Here Is a Human Being: At the Dawn of Personal Genomics


Misha Angrist - 2010
    Unlocking the secrets of our genomes opens the door to understanding why we are the way we are and potentially fixing what ails us, from cancer and diabetes to obesity and male pattern baldness. But what exactly will happen to this information? Will it be a boon or just another marketing tool?Here Is a Human Being is the first in-depth look at personal genomics—its larger-than-life research subjects; its entrepreneurs and do-it-yourselfers; its technology developers; and the bewildered physicians and regulators who must negotiate with it—and what it means to be a “public genome” in a world where privacy is already under siege.

Time-Saver Standards for Housing and Residential Development


Joseph De Chiara - 1994
    In superb graphic detail, with hundreds of plans, illustrations, and diagrams, this comprehensive resource presents and entire library's worth of essential design data for residential development.

Tell Me Exactly What Happened: Dispatches from 911


Caroline Burau - 2016
    Inside the world of emergency dispatch, tragedy, boredom, and mind-bending weirdness are constant companions.

The Rise of Humans: Great Scientific Debates


John Hawks - 2011
    One of the first paleoanthropologists to study fossil evidence and genetic information together in order to test hypotheses about human prehistory, Professor Hawks is adept at looking at human origins not just with one lens, but with two.He has traveled around the world to examine delicate skeletal remains and pore over the complex results of genetic testing. His research and scholarship on human evolutionary history has been featured in a variety of publications, including Science, American Journal of Physical Anthropology, Slate, and Journal of Human Evolution.But more than that, Professor Hawks has crafted a course that demonstrates the passion and excitement involved in the field of paleoanthropology. With his engaging lecturing style and his use of fossil finds taken from his personal collection, Professor Hawks will capture your attention and show you all the drama and excitement to be found in eavesdropping on the latest debates about human evolutionary history.

Lives in Ruins: Archeologists and the Seductive Lure of Human Rubble


Marilyn Johnson - 2014
    The news is full of archaeology: treasures found (British king under parking lot) and treasures lost (looters, bulldozers, natural disaster, and war). Archaeological research tantalizes us with possibilities (are modern humans really part Neandertal?). Where are the archaeologists behind these stories? What kind of work do they actually do, and why does it matter?Marilyn Johnson’s Lives in Ruins is an absorbing and entertaining look at the lives of contemporary archaeologists as they sweat under the sun for clues to the puzzle of our past. Johnson digs and drinks alongside archaeologists, chases them through the Mediterranean, the Caribbean, and even Machu Picchu, and excavates their lives. Her subjects share stories we rarely read in history books, about slaves and Ice Age hunters, ordinary soldiers of the American Revolution, children of the first century, Chinese woman warriors, sunken fleets, mummies.What drives these archaeologists is not the money (meager) or the jobs (scarce) or the working conditions (dangerous), but their passion for the stories that would otherwise be buried and lost.

Body of Knowledge


Bryce Anderson - 2008
    I know this because my neighbor told me; and to my knowledge he never lied to me. It's fascinating how a person's attitude and feelings about someone, about life in general, can change so much in such a short time. Two months ago I hardly knew the meaning of the word 'time'. Another thing I learned from him: how to view everything from varying objective perspectives; especially with respect to time. If I had it to do over again, I'd have been more inquisitive. My wife Gwen accuses me of asking too many questions, but with him, I couldn't have asked enough. He knew everything. Is it possible to ask someone who knows everything too many questions? But I did ask a lot of questions, and there were always answers. And I liked the answers. They fit. They were logical. They placed everything in perspective and made me see the picture as a whole. I thought you might find it interesting why I thought the only logical thing I could do was kill him.

Young Einstein: From the Doxerl Affair to the Miracle Year


L. Randles Lagerstrom - 2013
    In 1905 an unknown 26-year-old clerk at the Swiss Patent Office, who had supposedly failed math in school, burst on to the scientific scene and swept away the hidebound theories of the day. The clerk, Albert Einstein, introduced a new and unexpected understanding of the universe and launched the two great revolutions of twentieth-century physics, relativity and quantum mechanics. The obscure origin and wide-ranging brilliance of the work recalled Isaac Newton’s “annus mirabilis” (miracle year) of 1666, when as a 23-year-old seeking safety at his family manor from an outbreak of the plague, he invented calculus and laid the foundations for his theory of gravity. Like Newton, Einstein quickly became a scientific icon--the image of genius and, according to Time magazine, the Person of the Century.The actual story is much more interesting. Einstein himself once remarked that “science as something coming into being ... is just as subjectively, psychologically conditioned as are all other human endeavors.” In this profile, the historian of science L. Randles Lagerstrom takes you behind the myth and into the very human life of the young Einstein. From family rifts and girlfriend troubles to financial hardships and jobless anxieties, Einstein’s early years were typical of many young persons. And yet in the midst of it all, he also saw his way through to profound scientific insights. Drawing upon correspondence from Einstein, his family, and his friends, Lagerstrom brings to life the young Einstein and enables the reader to come away with a fuller and more appreciative understanding of Einstein the person and the origins of his revolutionary ideas.About the cover image: While walking to work six days a week as a patent clerk in Bern, Switzerland, Einstein would pass by the famous "Zytglogge" tower and its astronomical clocks. The daily juxtaposition was fitting, as the relative nature of time and clock synchronization would be one of his revolutionary discoveries in the miracle year of 1905.

Doctor in the House (Doctor, Doctor! Book 2)


Alex Rudd - 2015
     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.

Living with Tigers


Valmik Thapar - 2016
    He was a city boy, unsure of what lay ahead. When he entered the forest, which would go on to become one of the last strongholds of wild tigers, it had a profound effect on him, changing his life forever.For the next forty years, he studied nearly 200 Ranthambhore tigers, spending every waking moment in close proximity to these magnificent animals. Of the various tigers he observed a handful became extra special, and it is these which come to glorious life in this book. They include Padmini, the Queen Mother, the first tiger the author got to know well; Genghis, the master predator, who invented a way of killing prey in water, the first time this had been observed anywhere in the world; Noon, one of his all-time favourites, who received her name because she was most active in the middle of the day; Broken Tooth, an exceptionally gentle male; Laxmi, a devoted mother, whose methods of raising her cubs revolutionized tiger studies; Machli, the most famous tigress in Ranthambhore, and several more.

The Faceless Villain: A Collection of the Eeriest Unsolved Murders of the 20th Century: Volume One


Jenny Ashford - 2017
    This volume is comprised of the years 1900 through 1959, and includes all of the best known cases of the period, as well as many more lesser-known murders, all presented in a compelling chronological narrative that takes the reader on a grisly journey through the blood-soaked avenues of early twentieth century crime. Featuring: The Peasenhall Murder. The Seal Chart Murder. The Atlanta Ripper. The Villisca Axe Murders. The Axeman of New Orleans. The Green Bicycle Case. Little Lord Fauntleroy. Hinterkaifeck Farm. The St. Aubin Street Massacre. The Wallace Case. The Atlas Vampire. The Brighton Trunk Crime. The Cleveland Torso Murderer. The Horror in Room 1046. Who Put Bella in the Wych Elm? The Pitchfork Murder. The Sodder Children. The Phantom Killer. The Black Dahlia. Somerton Man. The Grimes Sisters. The Boy in the Box. And Much More!

Why You Should Store Your Farts in a Jar Afflictions, Remedies, and "cures": And Other Oddball or Gross Maladies, Afflictions, Remedies, and "cures"


David Haviland - 2010
    The national bestseller Why You Shouldn't Eat Your Boogers & Other Useless or Gross Information About Your Body uncovered everything one might want to know (and a few things one might not) about the human body. The follow-up bestseller Why Fish Fart & Other Useless or Gross Information About the World contained an artful selection of odd and/or unsavory facts about the world. Why Dogs Eat Poop scoured the animal kingdom for gross and or off-color facts about animals. In this delightfully disgusting new book in the series, David Haviland plumbs the world of medicine to uncover the answers to such vitally important questions as:*What exactly is urine therapy?*Is it safe to fly with breast implants?*How did a nine-and-a-half-inch spatula find its way into a surgery patient's body?*Why do some boxers drink their own pee?*What is cyclic vomiting syndrome and how can one avoid it?Any fan of the absurd and/or obscure is sure to delight in this strange (and slightly stomach-turning) book.

The Origin of Language: Tracing the Evolution of the Mother Tongue


Merritt Ruhlen - 1994
    The author of this book argues that there is proof to argue that all languages now spoken on earth are descendents of a single ancestral language.

Math Riddles For Smart Kids: Math Riddles and Brain Teasers that Kids and Families will Love


M. Prefontaine - 2017
    It is a collection of 150 brain teasing math riddles and puzzles. Their purpose is to make children think and stretch the mind. They are designed to test logic, lateral thinking as well as memory and to engage the brain in seeing patterns and connections between different things and circumstances. They are laid out in three chapters which get more difficult as you go through the book, in the author’s opinion at least. The answers are at the back of the book if all else fails. These are more difficult riddles and are designed to be attempted by children from 10 years onwards, as well as participation from the rest of the family. Tags: Riddles and brain teasers, riddles and trick questions, riddles book, riddles book for kids, riddles for kids, riddles for kids aged 9-12, riddles and puzzles, jokes and riddles, jokes book, jokes book for kids, jokes children, jokes for kids, jokes kids, puzzle book

Conversations with Ogotemmêli: An Introduction to Dogon Religious Ideas


Marcel Griaule - 1948
    Originally published in 1948 as Dieu d'Eau, this near-classic offers a unique and first-hand account of the myth, religion, and philosophy of the Dogon.

The Case of the Missing Moon Rocks


Joe Kloc - 2012
    Decades ago, astronauts brought back 850 pounds of rocks from their lunar journeys; the U.S. gave some away as “goodwill” gifts to the world’s nations. Over time, many of them disappeared, stolen or lost in the aftermath of political turmoil, and offered for millions on the black market. Gutheinz, first as a NASA investigator and then the leader of a intrepid group of students, has dedicated his life to getting them back. Author Joe Kloc tells a wild story of geopolitics, crime, science, and one man’s obsession with keeping the moon out of the wrong hands.