Eggplant.place

278d

So, like #AlbertEinstein and #NikolaTesla were more than likely #Neurodivergent. I'm pretty sure their moms didn't take #Tylenol.

#ND #HumanEvolution #NewMutants? #NextStep in #Evolution?

cc: @autistics

Edited 278d ago

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311d

This week's #NewBooks at the library:
- I adopted a damaged copy of David Farrier's Nature's Genius: Evolution's Lessons for a Changing Planet, published by @canongatebooks.

The other two are cases of the more I read, the more I go down rabbit holes.
- After reviewing Mysteries of the Deep, I bought an ex-library copy of the classic 1995 Paleoclimate and Evolution, with Emphasis on Human Origins, published by Yale University Press, to read more on the work of Elisabeth Vrba and colleagues (this one came from the holdings of the University Library of Durham)

- After reviewing Every Living Thing, I wanted to know more about Cuvier and tracked down an ex-library copy of the classic 1987 The Cuvier-Geoffroy Debate: French Biology in the Decades Before Darwin, published by Oxford University Press (this one came from the holdings of the University of Saint Katherine Library)

#ClimateChange #Evolution #Palaeoclimate #HumanEvolution #HistoryOfScience #ScienceHistory #HistSci #Books #Scicomm #Bookstodon @bookstodon

A top-down photo of three books lying on a small, brown, wooden table. The background shows part of the beech-coloured laminate floor.

On the left, Nature's Genius, showing a photo of a tree against a blue sky. The tree is impossibly clinging on with its root system to the very tip of a rocky outcrop, seemingly growing sideways out of the rock.

In the middle, decidedly bigger than the books on either side, is Paleoclimate and Evolution, with Emphasis on Human Origins, showing a collage of two photos that are diagonally stacked against each other. On the left is a black-and-white aerial photo of a glacial landscape, printed in blue tones (specifically showing the confluence of Beardmore and Mill Glaciers in Antarctica, credited to George H. Denton). On the right is a black-and-white photo of an open grassland savannah with some trees, printed in yellow tones (specifically showing savannah in the Serengeti in Tanzania, credited to Elisabeth S. Vrba). Overlain on the right photo is a drawing of the head and shoulders of a bearded and hairy hominin (specifically Homo habilis).

On the right, The Cuvier-Geoffroy Debate, showing a plain hardcover bound in dark blue cloth with gilded lettering debossed in the cover.

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250d

This week's #NewBooks at the library: Some more unusual acquisitions from 2025.

- I purchased the last copy of the definitive retrospective on the #palaeoart of Zdenek #Burian from Albatros Media. Volume 3 focuses on his artwork of prehistoric humans. All these books are written in Czech, but the artwork is just lavish, and I'm a sucker for period palaeoart.

- I found a second-hand copy of the reissue of #AlexanderVonHumboldt's Views of Nature, released by the University of Chicago Press.

- #Spookslot - 44 jaar te gast bij de geesten, a Dutch book I hunted down via a friend, which was released to commemorate the closure of one of the most beloved attractions, Het Spookslot (a haunted house), in De #Efteling, a well-known Dutch amusement park I used to go to quite often as a child. I know they have completely rebuilt it into a new ride now with nods to the classic panoramic show, but I haven't visited it yet.

#Books #Paleontology #Palaeontology #HumanEvolution #Anthropology #HistoryOfScience #ScienceHistory #HistSci #Scicomm #Bookstodon @bookstodon

A photo of three books standing on a small, brown, wooden table. The out-of-focus background shows black shelves full of books and part of the beech-coloured laminate floor.

On the left, lying down, Views of Nature, showing a painting a verdant green jungle landscape.

In the middle, standing up on a pile of two other large books, Praveký Svet Zdenka Buriana, Kniha 3: Cesta k Cloveku, a large cloth-bound hardback showing two pieces of colour artwork of classic Czech palaeoartist Zdenek Burian: a cave bear and a hominin sitting down on his haunches while leaning on a stick. The narrow yellow paper wrapper obscures part of the cover and shows the title in Czech.

On the right, lying down, Spookslot - 44 jaar te gast bij de geesten, a slim but rather large square book with a colour photo of a ruined castle at night, lit up by several colourful spotlights. This the Spookslot, a haunted house in the Dutch attraction park De Efteling.

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172d

This week's #NewBooks at the library: three more books from my employer's January sale
- The Second Jurassic Dinosaur Rush: Museums and Paleontology in America at the Turn of the Twentieth Century by Paul D. Brinkman from the University of Chicago Press;
- Shaping Humanity: How Science, Art, and Imagination Help Us Understand Our Origins, a wonderfully illustrated book by John Gurche from Yale University Press;
- Rethinking Human Evolution edited by Jeffrey H. Schwartz, a volume in the Vienna Series in Theoretical Biology from @themitpress.

#Fossils #Paleontology #Palaeontology #Dinosaurs #HistoryOfScience #ScienceHistory #HistSci #Anthropology #HumanEvolution #Books #Scicomm #Bookstodon @bookstodon

A photo of three books standing on a small, brown, wooden table. The out-of-focus background shows black shelves full of books.

On the left, The Second Jurassic Dinosaur Rush, showing a hardback with a two-tone black and blue cartoon illustration of a dinosaur peering into the window of an apartment building. This is a famous period engraving by Motty, published in 1886, that shows Iguanodon roaming the streets of 1880s Paris.

In the middle, Shaping Humanity, a black hardback showing a lifelike colour drawing of an ape looking directly at the viewer. The ape is reminiscent of an orangutan, except it has dark-brown to black skin and orange sclera surrounding its black pupils.

On the right, Rethinking Human Evolution, a black hardback showing a collage of fossil human skulls executed in a reddish-ochre colour.

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131d

This week's #NewBooks at the library: Another three books from our January clearance sale, some of which have been review candidates for some time now.

- Planet Palm: How Palm Oil Ended Up in Everything – and Endangered the World, a shocking and eye-opening reportage written by Jocelyn C. Zuckerman and published by Hurst Publishers.

- Making Faces: The Evolutionary Origins of the Human Face, written by Adam S. Wilkins, published by Belknap Press. Not one I was planning to review, but I find it very hard to pass up a bargain on an interesting book on human evolution and physical anthropology.

- Unfit for Purpose: When Human Evolution Collides with the Modern World, written by Adam Hart, published by Bloomsbury Sigma. One of several books that explores the mismatch between our evolutionary legacy and the modern world we have created for ourselves. I expect them to be amusing reads all!

#Books #Bookstodon #Scicomm #EnvironmentalIssues #PalmOil #PlantationForestry #FoodAdditives #Evolution #HumanEvolution #PhysicalAnthropology #Anatomy #PopularScience @bookstodon

A photo of three books standing on a small, brown, wooden table. The out-of-focus background shows black shelves full of books.

On the left, Planet Palm, showing an orange hardback with an abstract colour illustration of an orangutan's face, its eyes made out of two palm oil fruits.

In the middle, Making Faces, showing a black hardback with a colour photo of a hominid skull lying on a bed of sharp black rocks (possibly basalt shards).

On the right, Unfit for Purpose, showing an orange hardback with a series of black silhouettes showing a variation on the classic march of progress meme. The last two human figures are of a walking man hunched over while holding a mobile phone, and a woman sitting on a chair hunched over while holding a mobile phone.

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109d

This week's #NewBooks at the library: Who is excited about the next few books he will be reviewing?

- After an impressive debut, I am looking forward to reading Cal Flyn's second book, The Savage Landscape: How We Made the Wilderness, published by HarperCollins.

- Time for another deep dive into the history of my favourite discipline, #EvolutionaryBiology. I really enjoyed Costa's annotated version of Wallace's notebook, and am very excited about delving into this annotated version of #CharlesDarwin's The Descent of Man, beautifully published here by @princetonupress. Expect me to go dark for a while, it's over 760 pages!

- And for context, I will be adding a review of Jeremy DeSilva's A Most Interesting Problem: What #Darwin’s Descent of Man Got Right and Wrong about #HumanEvolution, published a few years back, also by Princeton.

#Books #Bookstodon #Scicomm #Evolution #HistoryOfScience #ScienceHistory #HistSci @bookstodon

A photo of three books standing upright on a small, brown, wooden table. The out-of-focus background shows black shelves full of books.

On the left, The Savage Landscape, showing a hardback with a top-down aerial colour photo, likely shot with a drone, of a snow-covered landscape. A black tarmac road runs straight up from bottom to top. Halfway up the cover, red-hot glowing lava is covering the landscape.

In the middle, The Descent of Man, showing a landscape-format white hardback. The bottom half is covered by a fan-shaped collection of bird feathers from an argus pheasant. The feathers are brown and tan and show speckles. The left half of the fan shows male feathers, recognisable by eye-like circles running down the length of each feather, right next to the vane. The photo is by Kyle Black and called Argus Volans.

On the right, A Most Interesting Problem, showing a cream-coloured hardback with two drawings placed on either side of the title and subtitle. To the left, a skeleton of a chimpanzee rendered in yellow; to the right, a side-on view of a human skull rendered in green.

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82d

This week's #NewBooks at the library:
- The last of the books from the NHBS January sale: Michael Ruse's The #Philosophy of Human #Evolution, published by Cambridge University Press
- A lovely version of Humphrey Carpenter's highly praised J. R. R. #Tolkien: A Biography, published by HarperCollins
- A second-hand copy of Ant Ecology, published by Oxford University Press

#HumanEvolution #Anthropology #Fantasy #LOTR #LordOfTheRings #Myrmecology #Ecology #Insects #Entomology #Books #Bookstodon #Scicomm @bookstodon

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74d

This week's #NewBooks at the library:
- I found a second-hand copy of Voyage of the Basilisk: A Memoir by Lady Trent, written by Marie Brennan (@swan_tower) and published by Tor Books. This is book 3 in a #Fantasy series I have been eyeing up for some time now. I will not lie that the striking covers grabbed my attention.
- Taschen had a sale some time ago, allowing me to finally buy a volume I have long coveted: the collected works of #HRGiger. When it comes to their art collections, I always end up choosing their XXL versions. Expensive? Yes. But it's a "go big or go home" choice for me.
- A lovely birthday gift from a family member: the latest book by the incomparable Dutch biologist Midas Dekkers, Het Menselijk Tekort, published by Atlas Contact.

#Books #Bookstodon #Dragons #HumanEvolution #Anthropology #Scicomm @bookstodon

A photo of three books standing upright on a small, brown, wooden table. The out-of-focus background shows black shelves full of books and part of the beech-coloured laminate floor.

On the left, Voyage of the Basilisk: A Memoir by Lady Trent, showing a white hardback with a colour illustration of a marine dragon swimming in the sea, offering a view of both its neck and head above water, and its body below the waterline. Several other marine critters swim around it for size comparison, including a shark, a humpback whale, and a giant squid.

In the middle, a very large black hardback showing some of HR Giger's disturbing artwork. This is Dark Star, showing a decapitated female head, merging into a stack of skulls, insectoid limbs, and other mechanical and biological parts, all jacked up to a frame via hoses and wires. She is flanked by two figures that consist of columns of unholy amalgamations of skulls, limbs, ribcages, and other unrecognisable body parts. The whole is executed in his signature colour scheme of pallid flesh and dark grey.

On the right, Het Menselijk Tekort, showing a paperback with a colour painting of two mostly naked humans standing on either side of a tree with a snake-human hybrid reaching down with a small branch in his hand. Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, eyeing up the tree of knowledge of good and evil. This is the 1592 oil painting De Zondeval, by Dutch Golden Age painter Cornelis Cornelisz.

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