Mountains of print have been written about culture. Loonshots identifies the small shifts in structure that control this transition, the same way that temperature controls the change from water to ice.Using examples that range from the spread of fires in forests to the hunt for terrorists online, and stories of thieves and geniuses and kings, Bahcall shows how this new kind of science helps us understand the behavior of companies and the fate of empires. Loonshots distills these insights into lessons for creatives, entrepreneurs, and visionaries everywhere.

    His illuminating explanation is addressed to the person who wants to understand the place of mathematics in modern civilization but who has been intimidated by its supposed difficulty. Mathematics is the language of size, shape, and order—a language Hogben shows one can both master and enjoy.

    Weed. Bud. Whatever you choose to call it, it’s been a health aid, comfort, and life-enhancer for humankind for more than three thousand years. But while cannabis is used by hundreds of millions of people around the world, more than a century of prohibition has resulted in confusion about its status: Is it healthy? Is it medicinal? Will it make you crazy?In this fun, illuminating book, cannabis journalist Amanda Siebert delves deep into the latest research to separate marijuana fact from fiction, revealing ten evidence-based ways this potent little plant can improve your life. She speaks with some of the world’s top researchers, medical professionals, and consultants to answer questions such as: Can cannabis help you get a full night’s sleep? Does it aid in exercise and weight loss? Can it really cure cancer? She also offers practical advice for enjoying its benefits, including easy-to-follow, step-by-step instructions for consumption and dosage, as well as examples of real people who have used this drug to enhance their lives. Cannabis, it turns out, could be life-changing: it can enrich any diet, slow down aging, and even spice things up in the bedroom.

    Here is an altogether new, refreshing, alternative history of math revealing how simple questions anyone might ask about space -- in the living room or in some other galaxy -- have been the hidden engine of the highest achievements in science and technology. Based on Mlodinow's extensive historical research; his studies alongside colleagues such as Richard Feynman and Kip Thorne; and interviews with leading physicists and mathematicians such as Murray Gell-Mann, Edward Witten, and Brian Greene, Euclid's Window is an extraordinary blend of rigorous, authoritative investigation and accessible, good-humored storytelling that makes a stunningly original argument asserting the primacy of geometry. For those who have looked through Euclid's Window, no space, no thing, and no time will ever be quite the same.

    Improper use of antibiotics. Local warfare. Massive refugee migration. Changing social and environmental conditions around the world have fostered the spread of new and potentially devastating viruses and diseases—HIV, Lassa, Ebola, and others. Laurie Garrett takes you on a fifty-year journey through the world's battles with microbes and examines the worldwide conditions that have culminated in recurrent outbreaks of newly discovered diseases, epidemics of diseases migrating to new areas, and mutated old diseases that are no longer curable. She argues that it is not too late to take action to prevent the further onslaught of viruses and microbes, and offers possible solutions for a healthier future.

    In this book she describes the perplexing crises which modern society faces as a result of the loss of meaning of the traditional key words of politics: justice, reason, responsibility, virtue, and glory. Through a series of eight exercises, she shows how we can redistill once more the vital essence of these concepts.

    Just about everyone has at least heard of Albert Einstein's formulation of 1905, which came into the world as something of an afterthought. But far fewer can explain his insightful linkage of energy to mass. David Bodanis offers an easily grasped gloss on the equation. Mass, he writes, "is simply the ultimate type of condensed or concentrated energy," whereas energy "is what billows out as an alternate form of mass under the right circumstances." Just what those circumstances are occupies much of Bodanis's book, which pays homage to Einstein and, just as important, to predecessors such as Maxwell, Faraday, and Lavoisier, who are not as well known as Einstein today. Balancing writerly energy and scholarly weight, Bodanis offers a primer in modern physics and cosmology, explaining that the universe today is an expression of mass that will, in some vastly distant future, one day slide back to the energy side of the equation, replacing the "dominion of matter" with "a great stillness"--a vision that is at once lovely and profoundly frightening. Without sliding into easy psychobiography, Bodanis explores other circumstances as well; namely, Einstein's background and character, which combined with a sterling intelligence to afford him an idiosyncratic view of the way things work--a view that would change the world. --Gregory McNamee

    Written by an experienced teacher and examiner, Cambridge IGCSE Biology Workbook helps students build the skills required in both their theory and practical examinations. The exercises in this write-in workbook help to consolidate understanding and get used to using knowledge in new situations, develop information handling and problem solving skills, and develop experimental skills including planning investigations and interpreting results. This accessible book encourages students to engage with the material. The answers to the exercises can be found on the Teacher's Resource CD-ROM.

    It is the root of our existence, supporting our feet, our farms, our cities. This fascinating yet disquieting book finds, however, that we are running out of dirt, and it's no laughing matter. An engaging natural and cultural history of soil that sweeps from ancient civilizations to modern times, Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations explores the compelling idea that we are—and have long been—using up Earth's soil. Once bare of protective vegetation and exposed to wind and rain, cultivated soils erode bit by bit, slowly enough to be ignored in a single lifetime but fast enough over centuries to limit the lifespan of civilizations. A rich mix of history, archaeology and geology, Dirt traces the role of soil use and abuse in the history of Mesopotamia, Ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, China, European colonialism, Central America, and the American push westward. We see how soil has shaped us and we have shaped soil—as society after society has risen, prospered, and plowed through a natural endowment of fertile dirt. David R. Montgomery sees in the recent rise of organic and no-till farming the hope for a new agricultural revolution that might help us avoid the fate of previous civilizations.

    

    Petr Beckmann holds up this mirror, giving the background of the times when pi made progress -- and also when it did not, because science was being stifled by militarism or religious fanaticism.

    Two ends of the same spectrum. And sometimes the only person standing between is a tired, overworked resident with personal problems of her own.Welcome to the world of Catching Babies. In the halls of a busy metropolitan teaching hospital, a group of OB/GYN doctors complete their residencies and embark on ambitious careers, all while trying to hold their lives together at the seams. Jay is running from a life he’s tried to leave behind, while Katie sacrifices everything she has to serve an endless parade of needy patients. Anna is out trying to save the world, while Tracy is trying to save twins dying in utero. Based on true stories from delivery rooms and labor decks, Catching Babies spins the doctors’ stories into a gripping mosaic of the obsessions, the anxieties, and the heroism of doctors who have chosen to preside over life’s greatest medical drama—high-risk childbirth.

     A distraught woman who regrets not going to see a GP sooner. More Googled self-diagnoses than one can count… After three years as one of London’s doctors - as full-time night-time GP doing the house calls that no-one else wants to do - Alex Rudd has switched to working in surgeries. Rudd travels to a different place surgery each day, helping those struggling to cope with patient numbers and seeing those that might not otherwise be seen. With limited time to spend on each patient, he must walk the difficult line between caring for patients while diagnosing and prescribing efficiently. Hilarious diagnoses mix with genuine tragedies as Rudd sees a variety of patients, with all sorts of medical conditions. In this follow-up to “London Call-Out: Confessions of a Doctor in the Capital”, Rudd presents us with another window into the world of the freelance GP today, and the challenges they face. With moments that stir admiration and sadness, this timely and insightful memoir is as thought-provoking as it is entertaining.

    Traditional mathematics teaching is largely about solving exactly stated problems exactly, yet life often hands us partly defined problems needing only moderately accurate solutions. This engaging book is an antidote to the rigor mortis brought on by too much mathematical rigor, teaching us how to guess answers without needing a proof or an exact calculation.In Street-Fighting Mathematics, Sanjoy Mahajan builds, sharpens, and demonstrates tools for educated guessing and down-and-dirty, opportunistic problem solving across diverse fields of knowledge--from mathematics to management. Mahajan describes six tools: dimensional analysis, easy cases, lumping, picture proofs, successive approximation, and reasoning by analogy. Illustrating each tool with numerous examples, he carefully separates the tool--the general principle--from the particular application so that the reader can most easily grasp the tool itself to use on problems of particular interest. Street-Fighting Mathematics grew out of a short course taught by the author at MIT for students ranging from first-year undergraduates to graduate students ready for careers in physics, mathematics, management, electrical engineering, computer science, and biology. They benefited from an approach that avoided rigor and taught them how to use mathematics to solve real problems.Street-Fighting Mathematics will appear in print and online under a Creative Commons Noncommercial Share Alike license.

    Relates the life of the remarkable man who made major contributions in such fields as physics, languages, and music, describing how he proposed the light-wave theory and the three-color theory of vision, and was instrumental in the deciphering of the Rosetta Stone.