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Sander tells the story of how The Origin of Species came to be translated into German, how it served Bronn's…
purposes as well as Darwin's, and how it challenged German scholars to think in new ways about morphology, systematics, paleontology.My Watery Self
By Stephen Spotte. 2015
In MY WATERY SELF: AN AQUATIC MEMOIR, author/scientist Stephen Spotte traces a fascinating trail through a life that began in…
West Virgina coal camps, drifted through reckless bohemian times of countercultural indulgence in Beach Haven, New Jersey, and led to a career as a highly-respected marine biologist. Together, these stories form a view not just of one man's life, but that of a generation that often refused to take a direct path to the workplace, insisting instead on a winding unveiling of true self-realization, to achieve previously-unimagined outcomes. For Spotte, the key was water: His years of beach living led to a self-initiated study of literature and the sea. He eventually returned to college and received his training as a marine biologist, and discovered, through his singular voice, a wet and occasionally very weird perspective on the world. His writing is engrossing throughout, the stories he shares--such as his stint as curator of the New York Aquarium at Coney Island at the tail end of the hippie era--are compelling and thoroughly enjoyable as he elevates the people and situations he encounters to mythical levels, blending empirical observation with literary prose.Taking on Water
By Wendy J. Pabich. 2012
When Wendy Pabich received a monthly water bill for 30,000 gallons (for a household of two people and one dog),…
she was chagrined. After all, she is an expert on sustainable water use. So she set out to make a change. Taking on Water is the story of the author's personal quest to extract and implement, from a dizzying soup of data and analysis, day-to-day solutions to reduce water use in her life. She sets out to examine the water footprint of the products she consumes, process her own wastewater onsite, revamp the water and energy systems in her home, and make appropriate choices in order to swim the swim. Part memoir, part investigation, part solution manual, the book is filled with ruminations on philosophy, science, facts, figures, and personal behavioral insights; metrics, both serious and humorous, to track progress; and guidelines for the general public for making small (or perhaps monumental) but important changes in their own lives. Told with humor and grace, Taking on Water offers a raw account of how deep we need to dig to change our wasteful ways.True Genius: The Life And Science Of John Bardeen
By Lillian Hoddeson, Vicki Daitch. 2002
What is genius? Define it. Now think of scientists who embody the concept of genius. Does the name John Bardeen…
spring to mind? Indeed, have you ever heard of him?Like so much in modern life, immediate name recognition often rests on a cult of personality. We know Einstein, for example, not just for his tremendous contributions to science, but also because he was a character, who loved to mug for the camera. And our continuing fascination with Richard Feynman is not exclusively based on his body of work; it is in large measure tied to his flamboyant nature and offbeat sense of humor.These men, and their outsize personalities, have come to erroneously symbolize the true nature of genius and creativity. We picture them born brilliant, instantly larger than life. But is that an accurate picture of genius? What of others who are equal in stature to these icons of science, but whom history has awarded only a nod because they did not readily engage the public? Could a person qualify as a bona fide genius if he was a regular Joe?The answer may rest in the story of John Bardeen.John Bardeen was the first person to have been awarded two Nobel Prizes in the same field. He shared one with William Shockley and Walter Brattain for the invention of the transistor. But it was the charismatic Shockley who garnered all the attention, primarily for his Hollywood ways and notorious views on race and intelligence.Bardeen’s second Nobel Prize was awarded for the development of a theory of superconductivity, a feat that had eluded the best efforts of leading theorists—including Albert Einstein, Neils Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, and Richard Feynman. Arguably, Bardeen’s work changed the world in more ways than that of any other scientific genius of his time. Yet while every school child knows of Einstein, few people have heard of John Bardeen. Why is this the case?Perhaps because Bardeen differs radically from the popular stereotype of genius. He was a modest, mumbling Midwesterner, an ordinary person who worked hard and had a knack for physics and mathematics. He liked to picnic with his family, collaborate quietly with colleagues, or play a round of golf. None of that was newsworthy, so the media, and consequently the public, ignored him.John Bardeen simply fits a new profile of genius. Through an exploration of his science as well as his life, a fresh and thoroughly engaging portrait of genius and the nature of creativity emerges. This perspective will have readers looking anew at what it truly means to be a genius.Bent: How Yoga Saved My Ass
By Anne Clendening. 2017
“It was nothing at first. Just a little twitch. My left ring finger was twitching, slowly, almost languidly, the way…
fishing line does when you’ve hooked something without any strength. Like a baby perch. I hadn’t even gotten out of bed yet. My first thought: Stress? (Nope, think again)” And here begins a journey that Anne Clendening never saw coming, tried to deny, avoid, postpone and otherwise reject. After all, how does a dark L.A. hippy chick who swore off booze at 22 fit an early onset Parkinson's diagnosis into a life of bartending in Hollywood rock clubs and yoga? “The stories in this book are my experience. They're about life and yoga and illness and love and disaster and happiness. And since you're holding it, I’m hoping you relate in some way because A) That's the whole point, and B) We all need someone to relate to. And maybe a hand up. (But with words.) Because sometimes you just need to hear it’s all going to work out, even though life may have whammed you and half the time everything might seem like a big fat mess and not at all what it’s supposed to look like, which makes no sense in the first place since none of us really know what’s going to happen and you can’t change fate. If I could, I wouldn’t have Parkinson’s and Prince would still be alive. These stories are for you.”Cousteau
By Axel Madsen. 1986
One of the most influential men of the twentieth century, Jacques Cousteau was an eco-emissary whose own life of derring-do…
brought him fame and the means to proselytize his cause. Ecologist, adventurer, celebrity, businessman--Cousteau was a brilliant and complex individual, and Madsen's biography captures him in style. Madsen, who knew the Cousteau family for over two decades, interviewed Cousteau personally for this book.The End of the Rainy Season: Discovering My Family's Hidden Past in Brazil
By Marian Lindberg. 2015
Marian Lindberg grew up being told that Walter Lindberg, the man who raised her father, was a brave explorer who…
had been murdered in the Amazon. She took her father's claims at face value, basking in her exotic roots, until she started to notice things. The unverified legend became a riddle she couldn't solve.As Lindberg moved from journalism to law, fell in love, and sought a family of her own, her father repeatedly interfered. He had a closed vision of his family, and she-unlike the silent Walter-was breaking out. Yet her father's story of the past haunted Lindberg. Long after her father's death, Lindberg set off for the Amazon, determined to find out the truth about Walter. Aided by generous Brazilians who adopted her search as if it were their own, she discovered as much about herself and her family as about Walter, whose true role in Brazil's history turned out to be unexpected and deeply troubling.Sharply observant, wrought with honesty, and sweeping in its ambitions, The End of the Rainy Season is a powerful examination of identity and human relationships with nature, and between one another.The Mindful Carnivore: A Vegetarian's Hunt for Sustenance
By Tovar Cerulli. 2012
A vegan-turned-hunter reignites the connection between humans and our food sources and continues the dialog begun by Michael Pollan and…
Barbara Kingsolver. While still in high school, Tovar Cerulli experimented with vegetarianism and by the age of twenty, he was a vegan. Ten years later, in the face of declining health, he would find himself picking up a rifle and heading into the woods. Through his personal quest, Tovar Cerulli bridges disparate worldviews and questions moral certainties, challenging both the behavior of many hunters and the illusion of blamelessness maintained by many vegetarians. In this time of intensifying concern over ecological degradation, how do we make peace with the fact that, even in growing organic vegetables, life is sustained by death? Drawing on personal anecdotes, philosophy, history and religion, Cerulli shows how America's overly sanitized habits of consumption and disconnection with our food have resulted in so many of the health and environmental crises we now face.Theatre and Evolution from Ibsen to Beckett
By Kirsten, Shepherd-Barr. 2015
The Scientific 100
By Lynda Simmons, John Simmons. 1996
Who are the great scientists throughout the ages, and what exactly did they do to earn their importance? From Archimedes…
to Newton to Einstein to Hawking, The Scientific 100 provides the fascinating answers. Vivid biographical sketches chronicle the lives and accomplishments of the world's preeminent scientists. And in the tradition of the Citadel Press 100 Series, they are ranked provocatively in order of influence--an inspiration for lively discussion.This unique volume is a browser's treasure trove and a handy reference for the general reader.John Simmons has been associated with Current Biography for more than fifteen years. He has written frequently about Nobel laureates in science. A member of the New York Academy of Sciences, he divides his time between New York City and Paris.Fred Sanger Double Nobel Laureate
By George G. Brownlee. 1962
Considered 'the father of genomics', Fred Sanger (1918-2013) paved the way for the modern revolution in our understanding of biology.…
His pioneering methods for sequencing proteins, RNA and, eventually, DNA earned him two Nobel Prizes. He remains one of only four scientists (and the only British scientist) ever to have achieved that distinction. In this, the first full biography of Fred Sanger to be published, Brownlee traces Sanger's life from his birth in rural Gloucestershire to his retirement in 1983 from the Medical Research Council's Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge. Along the way, he highlights the remarkable extent of Sanger's scientific achievements and provides a real portrait of the modest man behind them. Including an extensive transcript of a rare interview of Sanger by the author, this biography also considers the wider legacy of Sanger's work, including his impact on the Human Genome Project and beyond.Texas Ingenuity: Lone Star Inventions, Inventors & Innovators
By Alan C. Elliott. 2010
Imagination is bigger in Texas, too. This collection of inspiring and often quirky stories highlights dozens of examples of innovation…
from Lone Star history. The Hamill brothers devised a better oil well to reach gushers at Spindletop. The first Neiman-Marcus store opened in Dallas in 1907, revolutionizing the retail fashion world. Astroturf emerged at the Astrodome in 1966. Fritos and corn dogs are just two ubiquitous snack foods claimed as Texan originals. Houston native, and civil rights activist, Congresswoman Barbara Jordan rose to national prominence as a voice of unity during the Watergate scandal. Author Alan C. Elliott details these and many more lessons in success in Texas Ingenuity.The Everything Einstein Book
By Shana Priwer. 2003
Albert Einstein was the most famous and influential thinker of his time. His theories of relativity, quantum mechanics, and statistical…
physics gave birth to a new era in scientific thought and changed the ay people see the universe and their place in it. The Everything Einstein Book walks you through his rise from a lowly patent clerk to a groundbreaking scientist and explains the theories that brought him fame and world renown. Covering everything from photoelectric effect to the unified field theory, this book answers all your questions about the genius, his work, and the age that influenced him.A Whale for the Killing
By Farley Mowat. 2012
When an 80-ton Fin Whale became trapped in a lagoon near his Newfoundland home, Farley Mowat rejoiced: here was a…
unique chance to observe one of the world's most magnificent creatures up close. But some of his neighbours saw a different opportunity altogether: in a prolonged fit of violence, they blasted the whale with rifle fire, and scarred its back with motorboat propellers. Mowat appealed desperately to the police, to marine biologists, finally to the Canadian press. But it was too late. Mowat's poignant and compelling story is an eloquent argument for the end of the whale hunt, and the rediscovery of the empathy that makes us human.Jefferson's Shadow
By Keith Thomson. 2012
In the voluminous literature on Thomas Jefferson, little has been written about his passionate interest in science. This new and…
original study of Jefferson presents him as a consummate intellectual whose view of science was central to both his public and his private life. Keith Thomson reintroduces us in this remarkable book to Jefferson's eighteenth-century world and reveals the extent to which Jefferson used science, thought about it, and contributed to it, becoming in his time a leading American scientific intellectual. With a storyteller's gift, Thomson shows us a new side of Jefferson. He answers an intriguing series of questions—How was Jefferson's view of the sciences reflected in his political philosophy and his vision of America's future? How did science intersect with his religion? Did he make any original contributions to scientific knowledge?—and illuminates the particulars of Jefferson's scientific endeavors. Thomson discusses Jefferson's theories that have withstood the test of time, his interest in the practical applications of science to societal problems, his leadership in the use of scientific methods in agriculture, and his contributions toward launching at least four sciences in America: geography, paleontology, climatology, and scientific archaeology. A set of delightful illustrations, including some of Jefferson's own sketches and inventions, completes this impressively researched book.And No Birds Sang
By Farley Mowat. 2012
Turned away from the Royal Canadian Air Force for his apparent youth and frailty, Farley Mowat joined the infantry in…
1940. The young second lieutenant soon earned the trust of the soldiers under his command, and was known to bend army rules to secure a stout drink, or find warm - if non-regulation - clothing. But when Mowat and his regiment engaged with elite German forces in the mountains of Sicily, the optimism of their early days as soldiers was replaced by despair. With a naturalist's eyes and ears, Mowat takes in the full dark depths of war - and his moving account of military service, and the friends he left behind, is also a plea for peace. It is one of the most searing and unforgettable World War II memoirs from any Canadian.Rocket Girl
By George D. Morgan. 2013
AN UNSUNG HEROINE OF THE SPACE AGE--HER STORY FINALLY TOLD. This is the extraordinary true story of America's first female…
rocket scientist. Told by her son, it describes Mary Sherman Morgan's crucial contribution to launching America's first satellite and the author's labyrinthine journey to uncover his mother's lost legacy--one buried deep under a lifetime of secrets political, technological, and personal. In 1938, a young German rocket enthusiast named Wernher von Braun had dreams of building a rocket that could fly him to the moon. In Ray, North Dakota, a young farm girl named Mary Sherman was attending high school. In an age when girls rarely dreamed of a career in science, Mary wanted to be a chemist. A decade later the dreams of these two disparate individuals would coalesce in ways neither could have imagined. World War II and the Cold War space race with the Russians changed the fates of both von Braun and Mary Sherman Morgan. When von Braun and other top engineers could not find a solution to the repeated failures that plagued the nascent US rocket program, North American Aviation, where Sherman Morgan then worked, was given the challenge. Recognizing her talent for chemistry, company management turned the assignment over to young Mary. In the end, America succeeded in launching rockets into space, but only because of the joint efforts of the brilliant farm girl from North Dakota and the famous German scientist. While von Braun went on to become a high-profile figure in NASA's manned space flight, Mary Sherman Morgan and her contributions fell into obscurity--until now. From the Trade Paperback edition.Preparing for the High Frontier
By Committee on Human Spaceflight Crew Operations. 2011
As the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) retires the Space Shuttle and shifts involvement in International Space Station (ISS)…
operations, changes in the role and requirements of NASA's Astronaut Corps will take place. At the request of NASA, the National Research Council (NRC) addressed three main questions about these changes: what should be the role and size of Johnson Space Center's (JSC) Flight Crew Operations Directorate (FCOD); what will be the requirements of astronaut training facilities; and is the Astronaut Corps' fleet of training aircraft a cost-effective means of preparing astronauts for NASA's spaceflight program? This report presents an assessment of several issues driven by these questions. This report does not address explicitly the future of human spaceflight.Liberty Bell 7
By Colin Burgess. 2014
NASA's Mercury astronauts were seven highly skilled professional test pilots. Each of them seemed to possess the strength of character…
and commitment necessary to overcome apparently insurmountable obstacles as the United States entered into a Cold War space race with the Soviet Union. This was never more evident than on the epic suborbital MR-4 flight of Liberty Bell 7 with astronaut Virgil ('Gus') Grissom piloting the spacecraft to a successful splashdown, followed by the premature blowing of the craft's explosive hatch. After a hurried exit and struggling to stay afloat, he could only watch helplessly as the recovery helicopter pilot valiantly fought a losing battle to save the sinking capsule. That day NASA not only lost a spacecraft but came perilously close to losing one of its Mercury astronauts, a decorated Korean fighter pilot from Indiana who might one day have soared to the highest goal of them all, as the first person to set foot on the Moon. For the first time, many of those closest to the flight of Liberty Bell 7 and astronaut Gus Grissom offer their stories and opinions on the dramatic events of July 21, 1961, and his later pioneering Gemini mission. They also tell of an often controversial life cut tragically and horrifically short in a launch pad fire that shocked the nation.Ranging from Yellowstone in Wyoming to Mount Pelee in the Caribbean, from Bogoslof and Pavlov in Alaska, to Sakurajima in…
Japan, and, finally, to the massive volcanoes of Kilauea and Mauna Loa in Hawaii—The Last Volcano reveals the incredible journey of a man on a mission to understand the awesome power of volcanic eruptions. Volcanoes have fascinated—and terrified—people for ages. They have destroyed cities and ended civilizations. John Dvorak, the acclaimed author of Earthquake Storms, looks into the early scientific study of volcanoes and the life of the man who pioneered the field, Thomas Jaggar. Educated at Harvard, Jaggar went to the Caribbean after Mount Pelee exploded in 1902, killing more than 26,000 people. Witnessing the destruction and learning about the horrible deaths these people had suffered, Jaggar vowed to dedicate himself to a study of volcanoes. What followed was fifty years of global travel to eruptions in Italy, Alaska, Central America, Japan and the Pacific. In 1912, he built a small science station at the edge of a lake of molten lava at Kilauea volcano in the Hawaiian Islands, with the goal of solving the mystery of why volcanoes erupt and how they could be predicted. Jaggar found something else at Kilauea: true love. She was Isabel Maydwell, a widowed school teacher who came to Kilauea to restart her life. For more than twenty ears, she and Jaggar ran the science station, living in a small house at the edge of a high cliff that overlooked the lava lake. Maydwell would quickly becoming one of the world’s most astute observers of volcanic activity. Mixed with tales of myths and rituals, as well as the author’s own experiences and insight into volcanic activity, The Last Volcano reveals the lure and romance of confronting nature in its most magnificent form—the edge of a volcanic eruption.