Peter D. Ward_6 Titles (Nat. History; Non-Fict.) PDF

Everyone wonders what tomorrow holds, but what will the real future look like? Not decades or even hundreds of years from now, but thousands or millions of years into the future. Will our species change radically? Or will we become builders of the next dominant intelligence on Earth- the machine?

These and other seemingly fantastic scenarios are the very possible realities explored in Peter Ward's Future Evolution, a penetrating look at what might come next in the history of the planet. Looking to the past for clues about the future, Ward describes how the main catalyst for evolutionary change has historically been mass extinction. While many scientist direly predict that humanity will eventually create such a situation, Ward argues that one is already well underway--the extinction of large mammals--and that a new Age of Humanity is coming that will radically revise the diversity of life on Earth. Finally, Ward examines the question of human extinction and reaches the startling conclusion that the likeliest scenario is not our imminent demise but long term survival--perhaps reaching as far as the death of the Sun!

Full of Alexis Rockman's breathtaking color images of what animals, plants and other organisms might look like thousands and millions of years from now, Future Evolution takes readers on an incredible journey through time from the deep past into the far future.



Based on more than a decade's research in South Africa's Karoo Desert, this remarkable journey of discovery and real-life adventure deep into Earth's history is offered by a renowned scientist.



On Methuselah's Trail is an around-the-world excursion into the lives of some of the earth's most remarkable inhabitants-those creatures Darwin labeled' living fossils.' through vibrant on-the-scene reporting and superb photography, Peter Ward examines the phenomena of these extraordinary creatures, offering a vivid demonstration of how scientist in the field work as detectives unearthing clues to the past.



For 65 million years dinosaurs ruled the Earth--until a deadly asteroid forced their extinction. But what accounts for the incredible longevity of dinosaurs? A renowned scientist now provides a startling explanation that is rewriting the history of the Age of Dinosaurs. Dinosaurs were pretty amazing creatures--real-life monsters that have the power to fascinate us. And their fiery Hollywood ending only serves to make the story that much more dramatic. But fossil evidence demonstrates that dinosaurs survived several mass extinctions, and were seemingly unaffected by catastrophes that decimated most other life on Earth. What could explain their uncanny ability to endure through the ages? Biologist and earth scientist Peter Ward now accounts for the remarkable indestructibility of dinosaurs by connecting their unusual respiration system with their ability to adapt to Earth's changing environment--a system that was ultimately bequeathed to their descendants, birds. By tracing the evolutionary path back through time and carefully connecting the dots from birds to dinosaurs, Ward describes the unique form of breathing shared by these two distant relatives and demonstrates how this simple but remarkable characteristic provides the elusive explanation to a question that has thus far stumped scientists. Nothing short of revolutionary in its bold presentation of an astonishing theory, "Out of Thin Air" is a story of science at the edge of discovery. Ward is an outstanding guide to the process of scientific detection. Audacious and innovative in his thinking, meticulous and thoroughly detailed in his research, only a scientist of his caliber is capable of telling this surprising story.



What determines whether complex life will arise on a planet, or even any life at all? Questions such as these are investigated in this groundbreaking book. In doing so, the authors synthesize information from astronomy, biology, and paleontology, and apply it to what we know about the rise of life on Earth and to what could possibly happen elsewhere in the universe. Everyone who has been thrilled by the recent discoveries of extrasolar planets and the indications of life on Mars and the Jovian moon Europa will be fascinated by Rare Earth, and its implications for those who look to the heavens for companionship.



The time machine is one of the classic devices of science fiction, a source of endless wonder and inventiveness. In a book that transfers that sense of wonder and inventiveness to the realm of nonfiction, Peter Ward shows that paleontologists do indeed use time machines to probe the deep geological past, and that both the machines and the people using them come in a fantastic variety of types. Sometimes the time machine is as simple as a rock hammer or as humble as a magnifying glass; other times it is an esoteric piece of equipment such as a mass spectrometer. Always, the most important element is the imagination of the scientists willing to take the scientific and creative risks of plumbing the distant past of our planet and its great bestiary. In 10 separate essays united by this common theme, Time Machines prowls the world of steamy Mesozoic days and fetid Paleozoic nights to rediscover the grace and beauty of Earth's faraway past.