ecology

Last week, the World Health Organization (WHO) released a sobering report on the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Two main messages are unmistakable: Antibiotic-resistant disease is no longer a threat looming in the future. The long-predicted threat has now arrived. Ecodemics like outbreaks of antibiotic-resistant disease are largely of our own making. We are not innocent bystanders. We are co-conspirators.

Some people collect coins, some people collect books; people like Eric Dinerstein collect sightings of rare species. In The Kingdom of Rarities, newly released in paperback, Dinerstein shares stories from his career spent traveling the world in search of Andean cocks-of-the-rock, armadillos, and saolas. As he travels, he shares stories of how these species affect the ecosystems they live in and how scientists are working to learn more about them and how they can be protected.

With spring finally starting to show its face, we're thinking about everything that's green and growing. But as Yvonne Baskin shows in Under Ground: How Creatures of Mud and Dirt Shape Our World, we'd be nowhere without that most overlooked of substances: dirt. In the first chapter, she introduces an amazing world that holds two-thirds of the planet's biodiversity, from gigantic fungi to ancient microbes that can live in boiling hot springs or under sheathes of polar ice.

Back in November of 2013, President Obama issued an executive order on climate preparedness. Because executive orders circumvent Congress within certain limits, they allow the president to implement action to address climate change and other issues. A few weeks ago I asked some of our authors to create their own executive orders to improve our handling of the environment.