But Neil Armstrong and Sally Ride would have never made history, and humankind would not have touched the stars, if not for the men and women on the ground who lit the fuse that launched the first rockets.Enthralled as a boy by the exploits of Flash Gordon and the novels of Robert Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke—who put the science in science fiction—James French became one of the original unsung engineers of America’s groundbreaking space program. His fascinating memoir offers an up-close-and-technical look at building, testing, and perfecting the pioneering Saturn rockets and original lunar landing module, and he shares true tales, both humorous and harrowing, of life—and near death—on the front lines of scientific exploration.If you’ve ever said, “It’s not rocket science,” you’re right. It’s rocket engineering—and here’s your chance to marvel at how it changed the world and made it possible to explore all that lies beyond Earth. James R French graduated from MIT in 1958 with a degree of BSME Specializing in Propulsion. His first job was with Rocketdyne Division of North American Aviation where he worked on developmental testing of H-1 engines and combustion devices hardware for F-1 and J-2 engines used in Saturn 5. Mr. French has also worked at TRW Systems, where he was Lead Development Test Engineer on the Lunar Module Descent Engine, and Jet Propulsion Laboratory where he was Advanced Planetary studies Manager as well as Chief Engineer for the SP-100 Space Nuclear Power System and worked on Mariners 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9; Viking 1 & 2 and Voyager 1 & 2. . In 1986, he helped found American Rocket Co., a commercial launch company.Since 1987, Mr. French has been consultant to a variety of aerospace companies, SDIO, NASA, and USAF. He has participated in various startup companies in the private space flight arena and currently consults extensively to Blue Origin. Mr. French is co-author with Dr. Michael Griffin of the best-selling text Space Vehicle Design, published by AIAA. The second edition of the book has received the Summerfield Book Award for 2008. Mr. French is a Fellow of both AIAA and the British Interplanetary Society and a 50+ year member of AIAA. He has held several Technical Committee and other posts in AIAA. Cover design by Evan Twohy

    They fought one-against-one in an octagonal cage where they could punch, kick, knee, elbow, head butt and choke. "There are no rules!" proclaimed the organizers. The Ultimate Fighting Championship was born-and the mystique of traditional martial arts had died.For thousands of years, the fighting arts had been shrouded in mystery and deceit. Secrets were jealously guarded, while blood-curdling claims were made of lethal techniques and even supernatural powers. Each style or system asserted that it was the best, its masters unbeatable.By matching experts in different arts against each other, the Ultimate Fighting Championship exploded many of these myths. Black belts and flashy moves proved no match for the skill and technique of a new breed of athletic warrior.In just over a decade, no-holds-barred fighting-otherwise known as mixed martial arts-has gone from a novelty spectacle to a worldwide sport. It has produced its own superstars like the Gracie family, Ken and Frank Shamrock, Maurice Smith and Randy Couture. It has also attracted massive condemnation from the media and run the gauntlet of police raids and banning orders. Its critics labeled it "human cockfighting." It was pursued from state to state, excoriated by campaigners and banned by politicians. Through it all, the sport has continued to thrive, spreading across the globe.Author and journalist Clyde Gentry has interviewed more than 100 key figures to produce the definitive account of the world's most controversial and misunderstood sport and of the fighting men who dare to enter the octagon.

     THE PLAYERS The Drug: Procrit An anti-anemia drug, this miraculous blood booster was one of the first biotech blockbusters. Developed by Amgen and licensed to a Johnson & Johnson company, the drug was sold by the two companies under the brand names Procrit, Epogen, and Arenesp.The Underdog: Mark Duxbury, Drug Salesman Duxbury was the gung-ho salesman for the new biotech division of J&J, an irrepressible character full of jokes. In the early 1990s, he set out to spread the benefits of Procrit, and became a true believer and top seller. But he and his peers were told to steal business from J&J's partner, Amgen. Then came the marketing studies, the off-invoice rebates, doctor payments, and off-label claims. Duxbury tried to stop some of these ruthless programs, but was fired on trumped-up charges. He tried anything to warn the public: testifying in a secret arbitration, joining a class action effort, and filing a whistleblower suit. But he was thwarted at nearly every turn-until the surprising end.The Best Friend: Dean McClellan, Drug Legend Dean McClellan was Duxbury's friendly rival. He tried to beat his buddy's record and wound up selling $170 million worth of the drug, becoming a legend. When Duxbury got fired, McClellan tried to distance himself. But as news of Procrit's deadly power started to surface, McClellan agreed to hand over thousands of damning documents and help his friend blow the whistle on J&J.The Crusader: Jan Schlichtmann, Esq. Remember Jan Schlichtmann, protagonist of the best-selling book and Oscar nominated movie, A Civil Action? When he learned of Duxbury's mission, he felt the old fire rising in his belly and signed on. Now, he's gambling on yet another long shot, trying to fight on behalf of not just millions of cancer patients, but for every American who overpays for health-care.

    In the early 1800s, women were dying in large numbers from treatable diseases because they avoided receiving medical care. Examinations performed by male doctors were often demeaning and even painful. In addition, women faced stigma from illness—a diagnosis could greatly limit their ability to find husbands, jobs or be received in polite society.Motivated by personal loss and frustration over inadequate medical care, Elizabeth Blackwell, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and Sophia Jex-Blake fought for a woman’s place in the male-dominated medical field. For the first time ever, Women in White Coats tells the complete history of these three pioneering women who, despite countless obstacles, earned medical degrees and paved the way for other women to do the same. Though very different in personality and circumstance, together these women built women-run hospitals and teaching colleges—creating for the first time medical care for women by women.With gripping storytelling based on extensive research and access to archival documents, Women in White Coats tells the courageous history these women made by becoming doctors, detailing the boundaries they broke of gender and science to reshape how we receive medical care today.

    Recent research has revealed dark surprises and yielded a radically new scenario of how AIDS began and spread. Excerpted and adapted from the book Spillover, with a new introduction by the author, Quammen's hair-raising investigation tracks the virus from chimp populations in the jungles of southeastern Cameroon to laboratories across the globe, as he unravels the mysteries of when, where, and under what circumstances such a consequential "spillover" can happen. An audacious search for answers amid more than a century of data, The Chimp and the River tells the haunting tale of one of the most devastating pandemics of our time.

    For Mary, raised in a strict convent in rural south Ireland, working in her first London hospital was a shocking and life-changing experience. Against a backdrop of ongoing rationing and poverty, she saw for the first time the horrors of disease, the heart-breaking outcomes of failed abortions – and faced the genuine shock of seeing a man naked for the first time!60 Years a Nurse follows the dramas and emotions as Mary found her feet during those early years. From the firm friends she made under the ever-watchful gaze of Matron and the sisters, to the eclectic mix of Londoners she strove to care for; the Teddy Boys she danced with and the freedom of living away from home; and her own burgeoning love story, as extraordinary as it was romantic – these are the funny and heartwarming moments that helped Mary to follow her dream.

    Linda Stratmann’s dark and splendid social history reveals the nineteenth century as a gruesome battleground where poisoners went head-to-head with authorities who strove to detect poisons, control their availability, and bring the guilty to justice. She corrects many misconceptions about particular poisons and documents how the evolution of issues such as marital rights and the legal protection of children impacted poisonings. Combining archival research with a novelist’s eye, Stratmann charts the era’s inexorable rise of poison cases both shocking and sad.

     Short and stocky, sporting thick glasses prone to fogging, Eddie was nobody’s athletic ideal. Through struggle, sacrifice, even near-starvation—this British plasterer made his dream a reality: competing in the 1988 Olympic Games in Calgary. Here, in his own words, is Eddie’s story—from the schoolboy stunts that developed his physical courage, to the menial labor that paid for training, to the qualifying jumps that had millions around the world glued to their television sets to watch him. Eddie the Eagle is the tale of an ordinary man’s extraordinary journey above and beyond expectations . . . a journey that rocketed this ultimate underdog to an Olympic legend.

    These are not inventions of fantasy or science fiction, but are places that really exist-in our own solar system.Now with 190,000 copies in print, here is a spectacular Grand Tour of the solar system featuring a unique blend of science and art-photographs along with dazzling full-color paintings, drawings, and maps based on years of astronomer William Hartmann's research, personal observation, and interviews with colleagues. In text and diagrams, too, The Grand Tour explains how the strange and uncanny worlds on the journeys came to be, and what it would be like to actually set foot upon them today. The book includes an atlas of the planets and their satellites, and of the Earth's moon. Complete with a selection of previously unpublished photographs taken by the Apollo astronauts, and by the Mariner, Viking, and Pioneer planetary probes, The Grand Tour is unique and breathtaking, majestic and eerie, and wonderful, taking the reader to more, and to the beyond. Selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club, Quality Paperback Book Club, and Newbridge Book Club.

    Linnea Smith went to Peru on an ecotourism vacation. She was so moved that she abandoned her thriving medical practice in Wisconsin to serve the Yagua Indians in the deepest part of the Amazon rainforest of Peru-alone.Taken straight from the pages of Dr. Smith’s journal, La Doctora offers readers a rare glimpse into the suspense and drama of practicing medicine in a culture far removed from the sophisticated supplies and supports of 20th-century medicine.Learn how Dr. Smith evolved from a “strange white woman” to an adopted member of the indigenous community. Her story of adventure, self-discovery and service creates inspiring testimony to one person’s power to make a lasting difference.

    Among the most compelling and perplexing of these symptoms are the strange visual hallucinations and distortions of space, time, and body image which migraineurs sometimes experience. Portrayals of these uncanny states have found their way into many works of art, from the heavenly visions of Hildegard von Bingen to Alice in Wonderland. Dr. Oliver Sacks argues that migraine cannot be understood simply as an illness, but must be viewed as a complex condition with a unique role to play in each individual's life.

    We have all benefited from the medical discoveries of primate research--vaccines for polio, rubella, and hepatitis B are just a few. But we have also learned more in recent years about how intelligent apes and monkeys really are: they can speak to us with sign language, they can even play video games (and are as obsessed with the games as any human teenager). And activists have also uncovered widespread and unnecessarily callous treatment of animals by researchers (in 1982, a Silver Spring lab was charged with 17 counts of animal cruelty). It is a complex issue, made more difficult by the combative stance of both researchers and animal activists. In The Monkey Wars, Deborah Blum gives a human face to this often caustic debate--and an all-but-human face to the subjects of the struggle, the chimpanzees and monkeys themselves. Blum criss-crosses America to show us first hand the issues and personalities involved. She offers a wide-ranging, informative look at animal rights activists, now numbering some twelve million, from the moderate Animal Welfare Institute to the highly radical Animal Liberation Front (a group destructive enough to be placed on the FBI's terrorist list). And she interviews a wide variety of researchers, many forced to conduct their work protected by barbed wire and alarm systems, men and women for whom death threats and hate mail are common. She takes us to Roger Fouts's research center in Ellensburg, Washington, where we meet five chimpanzees trained in human sign language, and we visit LEMSIP, a research facility in New York State that has no barbed wire, no alarms--and no protesters chanting outside--because its director, Jan Moor-Jankowski, listens to activists with respect and treats his animals humanely. And along the way, Blum offers us insights into the many side-issues involved: the intense battle to win over school kids fought by both sides, and the danger of transplanting animal organs into humans. As it stands now, Blum concludes, the research community and its activist critics are like two different nations, nations locked in a long, bitter, seemingly intractable political standoff....But if you listen hard, there really are people on both sides willing to accept and work within the complex middle. When they can be freely heard, then we will have progressed to another place, beyond this time of hostilities. In The Monkey Wars, Deborah Blum gives these people their voice.

    Jonathan Reiner, share the story of Cheney’s thirty-five-year battle with heart disease—providing insight into the incredible medical breakthroughs that have changed cardiac care over the last four decades. For as long as he has served at the highest levels of business and government, Vice President Dick Cheney has also been one of the world’s most prominent heart patients. Now, for the first time ever, Cheney, together with his longtime cardiologist, Jonathan Reiner, MD, shares the very personal story of his courageous thirty-five-year battle with heart disease, from his first heart attack in 1978 to the heart transplant he received in 2012.In 1978, when Cheney suffered his first heart attack, he received essentially the same treatment President Eisenhower had had in 1955. Since then, cardiac medicine has been revolutionized, and Cheney has benefitted from nearly every medical breakthrough. At each juncture, when Cheney faced a new health challenge, the technology was one step ahead of his disease. Cheney’s story is in many ways the story of the evolution of modern cardiac care.Heart is the riveting, singular memoir of both doctor and patient. Like no US politician has before him, Cheney opens up about his health struggles, sharing harrowing, never-before-told stories about the challenges he faced during a perilous time in our nation’s history. Dr. Reiner provides his perspective on Cheney’s case and also gives readers a fascinating glimpse into his own education as a doctor and the history of our understanding of the human heart. He masterfully chronicles the important discoveries, radical innovations, and cutting-edge science that have changed the face of medicine and saved countless lives.Powerfully braiding science with story and the personal with the political, Heart is a sweeping, inspiring, and ultimately optimistic book that will give hope to the millions of Americans affected by heart disease.

    Nashef tells heart-stopping stories of transplants, bypasses, coronary artery repair, and cardiac arrest. He also delivers humane advice about medical realities rarely observed: the futility of obsessing over diet, the necessity of calculating risks, the role of decision making, the resilience of doctor and patient alike, and the threadbare brilliance of the NHS.Nashef is a magnificently warm and likeable doctor and writer; and he has the best imaginable bedside manner.

    It’s what I won a Pulitzer Prize for, years ago. I go to epidemics, wars, places where people are struggling to cope with disasters, and I carefully log the accounts and events, trying to represent the lives and experiences of others. The position of “outsider” is emotionally safe, even as agonizing events unfold. But I could not distance myself from the extraordinary sequence of events that fell on America, and especially my home town of New York City, in 2001. A decade later I am still trying to understand how the attacks on the World Trade Center and the anthrax mailings affected me, and those I love. I heard the first jet slam into the north tower of the World Trade Center, and from the rooftop of my apartment building watched the second commercial jet veer towards lower Manhattan, change its trajectory, and slice across the upper floors of the south tower. I was standing on the Manhattan anchorage of the Brooklyn Bridge when the first tower crumbled like a deflated accordion, spewing dust and debris in every direction and crushing the life out of thousands of people within. And a month later, as people started falling ill from inhalation of anthrax spores, one of the nation’s top bioterrorism experts called me to warn that I was a likely target: Stop opening your mail. The flow of these events, from the hijacking of four commercial jets on September 11th to the November death of an anthrax-infected Connecticut villager, took most of the world population from a remarkably united emotional and political place, to a deeply divided, frustrated, angry position. The arc of the response matters: It ultimately determined the course of historic events worldwide and tore America asunder, the people having lost trust in their government and without it, most forms of social cohesion. By the end of the winter of 2002 the arc had completed, from spectacular unity and confidence in governance to deep division and accusations of American arrogance. Through the frustrated anthrax investigations and drumbeats of war, the global community, especially Americans, moved in just a few months’ time from collectivism to fragmentation.This book is structured in two parts. The first, THE END OF THE AGE OF INNOCENCE, is written in the present tense, describing almost hourly the events that unfolded primarily in Washington DC and New York City over 120 days in the fall and winter of 2001 and 2002. Each day is a chapter that opens with the actual diary entry that I sent on that date to a list of friends all over the world. The entry is followed by a detailed breakdown of the day’s events, unfolding like a novel.Part two, NEW WORLD ORDER, details the repercussions of these events, transformations of critical government institutions, public health disasters, and what, in particular, the specter of terrorism meant for the American people. Revelations abound in this book, including:• The bizarre chemistry of The Plume that rose from the burning crushed World Trade Center for four months, endangering the health of hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers.• Evidence that al-Qaeda may have been behind the anthrax mailings.• Devastating spending and restructuring followed the attacks, leaving the nation less prepared for terrorism ten years later, and broke.• Each incident following the opening of anthrax-laden letters reveals countless errors and misjudgments.• There was no “weapons-grade anthrax” in those letters – a finding with profound health and political implications.