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Whatever Happened to the Metric System?: How America Kept Its Feet
John Bemelmans Marciano · Bloomsbury USA
Format: Hardcover
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The American standard system of measurement is a unique and odd thing to behold with its esoteric, inconsistent standards twelve inches in a foot, three feet in a yard, sixteen ounces in a pound, one hundred pennies to the dollar. For something as elemental as counting and estimating the world... |
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The Close Encounters Man: How One Man Made the World Believe in UFOs
MARK O'CONNELL · Dey Street Books
Pages: 416
Format: Paperback
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The wildly entertaining and eye-opening biography of J. Allen Hynek, the astronomer who invented the concept of "Close Encounters" with alien life, inspired Steven Spielberg's blockbuster classic science fiction epic film, and made a nation want to believe in UFOs.In June 1947,... |
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Not a Scientist: How Politicians Mistake, Misrepresent, and Utterly Mangle Science
Dave Levitan · W.W. Norton & Company
Pages: 208
Format: Print book
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A pull-no-punches guidebook, a la How to Lie with Statistics, to the many ways our elected officials distort science to serve politics. In 1980, Ronald Reagan created one of the dumbest talking points of all time: "I'm not a scientist, but . . ." Since then, politicians have... |
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Why?: What Makes Us Curious
Mario Livio · Simon & Schuster
Pages: 272
Format: Hardcover
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Astrophysicist and author Mario Livio investigates perhaps the most human of all our characteristics - curiosity - as he explores our innate desire to know why.Experiments demonstrate that people are more distracted when they overhear a phone conversation - where they can know only one side... |
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Dreams of Earth and Sky
Freeman Dyson · New York Review Books; First Edition edition
Format: Hardcover
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In this sequel to The Scientist as Rebel (2006), Freeman Dyson - whom The Times of London calls "one of the world's most original minds" - celebrates openness to unconventional ideas and "the spirit of joyful dreaming" in which he believes that science should be pursued.... |
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Rare: The High-Stakes Race to Satisfy Our Need for the Scarcest Metals on Earth
Keith Veronese · Prometheus Books
Format: Hardcover
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How will your life change when the supply of tantalum dries up? You may have never heard of this unusual metal, but without it smartphones would be instantly less omniscient, video game systems would falter, and laptops fail. Tantalum is not alone.  Rhodium. Osmium. Niobium. Such refugees... |
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The Wind in the Reeds: A Storm, A Play, and the City That Would Not Be Broken
Wendell Pierce · Riverhead Books
Pages: 352
Format: Hardcover
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From acclaimed actor and producer Wendell Pierce, an insightful and poignant portrait of family, New Orleans and the transforming power of art. On the morning of August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina barreled into New Orleans, devastating many of the city's neighborhoods, including... |
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The Third Plate: Field Notes on the Future of Food
Dan Barber · Penguin Press; First Edition edition
Format: Hardcover
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Engaging, funny and delicious... I would call this The Omnivores Dilemma 2.0. --Chicago TribuneAt the heart of todays optimistic farm-to-table food culture is a dark secret the local food movement has failed to change how we eat. It has also offered a false promise for the future of food.... |
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Badluck Way: A Year on the Ragged Edge of the West
Bryce Andrews · Atria Books
Pages: 238
Format: Hardcover
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"Mine might have been a simple, pretty story, if not for the wolves. In late July, they emerged from the foothills . . ." In this gripping memoir of a young man, a wolf, their parallel lives and ultimate collision, Bryce Andrews describes life on the remote, windswept Sun Ranch... |
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Time Travel
James Gleick · Pantheon Books
Pages: 336
Format: Print book
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From the acclaimed author of The Information and Chaos, here is a mind-bending exploration of time travel: its subversive origins, its evolution in literature and science, and its influence on our understanding of time itself. The story begins at the turn of the previous century, with the young... |
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