Extreme Science

Little more than 100 years ago, maps of the world still boasted white space: places where no human had ever trod. Within a few short decades the most hostile of the world's environments had all been conquered. Likewise, in the 20th century, medicine transformed human life. Doctors took what was routinely fatal and made it survivable. As modernity brought us ever more into different kinds of extremes, doctors pushed the bounds of medical advances and human endurance. Extreme exploration challenged the body in ways that only the vanguard of science could answer.

For decades, American politics has been plagued by a breakdown between the Democratic and Republican parties, in which victory has inevitably led to defeat and vice versa. Both parties have lost sight of the people at the center of the American electorate, leading to polarization and paralysis. In Where Have All the Democrats Gone?, John B. Judis and Ruy Teixeira reveal the tectonic changes shaping the country’s current political landscape that both pundits and political scientists have missed.

The world's largest land mammal could help us end cancer. The fastest bird is showing us how to solve a century-old engineering mystery. The oldest tree is giving us insights into climate change. The loudest whale is offering clues about the impact of solar storms. For a long time, scientists ignored superlative life forms as outliers. Increasingly, though, researchers are coming to see great value in studying plants and animals that exist on the outermost edges of the bell curve.

A magical Christmas tale with supernatural paramedic Dean Flynn. Bryce, a Christmas elf, fell from his shelf. His leg is broken and he can’t give his report to Santa in time for Christmas Eve. Lucky for him, Extreme Medical Services paramedic to the supernatural Dean Flynn is on the job. With a few of his friends along for the ride, Dean responds to the call for help. Will he help Bryce in time to meet the “Big Guy” and his sleigh? Find out in this heart-warming Christmas tale. Pick up this urban fantasy holiday short story now!

Shannon is a wild child who lives life by the seat of her pants. In her mid-thirties, she is living it up and is not near the point of settling down. Cody is a professional who puts his career and financial stability before anything else. He has given up on relationships at this point in life. They are two emotionally unavailable strangers who live nearby and seem to have little in common other than loneliness. They both start having vivid, realistic dreams of an attractive person. These attractive people turn out to be more than either can handle.

Joanna Errington-Flynn is a normal 15-year-old, except that she's a witch from the future. Since she was sent back from her parents' future, she has saved both their lives and the world itself. Now she wants nothing more than to return home to her own time. When a pair of demon-summoning idols goes missing, her mother needs Jo's help to recover them. If the demon lord succeeds in his plans to collect the complete set, Elk City is doomed.

On the afternoon of July 13, 1977, having become the first climbers to reach the summit of the Ogre, Doug Scott and Chris Bonington began their long descent. In the minutes that followed, any feeling of success from their achievement would be overwhelmed by the start of a desperate fight for survival. And things would only get worse.

One paramedic, four horsemen, and the end of the world. Dean Flynn sees himself as just a normal paramedic, despite the fact he treats the hidden supernatural creatures inhabiting Elk City. Now, he’s about to make the most important decision of his adult life, but his missing father returns and turns things upside down all over again. Now, Dean has to deal with a city falling apart around him while trying to stop the end of the world. Will he defeat the four horsemen of the apocalypse and send the demons back to hell once and for all, or is he destined to start Armageddon on his own?

An artifact is creating hordes of mindless undead minions in Elk City. Paramedic Dean Flynn once again gathers his human and supernatural friends to band together and find the source. With the future of the city at risk, failure is not an option for Dean and his comrades. Dean's friends have their own problems. His ex-partner is struggling with her recent change into a vampire. She has to find a way to overcome her bloodlust if she's ever going to return to the streets again as a paramedic. If she doesn't find a way to succeed, it could be a matter of life and death.

Paramedic Dean Flynn is finally getting used to his unusual ambulance patients. But with werewolves, vampires, fairies, and more, as his 911 patients, is he ready for an unusual in his personal life? Ashley Moore is not just an ER nurse. She is a heavenly angel on earth. Can she protect Dean and help him stop the hate crime attacks on his patients? Someone is determined to start a race war, and only Dean stands in the way.

Paramedic Dean Flynn works every day to heal the creatures of myth and legend in Elk City. When a human hate group declares war on his patients, Dean, with his angel girlfriend and the vampire lord of Elk City, must work with all the forces of good to fight terrorists hidden in their midst. Even after getting framed for murder, Dean uses magic, prophecy, and all his paramedic skills to save his patients. With his lifelong dreams shattered and taken away from him, will he have the strength to make the choice when the time comes to fulfill his destiny?

A sorceress from the future tries to change the past. Supernatural paramedic, Dean Flynn, discovers his actions to prevent Armageddon altered the future of humanity. A time-traveling sorceress holds the key to save the world. But he'll have to battle his way through angels and demons. Can Dean rally his friends to locate the artifacts that will restore the future? Or will the forces of darkness enslave mankind forever?

The year is 2032, and five-year-old Jacob is opening the biggest gift, beneath the Christmas tree, which is labeled for him: his very first semi-automatic rifle—and he couldn't be prouder. He smiles to his parents who sit close by. They don't smile back. Their minds are stuck on earlier events of what should have been a magical day: the moment they found out Jacob was set to be a brother.

A paramedic, a legendary Amazon, and a ruthless trafficking gang. When supernatural paramedic Dean Flynn saves a patient terrorized by a werepanther gang, he uncovers a ring of shifters smuggling Unusual women and girls through Elk City. When his just-rescued patient disappears from the safety of the hospital, Dean must find her and the other lost victims. Seeking help from his demon-hunter wife, Jaz Errington, Dean teams up with an Amazon Interpol agent. When the stakes turn personal, they risk everything to uncover the gang behind the trafficking ring.

The world is overpopulated. Resources are running out. In an effort to balance things out, the government has stepped in with a radical new lottery system. All names are put into a computer, with 200 names being drawn at random. Of those people, 100 will get one color (red) token and 100 will get another color token (white). Whatever color they received, they had to go to the government-run club for the night. Of those who received the white token, they would be going home the following day. For those who received the red tokens? They would be leaving in a body bag.

In 2005, during a four-month cycling trip through Africa, Martin Parnell was struck by the power of sport and its ability to bring people together and to bring about change. Five years later, the 55-year-old mining engineer, husband, father and grandfather dedicated a year of his life to run 250 marathons with the aim of raising $250,000 for the charity Right to Play, an international humanitarian organization that reaches out to disadvantaged children around the world.

In this deeply original book, science writer Anil Ananthaswamy sets out in search of the telescopes and detectors that promise to answer the biggest questions in modern cosmology. Why is the universe expanding at an ever faster rate? What is the nature of the "dark matter" that makes up almost a quarter of the universe? Why does the universe appear fine-tuned for life? Are there others besides our own?

In 1997, Yiannis Kouros ran 188 miles in 24 hours. In 1984, at age 42, Maria Moreira gave birth to her 10th set of twins. In 1973, Terry Tao learned to read when he was two years old. Tao started college at age nine, and at 24 was appointed a full-time professor at UCLA. What does it feel like to be exceptional? And what does it take to get there? Why can some people achieve greatness when others can’t, no matter how hard they try? Just how much potential does our species have? Evolutionary biologist Rowan Hooper has the answers.

Empathy has become a gaping fault line in American culture. Pioneering programs aim to infuse our legal and educational systems with more empathic thinking, even as pundits argue over whether we should bother empathizing with our political opposites at all. Meanwhile, we are inundated with the buzzily termed "empathic marketing" - which may very well be a contradiction in terms. In I Feel You, Cris Beam carves through the noise with a revelatory exploration of how we perform empathy, how it is learned, what it can do - indeed, what empathy is in the first place.

Der kanadische Philosoph Alain Deneault stellt sich der wohl bedrohlichsten aller Bedrohungen: der Mittelmäßigkeit. Die Mittelmäßigkeit schmückt sich selber zwar mit Bildern der Macht, hat aber nicht mehr zu bieten als Konformismus, das Bedienen von Software oder die Einhaltung von Grundsatzwerten. Wir leben in einer Welt, in der eine mediokre Ordnung zum Modell für die gesamte Gesellschaft erhoben wurde und in der Denkfaulheit belohnt wird. Dabei wird nicht etwa Spitzenleistungen und Elitenbildung das Wort gesprochen. Vielmehr geht es in dieser scharfen Analyse um die Ermutigung zum Gebrauch des eigenen Verstandes.