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Showing 1 - 20 of 319 items
Splendid solution: Jonas Salk and the conquest of polio
By Jeffrey Kluger. 2004
This history of the 1950s battle to develop a polio vaccine focuses on Jonas Salk's successful dead-virus inoculation. Discusses social…
effects of infantile paralysis from 1916 to mid century, the controversy over live-virus vaccines, Walter Winchell's public denouncement of Dr. Salk, and Salk's 1954 vindication. 2004A sense of the mysterious: science and the human spirit
By Alan P Lightman. 2005
Essays exploring the emotional life of science by physicist and author of The Diagnosis (BR 13414) and Reunion (BR 15284).…
Reflects on his own scientific journey and his struggles to reconcile the working universe with humanity and truth. Incorporates portraits of influential figures including Albert Einstein and Vera Rubin. 2005Audubon: the making of an American
By Richard Rhodes. 2004
Biography of the Frenchman who came to America in 1803 at age eighteen determined to paint birds realistically. Discusses his…
marriage and struggle to support his family while pursuing his goal. Records his adventures in the wilderness, evolution as an artist, and eventual publishing success. 2004Obsessive genius: the inner world of Marie Curie
By Barbara Goldsmith. 2005
Account of Marie Curie (1867-1934), the first woman to become a professor at the Sorbonne, and the first woman to…
receive two Nobel Prizes. Using family documents, Goldsmith compares Curie's roles of scientist, wife, and mother, focusing on the social and economic hurdles she had to overcome. 2005How to win the Nobel Prize: an unexpected life in science (Jerusalem-Harvard lectures)
By J. Michael Bishop. 2003
Memoir of Nobel Prize-winning microbiologist. Bishop reflects modestly on his journey to success, from his childhood in rural Pennsylvania to…
his studies at Harvard Medical School and the cancer cell research for which he was recognized in 1989. Also provides background on the prize, the field of microbiology, and modern scientific controversies. 2003Bryson City tales: stories of a doctor's first year of practice in the Smoky Mountains
By Walter L Larimore. 2002
Chronicles a young doctor's passage from Duke University to rural North Carolina, where he establishes a practice, raises his family,…
and expands his spirituality and human understanding. As an emergency physician, coroner, obstetrician, and wilderness search-and-rescue doctor he is shaped in medicine and reinforces his faith. 2002Isaac Newton: Die Biografie
By James Gleick. 2003
Author of Genius (RC 36181) crafts a biography of scientific great Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727), highlighting his accomplishments in physics,…
optics, and mathematics. Uses original quotations to describe Newton's invention of calculus and other breakthroughs--including the laws of motion, which led to the shift from a mystical to a rationalist worldview in European science. 2003The emperor of scent: a story of perfume, obsession, and the last mystery of the senses
By Chandler Burr. 2002
Explains that Italian scientist Luca Turin's obsession with scent led to his groundbreaking research, developing a new theory of smell,…
in the 1990s. Burr explains the molecular biology behind Turin's discoveries and explores the response of the private sector, perfume industry, and scientific community. 2002Je n'aurai pas le temps: mémoires (Science ouverte)
By Hubert Reeves. 2008
"De son enfance québécoise à sa carrière scientifique internationale, H. Reeves dresse le bilan d'une vie consacrée à sa passion…
de l'astrophysique et à la défense de la nature." -- 4e de couvAll in a drop: how Antony van Leeuwenhoek discovered an invisible world
By Lori Alexander. 2019
Biography of the self-taught scientist known as the father of microbiology. By building his own microscope, Leeuwenhoek advanced humanity's understanding…
of the oft-invisible world around us. Explains that microbes are everywhere: in the soil and oceans, in snow, and inside our bodies. For grades 3-6.The difference engine: Charles Babbage and the quest to build the first computer
By Doron Swade. 2000
London Science Museum director describes the efforts of British mathematician/inventor Charles Babbage (1791-1871) to construct a calculating machine for use…
in navigation, science, engineering, and banking. Chronicles not only his life and times but also the latter-day building of the first working Babbage engine--in time to celebrate his bicentenary. 2000Following the Good River: The Life and Times of Wa'xaid
By Briony Penn. 2020
Based on recorded interviews and journal entries this major biography of Cecil Paul (Wa’xaid) is a resounding and timely saga…
featuring the trials, tribulations, endurance, forgiveness, and survival of one of North America’s more prominent Indigenous leaders. Born in 1931 in the Kitlope, Cecil Paul, also known by his Xenaksiala name, Wa’xaid, is one of the last fluent speakers of his people’s language. At age ten he was placed in a residential school run by the United Church of Canada at Port Alberni where he was abused. After three decades of prolonged alcohol abuse, he returned to the Kitlope where his healing journey began. He has worked tirelessly to protect the Kitlope, described as the largest intact temperate rainforest watershed in the world. Now in his late 80s, he resides on his ancestors’ traditional territory.Following upon the success of Wa'xaid's own book of personal essays, Stories from the Magic Canoe, Briony Penn's major biography of this remarkable individual will serve as a timely reminder of the state of British Columbia's Indigenous community, the environmental and political strife still facing many Indigenous communities, and the philosophical and personal journey of a remarkable man.Wa'xaid passed away at the age of 90 on December 3, 2020.L'homme qui était Sherlock Holmes: une biographie du Dr Joe Bell
By Ely Liebow. 2012
« C'est à vous que je dois Sherlock Holmes», écrit Arthur Conan Doyle à son ancien professeur et mentor, le…
docteur Joseph Bell, en 1892. Cet éminent chirurgien, qui enseigna la médecine à l'Université d'Édimbourg, est le père de la fameuse «méthode déductive» qui sera la signature de Sherlock Holmes, l'essence de son mystère et la source de la fascination exercée par le célèbre détective sur tant de générations de lecteurs dans le monde entier. Réputé pour ses fabuleux pouvoirs d'observation, Joseph Bell éblouissait ses contemporains par l'apparente magie de ses déductions, qu'il s'agisse d'établir un diagnostic ou de résoudre les affaires criminelles qu'allaient lui confier plus tard Scotland Yard et la Couronne d'Angleterre. Fruit d'une recherche approfondie, cette biographie de référence relate avec brio l'existence de cet homme remarquable, salué par la communauté médicale et la ville tout entière pour son talent, son dévouement et ce don exceptionnel qu'il allait léguer à son illustre héritier de fiction. » -- 4e de couvWindfall: The Prairie Woman Who Lost Her Way and the Great-Granddaughter Who Found Her
By Erika Bolstad. 2023
Beneath the windswept North Dakota plains, riches await...At first, Erika Bolstad knew only one thing about her great-grandmother, Anna: she…
was a homesteader on the North Dakota prairies in the early 1900s before her husband committed her to an asylum under mysterious circumstances. As Erika's mother was dying, she revealed more. Their family still owned the mineral rights to Anna's land—and oil companies were interested in the black gold beneath the prairies. Their family, Erika learned, could get rich thanks to the legacy of a woman nearly lost to history.Anna left no letters or journals, and very few photographs of her had survived. But Erika was drawn to the young woman who never walked free of the asylum that imprisoned her. As a journalist well versed in the effects of fossil fuels on climate change, Erika felt the dissonance of what she knew and the barely-acknowledged whisper that had followed her family across the Great Plains for generations: we could be rich. Desperate to learn more about her great-grandmother and the oil industry that changed the face of the American West forever, Erika set out for North Dakota to unearth what she could of the past. What she discovers is a land of boom-and-bust cycles and families trying their best to eke out a living in an unforgiving landscape, bringing to life the ever-present American question: What does it mean to be rich?Prozac Diary
By Lauren Slater. 1998
The author of the acclaimed Welcome to My Country describes in this provocative and funny memoir the ups and downs…
of living on Prozac for ten years, and the strange adjustments she had to make to living "normal life." Today millions of people take Prozac, but Lauren Slater was one of the first. In this rich and beautifully written memoir, she describes what it's like to spend most of your life feeling crazy--and then to wake up one day and find yourself in the strange state of feeling well. And then to face the challenge of creating a whole new life. Once inhibited, Slater becomes spontaneous. Once terrified of maintaining a job, she accepts a teaching position and ultimately earns several degrees in psychology. Once lonely, she finds love with a man who adores her. Slater is wonderfully thoughtful and articulate about all of these changes, and also about the downside of taking Prozac: such matters as dependency, sexual dysfunction, and Prozac "poop-out." "The beauty of Lauren Slater's prose is shocking," said Newsday about Welcome to My Country, and Slater's remarkable gifts as a writer are present here in sentences that are like elegant darts, hitting at the center of the deepest human feelings. Prozac Diary is a wonderfully written report from inside a decade on Prozac, and an original writer's acute observations on the challenges of living modern life.Don't Trust, Don't Fear, Don't Beg: The Extraordinary Story of the Arctic 30
By Ben Stewart. 2015
The true story of Greenpeace activists imprisoned in Russia—and the fight to free them: &“A gripping story of tremendous courage…
that reads like a thriller&” (Naomi Klein). &“The most important prison motto is hope for the better, but every moment, literally every moment, be prepared for the worst. Don&’t hope, don&’t fear, don&’t beg.&” —Roman Dolgov, one of the Arctic 30 With rising temperatures, a military arms race, and a multi-national rush to exploit resources at any cost, the Arctic is now the stage on which our future will be decided. As the ice melts, Vladimir Putin orders Russia&’s oil rigs to move further north. But one early September morning in 2013, thirty men and women from eighteen countries—the crew of Greenpeace&’s Arctic Sunrise—decided to draw a line in the ice and protest Arctic drilling. Thrown together by a common cause, they are determined to stop Putin and the oligarchs. But their protest is met with brutal force as Russian commandos seize the Arctic Sunrise. Held under armed guard by masked men, they are charged with piracy and face fifteen years in Russia&’s nightmarish prison system. Journalist and activist Ben Stewart spearheaded the campaign to release the Arctic 30. Now he tells their astonishing story—a tale of passion, courage, brutality, and survival. With wit, verve, and candor, Stewart chronicles the extraordinary friendships the activists made with their often murderous cellmates, their battle to outwit the prison guards, and the struggle to stay true to the cause that brought them there. &“With its colorful dialogue, moral dilemmas, and scenes of physical danger, Stewart&’s book would make a great movie . . . the prison life the book reveals is eye-opening, and Stewart describes it with great verve.&” —Foreign AffairsMiracle Baby: A Fertility Doctor's Fight for Motherhood
By Dorette Noorhasan. 2019
An OG/GYN and fertility specialist details her personal struggles with getting pregnant, sharing a doctor’s perspective on a journey faced…
by many.After years of dedicating her career to bringing new lives into the world, ob/gyn and fertility specialist Dr. Dorete Noorhasan wanted to have a child of her own. But her journey to motherhood was not an easy one.This is her story. The story of a girl who grew up amid hardship, natural disaster, and the harsh reality of life and death. The story of a young woman who dedicated herself to her education and pursued a career in medicine so she could help patients become parents. The story of a mother who was determined, despite all the struggles, setbacks, and heartbreak, to bring her child into this world.Today, one woman in eight is battling infertility. As a physician, Dr. Noorhasan understands the medical aspects of this condition. But as a patient, she has also experienced the emotional turmoil firsthand. Through this unique perspective, Miracle Baby sheds much-needed light on infertility while also offering hope and comfort to those struggling on the road to parenthood, showing how even the most difficult journeys can end in a miracle.Praise for Miracle Baby“Poignant, transparent, inspiring, Dr. Noorhasan’s perspective will resonate with anyone facing a challenging journey to parenthood. Having found her own path to motherhood through surrogacy, she brings a physician’s insight to a deeply personal struggle, and her books are much-need tools to de-mystify infertility and help families find the hope and understanding to persevere.” —Kavitha Blewitt, MD, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Women’s Health Specialists of DallasThe Great Ormond Street Hospital Nurse: My Life As A Student Nurse In The 1960s
By Vanessa Martin. 2022
“You must learn to hold in your feelings,” Matron said, firmly but not unkindly. “One day it will be your…
duty to support the family and other staff through this tragedy. You need to be strong.” From the first time Vanessa Martin sets foot inside the world’s most renowned children’s hospital, she knows that she will never have another dull moment. From her first confrontation with the legendary matron, to consoling hordes of worried parents and caring for the wonderful bundles of joy themselves, Vanessa enters a world full of laughter, heartache and, most importantly, hard work. In this heartwarming memoir of a passionate, determined young woman trying to help as many children as she can, Vanessa pulls back the curtain on the bustling world of 60s London, and tells the remarkable story of finding her place within it. Nostalgic, charming and full of heart, The Great Ormond Street Nurse is the heroic tale of a woman who has dedicated over 40 years to the NHS.The Vaccine: Inside the Race to Conquer the COVID-19 Pandemic
By Joe Miller, Ugur Sahin. 2021
When the world stopped, all hopes rested on finding a vaccine. An unlikely team answered the call. Before Covid-19 was…
even given its name, a select group of scientists in Germany, assembled by married couple and decades-long research partners Ugur Sahin and Özlem Türeci, began building 20 potential vaccines.As the deadly disease spread from country to country, what followed was a desperate race against time to conduct rigorous tests and clinical trials, whilst navigating political interference and seeking the support of the pharmaceutical industry.Shedding a light on the science behind the breakthrough, The Vaccine tells the story of the trailblazers who led the fightback against Covid-19, whose discoveries could now help the world tackle cancer, along with many other pervasive diseases. It draws back the curtain on one of the most important medical achievements of our age, containing contributions from the fascinating couple themselves, as well as more than 60 scientists, politicians, public health officials, and BioNTech staff.More suspenseful than a novel, this is a real-life story of an extraordinary race against time to save the world.The Great Ormond Street Hospital Nurse: My Life As A Student Nurse In The 1960s
By Vanessa Martin. 2022
“You must learn to hold in your feelings,” Matron said, firmly but not unkindly. “One day it will be your…
duty to support the family and other staff through this tragedy. You need to be strong.” From the first time Vanessa Martin sets foot inside the world’s most renowned children’s hospital, she knows that she will never have another dull moment. From her first confrontation with the legendary matron, to consoling hordes of worried parents and caring for the wonderful bundles of joy themselves, Vanessa enters a world full of laughter, heartache and, most importantly, hard work. In this heartwarming memoir of a passionate, determined young woman trying to help as many children as she can, Vanessa pulls back the curtain on the bustling world of 60s London, and tells the remarkable story of finding her place within it. Nostalgic, charming and full of heart, The Great Ormond Street Nurse is the heroic tale of a woman who has dedicated over 40 years to the NHS.