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Showing 1681 - 1700 of 3841 items
By Laurel A. Rockefeller, Traduzione a cura di Laura Lucardini. 2018
Mentre il mondo occidentale cadeva nell'oscurità, lei ebbe il coraggio di difendere la Luce. Nata nel 355 d.C, dopo il…
regno di Costantino, Ipazia di Alessandria visse il declino dell'Impero Romano, in un mondo in cui l'obbedienza alle autorità religiose era più importante della scienza e dove la ragione e la logica erano viste come una minaccia per il nuovo ordine mondiale. Era il mondo precedente al Medioevo, un mondo impegnato a decidere il rapporto tra scienza e religione, libertà e ortodossia, tolleranza e odio. Per più di 40 anni Ipazia visse al confine tra gli anni bui e la luce della filosofia classica, delle arti e delle scienze. Sebbene nessuno dei suoi libri sia sopravvissuto ai feroci roghi del fanatismo religioso, Ipazia rimane una delle scienziate più importanti di tutti i tempi. Questa è la sua affascinante storia. Include bibliografia, cronologia dettagliata e coordinate di latitudine e longitudine delle principali città dell'Impero romano per consentire al lettore di esplorare le meraviglie celesti con Ipazia.By Roberto Carlos Pavón Carreón, Laurel A. Rockefeller. 2018
Cuando el mundo occidental cayó en la oscuridad, ella se atrevió a defender la Luz. Nacida en 355 d.C., tras…
el reinado de Constantino, Hipatia de Alejandría vivía en un Imperio Romano colapsado, un mundo donde la obediencia a las autoridades religiosas venció a la ciencia, donde la razón y la lógica amenazaban el nuevo orden mundial. Era un mundo al borde de la Edad Oscura, un mundo que decidía la cuestión de la ciencia contra la religión, libertad contra la ortodoxia, tolerancia contra el odio. Durante más de 40 años, Hipatia estuvo entre las edades oscuras y la luz de la filosofía clásica, las artes y las ciencias. Aunque ninguno de sus libros sobrevivió a la agresiva quema de libros de los fanáticos religiosos, su legado sigue siendo el de una de los mejores científicos de todos los tiempos. Esta es su fascinante historia real. Incluye bibliografía, una línea de tiempo detallada y coordenadas de latitud y longitud para las principales ciudades del Imperio Romano para que pueda explorar las maravillas de los cielos con Hipatia.By Andrew Levy. 2009
With more than one in ten Americans--and more than one in five families--affected, the phenomenon of migraine is widely prevalent…
yet often ignored or misdiagnosed. For Andrew Levy, his migraines were occasional reminders of a persistent illness that he'd wrestled with half his life. Then in 2006 Levy was struck almost daily by a series of debilitating migraines that kept him essentially bedridden for months, imprisoned by pain and nausea that retreated only briefly in gentler afternoon light. When possible, he kept careful track of what triggered an onset and in luminous prose recounts his struggle to live with migraines, his meticulous attempts at calibrating his lifestyle to combat and avoid them, and most tellingly, the personal relationship a migraineur develops--an almost Stockholm syndrome-like attachment--with the indescribable pain, delirium, and hallucinations. Levy researched how personalities and artists throughout history--Alexander Pope, Freud, Virginia Woolf, even Elvis--dealt with their migraines and candidly describes his rehabilitation with the aid of prescription drugs and his eventual reemergence into the world, back to work and writing. An enthralling blend of memoir and provocative analysis, A Brain Wider Than the Sky offers rich insights into an illness whose effects are too often discounted and whose sufferers are too often overlookedBy John Lechleiter, Alexander W. Clowes. 1962
George Henry Alexander Clowes was a pivotal figure in the development of the insulin program at the Eli Lilly Company.…
Through his leadership, scientists and clinicians at Lilly and the University of Toronto created a unique, international team to develop and purify insulin and take the production of this life-saving agent to an industrial scale. This biography, written by his grandson, presents his scientific achievements, and also takes note of his social and philanthropic contributions, which he shared with his wife, Edith. It tells the story of Clowes from his childhood in late Victorian England to his death at Woods Hole on Cape Cod in 1958. Educated in England and Germany, Clowes came to America to join a startup laboratory in Buffalo, where he conducted basic research on cancer and applied research on other disease-related problems. Assuming the position of head of research at Lilly, Clowes was at the center of one of the great discoveries that changed the course of medical history and offered new life to millions of individuals with diabetes and other metabolic disorders. Clowes was also instrumental in the development of other commercial pharmaceutical advances. Devoted to a number of philanthropic causes, Clowes and Edith contributed greatly to the cultural life of his adopted country, a contribution that continues to this day.By David Helvarg. 2015
Acclaimed as "the premier chronicler of America's complex relationship with our oceans" (Honolulu Weekly), David Helvarg has also been a…
war correspondent, investigative journalist, documentary producer, and private investigator. The one constant in his adventurous life has been love for the sea. His personal story of love, loss, and redemption, Saved by the Sea is also a profound, startling, and sometimes funny reflection on the state of our seas and the intimate ways in which our lives are linked to the natural world around us. "Amazing and often heartrending adventures in and around the ocean...A great read from an outstanding writer." -- Philippe Cousteau, ocean explorer "Read Saved by the Sea for pleasure, read it for adventure, read it because it conveys the gift of being allowed to slip into David Helvarg's world and view the ocean, and humankind, with profound new understanding. But beware: This book has the power to change the way you think about the world, about yourself, and about the future of humankind." -- Sylvia Earle, ocean explorer and author of The World Is BlueBy Peter Forbes, Helen Whybrow. 2015
A story of friendship, encouragement, and the quest to design a better world A Man Apart is the story--part family…
memoir and part biography--of Peter Forbes and Helen Whybrow's longtime friendship with Bill Coperthwaite (A Handmade Life), whose unusual life and fierce ideals helped them examine and understand their own. Coperthwaite inspired many by living close to nature and in opposition to contemporary society, and was often compared to Henry David Thoreau. Much like Helen and Scott Nearing, who were his friends and mentors, Coperthwaite led a 55-year-long "experiment in living" on a remote stretch of Maine coast. There he created a homestead of wooden, multistoried yurts, a form of architecture for which he was known around the world. Coperthwaite also embodied a philosophy that he called "democratic living," which was about empowering all people to have agency over their lives in order to create a better community. The central question of Coperthwaite's life was, "How can I live according to what I believe?" In this intimate and honest account--framed by Coperthwaite's sudden death and brought alive through the month-long adventure of building with him what would turn out to be his last yurt--Forbes and Whybrow explore the timeless lessons of Coperthwaite's experiment in intentional living and self-reliance. They also reveal an important story about the power and complexities of mentorship: the opening of one's life to someone else to learn together, and carrying on in that person's physical absence. While mourning Coperthwaite's death and coming to understand the real meaning of his life and how it endures through their own, Forbes and Whybrow craft a story that reveals why it's important to seek direct experience, to be drawn to beauty and simplicity, to create rather than critique, and to encourage others.By Gene Logsdon. 2014
Author Gene Logsdon-whom Wendell Berry once called "the most experienced and best observer of agriculture we have"-has a notion: That…
it is a little easier for gardeners and farmers to accept death than the rest of the populace. Why? Because every day, farmers and gardeners help plants and animals begin life and help plants and animals end life. They are intimately attuned to the food chain. They understand how all living things are seated around a dining table, eating while being eaten. They realize that all of nature is in flux. Gene Everlasting contains Logsdon's reflections, by turns both humorous and heart-wrenching, on nature, death, and eternity, all from a contrary farmer's perspective. He recounts joys and tragedies from his childhood in the 1930s and '40s spent on an Ohio farm, through adulthood and child-raising, all the way up to his recent bout with cancer, always with an eye toward the lessons that farming has taught him about life and its mysteries. Whether his subject is parsnips, pigweed, immortality, irises, green burial, buzzards, or compound interest, Logsdon generously applies as much heart and wit to his words as he does care and expertise to his fields.By James Gustave Speth. 2014
Angels by the River follows James Gustave Speth’s unlikely path—from a Southern boyhood to his career as an influential mainstream…
environmentalist to his current system-changing activism. In this compelling memoir, Speth explores the issues, and realities, that have shaped the nation since the 1950s, and that turned an “ultimate insider” into someone willing to be arrested in front of the White House. Born and raised in a town where both the best and worst of the South shone through—a town that eventually became the scene of South Carolina’s horrific Orangeburg Massacre—Speth explores how the civil rights movement and the South’s agrarian roots influenced his academic career at Yale and later work in the heyday of the environmental movement, when he helped launch two landmark and influential environmental groups—the Natural Resources Defense Council and the World Resources Institute—advise the White House on climate and other emerging issues, and lead the UN’s development efforts around the globe. Speth fought to create and uphold the nation’s toughest environmental laws, but now believes a new environmentalism is needed to confront today’s challenges. The advancing climate crisis cannot be addressed, he warns, as long as we remain fixated on endless growth and consumption, corporate profits, increasing the incomes of the well-to-do, neglecting those just getting by, and helping abroad only modestly. An American tale, in all its complexity, Speth’s memoir is an inspiration—especially for readers contemplating how to make a difference in an increasingly complex world.By Reiner Salzer, D. Thorburn Burns, R. Klaus Müller, Gerhard Werner. 2014
More than 80 personalities, in or from Germany, that over the centuries have shaped the development of analytical chemistry are…
introduced by brief biographies. These accounts go beyond summarising key biographical information and outline the individual's contributions to analytical chemistry. This richly illustrated Brief offers a unique resource of information that is not available elsewhere."Quammen brilliantly and powerfully re-creates the 19th century naturalist's intellectual and spiritual journey."--Los Angeles Times Book Review Twenty-one years passed…
between Charles Darwin's epiphany that "natural selection" formed the basis of evolution and the scientist's publication of On the Origin of Species. Why did Darwin delay, and what happened during the course of those two decades? The human drama and scientific basis of these years constitute a fascinating, tangled tale that elucidates the character of a cautious naturalist who initiated an intellectual revolution.By Richard Munson. 2018
Tesla’s inventions transformed our world, and his visions have continued to inspire great minds for generations. Nikola Tesla invented the…
radio, robots, and remote control. His electric induction motors run our appliances and factories, yet he has been largely overlooked by history. In Tesla, Richard Munson presents a comprehensive portrait of this farsighted and underappreciated mastermind. When his first breakthrough—alternating current, the basis of the electric grid—pitted him against Thomas Edison’s direct-current empire, Tesla’s superior technology prevailed. Unfortunately, he had little business sense and could not capitalize on this success. His most advanced ideas went unrecognized for decades: forty years in the case of the radio patent, longer still for his ideas on laser beam technology. Although penniless during his later years, he never stopped imagining. In the early 1900s, he designed plans for cell phones, the Internet, death-ray weapons, and interstellar communications. His ideas have lived on to shape the modern economy. Who was this genius? Drawing on letters, technical notebooks, and other primary sources, Munson pieces together the magnificently bizarre personal life and mental habits of the enigmatic inventor. Born during a lightning storm at midnight, Tesla died alone in a New York City hotel. He was an acute germaphobe who never shook hands and required nine napkins when he sat down to dinner. Strikingly handsome and impeccably dressed, he spoke eight languages and could recite entire books from memory. Yet Tesla’s most famous inventions were not the product of fastidiousness or linear thought but of a mind fueled by both the humanities and sciences: he conceived the induction motor while walking through a park and reciting Goethe’s Faust. Tesla worked tirelessly to offer electric power to the world, to introduce automatons that would reduce life’s drudgery, and to develop machines that might one day abolish war. His story is a reminder that technology can transcend the marketplace and that profit is not the only motivation for invention. This clear, authoritative, and highly readable biography takes account of all phases of Tesla’s remarkable life.By Bill Mckibben, David Suzuki. 2014
In this revised and expanded edition of his collected writings, David Suzuki continues to explore the themes that have informed…
his work for more than four decades - the interconnectedness of all things, our misguided elevation of economics above all else, the urgent need to deal with climate change - but with an increased emphasis on solutions to the myriad problems we face, his inspiring vision for the future, and the legacy he hopes to leave behind. There is also more emphasis on the personal, as he recounts episodes from his childhood and early adulthood and speaks eloquently about old age, death, and the abiding role of nature and family in his life. Written with clarity, passion, and wisdom, this book is essential for anyone who is an admirer of David Suzuki, who wants to understand what science can and can't do, or who wants to make a difference.By Harold Winfield Kent. 1875
By Richard S. Westfall. 1993
Isaac Newton was indisputably one of the greatest scientists in history. His achievements in mathematics and physics marked the culmination…
of the movement that brought modern science into being. Richard Westfall's biography captures in engaging detail both his private life and scientific career, presenting a complex picture of Newton the man, and as scientist, philosopher, theologian, alchemist and public figure, President of the Royal Society and Warden of the Royal Mint. An abridged version of his magisterial study Never at Rest, this concise biography is now published for the first time in paperback and makes Westfall's highly acclaimed portrait of Newton newly accessible to general readers.By Scott Kelly. 2018
Antes de conquistar Marte, debemos aprender a sobrevivir en el espacio. Un libro ejemplar sobre el triunfo de la imaginación…
humana, la fuerza de voluntad y las maravillas infinitas de la galaxia. Scott Kelly es el hombre que más tiempo ha pasado en el espacio, 340 días, durante los cuales ha visto y vivido cosas que prácticamente ninguno de nosotros veremos o experimentaremos nunca. A través de su increíble historia, Kelly nos revela un entorno absolutamente hostil al ser humano y cuáles fueron los retos más extremos que tuvo que afrontar: los devastadores efectos corporales, la tristeza y la soledad que conlleva estar separado de los seres queridos, el total y absoluto aislamiento de todas las comodidades terrestres, los catastróficos riesgos de chocar contra basura espacial y, aún peor, la amenaza angustiante de ser incapaz de ayudar si algo malo ocurre en casa. En Resistencia la humanidad, la compasión, el sentido del humor, el entusiasmo y la determinación de este héroe moderno resuenan en cada una de sus palabras. Su mensaje es una fuente de inspiración para generaciones futuras y su relato personal cautiva desde la primera página.By Barbara Rosenstock, Mordecai Gerstein. 2012
Caldecott medalist Mordicai Gerstein captures the majestic redwoods of Yosemite in this little-known but important story from our nation's history.…
In 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt joined naturalist John Muir on a trip to Yosemite. Camping by themselves in the uncharted woods, the two men saw sights and held discussions that would ultimately lead to the establishment of our National Parks.By Fred Howard. 1998
Definitive, highly regarded study tells the full story of the brothers' lives and work -- before, during and after the…
historic flight at Kitty Hawk: early experiments and glider flights on Indiana sand dunes, exhilarating days on North Carolina's Outer Banks, the bitter patent fight that followed, Wilbur's untimely death, and more.By Steve Farber, Harlan Abrahams. 2009
Two families came together in the waiting room of a Denver hospital on May 11, 2004, to await kidney transplants…
for loved ones. In the first operation, Gregg Farber, 32, a real estate executive, donated a kidney to his father, Steve, a 60-year-old Denver lawyer and power broker. In the second, Guatemalan refugee and landscaper Ernesto Delaroca, also 32, donated a kidney to his sister Sandra, 19, a restaurant worker. The stories of how the Farber and Delaroca families made their separate journeys to the operating room offers insight into the hazards and inequities of a cobbled-together system that each year leaves more than 98,000 gravely ill Americans on the waiting list for a life-saving transplant. Steve Farber's experience inspired him to write On the List with Harlan Abrahams. They examine the ethical, legal, political, and economic debates over organ transplant policies, expose the gray market for transplants in Third World countries, and propose solutions to one of the world's most pressing health issues. An informative and inspiring guide to those who face transplant operations, the book is also a call to reform a system that is truly, and fatally, flawed.By Bernard Haisch, Ptolemy Tompkins. 2017
A Seeker, a Scientist, and the Stunning Answer to the World’s Oldest Question Ptolemy Tompkins, collaborator on the New York…
Times bestselling Proof of Heaven and Proof of Angels, is at his lowest point, personally and professionally, when he meets with an astrophysicist with a message for the world: God is real, and science proves it.Proof of God is the unlikely story of how this serious scientist and this broken writer, in a series of conversations stretching over several months, come to understand that the universe—from the smallest sub-atomic particles that make up everything in existence to the farthest reaches of the universe—bears evidence of a creator. In short, God not only exists, but science gives us tools to know this. Proof of God shows how science and religion both point to the same stunning and world-changing truth: God is real.By Lindsey Fitzharris. 2017
"Warning: She spares no detail!" —Erik Larson, bestselling author of Dead Wake A Top 10 Science Book of Fall 2017,…
Publishers Weekly"Fascinating and shocking." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)The gripping story of how Joseph Lister’s antiseptic method changed medicine foreverIn The Butchering Art, the historian Lindsey Fitzharris reveals the shocking world of nineteenth-century surgery on the eve of profound transformation. She conjures up early operating theaters—no place for the squeamish—and surgeons, working before anesthesia, who were lauded for their speed and brute strength. These medical pioneers knew that the aftermath of surgery was often more dangerous than their patients’ afflictions, and they were baffled by the persistent infections that kept mortality rates stubbornly high. At a time when surgery couldn’t have been more hazardous, an unlikely figure stepped forward: a young, melancholy Quaker surgeon named Joseph Lister, who would solve the deadly riddle and change the course of history. Fitzharris dramatically recounts Lister’s discoveries in gripping detail, culminating in his audacious claim that germs were the source of all infection—and could be countered by antiseptics. Focusing on the tumultuous period from 1850 to 1875, she introduces us to Lister and his contemporaries—some of them brilliant, some outright criminal—and takes us through the grimy medical schools and dreary hospitals where they learned their art, the deadhouses where they studied anatomy, and the graveyards they occasionally ransacked for cadavers. Eerie and illuminating, The Butchering Art celebrates the triumph of a visionary surgeon whose quest to unite science and medicine delivered us into the modern world.