Jim Robbins is a frequent contributor to the science section of The New York Times, where he writes about environmental issues in the American west and other subjects. His most recent book, The Wonder of Birds: What Birds Tell Us About Ourselves, the World and a Better Future, is being published all over the world.  He is the author of The Man Who Planted Trees: Lost Groves, Champion Trees and an Urgent Plan to Save the Planet and the coauthor, with Les Fehmi, of The Open-Focus Brain (Shambhala, 2006) and Dissolving Pain (Shambhala, 2010), both of which explain specific neurofeedback techniques that are among those Jim surveyed in A Symphony in the Brain, which Grove Press reissued in an updated edition in 2008.  He has written for Smithsonian, Audubon, Vanity Fair, Scientific American, The New York Times Magazine, Discover, Psychology Today, Gourmet, and Condé Nast Traveler and has appeared on NPR, ABC's Nightline, The McNeil Lehrer Report and the BBC. He lives in Helena, Montana.