Most Popular Books by Rebecca L. Johnson

Audisee® eBooks with Audio combine professional narration and sentence highlighting to engage reluctant readers! The octopus spies a nice, tasty mantis shrimp. It swims over for a closer look at the small creature. Thenu0097WHAM!u0097the mantis shrimp strikes a nasty blow with its hammer-like forelimb. The octopus shrinks back, defeated. That wasn''t such an easy meal after all . . . In nature, good defenses can mean the difference between surviving a predator''s attack and becoming its lunch. Some animals rely on sharp teeth and claws or camouflage. But that''s only the beginning. Meet creatures with some of the strangest defenses known to science. How strange? Hagfish that can instantaneously produce oodles of gooey, slippery slime; frogs that poke their own toe bones through their skin to create claws; young birds that shoot streams of stinking poop; and more.

An illustrated compendium of information on plants and their diverse therapeutic properties and benefits brings together folklore, scientific research, and medical theory to describe hundreds of plants and their origins.--

Audisee® eBooks with Audio combine professional narration and text highlighting for an engaging read aloud experience! The muscular system is made up of three different kinds of muscles: skeletal muscles, smooth muscle, and heart muscle. But what does each kind of muscle do? And where in the body are they located? Explore the muscular system in this engaging and informative book.

Are zombies real? As far as we know, dead people do not come back to life and start walking around, looking for trouble. But there are things that can take over the bodies and brains of innocent creatures, turning them into senseless slaves. Meet nature''s zombie makers—including a fly-enslaving fungus, a suicide worm, and a cockroach-taming wasp—and their victims.

Audisee® eBooks with Audio combine professional narration and text highlighting for an engaging read aloud experience! The digestive system is made up of the tongue, the esophagus, the stomach, the intestines, and other parts. But what does the digestive system do? And how do its parts work together to keep your body healthy? Explore the digestive system in this engaging and informative book.

Have you ever wondered what mysteries the ocean holds? Prepare to explore the ocean from sunlit shallows to the deepest, darkest depths. Along the way, you''ll meet many incredible creatures that are brand new to science. Dive to a coral reef and spot a new species of pygmy octopus. Travel deeper and discover fragile, nearly transparent jellies as they drift past. Then head down into a world of eternal night. You''ll encounter animals that make their own light and zombie worms that feast on the bones of dead whales. Your adventure is based on the real journeys of scientists involved in the Census of Marine Life. From 2000 to 2010, more than two thousand researchers from eighty-two countries carried out the most extensive investigation of ocean life ever attempted. Author Rebecca L. Johnson takes readers to research sites around the globe, showing how ocean scientists do their work. Stunning photographs throughout bring readers face-to-face with some of the most mesmerizing creatures on Earth.

"How do the plants and animals of the prairie depend on one another for survival? Discover a world of tall grasses and wildflowers that creatures from butterflies to badgers call home"--

A resource organized by body system lists the key herbal remedies available, their uses, and cautionary advice, in a book that includes full-color photos, a glossary and several thematic indexes.

Describes the climate, seasons, plants, animals, and soil of the boreal forest, a biome or land zone, which stretches across the northern parts of North America, Europe, and Asia.

Take a walk in the rain forest. It''s hot and humid and humming with life. Look up into the dense canopy of leaves above you. Tangled vines lead to the treetops, where parrots squawk and monkeys swing from branch to branch. A poison dart frog clings to a slippery leaf. A sloth creeps through the canopy. The dense rain forest overflows with life. Discover the plants and animals that depend on each other in this unique biome through narrative text, entrancing photos, and illustrations.

An immersive, high-interest approach to the highly curricular topic of biomes

In the animal kingdom, survival is the name of the game—and not everything is as it seems. A number of animals rely on particularly clever tricks to fool predators or prey. A baby bird mimics a poisonous caterpillar. A moth escapes bats by making sounds that interfere with the bats'' echolocation. A tiny rain forest spider builds a big spider "puppet" out of bits of dead leaves, insect parts, and other items. Find out more about some of nature''s most bizarre and bloodthirsty con artists and meet the scientists who are working to figure out just how they pull off their amazing tricks.

An immersive, high-interest approach to the highly curricular topic of biomes

Describes the physical characteristics and habitat of carnivorous plants, including pitcher plants, venus fly traps, and cobra lilies.

Explores the causes of current environmental problems, particularly global warming, and discusses new trends, technology, and new solutions.

An illustrated compendium of information on plants and their diverse therapeutic properties and benefits brings together folklore, scientific research, and medical theory to describe hundreds of plants and their origins.--

A biography of Sir Ernest Shackleton, the daring, charismatic Antarctic explorer who fell short of his goal of crossing Antarctica, but accomplished a far greater feat by bringing every member of his crew back alive.

An immersive, high-interest approach to the highly curricular topic of biomes

Relates the competition between Othniel Marsh and Edward Cope to discover more fossils, name more species, and publish more papers that brought out the best and worst in them and provided the world with a new view of life on Earth.

Takes readers on a walk in a swamp, showing examples of how the animals and plants of wetlands are connected and dependent on each other and the wetland''s watery environment.

An immersive, high-interest approach to the highly curricular topic of biomes

Takes readers on a journey into a river, showing examples of how the animals and plants are connected and dependent on each other and the river''s freshwater environment.

Takes readers on a walk at a sheltered bay, showing examples of how the animals and plants of estuaries are connected and dependent on each other and the estuary''s mix of fresh and salt water.

Learn what satellites do for us.

Audisee® eBooks with Audio combine professional narration and sentence highlighting to engage reluctant readers! Did you know that some animals have natural ninja-like talents? In this book, you''ll learn all about them, including geckos, sea urchins, bombardier beetles, and more. For example, geckos can grip almost any surfaceu0097including walls and ceilingsu0097with their amazing toes. And when collector urchins are attacked, they release tiny, sharp objects that bear a striking resemblance to throwing stars. You will also meet the scientists who are studying these animals'' amazing abilities.

Takes readers on a journey into a lake, showing examples of how the animals and plants are connected and dependent on each other and on the lake''s freshwater environment.

If a black dog and a white dog have puppies, what color will the puppies be? Genetic scientists have been trying to answer this question for hundreds of years. Genetics is the science of heredity—how traits are passed from parents to offspring. One of the first breakthroughs came from Gregor Mendel, a nineteenth-century monk who spent eight years breeding thousands of pea plants. Pea plants might seem pretty different from dogs, but on a microscopic level, they have a surprising amount in common. Genetic pioneers of the twentieth century unlocked the secrets of DNA, the molecule that holds heredity information for all life-forms. Thjis book tells the story of how scientists cracked the code of life and revolutionized molecular biology.

Takes readers on a journey into the ocean, showing examples of how the animals and plants of the ocean are connected and dependent on each other and the ocean''s saltwater environment.

National Geographic''s guide to 36 "super" herbs such as aloe, echinacea, ginkgo, and peppermint includes a wealth of essential information on the history, culture, folklore, and science of traditional and contemporary herbal medicine in all major culture areas of the world. Emphasizing current research and therapeutic uses, the volume provides an A-Z listing of 36 of the more than 80,000 known medicinal plants around the world. Information about each plant includes traditional and current medicinal uses, common and Latin names, description, habitat, cultivation and preparation, research, and caution alerts. Additional essays on the healing plants of Africa, Australia and New Zealand, Central and South America, China, Europe, India, North America, the Middle East, and Oceania provide insightful glimpses into the fascinating range and diversity of local health practices while also revealing the multifaceted roles that herbalists, healers, and herbal-medicine practitioners play in the lives of their patients.

Do you realize there are about 100 trillion cells in your body? That''s a lot of cells to manage! It''s a good thing they are organized into systems that all work together. This book takes you on a journey inside your body to see many types of cells skin cells, blood cells, muscle cells, and more magnified hundreds or thousands of times larger than their actual size. You''ll find out how groups of cells work together to keep your body running. Are you ready for this microquest?

Describes how the body fights off germs, from secretions including tears and saliva to the cells that make up the immune system.

Through close-up photographs of cells and cell parts, this book explains what special talents your cells--and the cells of other animals--have.

What is matter made of? Scientists have been trying to answer this question for thousands of years. The concept of the atom—the tiniest fragment of a substance that still retains the characteristics of that substance—goes back to the Greek philosopher Leucippus, who lived in about 450 b.c. In the mid-1600s, Robert Boyle provided experimental evidence that atoms did, indeed, exist. And in 1897, British physicist Joseph John Thomson discovered the first subatomic particle: the electron. Yet even the tiny components of the atom—protons, electrons, and neutrons—are not the smallest things in the universe. Subatomic particles are made up of still tinier objects called quarks and leptons. This book tells the story of how scientists unlocked the secrets of the atom and revolutionized the way we look at the world around us.

After the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear explosion in Ukraine, scientists believed radiation had created a vast and barren wasteland in which life could never resurface. But the Dead Zone, as the contaminated area is known, doesn''t look dead at all. In fact, wildlife seems to be thriving there. The Zone is home to beetles, swallows, catfish, mice, voles, otters, beavers, wild boar, foxes, lynx, deer, moose?even brown bears and wolves. Yet the animals in the Zone are not quite what you''d expect. Every single one of them is radioactive. In Chernobyl''s Wild Kingdom, you''ll meet the international scientists investigating the Zone''s wildlife and trying to answer difficult questions: Have some animals adapted to living with radiation? Or is the radioactive environment harming them in ways we can''t see or that will only show up in future generations? Learn more about the fascinating ongoing research?and the debates that surround the findings?in one of the most dangerous places on Earth.

For hundreds of years, people found the fossils of ancient sea creatures at the tops of tall mountains. Scientists puzzled over this problem. A fish couldn''t have swum up a mountain. And how could rocks on a mountain move up from the bottom of a sea? Geologists finally found the answers they needed in the 1960s, when they developed the theory of plate tectonics. This theory revolutionized our understanding of the earth. Plate tectonics explains how volcanoes form, why earthquakes happen, and what goes on deep inside the earth to make the continents move. This book tells the story of scientists and their discoveries to explain how the theory of plate tectonics came to be.

Allocation of natural resources has become a prominent concern at the local, state, and federal level. Competing uses for increasingly scarce resources are requiring that the relative values of those uses be investigated. Although many types of value are important in decision making, this book is concerned with the economic value of natural resources. Economic values for certain natural resources are readily observable in markets. For others, however, market prices are not available, and estimates of value must be made through nonmarket valuation techniques. The progress that has been made in improving the theory, methods, and applications of these techniques has been remarkable. Along with the progress, however, come new problems that must be addressed. The chapters presented in this volume are a collection of examples of both progress and problems.