edible Wild Plants of the Carolinas, Lytton John Musselman and Peter W. Schafran offer a full-color guide for the everyday forager. Edible Wild Plants of the Carolinas is designed to help anyone enjoy the many wild plants found in… Continue Reading Grampa Fed Me Nettles

Megan Raby: The Tropical Origins of the Idea of Biodiversity

Today we welcome a guest blog post from Megan Raby, author of American Tropics:  The Caribbean Roots of Biodiversity Science. Biodiversity has been a key concept in international conservation since the 1980s, yet historians have paid little attention to its origins. Uncovering its roots in tropical fieldwork and the southward expansion of U.S. empire at the turn of the twentieth… Continue Reading Megan Raby: The Tropical Origins of the Idea of Biodiversity

Megan Raby: Ecology and U.S. Empire in the Caribbean

Today we welcome a guest blog post from Megan Raby, author of American Tropics:  The Caribbean Roots of Biodiversity Science. Biodiversity has been a key concept in international conservation since the 1980s, yet historians have paid little attention to its origins. Uncovering its roots in tropical fieldwork and the southward expansion of U.S. empire at the turn of the twentieth… Continue Reading Megan Raby: Ecology and U.S. Empire in the Caribbean

UNC Press Summer Reading List

Happy Summer! In honor of the summer solstice, we’re posting our suggestions for your summer reading list. If you’re planning a fun tropical vacation or just heading to your neighborhood pool, UNC Press has your perfect summer read. Pick up a fun guidebook or new biography, and don’t forget about our 40% sale! Continue Reading UNC Press Summer Reading List

Interview: Christopher Norment on the beauty of the desert ecosystem

The amount of surface water in the Basin and Range country of California and Nevada, where my book is set, has fluctuated tremendously over the last several million years and the fortunes of the salamanders, toads, and pupfishes have waxed and waned with the advance and retreat of these waters. Imagine standing above Death Valley 150,000 years ago and looking out over ancient Lake Manly, which was six hundred feet deep and eighty miles long. Lake Manly—and Searles Lake, Panamint Lake, and Tecopa Lake, on and on—would have been stunningly beautiful, part of a widespread Pleistocene “sea.” The fishes and amphibians that lived in or near these lakes, or along feeder streams, must have prospered. Now these waters have been replaced by desert and salt pan playas, and “my” species have retreated into refugia, where they persevere, sometimes against great odds. Continue Reading Interview: Christopher Norment on the beauty of the desert ecosystem

Marc Stein: Five Myths about Roe v. Wade

On 22 January 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court announced its decision in Roe v. Wade, the abortion rights case that culminated in one of the most controversial legal rulings in the country’s history. Forty years later, numerous myths continue to circulate about the contents and meanings of Roe. Here are five of the most significant. Continue Reading Marc Stein: Five Myths about Roe v. Wade

Robert Lippson: Wading in the shallows and loving it!

The shallows are a hub of biological activity. This is where many species of fishes spawn and where small fish seek haven from larger ones looking for lunch. Plants also grow in the shallows, and where there are plants there will be snails and small harmless insect-like crustaceans such as isopods and amphipods and shrimp and occasionally everyone’s favorite—a seahorse—and their close relatives, pipefishes, clinging, crawling, and slithering over the stems and blades of the vegetation. Continue Reading Robert Lippson: Wading in the shallows and loving it!

North Carolina’s eugenics history: Testimonies from victims (video)

Rock Center with Brian Williams airs a story about North Carolina’s history of state-ordered sterilizations, featuring audio recordings of social workers involved in the program that were uncovered in Johanna Schoen’s research on the subject in the 1990s. Continue Reading North Carolina’s eugenics history: Testimonies from victims (video)

Southern Gateways: The best in southern reading from UNC Press

One of the strengths of UNC Press is our commitment to publishing first-rate books about the region in which we live. From college hoops to environmental history, from the Civil War to the Civil Rights Movement, from the coast to the hills, our books about the South educate and entertain readers within the region and beyond. We’ve recently updated our… Continue Reading Southern Gateways: The best in southern reading from UNC Press

Karey Harwood: IVF Kids: Are They Really All Right?

On Monday the Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded to the biologist who helped develop in vitro fertilization (IVF). As a New York Times op-ed noted, the honoree is “a man who was reviled, in his time, as doing work that was considered the greatest threat to humanity since the atomic bomb.” Thirty-two years later, there are millions of healthy,… Continue Reading Karey Harwood: IVF Kids: Are They Really All Right?

Celebrate North Carolina State Parks…and Watch Out for My Cousin Teddy

I once went on an epic camping trip to a state park with my extended family.  On this trip, my cousin “accidentally” bumped into me while I was kneeling beside our campfire.  “Luckily,” I caught myself on the hot coals around the perimeter.  Then, this same cousin–we’ll call him Teddy (cough…Michael)–“accidentally” ran into my brother with the twig he’d been… Continue Reading Celebrate North Carolina State Parks…and Watch Out for My Cousin Teddy

Congrats to Carolyn Merchant, winner of ASEH’s Distinguished Scholar Award

We are happy as clams—and horses and chickens and goats and all creatures, really—to announce that today, at the American Society for Environmental History’s annual meeting in Portland, our author Carolyn Merchant, receives the Distinguished Scholar Award for her significant contribution to environmental history scholarship. Professor Merchant has focused, throughout her career, on human interactions with the natural environment—how we… Continue Reading Congrats to Carolyn Merchant, winner of ASEH’s Distinguished Scholar Award

New (old) bird species named for biologist Alan Feduccia

Congratulations to author Alan Feduccia, who has just had a 120-million-year-old bird named after him! The fossil of the early Cretaceous period bird, named Confuciusornis feducciai, was recently discovered in ancient, dried up lake deposits in Liaoning Province in northeastern China, an area that has produced a “gold rush” of fossils in the last decade, Feduccia said. He helped to… Continue Reading New (old) bird species named for biologist Alan Feduccia

UNCP books now available in small doses through DailyLit

It’s an old idea that now has a very modern twist, like a newspaper serial for the 21st century. . . . Want to read a book but don’t have large blocks of time for settling in and curling up? We’ve found a solution for you with DailyLit — the first e-book vendor to send easy-to-read segments of books to… Continue Reading UNCP books now available in small doses through DailyLit

Weekend Roadtrip #2: Beach book grab bag (it’s educational!)

And now, back to our regularly scheduled program. Chances are, if you don’t already have a beach trip lined up this summer and you plan a road trip now, you’ll probably have to camp out in a tent or in your car, because North Carolina beaches are awesome and everyone wants to go and they make reservations early. But hey,… Continue Reading Weekend Roadtrip #2: Beach book grab bag (it’s educational!)