Technology Biography

Long before Oliver Sacks became a distinguished neurologist and best-selling writer, he was a small English boy fascinated by metals - also by chemical reactions (the louder and smellier the better), photography, squids and cuttlefish, H.G. Wells, and the periodic table. In this endlessly charming and eloquent memoir, the he chronicles his love affair with science and the magnificently odd and sometimes harrowing childhood in which that love affair unfolded.

In the spring of 1940, the aspiring but unknown writer Albert Camus and budding scientist Jacques Monod were quietly pursuing ordinary, separate lives in Paris. After the German invasion and occupation of France, each joined the Resistance to help liberate the country from the Nazis and ascended to prominent, dangerous roles. After the war and through twists of circumstance, they became friends, and through their passionate determination and rare talent they emerged as leading voices of modern literature and biology, each receiving the Nobel Prize in their respective fields.

G. Wayne Miller has dramatically and meticulously reconstructed an amazing true story: how a group of renegade Minnesota surgeons, led by Dr. Walt Lillehei, made medical history by becoming the first doctors to operate deep inside the human heart.

In The Millionaire Next Door, best selling author Thomas Stanley identified the millionaires around you. In The Millionaire Mind, he told you how they think. Now, he tells you how to get their business.

A timely reflection in the midst of an increasingly nuclear age, this book offers a sobering look at the implications of scientific advancement and our shared future. It is an essential listen for anyone interested in the complexities of history, science, or the delicate dance between human achievement and moral introspection.

To solve one of the great mathematical problems of his day, Alan Turing proposed an imaginary computer. Then, attempting to break a Nazi code during World War II, he successfully designed and built one, thus ensuring the Allied victory. Turing became a champion of artificial intelligence, but his work was cut short. As an openly gay man at a time when homosexuality was illegal in England, he was convicted and forced to undergo a humiliating "treatment" that may have led to his suicide.

An American professor, lecturer and writer Dale Carnegie wrote: "If you want to have an excellent advice how to treat people, control yourself and improve your own qualities, you should read The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, one of the most fascinating stories of the life." According to what Franklin wrote in The Autobiography, he developed and tried to implement into life a plan of moral perfection achievement and extermination of bad habits, based on developing skills in 13, described by him, goodnesses.

This is a landmark in science writing. It resurrects from the vaults of neglect the polymath Jerome Cardano, a Milanese of the 16th century. Who is he? A gambler and blasphemer, inventor and chancer, plagued by demons and anxieties, astrologer to kings, emperors and popes. This stubborn and unworldly man was the son of a lawyer and a brothel keeper but also a gifted physician and the unacknowledged discoverer of the mathematical foundations of quantum physics.

Dr. Temple Grandin gets to the real issues of autism, the ones parents, teachers, and individuals on the spectrum face every day. Temple offers helpful dos and don'ts, practical strategies, and try-it-now tips, all based on her insider perspective and a great deal of research.

German by birth, British by naturalization, Communist by conviction, Klaus Fuchs was a fearless Nazi resister, a brilliant scientist, and an infamous spy. He was convicted of espionage by Britain in 1950 for handing over the designs of the plutonium bomb to the Russians and has gone down in history as one of the most dangerous agents in American and British history. He put an end to America's nuclear hegemony and single-handedly heated up the Cold War. But, was Klaus Fuchs really evil?

In gripping prose, one of the world's leading cardiac surgeons lays bare both the wonder and the horror of a life spent a heartbeat away from death. When Stephen Westaby witnessed a patient die on the table during open-heart surgery for the first time, he was struck by the quiet, determined way the surgeons walked away. As he soon understood, this detachment is a crucial survival strategy in a profession where death is only a heartbeat away. In Open Heart, Westaby reflects on over 11,000 surgeries, showing us why the procedures have never become routine and will never be.

Modern Man is a penetrating psychological portrait of a true genius and constant self-inventor, as well as a sweeping tale filled with exotic locales, sex and celebrity (he was a lover of Josephine Baker), and high-stakes projects. In Flint's telling, Corbusier isn't just the grandfather of modern architecture but a man who sought to remake the world according to his vision, dispelling the Victorian style and replacing it with something never seen before.

A pioneering neuroscientist shares his story of growing up in one of Miami's toughest neighborhoods and how it led him to his groundbreaking work in drug addiction. As a youth, Carl Hart didn't realize the value of school; he studied just enough to stay on the basketball team. At the same time, he was immersed in street life. Today he is a cutting-edge neuroscientist - Columbia University's first tenured African American professor in the sciences.

When Thomas Edison began wiring New York City with a direct current electricity distribution system in the 1880s, he gave humankind the magic of electric light, heat, and power; in the process, though, he inadvertently opened a Pandora's Box of unimaginable illness and death. Dirty Electricity tells the story of Dr. Samuel Milham, the scientist who first alerted the world about the frightening link between occupational exposure to electromagnetic fields and human disease.

How Can I Help? portrays a week in the life of Dr. David Goldbloom as he treats patients, communicates with families, and trains staff at CAMH, the largest psychiatric facility in Canada. This highly listenable and touching behind-the-scenes account of his daily encounters with a wide range of psychiatric concerns - from his own patients and their families to Emergency Department arrivals - puts a human face on an often misunderstood area of medical expertise.

Il est impossible aujourd'hui de passer à côté du phénomène Musk. Elon Musk, c'est l'homme qui rêve en grand et promet à l'humanité qu'elle va quitter le berceau Terre, direction Mars. En seulement quelques années, il s'est imposé dans tous les grands champs de la science contemporaine. Il révolutionne le secteur spatial avec SpaceX, il prend position sur l'intelligence artificielle, souhaite transformer les neurosciences en connectant des ordinateurs à nos cerveaux, et joue les influenceurs pour le développement des monnaies virtuelles.

In 1695, Isaac Newton already renowned as the greatest mind of his agemade a surprising career change. He left quiet Cambridge, where he had lived for 30 years and made his earth-shattering discoveries, and moved to London to take up the post of Warden of His Majestys Mint. Newton was preceded to the city by a genius of another kind, the budding criminal William Chaloner.

Much has been written about Neil Armstrong, America's modern hero and history's most famous space traveler. Yet, shy of fame and never one to steal the spotlight, Armstrong was always reluctant to discuss his personal side of events. Here for the first time is the definitive story of Neil's life of flight he shared for five decades with a trusted friend - Jay Barbree.

Enrico Fermi is unquestionably among the greats of the world's physicists, the most famous Italian scientist since Galileo. Called "the Pope" by his peers, he was regarded as infallible in his instincts and research. His discoveries changed our world; they led to weapons of mass destruction and conversely to life-saving medical interventions. This unassuming man struggled with issues relevant today, such as the threat of nuclear annihilation and the relationship of science to politics.

Edith Widder’s childhood dream of becoming a marine biologist was almost derailed in college, when complications from a surgery gone wrong caused temporary blindness. A new reality of shifting shadows drew her fascination to the power of light - as well as the importance of optimism. As her vision cleared, Widder found the intersection of her two passions in oceanic bioluminescence, a little-explored scientific field within Earth’s last great unknown frontier: the deep ocean.