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The dragons of Eden: speculations on the evolution of human intelligence
By Carl Sagan. 1977
Essays by an award-winning scientist about the possible development of human intelligence, written for nonspecialists. Discusses the biological functions of…
sleep, increasing brain size, and language learning among chimpanzees. Chronicles advances in understanding the brain and implications for the future. BestsellerThe ministry for the future
By Kim Stanley Robinson. 2020
Established in 2025, the purpose of the new organization was simple: To advocate for the world's future generations and to…
protect all living creatures, present and future. It soon became known as the Ministry for the Future, and this is its storyThe Einstein intersection
By Samuel R. Delany. 1998
An alien race has settled among the leftover artifacts of humanity. One alien, Lo Lobey, faces trouble assimilating the mythology…
of Earth. Nevertheless, he presses on in the search for his lost love, Friza. 1967Journey through space: Star Wars (DK readers. 2, Beginning to read alone)
By Ryder Windham. 2015
Fictional guide to the Star Wars galaxy, including profiles of planets and members of the Jedi High Council. Also includes…
information on various alien races and a glossary. For grades K-3. 2015Time machines: the greatest time travel stories ever written
By Bill Jr. Adler, Bill Adler. 1998
Anthology of twenty-two time travel short stories. Personal favorites of the editor ranging from Edgar Allan Poe's "Three Sundays in…
a Week" written in 1850 to Derryl Murphy's "What Goes Around" from 1997. For senior high and older readersThe secret oceans
By Betty Ballantine, Lloyd Birmingham. 1994
An international team of scientists boards a high-tech submersible on an expedition to communicate with whales. The team encounters the…
cetasapiens, a previously unknown type of super-dolphin, from whom they learn much about the creatures of the deep and the fragile ecology of the oceans. For grades 5-8Hedy & her amazing invention (Amazing Women)
By Jan Wahl, Morgana Wallace. 2019
Covers the pioneering scientific work and inspiring courage of Hedy Lamarr, the famous Hollywood actress who fought against old-fashioned parents,…
a domineering husband, prejudice, and stereotypes to become an accomplished inventor whose work helped pave the way for many of the communications technologies we enjoy today. For grades 2-4. 2019The school for whatnots
By Margaret Peterson Haddix. 2022
"No matter what anyone tells you, I'm real. That's what the note says that Max finds under his keyboard. He…
knows that his best friend, Josie, wrote it. He'd know her handwriting anywhere. But why she wrote it--and what it means--remains a mystery. Ever since they met in kindergarten, Max and Josie have been inseparable. Until the summer after fifth grade, when Josie disappears, leaving only a note, and whispering something about "whatnot rules." But why would Max ever think that Josie wasn't real? And what are whatnots? As Max sets to uncover what happened to Josie--and what she is or isn't--little does he know that she's fighting to find him again, too. But there are forces trying to keep Max and Josie from ever seeing each other again. Because Josie wasn't supposed to be real." -- Provided by publisherMr. Docker is off his rocker! (My Weird School Ser. #10)
By Dan Gutman. 2006
Mr. Docker, a new science teacher, is a crazy inventor who blows things up and uses potatoes for power. He…
has A.J. and his friends wondering whether science is for nerds or is the coolest subject ever. For grades 2-4. 2006Mission to Mars (Teen Astronauts #3)
By Eric Walters. 2023
Reckoner rises: Volume 1, Breakdown (The reckoner Rises Ser. #1)
By David Robertson. 2020
Acclaimed writer, David A. Robertson, delivers suspense, adventure, and humour in this stunningly illustrated graphic novel continuation of The Reckoner…
trilogy. Cole and Eva arrive in Winnipeg intent on destroying Mihko Laboratories. Their plans change when a new threat surfaces, and Cole has terrifying visions. Are these just troubled dreams or are they leading him to a terrifying truth? Will Eva be able to harness her powers to continue the investigation without him?The Reckoner rises: Volume 2, Version control
By David Robertson. 2022
"With Cole barely clinging to life, Eva fearlessly takes the lead to investigate Mihko's horrific experiments. But where's Brady? After…
learning that Mihko reinstated the Reckoner Initiative, Cole and Eva confront Mihko head-on. But a vicious battle with Mihko's newest test subject leaves Cole close to death, and Eva must continue their investigation without him. With Brady missing and Cole in recovery, Eva is on her own. When Eva stumbles across Mihko's secret laboratory, she finds her worst nightmares come to life. What new terrors has Mihko created? And can Eva find Brady before it's too late?"--Back coverClockwork Futures: The Science Of Steampunk And The Reinvention Of The Modern World
By Brandy Schillace. 2017
Airships and electric submarines, automatons and mesmerists?welcome to the wild world of steampunk. It is all speculative?or is it? Meet…
the intrepid souls who pushed Victorian technology to its limits and paved the way for our present age. The gear turns, the whistle blows, and the billows expand with electro-mechanical whirring. The shimmering halo of Victorian technology lures us with the stuff of dreams, of nostalgia, of alternate pasts and futures that entice with the suave of James Bond and the savvy of Sherlock Holmes. Fiction, surely. But what if the unusual gadgetry so often depicted as “steampunk” actually made an appearance in history? Zeppelins and steam-trains; arc-lights and magnetic rays: these fascinating (and sometimes doomed) inventions bounded from the tireless minds of unlikely heroes. Such men and women served no secret societies and fought no super-villains, but they did build engines, craft automatons, and engineer a future they hoped would run like clockwork. Along the way, however, these same inventors ushered in a contest between desire and dread. From Newton to Tesla, from candle and clockwork to the age of electricity and manufactured power, technology teetered between the bright dials of fantastic futures and the dark alleyways of industrial catastrophe. In the mesmerizing Clockwork Futures, Brandy Schillace reveals the science behind steampunk, which is every bit as extraordinary as what we might find in the work of Jules Verne, and sometimes, just as fearful. These stories spring from the scientific framework we have inherited. They shed light on how we pursue science, and how we grapple with our destiny—yesterday, today, and tomorrow.Liminal Lives: Imagining the Human at the Frontiers of Biomedicine
By Susan Merrill Squier. 2004
Embryo adoptions, stem cells capable of transforming into any cell in the human body, intra- and inter-species organ transplantation--these and…
other biomedical advances have unsettled ideas of what it means to be human, of when life begins and ends. In the first study to consider the cultural impact of the medical transformation of the entire human life span, Susan Merrill Squier argues that fiction--particularly science fiction--serves as a space where worries about ethically and socially charged scientific procedures are worked through. Indeed, she demonstrates that in many instances fiction has anticipated and paved the way for far-reaching biomedical changes. Squier uses the anthropological concept of liminality--the state of being on the threshold of change, no longer one thing yet not quite another--to explore how, from the early twentieth century forward, fiction and science together have altered not only the concept of the human being but the contours of human life. Drawing on archival materials of twentieth-century biology; little-known works of fiction and science fiction; and twentieth- and twenty-first century U. S. and U. K. government reports by the National Institutes of Health, the Parliamentary Advisory Group on the Ethics of Xenotransplantation, and the President's Council on Bioethics, she examines a number of biomedical changes as each was portrayed by scientists, social scientists, and authors of fiction and poetry. Among the scientific developments she considers are the cultured cell, the hybrid embryo, the engineered intrauterine fetus, the child treated with human growth hormone, the process of organ transplantation, and the elderly person rejuvenated by hormone replacement therapy or other artificial means. Squier shows that in the midst of new phenomena such as these, literature helps us imagine new ways of living. It allows us to reflect on the possibilities and perils of our liminal lives.Cretaceous Dawn
By Michael S. Graziano, Lisa M. Graziano. 2008
"...An adventure-filled journey... In spite of its references to hard academic science, Cretaceous Dawn is a first-class adventure story, an…
effortless read as engaging as vintage Jules Verne. The descriptive prose is both evocative and illuminating, and the plot has enough twists and cliffhangers to keep readers traveling on to the inevitable conclusion."--Natural History "The Grazianos, sibling scientists, combine speculation and science in a compulsively page-turning time-travel adventure. A physics experiment gone awry sends four people and a dog 65 million years into the past. Day-to-day survival among creatures like giant croc Deinosuchus and T. rex becomes a priority, even as the group of stranded scientists realizes that getting home involves a 1,000 mile trek across the amazing landscape of Hell Creek. Details about plants, animals and insects in the distant past set the stage for a tight, scientifically plausible plot with a wholly unexpected twist that will keep readers guessing."--Publishers Weekly A long-extinct beetle appears in a physics lab. Four-and-a-half people and a dog are hurled 65 million years through time, to the Age of the Dinosaurs, and paleontologist Julian Whitney and his companions have only one chance for rescue. Meanwhile in the lab, police chief Sharon Earles must solve the mystery of why half a body remains where five people had just been. Physicists try to determine what went wrong but can they fix the vault in time to retrieve the missing people--and do they want to? "A rip-snorting good yarn. . . . Cretaceous Dawn's strength is its ability to transport the reader back in time to truly experience the Cretaceous."--Dinosaur News "Rendered with a clarity and vividness that gives the novel its richness, Cretaceous Dawn is plain fun, and educational at that. Short of time travel, this is as close as you'll ever get to the grim, predatory world of the Cretaceous."--Falmouth Enterprise "From the Inland Sea to the infant Rocky Mountains, we see the entirety of a long-gone ecosystem. The authors' scientific knowledge gives the story, and the giant creatures it is centered around, a realism that is immensely entertaining."--Prehistoric Times "[The era is] described so vividly the reader forgets that no human overlapped with a dinosaur in the sands of time."--The Cape Cod Chronicle Lisa M. Graziano, PhD, is a freelance editor and writer living on Cape Cod, Mass. She spent ten years as a professor of oceanography in Woods Hole, Mass. before turning to a full-time writing career. Michael S. A. Graziano, PhD, is a neuroscientist at Princeton University. He is the author of both fiction and nonfiction.Octavia's Brood
By Walidah Imarisha, Adrienne Maree Brown. 2016
Whenever we envision a world without war, without prisons, without capitalism, we are producing speculative fiction. Organizers and activists envision,…
and try to create, such worlds all the time. Walidah Imarisha and adrienne maree brown have brought twenty of them together in the first anthology of short stories to explore the connections between radical speculative fiction and movements for social change. The visionary tales of Octavia’s Brood span genres-sci-fi, fantasy, horror, magical realism-but all are united by an attempt to inject a healthy dose of imagination and innovation into our political practice and to try on new ways of understanding ourselves, the world around us, and all the selves and worlds that could be. The collection is rounded off with essays by Tananarive Due and Mumia Abu-Jamal, and a preface by Sheree Renée Thomas.Pyongyang
By Hernan Alberto Vanoli. 2017
Cuentos de ciencia ficción política y biológica por uno de los autores jóvenes que más agitan la escena literaria argentina.…
Una empresa de carpooling convoca almas irredentas que son perseguidas por osos callejeros. Una pareja emprende novedosas técnicas de fertilización y logra sus propios bebés de Rosemary. Una logia mundial de cintas de correr planea una revolución. Y el copamiento de 1989 en La Tablada desemboca en una granja de trolls militada por tiernos ancianos. Las historias de Pyongyang hablan de un totalitarismo suave, cariñoso y veloz, donde hacer un duelo parece imposible, las máquinas nos odian y el progreso es la sagrada ideología oficial. Político y pospolítico, trágico e irónico, imaginativo y cruel, Hernán Vanoli es uno de los autores más singulares del panorama narrativo actual. «Su hiperrealismo lingüístico es un viaje por la sociedad, interesada como nunca en las tribus, los grupos, las fracciones, las camarillas y las bandas.» Beatriz SarloWestwind: The classic lost thriller
By Ian Rankin. 2019
It always starts with a small lie. That's how you stop noticing the bigger ones.After his friend suspects something strange…
going on at the launch facility where they both work - and then goes missing - Martin Hepton doesn't believe the official line of "long-term sick leave"...Refusing to stop asking questions, he leaves his old life behind, aware that someone is shadowing his every move.The only hope he has is his ex-girlfriend Jill Watson - the only journalist who will believe his story.But neither of them can believe the puzzle they're piecing together - or just how shocking the secret is that everybody wants to stay hidden...A gripping, page-turning suspense masterclass - experience the brilliance of the iconic Ian Rankin.Dragon Bike: Fantastical Stories of Bicycling, Feminism, & Dragons
By Unknown. 2020
From the great, winged, fire-breathing lizards of the west to the wise, flying serpents of the east, dragons play a powerful…
role in our myths and imaginations. In these fourteen stories and one comic, bicyclists encounter a diversity of dragons, whether foes or friends, hoarders or helpers, powerful symbols or terrifying and very real beasts. Instead of stereotypical tales of heroes saving helpless princesses from cruel beasts, these stories are populated by empowered people facing complicated dilemmas and fantastical quests.Opus 100
By Isaac Asimov. 1969
ASIMOV THE GREATEST Isaac Asimov needs no introduction. As the COLUMBUS DISPATCH declares, he is “the man who legitimized Science…
Fiction in the United States." But this is just part of the fabulous Asimov story. For this bestselling author has also explored virtually every branch of human knowledge in his mind- expanding writings. Now, in a blend of Science and Fiction that only he could achieve, Isaac Asimov takes you on a personally guided tour of the brightest adventures and delights in the Asimov galaxy.