Technology Mystery

After years of helping people who barely knew how to generate a 2048-bit encryption key, I should've been happy to get a client with a real problem. But when it starts with me being knocked unconscious and kidnapped, you understand if I'm grumpy. Still, a missing insane software designer is a magnet to my mental metal: I'm an Information Technology Private Investigator and I love a high-tech problem. My only worry is that unlike my usual cases, this one might just kill me.

The launch of Mars rovers by NASA, Europe, and China in 2020 will reveal more about Mars than ever before. Get ahead with this amazing new book, which explores the evidence for past life on Mars, what's happening there now, and what it might look like to one day live on the red planet. Be amazed by the tallest mountain in the solar system, discover how houses on Mars could look, and find out if you've got what it takes to join the teams travelling to Mars in the coming years.

The Minoan-Mycenaean Empire is one of the most compelling of the lost civilizations, so how does an advanced civilization vanish as if into thin air? This kingdom wasn’t limited to Greece and its Mediterranean tributaries, the Mycenaean Empire of Greek gods extended around the world, even into the Americas. Their technology included analog computers, humanoid robots, talking oracles, flying machines, transparent windows, hot and cold running water, flushing toilets, sewer systems, loose-stone pyramids that pulled water out of the air, and transcontinental ships with voice navigation.

At the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu, dramatized by the popular film Black Hawk Down, the majority of soldiers who died were killed instantly or bled to death before they could reach an operating table. This tragedy reinforced the need for a revolutionary treatment that could transform trauma medicine. So, when Frank Hursey and Bart Gullong—who had no medical or military experience—discovered that a cheap, crushed rock called zeolite had blood‑clotting properties, they brought it to the military's attention. The Marines and the Navy adopted the resulting product, QuikClot, immediately.

More people have died in disease epidemics than in wars or other disasters, but the process of identifying these diseases and determining how they spread is often a terrifying gamble. Epidemiologists have been ignored, mocked, or silenced all while trying to protect the population and identify “patient zero”—the first person to have contracted the disease, and a key piece in solving the epidemic puzzle. Patient Zero tracks the gripping tales of eight epidemics and pandemics—how they started, how they spread, and the fight to stop them.