History Science Life

Centuries ago, the principle of Ockham’s razor changed our world by showing simpler answers to be preferable and more often true. In Life Is Simple, scientist Johnjoe McFadden traces centuries of discoveries, taking us from a geocentric cosmos to quantum mechanics and DNA, arguing that simplicity has revealed profound answers to the greatest mysteries. This is no coincidence. From the laws that keep a ball in motion to those that govern evolution, simplicity, he claims, has shaped the universe itself.

Flight for Life is the heart-stopping account of one of the most gripping rescue missions in African history, told by a doctor involved in saving the lives of Nigerian workers who became victims of a tragic American chemical company explosion. Dr. Stewart and his colleague moved mountains and cut red tape to fly patients to one of the premiere burn centers in the United States.

Fritjof Capra, scientist, educator, activist, and accomplished author, presents the evolution of his thought over five decades in Patterns of Connection. First introduced in the late 1950s to the work of Werner Heisenberg, a founder of quantum mechanics, Capra quickly intuited the connections between the discoveries of quantum physics and the traditions of Eastern philosophy - resulting in his first book, the best-selling The Tao of Physics.

The definitive biography of the most important economic statesman of our time, from the best-selling author of The Power Law and More Money Than God. Sebastian Mallaby's magisterial biography of Alan Greenspan, the product of over five years of research based on untrammeled access to his subject and his closest professional and personal intimates, brings into vivid focus the mysterious point where the government and the economy meet. To understand Greenspan's story is to see the economic and political landscape of our time in a whole new light.

The three Oakenfeld children, Susan, Charles, and Murray, are perplexed. Their parents aren't letting them turn on the television. Something strange is going on in the city, that's for sure. And now Mom and Dad are sending them off to Canada to stay with their Uncle Farley - who they've never even met! New York-based author and teacher Dale Peck was inspired to write this amazing story after the events of September 11, 2001.

Cutting-edge techniques across biology, chemistry, physics, and geology have transformed our understanding of the deep past, including the discovery of a previously unknown mass extinction. This compelling evidence, revealing a series of environmental crises resulting in the near collapse of life on Earth, illuminates our current dilemmas in exquisite detail.

With warmth and compassion, Denworth weaves together past and present, field biology and cutting-edge neuroscience, to show how our bodies and minds are designed to make friends, the process by which social bonds develop, and how a drive for friendship underpins human (and nonhuman) society. With its refreshingly optimistic vision of the evolution of human nature, this book puts friendship at the center of our lives.

It is widely understood that Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution completely revolutionized the study of biology. Yet, according to David Sloan Wilson, the Darwinian revolution won’t be truly complete until it is applied more broadly - to everything associated with the words “human,” “culture,” and “policy.”

St. Marks Place in New York City has spawned countless artistic and political movements. Here Frank O'Hara caroused, Emma Goldman plotted, and the Velvet Underground wailed. But every generation of miscreant denizens believes that their era, and no other, marked the street's apex.

Robots may one day rule the world, but what is a robot-ruled Earth like? Many think the first truly smart robots will be brain emulations, or ems. Scan a human brain, then run a model with the same connections on a fast computer, and you have a robot brain, but recognizably human. Train an em to do some job and copy it a million times; an army of workers is at your disposal. When they can be made cheaply, within perhaps a century, ems will displace humans in most jobs.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Ladybird Tales of Adventurous Girls retold by Julia Bruce, read by Jacqueline Wilson and Vanessa Kirby. Girls can save the day too, and they always have.... Join six adventurous girls from around the world as they use their wits, courage and strength to overcome the odds. With an introduction from award-winning author Jacqueline Wilson. Perfect for bedtime, these empowering tales show that girls can be the heroes of any story.

What’s in a cloud? Did you know that water vapor is invisible and actually lighter than dry air? What separates a tropical storm from a winter blizzard? And what exactly is El Niño? Elliot Rappaport, a professional captain of traditional sailing ships, has spent three decades at sea, where understanding weather is crucial to the safety of vessels and their crews. In Reading the Glass, he offers a sailor’s-eye view of the moving parts of our atmosphere and unveils the larger patterns it holds: global winds, storms, air masses, jet streams, and the longer arc of our climate.

The Story of Philosophy is a captivating intellectual journey that explores the evolution of human thought and the enduring legacy of great thinkers throughout history. Written by the renowned author Will Durant, this monumental work provides listeners with a comprehensive overview of the world's philosophical traditions, from ancient Greece to the modern era.

Kevin Fulton was one of the British Army's most successful intelligence agents. Having been recruited to infiltrate the Provisional IRA at the height of the Troubles, he rose its ranks to an unprecedented level. Living and working undercover, he had no option other than to take part in heinous criminal activities, including the production of bombs which he knew would later kill. So highly was he valued by IRA leaders that he was promoted to serve in its infamous internal police - ironically, his job was now to root out and kill informers.

De Brevitate Vitae (frequently referred to as On the Shortness of Life in English) is a moral essay written by Seneca the Younger, a Roman Stoic philosopher, to his father-in-law Paulinus. The philosopher brings up many Stoic principles on the nature of time, namely that men waste much of it in meaningless pursuits. According to the essay, nature gives man enough time to do what is really important and the individual must allot it properly.

The four spies at the center of this story were part of a ragtag unit known as the Arab Section, conceived during World War II by British spies and Jewish militia leaders in Palestine. Intended to gather intelligence and carry out sabotage and assassinations, the unit consisted of Jews who were native to the Arab world and could thus easily assume Arab identities. In 1948, with Israel's existence in the balance during the War of Independence, our spies went undercover in Beirut, where they spent the next two years operating out of a kiosk....

Nixon - loathed or admired, the name recalls one of the most extraordinary political survivors in American history. Author Jonathan Aitken interviewed the legendary politician and was granted unprecedented access to his private documents to root out answers to many questions. Why didn't he burn the Watergate tapes? What were his relationships with John F. Kennedy, Dwight Eisenhower, and Henry Kissinger?

More than 10,000 years ago spectacularly large mammals roamed the pampas and jungles of South America. This book tells the story of these great beasts during and just after the Pleistocene, the geological epoch marked by the great ice ages. Megafauna describes the history and way of life of these animals, their comings and goings, and what befell them at the beginning of the modern era and the arrival of humans.

Why is the world the way it is? How did we get here? Does everything happen for a reason, or are some things left to chance? Philosophers and theologians have pondered these questions for millennia, but startling scientific discoveries over the past half century are revealing that we live in a world driven by chance. A Series of Fortunate Events tells the story of the awesome power of chance and how it is the surprising source of all the beauty and diversity in the living world.

Asked to name a great physicist, most people would mention Newton or Einstein, Feynman or Hawking. But ask a physicist and there’s no doubt that James Clerk Maxwell will be near the top of the list. Maxwell, an unassuming Victorian Scotsman, explained how we perceive color. He uncovered the way gases behave. And, most significantly, he transformed the way physics was undertaken in his explanation of the interaction of electricity and magnetism, revealing the nature of light and laying the groundwork for everything from Einstein’s special relativity to modern electronics.