An anonymous note in the middle of the night, an obituary for a banker who died in a hailstorm, and a mysterious woman vanishing down the stairwell: these clues lead Henry Alabaster and his uncle Kelvin McCloud to a spooky mansion in a coastal town. As a weather detective, Kelvin knows a thing or two about hailstorms, and then strange events surrounding the banker's death suggest foul play. Henry teams up with the fiery, artistic Rachel to help his uncle investigate, and they learn a lot about weather on the way. Nothing—not a thunderstorm, threats, burglary, a baseball bat-wielding suspect, nor even a devastating fire—can keep Henry and his team from chasing down the truth.

When an anonymous letter implores them to travel to the Caribbean, Henry Alabaster and his weather detective uncle are swept up in a puzzling adventure ? one which will take them out to sea to investigate a strangely troubled cruise ship and its supposedly cursed captain Mystery is in the air. Alongside his artistic friend Rachel, Henry will encounter a belligerent sea captain, stories of vengeful ghosts, an impending hurricane, and more adventure than they can shake an umbrella at. As readers dive into this thrilling mystery, they'll also uncover fascinating weather history ? stories about a fateful race to the South Pole, a Mongolian emperor's nation-shaping trouble with typhoons, and even a device invented to predict the weather using living leeches. Better bring your raincoat!

This book delivers current state-of-the-science knowledge of tree ecophysiology, with particular emphasis on adaptation to a novel future physical and chemical environment. Unlike the focus of most books on the topic, this considers air chemistry changes (O3, NOx, and N deposition) in addition to elevated CO2 effects and its secondary effects of elevated temperature. The authors have addressed two systems essential for plant life: water handling capacity from the perspective of water transport; the coupling of xylem and phloem water potential and flow; water and nutrition uptake via likely changes in mycorrhizal relationships; control of water loss via stomata and its retention via cellular regulation; and within plant carbon dynamics from the perspective of environmental limitations to growth, allocation to defences, and changes in partitioning to respiration. The authors offer expert knowledge and insight to develop likely outcomes within the context of many unknowns. We offer this comprehensive analysis of tree responses and their capacity to respond to environmental changes to provide a better insight in understanding likelihood for survival, as well as planning for the future with long-lived, stationary organisms adapted to the past: trees.

A guide to the next great wave of technology -- an era of objects so programmable that they can be regarded as material instantiations of an immaterial system.

A humorous, exciting tale of an ordinary girl who makes an extraordinary scientific discovery—a blind fish that walksWhen seventh-grader Alexis catches an unusual fish that looks like a living fossil, she sets off a frenzied scientific hunt for more of its kind. Alexis and her friend Darshan join the hunt, snorkeling, sounding the depths of Glacial Lake, even observing from a helicopter and exploring a cave. All the while, they fight to keep the selfish Dr. Mertz from claiming the discovery all for himself. When Alexis follows one final hunch, she risks her life and almost loses her friend. Walking Fish is a scientific adventure that provides a perfect combination of literacy and science.

Sam needs to find a seventh-grade science fair project and a way to save the restaurant where his father works. When he enrolls three friends in an effort to raise bees on a hotel roof in New York City, the complications multiply. Bee sting allergies, a great bee die-off, a rival team's cheating, a mysteriously reclusive science teacher, and Sam's romantic feelings for a classmate make the bee project anything but simple. This story includes lots of facts about bees and Colony Collapse Disorder.

change is simply described by the rate of income and rate of loss. Our home's energy budget, our firm's inventory, our nation's debt, and humanity's numbers all have accounts that change at rates that are equal to the inputs minus the outputs. Jenny's "system view" of the soil was carried into the fertile fields of Midwestern American prairies from the laboratories of Switzerland in the late 1920s. Jenny's rate equations provided the other paradigm or world view that, I recall, brought us to the threshold of systems ecology as it later evolved in the second half of the twentieth century. As if world renown in the specialties of pedology and soil chemistry were not enough for one lifetime, excerpts below remind us that Hans Jenny has also been a perceptive outdoor field ecologist since his early Alpine expeditions with Braun Blanquet in the mid 1920s. Jenny's ecosystem studies in the pygmy forest, a further classic example of a soil-plant system "run down" over hundreds of thousands of years since its origin, continue to occupy some of the vigorous retirement time near his farm in Mendocino County. But each specific, quantitative case study, and each research area conserved (with additional hard work) for further study by future generations, fits into Jenny's coherent world view. It is that view, and its legacies of discovery and of tangible landscape preserves, which we are privileged to share with their originator in this volume.

A pocket guide

Good or bad level design can make or break any game, so it is surprising how little reference material exists for level designers. Beginning level designers have a limited understanding of the tools and techniques they can use to achieve their goals, or even define them. This book is the first to use a conceptual and theoretical foundation to build

Ambassador, you are go for launch in T- minus 5…4…3…2…. Get ready to blast off with this high-action, high-stakes middle grade adventure that’s perfect for fans of Chris Grabenstein and Peter Lerangis! Miranda Regent can’t believe she was just chosen as one of six kids from around the world to train for the first ever mission to Mars. But as soon as the official announcement is made, she begins receiving anonymous threatening messages…and when the training base is attacked, it looks like Miranda is the intended target. Now the entire mission—and everyone’s lives—are at risk. And Miranda may be the only one who can save them. The Martian meets The Goonies in this out-of-this-world middle grade debut where the stakes couldn’t be higher.