The past few years have seen an incredible explosion in our knowledge of the universe. Since its 2009 launch, the Kepler satellite has discovered more than two thousand exoplanets, or planets outside our solar system. More exoplanets are being discovered all the time, and even more remarkable than the sheer number of exoplanets is their variety. In Exoplanets, astronomer Michael Summers and physicist James Trefil explore these remarkable recent discoveries: planets revolving around pulsars, planets made of diamond, planets that are mostly water, and numerous rogue planets wandering through the emptiness of space. This captivating book reveals the latest discoveries and argues that the incredible richness and complexity we are finding necessitates a change in our questions and mental paradigms. In short, we have to change how we think about the universe and our place in it, because it is stranger and more interesting than we could have imagined.
Smithsonian Books
|
9781588345943
|
Print book
My Plastic Brain
By Williams, Caroline
Using herself as a guinea pig, a science journalist explores "neuroplasticity" to find out whether she can make meaningful, lasting changes to the way her brain works.In books like THE HAPPINESS PROJECT, THE NO-SPEND YEAR, and THE YEAR OF YES, individuals have tried a specific experience and then reported on it, sharing the takeaway for the rest of us. In MY PLASTIC BRAIN, Caroline Williams spends a year exploring "neuroplasticity"--the brain's ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections--to find out whether she can make meaningful, lasting changes to the way her brain works. A science journalist with access to cutting edge experts and facilities, she volunteers herself as a test subject, challenging researchers to make real changes to the function and performance of her brain. She seeks to improve on everyday weaknesses such as her limited attention span and tendency to worry too much. She then branches out into more mysterious areas such as creativity and the perception of time. From Boston to Oxford, England, and Philadelphia to Freiburg, Germany, Williams travels to labs or virtually meets with scientists and tries their techniques of mindfulness meditation, magnetic brain stimulation, sustained focus exercises, stress response retraining, and more. She shares her intimate journey with readers to discover what neuroscience can really do for us.
Prometheus Books
|
9781633883918
|
Hardcover
OCME
By Goldfarb, Bruce
"Gripping . . . a brilliant insider's view." -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review) Go behind the scenes inside the nation's preeminent Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, where good people fight the good fight amid the tragedies and absurdities of our agePerfect for fans of Michael Lewis and David Simon (Homicide, The Corner, The Wire, We Own This City) Real life is different from what gets depicted on procedural crime dramas.Equipped with a journalist's eye, a paramedic's experience and a sardonic wit, Bruce Goldfarb spent ten years with Maryland's Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, where every sudden or unattended death in the state is scrutinized.Touching on numerous scandals, including Derek Chauvin's trial for the murder of George Floyd and the tragic killing in police custody of Freddie Gray, Goldfarb pulls back the curtain on a pioneer institution in crisis.
Steerforth
|
9781586423582
|
Paperback
Light
By Arcand, Kimberly
A stunning visual exploration of the power and behavior of light across the entire electromagnetic spectrum. . Light allows humans to see things around us, but we can only see a sliver of all the light in the universe, also known as the electromagnetic spectrum. Renowned science communicators Kim Arcand and Megan Watzke bring the entire spectrum to life and present the subject of light as never before. Organized along the order of the electromagnetic spectrum - from Radio waves to Gamma rays - each chapter focuses on a different type of light. From ultraviolet light, used in microscopy to image plant cells and bacteria, to X-rays, which let us peer inside the human body and view areas around black holes in deep space, Arcand and Watzke show us all the important ways light impacts us.
Black Dog & Leventhal
|
9780762487844
|
Paperback
The Three Ages of Water
By Gleick, Peter
A revelatory account of how water has shaped the course of human life and history, and a positive vision of what the future can hold - if we act now From the very creation of the planet billions of years ago to the present day, water has always been central to existence on Earth. And since long before the legendary Great Flood, it has been a defining force in the story of humanity.. In The Three Ages of Water, Peter Gleick guides us through the long, fraught history of our relationship to this precious resource. Water has shaped civilizations and empires, and driven centuries of advances in science and technology - from agriculture to aqueducts, steam power to space exploration - and progress in health and medicine. But the achievements that have propelled humanity forward also brought consequences, including unsustainable water use, ecological destruction, and global climate change, that now threaten to send us into a new dark age.
PublicAffairs
|
9781541702271
|
Hardcover
Now
By Muller, R
"Now" is a simple yet elusive concept.You are reading the word "now" right now. But what does that mean? What makes the ephemeral moment "now" so special? Its enigmatic character has bedeviled philosophers, priests, and modern-day physicists from Augustine to Einstein and beyond. Einstein showed that the flow of time is affected by both velocity and gravity, yet he despaired at his failure to explain the meaning of "now." Equally puzzling: why does time flow? Some physicists have given up trying to understand, and call the flow of time an illusion, but the eminent experimentalist physicist Richard A. Muller protests. He says physics should explain reality, not deny it.In Now, Muller does more than poke holes in past ideas; he crafts his own revolutionary theory, one that makes testable predictions. He begins by laying out -- with the refreshing clarity that made Physics for Future Presidents so successful -- a firm and remarkably clear explanation of the physics building blocks of his theory: relativity, entropy, entanglement, antimatter, and the Big Bang. With the stage then set, he reveals a startling way forward.Muller points out that the standard Big Bang theory explains the ongoing expansion of the universe as the continuous creation of new space. He argues that time is also expanding and that the leading edge of the new time is what we experience as "now." This thought-provoking vision has remarkable implications for some of our biggest questions, not only in physics but also in philosophy -- including the ongoing debate about the reality of free will. Moreover, his theory is testable. Muller's monumental work will spark major debate about the most fundamental assumptions of our universe, and may crack one of physics's longest-standing enigmas. 42 illustrations
W.W. Norton & Company
|
9780393285239
|
Print book
Herding Hemingway's Cats
By Arney, Kat
The language of genes has become common parlance. We know they make our eyes blue, our hair curly, and they control our risks of cancer, heart disease, alcoholism, and Alzheimer's. One thousand dollars will buy you your own genome readout, neatly stored on a USB stick. And advances in genetic medicine hold huge promise.We've all heard of genes, but how do they actually work? There are six feet of DNA inside every one of your cells; this encodes 20,000 or so genes, tangled into a mass of molecular spaghetti. This is the text of the cookbook of life, and hidden within these strands are the instructions that tell cells when and where to turn genes on or off.In 1935, Ernest Hemingway was supposedly given Snow White, a six-toed cat who went on to father a line of similar offspring that still roam the writer's Florida estate.
Bloomsbury Sigma
|
9781472910042
|
Print book
Einstein's Greatest Mistake
By Bodanis, David
From the best-selling author of E=mc2, a brisk, accessible biography of Albert Einstein that reveals the genius and hubris of the titan of modern physics Widely considered the greatest genius of all time, Albert Einstein revolutionized our understanding of the cosmos with his general theory of relativity and helped to lead us into the atomic age. Yet in the final decades of his life he was also ignored by most working scientists, his ideas opposed by even his closest friends. As renowned writer David Bodanis explains in Einstein's Greatest Mistake, this stunning downfall can be traced to Einstein's earliest successes and to personal qualities that were at first his best assets. Einstein's imagination and self-confidence served him well as he sought to reveal the universe's structure, but when it came to newer revelations in the field of quantum mechanics, these same traits undermined his quest for the ultimate truth.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
|
9780544808560
|
Print book
Altered Genes, Twisted Truth
By Druker, Steven
This book uncovers the biggest scientific fraud of our age. It tells the fascinating and frequently astounding story of how the massive enterprise to restructure the genetic core of the world's food supply came into being, how it advanced by consistently violating the protocols of science, and how for more than three decades, hundreds of eminent biologists and esteemed institutions have systematically contorted the truth in order to conceal the unique risks of its products-and get them onto our dinner plates. Altered Genes, Twisted Truth provides a graphic account of how this elaborate fraud was crafted and how it not only deceived the general public, but Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Barack Obama and a host of other astute and influential individuals as well.
Clear River Press; 1 edition
|
9780985616908
|
Book
Atom Land
By Butterworth, Jon
For fans of Seven Brief Lessons on Physics and Astrophysics for People in a Hurry: a richly conjured world, in map and metaphor, of particle physicsAtom Land brings the impossibly small world of particle physics to life, taking readers on a guided journey through the subatomic world. Readers will sail the subatomic seas in search of electron ports, boson continents, and hadron islands. The sea itself is the quantum field, complete with quantum waves. Beware dark energy and extra dimensions, embodied by fantastical sea creatures prowling the far edges of the known world.Your tour guide through this whimsical - and highly instructive - world is Jon Butterworth, leading physicist at CERN (the epicenter of today's greatest findings in physics) . Over a series of journeys, he shows how everything fits together, and how a grasp of particle physics is key to unlocking a deeper understanding of many of the most profound mysteries - and science's possible answers - in the known universe.
Exoplanets
By Summers, Michael E
The past few years have seen an incredible explosion in our knowledge of the universe. Since its 2009 launch, the Kepler satellite has discovered more than two thousand exoplanets, or planets outside our solar system. More exoplanets are being discovered all the time, and even more remarkable than the sheer number of exoplanets is their variety. In Exoplanets, astronomer Michael Summers and physicist James Trefil explore these remarkable recent discoveries: planets revolving around pulsars, planets made of diamond, planets that are mostly water, and numerous rogue planets wandering through the emptiness of space. This captivating book reveals the latest discoveries and argues that the incredible richness and complexity we are finding necessitates a change in our questions and mental paradigms. In short, we have to change how we think about the universe and our place in it, because it is stranger and more interesting than we could have imagined.
My Plastic Brain
By Williams, Caroline
Using herself as a guinea pig, a science journalist explores "neuroplasticity" to find out whether she can make meaningful, lasting changes to the way her brain works.In books like THE HAPPINESS PROJECT, THE NO-SPEND YEAR, and THE YEAR OF YES, individuals have tried a specific experience and then reported on it, sharing the takeaway for the rest of us. In MY PLASTIC BRAIN, Caroline Williams spends a year exploring "neuroplasticity"--the brain's ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections--to find out whether she can make meaningful, lasting changes to the way her brain works. A science journalist with access to cutting edge experts and facilities, she volunteers herself as a test subject, challenging researchers to make real changes to the function and performance of her brain. She seeks to improve on everyday weaknesses such as her limited attention span and tendency to worry too much. She then branches out into more mysterious areas such as creativity and the perception of time. From Boston to Oxford, England, and Philadelphia to Freiburg, Germany, Williams travels to labs or virtually meets with scientists and tries their techniques of mindfulness meditation, magnetic brain stimulation, sustained focus exercises, stress response retraining, and more. She shares her intimate journey with readers to discover what neuroscience can really do for us.
OCME
By Goldfarb, Bruce
"Gripping . . . a brilliant insider's view." -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review) Go behind the scenes inside the nation's preeminent Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, where good people fight the good fight amid the tragedies and absurdities of our agePerfect for fans of Michael Lewis and David Simon (Homicide, The Corner, The Wire, We Own This City) Real life is different from what gets depicted on procedural crime dramas.Equipped with a journalist's eye, a paramedic's experience and a sardonic wit, Bruce Goldfarb spent ten years with Maryland's Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, where every sudden or unattended death in the state is scrutinized.Touching on numerous scandals, including Derek Chauvin's trial for the murder of George Floyd and the tragic killing in police custody of Freddie Gray, Goldfarb pulls back the curtain on a pioneer institution in crisis.
Light
By Arcand, Kimberly
A stunning visual exploration of the power and behavior of light across the entire electromagnetic spectrum. . Light allows humans to see things around us, but we can only see a sliver of all the light in the universe, also known as the electromagnetic spectrum. Renowned science communicators Kim Arcand and Megan Watzke bring the entire spectrum to life and present the subject of light as never before. Organized along the order of the electromagnetic spectrum - from Radio waves to Gamma rays - each chapter focuses on a different type of light. From ultraviolet light, used in microscopy to image plant cells and bacteria, to X-rays, which let us peer inside the human body and view areas around black holes in deep space, Arcand and Watzke show us all the important ways light impacts us.
The Three Ages of Water
By Gleick, Peter
A revelatory account of how water has shaped the course of human life and history, and a positive vision of what the future can hold - if we act now From the very creation of the planet billions of years ago to the present day, water has always been central to existence on Earth. And since long before the legendary Great Flood, it has been a defining force in the story of humanity.. In The Three Ages of Water, Peter Gleick guides us through the long, fraught history of our relationship to this precious resource. Water has shaped civilizations and empires, and driven centuries of advances in science and technology - from agriculture to aqueducts, steam power to space exploration - and progress in health and medicine. But the achievements that have propelled humanity forward also brought consequences, including unsustainable water use, ecological destruction, and global climate change, that now threaten to send us into a new dark age.
Now
By Muller, R
"Now" is a simple yet elusive concept.You are reading the word "now" right now. But what does that mean? What makes the ephemeral moment "now" so special? Its enigmatic character has bedeviled philosophers, priests, and modern-day physicists from Augustine to Einstein and beyond. Einstein showed that the flow of time is affected by both velocity and gravity, yet he despaired at his failure to explain the meaning of "now." Equally puzzling: why does time flow? Some physicists have given up trying to understand, and call the flow of time an illusion, but the eminent experimentalist physicist Richard A. Muller protests. He says physics should explain reality, not deny it.In Now, Muller does more than poke holes in past ideas; he crafts his own revolutionary theory, one that makes testable predictions. He begins by laying out -- with the refreshing clarity that made Physics for Future Presidents so successful -- a firm and remarkably clear explanation of the physics building blocks of his theory: relativity, entropy, entanglement, antimatter, and the Big Bang. With the stage then set, he reveals a startling way forward.Muller points out that the standard Big Bang theory explains the ongoing expansion of the universe as the continuous creation of new space. He argues that time is also expanding and that the leading edge of the new time is what we experience as "now." This thought-provoking vision has remarkable implications for some of our biggest questions, not only in physics but also in philosophy -- including the ongoing debate about the reality of free will. Moreover, his theory is testable. Muller's monumental work will spark major debate about the most fundamental assumptions of our universe, and may crack one of physics's longest-standing enigmas. 42 illustrations
Herding Hemingway's Cats
By Arney, Kat
The language of genes has become common parlance. We know they make our eyes blue, our hair curly, and they control our risks of cancer, heart disease, alcoholism, and Alzheimer's. One thousand dollars will buy you your own genome readout, neatly stored on a USB stick. And advances in genetic medicine hold huge promise.We've all heard of genes, but how do they actually work? There are six feet of DNA inside every one of your cells; this encodes 20,000 or so genes, tangled into a mass of molecular spaghetti. This is the text of the cookbook of life, and hidden within these strands are the instructions that tell cells when and where to turn genes on or off.In 1935, Ernest Hemingway was supposedly given Snow White, a six-toed cat who went on to father a line of similar offspring that still roam the writer's Florida estate.
Einstein's Greatest Mistake
By Bodanis, David
From the best-selling author of E=mc2, a brisk, accessible biography of Albert Einstein that reveals the genius and hubris of the titan of modern physics Widely considered the greatest genius of all time, Albert Einstein revolutionized our understanding of the cosmos with his general theory of relativity and helped to lead us into the atomic age. Yet in the final decades of his life he was also ignored by most working scientists, his ideas opposed by even his closest friends. As renowned writer David Bodanis explains in Einstein's Greatest Mistake, this stunning downfall can be traced to Einstein's earliest successes and to personal qualities that were at first his best assets. Einstein's imagination and self-confidence served him well as he sought to reveal the universe's structure, but when it came to newer revelations in the field of quantum mechanics, these same traits undermined his quest for the ultimate truth.
Altered Genes, Twisted Truth
By Druker, Steven
This book uncovers the biggest scientific fraud of our age. It tells the fascinating and frequently astounding story of how the massive enterprise to restructure the genetic core of the world's food supply came into being, how it advanced by consistently violating the protocols of science, and how for more than three decades, hundreds of eminent biologists and esteemed institutions have systematically contorted the truth in order to conceal the unique risks of its products-and get them onto our dinner plates. Altered Genes, Twisted Truth provides a graphic account of how this elaborate fraud was crafted and how it not only deceived the general public, but Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Barack Obama and a host of other astute and influential individuals as well.
Atom Land
By Butterworth, Jon
For fans of Seven Brief Lessons on Physics and Astrophysics for People in a Hurry: a richly conjured world, in map and metaphor, of particle physicsAtom Land brings the impossibly small world of particle physics to life, taking readers on a guided journey through the subatomic world. Readers will sail the subatomic seas in search of electron ports, boson continents, and hadron islands. The sea itself is the quantum field, complete with quantum waves. Beware dark energy and extra dimensions, embodied by fantastical sea creatures prowling the far edges of the known world.Your tour guide through this whimsical - and highly instructive - world is Jon Butterworth, leading physicist at CERN (the epicenter of today's greatest findings in physics) . Over a series of journeys, he shows how everything fits together, and how a grasp of particle physics is key to unlocking a deeper understanding of many of the most profound mysteries - and science's possible answers - in the known universe.