Chemical Reaction Engineering


Octave Levenspiel - 1962
    It's goal is the successful design and operation of chemical reactors. This text emphasizes qualitative arguments, simple design methods, graphical procedures, and frequent comparison of capabilities of the major reactor types. Simple ideas are treated first, and are then extended to the more complex.

Neanderthal Man: In Search of Lost Genomes


Svante Pääbo - 2014
    Beginning with the study of DNA in Egyptian mummies in the early 1980s and culminating in the sequencing of the Neanderthal genome in 2010, Neanderthal Man describes the events, intrigues, failures, and triumphs of these scientifically rich years through the lens of the pioneer and inventor of the field of ancient DNA.We learn that Neanderthal genes offer a unique window into the lives of our hominin relatives and may hold the key to unlocking the mystery of why humans survived while Neanderthals went extinct. Drawing on genetic and fossil clues, Pääbo explores what is known about the origin of modern humans and their relationship to the Neanderthals and describes the fierce debate surrounding the nature of the two species’ interactions. His findings have not only redrawn our family tree, but recast the fundamentals of human history—the biological beginnings of fully modern Homo sapiens, the direct ancestors of all people alive today.A riveting story about a visionary researcher and the nature of scientific inquiry, Neanderthal Man offers rich insight into the fundamental question of who we are.

Oliver Twist


John Escott - 1995
    Filled with dark humor and an unforgettable cast of characters Oliver Twist, Fagin, Nancy, Bill Sykes, and the Artful Dodger, to name a few Dickens's second novel is a compelling social satire that has remained popular since it was first serialized in 1837-39. The text for this Modern Library Paperback Classic is taken from the 1846 New Edition, revised and corrected by the author. It includes new explanatory notes and an appendix, A Brief History of the English Poor Laws.

Min europeiska familj: De senaste 54 000 åren


Karin Bojs - 2015
    As part of the healing process, she decided to use DNA research to learn more about herself, her family, and the interconnectedness of society. She went deep in search of her genealogy, having her DNA sequenced and tested, and effectively becoming an experimental subject. Remarkably, she was able to trace the path of her ancestors through recorded history and into prehistory. Through the course of her research, she met dozens of scientists working in genetic research. The narrative travels the length and breadth of Europe, from the Neanderthals of central Germany to the Cro-Magnon in France. Bojs visited the ancient caves, realizing that her direct ancestors must have been living in the area when the cave art was painted. A second DNA analysis later revealed she has Sami (i.e. Lapp) genetic material in her genome, and there were further revelations about her hunter-gatherer, Bronze-Age, and Iron-Age relatives, including the Vikings. This fresh, first-person exploration of genes and genetics goes well beyond personal genealogy and reveals much about the shared history of European peoples.

Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art


Rebecca Wragg Sykes - 2020
    She reveals them to be curious, clever connoisseurs of their world, technologically inventive and ecologically adaptable. Above all, they were successful survivors for more than 300,000 years, during times of massive climatic upheaval.At a time when our species has never faced greater threats, we’re obsessed with what makes us special. But, much of what defines us was also in Neanderthals, and their DNA is still inside us. Planning, co-operation, altruism, craftsmanship, aesthetic sense, imagination... perhaps even a desire for transcendence beyond mortality.It is only by understanding them, that we can truly understand ourselves.

Archaeology: An Introduction


Kevin Greene - 1983
    In a lucid and accessible style Kevin Greene explains the discovery and excavation of sites, outlines major dating methods, gives clear explanations of scientific techniques and examines current theories and controversies.

Fossil Men: The Quest for the Oldest Skeleton and the Origins of Humankind


Kermit Pattison - 2020
    Radiometric dating of nearby rocks indicated the skeleton, classified as Ardipithecus ramidus, was 4.4 million years old, more than a million years older than "Lucy," then the oldest known human ancestor. The findings challenged many assumptions about human evolution--how we started walking upright, how we evolved our nimble hands, and, most significantly, whether we were descended from an ancestor that resembled today's chimpanzee--and repudiated a half-century of paleoanthropological orthodoxy.Fossil Men is the first full-length exploration of Ardi, the fossil men who found her, and her impact on what we know about the origins of the human species. It is a scientific detective story played out in anatomy and the natural history of the human body. Kermit Pattison brings into focus a cast of eccentric, obsessive scientists, including one of the world's greatest fossil hunters, Tim White--an exacting and unforgiving fossil hunter whose virtuoso skills in the field were matched only by his propensity for making enemies; Gen Suwa, a Japanese savant who sometimes didn't bother going home at night to devote more hours to science; Owen Lovejoy, a onetime creationist-turned-paleoanthropologist; Berhane Asfaw, who survived imprisonment and torture to become Ethiopia's most senior paleoanthropologist and who fought for African scientists to gain equal footing in the study of human origins; and the Leakeys, for decades the most famous family in paloanthropology.An intriguing tale of scientific discovery, obsession and rivalry that moves from the sun-baked desert of Africa and a nation caught in a brutal civil war, to modern high-tech labs and academic lecture halls, Fossil Men is popular science at its best, and a must read for fans of Jared Diamond, Richard Dawkins, and Edward O. Wilson.

Skin: A Natural History


Nina G. Jablonski - 2006
    Our intimate connection with the world, skin protects us while advertising our health, our identity, and our individuality. This dazzling synthetic overview, written with a poetic touch and taking many intriguing side excursions, is a complete guidebook to the pliable covering that makes us who we are. Skin: A Natural History celebrates the evolution of three unique attributes of human skin: its naked sweatiness, its distinctive sepia rainbow of colors, and its remarkable range of decorations. Jablonski begins with a look at skin's structure and functions and then tours its three-hundred-million-year evolution, delving into such topics as the importance of touch and how the skin reflects and affects emotions. She examines the modern human obsession with age-related changes in skin, especially wrinkles. She then turns to skin as a canvas for self-expression, exploring our use of cosmetics, body paint, tattooing, and scarification. Skin: A Natural History places the rich cultural canvas of skin within its broader biological context for the first time, and the result is a tremendously engaging look at ourselves.

Ishmael


Daniel Quinn - 1992
    He answers an ad in a local newspaper from a teacher looking for serious pupils, only to find himself alone in an abandoned office with a full-grown gorilla who is nibbling delicately on a slender branch. "You are the teacher?" he asks incredulously. "I am the teacher," the gorilla replies. Ishmael is a creature of immense wisdom and he has a story to tell, one that no other human being has ever heard. It is a story that extends backward and forward over the lifespan of the earth from the birth of time to a future there is still time save. Like all great teachers, Ishmael refuses to make the lesson easy; he demands the final illumination to come from within ourselves. Is it man's destiny to rule the world? Or is it a higher destiny possible for him-- one more wonderful than he has ever imagined?

Living with Darwin: Evolution, Design, and the Future of Faith


Philip Kitcher - 2006
    In Living With Darwin, Philip Kitcher stokes the flames swirling around Darwin's theory, sifting through the scientific evidence for evolution, Creation Science, and Intelligent Design, and revealing why evolution has been the object of such vehement attack. Kitcher first provides valuable perspective on the present controversy, describing the many puzzles that blocked evolution's acceptance in the early years, and explaining how scientific research eventually found the answers to these conundrums. Interestingly, Kitcher shows that many of these early questions have been resurrected in recent years by proponents of Intelligent Design. In fact, Darwin himself considered the issue of intelligent design, and amassed a mountain of evidence that effectively refuted the idea. Kitcher argues that the problem with Intelligent Design isn't that it's not science, as many critics say, but that it's dead science, raising questions long resolved by scientists. But Kitcher points out that it is also important to recognize the cost of Darwin's success--the price of life with Darwin. Darwinism has a profound effect on our understanding of our place in the universe, on our religious beliefs and aspirations. It is in truth the focal point of a larger clash between religious faith and modern science. Unless we can resolve this larger issue, the war over evolution will go on.

Cro-Magnon: How the Ice Age Gave Birth to the First Modern Humans


Brian M. Fagan - 2010
    The prolonged encounter between the Cro-Magnons and the archaic Neanderthals and between 45,000 and 30,000 years ago was one of the defining moments of history. The Neanderthals survived for some 15,000 years in the face of the newcomers, but were finally pushed aside by the Cro-Magnons' vastly superior intellectual abilities and cutting-edge technologies, which allowed them to thrive in the intensely challenging climate of the Ice Age.What do we know about this remarkable takeover? Who were the first modern Europeans and what were they like? How did they manage to thrive in such an extreme environment? And what legacy did they leave behind them after the cold millennia? The age of the Cro-Magnons lasted some 30,000 years?longer than all of recorded history. Cro-Magnon is the story of a little known, yet seminal, chapter of human experience.

Cafe Neandertal: Excavating Our Past in One of Europe's Most Ancient Places


Beebe Bahrami - 2017
    In Café Neandertal, Bahrami follows this compelling riddle along a path populated with colorful local personalities and opinionated, polemical, and brilliant archaeologists working in remote and fascinating places across Eurasia, all the while maintaining a firm foothold in the Dordogne, a region celebrated by the local tourist office as a vacation destination for 400,000 years. From this prehistoric perch Bahrami gets to know first-hand the Neandertals and the people who love them — those who have devoted their lives to them. She is thrown into a world debating not only what happened to these close cousins but also what legacy they have left for those who followed.Café Neandertal is also a detective story, investigating one of the biggest mysteries of prehistory and archaeology: Who were the Neandertals? Why did they disappear around 35,000 years ago? And more mysteriously, what light do they shed on us moderns?Bahrami takes readers into the thick of an excavation, neck-deep in Neanderthal dirt, and to the front row of the heated debates about our long-lost cousins. Café Neandertal pulls us deeply into the complex mystery of the Neandertals, shedding a surprising light on what it means to be human.

House of Rain: Tracking a Vanished Civilization Across the American Southwest


Craig Childs - 2007
    Drawing on scholarly research and archaeological evidence, the author examines the accomplishments of the Anasazi people of the American Southwest and speculates on why the culture vanished by the 13th century.

Textbook of Radiographic Positioning and Related Anatomy


Kenneth L. Bontrager - 1987
    It presents positioning and projection information in an easy-to-read, bulleted format on one side of the page spread, with corresponding positioning photos, radiographic images and anatomical drawings on the other side. Expert content covers pathology, geriatric and pediatric patient populations, survey information, and 100 new positioning photographs for the latest in radiographic positioning. The 6th edition contains a new chapter on digital imaging, and digital imaging information is incorporated where appropriate throughout the book. New photographs and redrawn illustrations create a consistent, visual appearance throughout the book.- Characterized by a clear, easy-to-follow organization that features one projection per page. Positioning and projection information is presented in an easy-to-read bulleted format on the left side of the page, and positioning photos, radiographic images and anatomical drawings are aligned on the right. This show and tell style helps students visualize anatomy and understand positioning.- Includes about 200 of the most commonly requested projections. Competency in performing these projections is necessary for all entry-level practitioners. By contrast, Merrill's Atlas includes over 400 projections and much more information on advanced imaging.- Critique Radiographs provide the basis of classroom or lab discussion. The WB/LM contains questions specific to these radiographs.- Pathologic Indications in appropriate chapters - Introducing pathology with positioning helps students understand the whole patient and improves their ability to produce radiographs that make diagnosis easy for the physician.- Pediatric Applications in appropriate chapters prepare technologists to deal competently with the special needs of their pediatric patients.- Geriatric Applications in appropriate chapters - Important information for technologists to understand the varying needs of their patient base.- Alternative Modalities or procedures inform students of which projections can better demonstrate certain anatomical parts or pathology, or which may be necessary if patient is unable to cooperate fully.- Radiographic Criteria on positioning pages help students develop a routine for evaluating radiographic quality.- Pathology Demonstrated provides students with a larger frame of reference, and therefore a greater understanding, of each projectionA new chapter on digital imaging discusses basic principles, applications, and image quality - digital imaging information essential for making appropriate positioning adjustments - to ensure readers are prepared to encounter new technology in clinical practice.Content updates include a totally new section on surgical radiography, new sections in all chapters on digital imaging considerations, an expanded section on bone densitometry, and a new introduction to positron emission tomography (PET).Updated and revised chapters cover angiography and interventional procedures, and computed tomography.More than 150 new positioning photos, in addition to many updated images, complement the new material.

Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human


Richard W. Wrangham - 2009
    But in Catching Fire, renowned primatologist Richard Wrangham presents a startling alternative: our evolutionary success is the result of cooking. In a groundbreaking theory of our origins, Wrangham shows that the shift from raw to cooked foods was the key factor in human evolution. when our ancestors adapted to using fire, humanity began.Once our hominid ancestors began cooking their food, the human digestive tract shrank and the brain grew. Time once spent chewing tough raw food could be used instead to hunt and to tend camp. Cooking became the basis for pair bonding and marriage, created the household, and even led to a sexual division of labor.Tracing the contemporary implications of our ancestors' diets, Catching Fire sheds new light on how we came to be the social, intelligent, and sexual species we are today. A pathbreaking new theory of human evolution, Catching Fire will provoke controversy and fascinate anyone interested in our ancient origins--or in our modern eating habits.--from the dustjacket