Unfortunately, not all of the hopeful thinkers and academics around the globe can become Nobel laureates, but some are lucky enough to win the Ig Nobel Prize instead. Drawn from the world’s wackiest actual research, The Ig Nobel Prizes demonstrates the extreme measures that people will take in the quest for knowledge, and pays tribute to those individuals whose achievements cannot—or should not—be reproduced. Recent Ig Nobel honorees include: • The professor who proved that toast falls buttered side down more often than not • The Southern Baptist Church of Alabama which devised a formula to determine how many Alabamans will go to hell • The founder of the amusement park known as “Stalin World” Featuring these endeavors and many more, The Ig Nobel Prizes is an entertaining exhibition of brains and determination.

    Mt. Lockley, who observed rabbits in Wales over a 5 year period, shows that they have a complex community life little understood by the world in general. These vegetarian creatures posses both dignity and 'animality'; psychological factors play as large a part in shaping their lives as they do in ours. One finds, too, that their reputation for promiscuity and wanton reproduction is really undeserved. Lockley built an artificial warren with glass sides and several tracts of natural habitat-an open plain, a woodlot, a lushly vegetated savannah were enclosed and arranged for maximum ease of observation with minimum interference. This controlled rabbit colony was observed every day and night in every season and in all kinds of weather. In Lockley's account, rabbits emerge with characteristics and personalities of their own. The nicknames he gives them (Weary Willie, Timid Timothy, Bold Benjamin, for example) in no way lessen the objective and scientific accuracy of his findings. In fact, this touch of individuality reinforces the observation that rabbits are creatures with interests, wills, and preferences of their own. Female conservatism, scent setting or 'chinning' by dominant males, the ability of the female to absorb her fertilized embryo, the stress of subordinate status...and more, are revealed here.

    At this point, virtually anything seems possible. However, along with the positive developments are ominous collaborations designed to deprive us of an inherent birthright—the power of a free mind.Mind Programming is a riveting expose on the plethora of research that has been carried out simply to discover ways to control your every thought and desire. What you will learn will both shock and horrify you. Tweaking your psyche has become big business. Never again will you be able to ignore the truth—your very thoughts are not your own.Mind Programming provides the tools to take back control and reprogram your own mind. Eldon Taylor provides the insight, information, and easy-to-use methods that will empower you to realize the life of your dreams. You were not meant to be the product of another’s manipulation, whether in attitude and mood or in ambition and consumption.      This book has black and white illustrations.

    Together these twenty-one articles on a wide range of today's most leading topics in science, from Dennis Overbye, Jonathan Weiner, and Richard Preston, among others, represent the full spectrum of scientific inquiry, proving once again that "good science writing is evidently plentiful" (American Scientist).

    Great for the newest member and seasoned practitioners. --sgi-usa.org

    This discovery dramatically reshaped how humans understood their place in the cosmos, and once and for all laid to rest the idea that the Milky Way galaxy was alone in the universe. Six years later, continuing research by Hubble and others forced Albert Einstein to renounce his own cosmic model and finally accept the astonishing fact that the universe was not immobile but instead expanding. The fascinating story of these interwoven discoveries includes battles of will, clever insights, and wrong turns made by the early investigators in this great twentieth-century pursuit. It is a story of science in the making that shows how these discoveries were not the work of a lone genius but the combined efforts of many talented scientists and researchers toiling away behind the scenes. The intriguing characters include Henrietta Leavitt, who discovered the means to measure the vast dimensions of the cosmos . . . Vesto Slipher, the first and unheralded discoverer of the universe’s expansion . . . Georges Lemaître, the Jesuit priest who correctly interpreted Einstein’s theories in relation to the universe . . . Milton Humason, who, with only an eighth-grade education, became a world-renowned expert on galaxy motions . . . and Harlow Shapley, Hubble’s nemesis, whose flawed vision of the universe delayed the discovery of its true nature and startling size for more than a decade.Here is a watershed moment in the history of astronomy, brought about by the exceptional combination of human curiosity, intelligence, and enterprise, and vividly told by acclaimed science writer Marcia Bartusiak.

    To the public he is a figure of tragic dimensions - a brilliant scientist and author of the phenomenal best-seller A Brief History of Time, and yet confined to a wheelchair, unable to speak or write. Hawking has mastered the two great theories of 20th-century physics - Einstein's General Theory of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics - and has made breathtaking discoveris about where they break down or overlap, such as on the edge of a Black Hole or at the Big Bang origin of the Universe. Here is the perfect introduction to Hawking's work by the author, who was helped by several long discussions with Hawking in researching the book.