A Message from Martha: The Extinction of the Passenger Pigeon and its Relevance Today

  • Mark Avery
Bloomsbury (2014)

A century ago, Martha — the last of the passenger pigeons (Ectopistes migratorius) — died in a zoo in Cincinnati, Ohio. Less than 100 years before, the species had been Earth's most common bird, darkening the sky and pulling down trees with the sheer size of its colonies. Conservationist Mark Avery's chronicle is based on science, historical accounts, a 6,000-kilometre road trip to key US sites, and numerous interviews. It offers a considered perspective on the habitat loss and unsustainable harvesting that led to the pigeon's demise.

Thrive: The Revolutionary Potential of Evidence-Based Psychological Therapies

Richard Layard and David M. Clark. Allen Lane (2014)

More than 350 million people worldwide have depression, estimates the World Health Organization. Yet mental illness is a policy blind spot and access to treatment is poor — a “shocking form of discrimination”, say psychologist David Clark and economist Richard Layard. Drivers of the UK Improving Access to Psychological Therapies initiative, they make the case for tackling the burden now, and draw up a road map for evidence-based therapies recommended by the UK National Institute for Health and Care Excellence.

Extracted: How the Quest for Mineral Wealth Is Plunderingthe Planet

  • Ugo Bardi
Chelsea Green (2014)

Our dependence on fossil fuels and minerals is growing ever more costly, as extraction rapidly creams off the “easy” deposits. So argues physical chemist Ugo Bardi in this in-depth study of the issue, based on a report to the Club of Rome, a global think tank. Bardi examines depletion models, pollution and climate change, the viability of mining oceans or asteroids, and options such as waste recycling. If rampant extraction persists, he notes, we will not need spaceships to find a new world: we'll be standing on it, and it will not be pretty.

Whatever Happened to the Metric System?: How America Kept Its Feet

  • John Bemelmans Marciano
Bloomsbury USA (2014)

Miles and pounds are here to stay — in the United States, at least. Its measurement system survived an abortive federal metric initiative in the 1970s and 1980s and, writer John Bemelmans Marciano reveals in this digressive history, a much earlier attempt. In 1790 Thomas Jefferson hoped to follow up his decimal currency with a decimal system of weights and measures. Instead, it was US ally post-revolutionary France, burdened with a hideously complicated system of weights and measures, that authored the metric system.

The Amazing World of Flyingfish

  • Steve N. G. Howell
Princeton University Press (2014)

The more than 60 species of the family Exocoetidae literally sail the seas — or, more accurately, just above them. The streamlined bodies of flying fish lend them underwater speed that they can convert into lift; winglike pectoral fins allow them to glide as far as 180 metres to escape predators. They can even use updraughts of air. Ornithologist Steve Howell's engrossing natural history is embellished with 90 superb colour photographs of the ornate goldwing and other beauties among these “ocean butterflies”.