The gear you select and how you use it can mean big results—or bigger disappointment.FASTER takes a scientific look at triathlon to see what truly makes you faster—and busts the myths and doublespeak that waste your money and race times. In this fascinating exploration of the forces at play in the swim-bike-run sport, astronautical engineer and triathlete Jim Gourley shows where to find free speed, speed on a budget, and the gear upgrades that are worth it.FASTER offers specific, science-based guidance on the fastest techniques and the most effective gear, answering questions like: •    Which wetsuit is best for me? •    What’s the best way to draft a swimmer? •    Should I buy a lighter bike? •    Deep dish or disc wheels? •    Are lighter shoes faster? •    Who’s right about running technique? Gourley reviews published studies in peer-reviewed journals to show what scientists have learned about swim drafting, pacing the bike leg, race strategy for short and long-course racing, and the fastest ways to handle transitions.FASTER will change how you think about your body, your gear, and the world around you. With science on your side, you'll make the smart calls that will make you a better, faster triathlete.

    In this astounding guide, renowned animal communicator Carol Gurney draws upon fifteen years of successful communication with animals to offer animal lovers what they’ve always longed for: a simple, effective method for “listening to” and communicating with their animals. Based on her successful 7-step HeartTalk ProgramSM, which has already helped thousands of people understand their basic telepathic connection with animals, Gurney outlines the principles of “heart-to-heart” communication, showing you how to open your heart to a more meaningful connection with the animals you love. Learn how to:* Understand your animal’s needs, feelings, and innermost thoughts so you can discover who he or she really is* Develop long-distance communication skills to locate lost or stolen animals* Understand animals’ physical feelings so you can help comfort them when they are sick or injured* Emotionally prepare yourself for the death of your beloved animal* Discover how animals can be your best teachers in helping you to love yourself* Actually communicate telepathically with the loving beings that share your world!Animals are not only our loyal companions; they are our guides, our healers, our link to the simple wisdom of the natural world. Filled with amazing real-life stories of human/animal communication, The Language of Animals is a must for every animal enthusiast–and a loving gift to the engaging, expressive animals who have so much to share.

     Combining art, mythology, and science, What We See in the Stars gives readers a tour of the night sky through more than 100 magical pieces of original art, all accompanied by text that weaves related legends and lore with scientific facts. This beautifully packaged book covers the night sky's most brilliant features--such as the constellations, the moon, the bright stars, and the visible planets--as well as less familiar celestial phenomena like the outer planets, nebulae, and deep space. Adults seeking to recapture the magic of youthful stargazing, younger readers interested in learning about natural history and outer space, and those who appreciate beautiful, hand-painted art will all delight in this charming book.

    Hamilton was reshaping the image of the vampire with her own take on the vampire mythos in her Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter fantasy novel series. While Hamilton's work draws on traditional vampire and fairy lore, her interpretation of these subjects brought new dimensions to the genres, influencing the direction of urban fantasy over the past two decades.Reading Laurell K. Hamilton focuses upon Hamilton's two bestselling series, the Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series and the Merry Gentry series. The volume is intended as a resource for leaders of book clubs or discussion groups, containing chapters that examine Hamilton's role in the current vampire literature craze, the themes and characters in her work, and responses to Hamilton on the Internet. The book also provides a brief overview of Hamilton's life.

    An all-encompassing manual that addresses safety, equipment, tactics, and the best practices for all shooters, here is an all-encompassing book of use to every gun owner.A result of twelve years of research, The Modern Day Gunslinger was written to meet the needs of the gun owner, the experienced shooter, those who own a weapon strictly for home and self-defense, and for the military member who wants to become a better shooter in defense of our country.It’s also for the law enforcement officer who risks his or her life going against the thugs of our society and for anyone interested in learning the defensive and tactical training techniques from some of the best and most experienced shooters in the world.This comprehensive training manual includes chapters on:Weapons and Range SafetyDry FireUse of ForceLiving in a BattlefieldCombat MindsetShooting CompetenceHandgunsDefensive Handgun AmmunitionMarksmanshipStanceBasic Kneeling PositionsReady PositionsThe Draw StrokesGrip and Trigger ControlVisual Techniques and Sight AlignmentMultiple ShotsFollow-Through and ScanLoading, Reloading, and UnloadingMalfunctionsLow- and No-Light ShootingConcealed Carry and HolstersLearning StylesTraining FundamentalsShooting DrillsThe shooting skills taught in this book carry broad application in civilian, law enforcement, and military contexts. Common criminals, terrorists, assailants—the enemy and threat—all will find themselves outgunned in the face of a properly armed and trained gunslinger. Members of the armed services, government and law enforcement agencies, as well as civilians, will find that the close-range shooting methods addressed in this book can provide a decisive advantage.

    Now a group of brave scientists are working to understand the actual conditions that cause eruptions, how to predict them, and what we can do, if anything, to temper their destructiveness. Thompson, a Time magazine correspondent, takes us from the May 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens in Washington state through new concentrated efforts to construct a wider-reaching and more rigid discipline.Thompson spent many hours with the relative handful of scientists whom he calls "volcano cowboys." They have loaned him their field notes and shared personal stories. That vivid material combined with Thompson's ability to bring a good story to life has resulted in a book that celebrates these "cowboys," their hazardous lives, and the often harrowing decisions they must make.

    Children are interested in things like where do certain animal come from and where does the rain come from. Children are also interested in the sky and how far away it is from the ground. Nature will also teach children how animals and insects get their food. This will force children to paint a picture of this in their mind. This picture will become real to children of all ages.

    In this book, he expands the points he has made, and claims that this debate is not so much about religion versus science, as about the nature of science itself. With infectious enthusiasm, he reveals the mechanics of evolutionary theory, explains how it is rooted in the testable and verifiable scientific method, and why it is therefore a sound explanation of our beginning. He argues passionately that to continue to assert otherwise, to continue to insist that creationism has a place in the science classroom is harmful not only to our children, but to the future of the greater world as well.

    Fashion was as turbulent as the times. Throughout it all, Vogue magazine was there, as the leading visual filter.20th Century Fashion, published in association with Vogue magazine, is the definitive style bible for anyone interested in the past, present and future of fashion. It takes a fresh look at fashion history over the twentieth century and charts the evolution from corsets to Coco Chanel to punk.The book chronicles and explores one hundred years of developments and movements, including:20s flappers Christian Dior's New Look Swinging Sixties New Romanticism 90s Eclecticism Illustrated with eye-catching archive images, 20th Century Fashion also features the work of the photographers who helped immortalize seminal fashion images. An A-Z section profiles two hundred and fifty of the greatest fashion designers who inspired, created and altered the course of fashion -- from Azzedine Alaia to Zoran by way of Balenciaga and Yohji Yamamoto.20th Century Fashion is an informative and inspirational look at how fashion reflects and projects social mores and individual values.

    Tony goes beyond teaching you how to use Lightroom. Tony shows you why and when to use each feature to create stunning, natural photos. When Lightroom isn t the best tool, Tony suggests better alternatives. Combining the benefits of video training and book learning, this video book gives you over 14 hours of video and dozens of free presets and raw images to practice with. If you learn better with video, watch the video training and refer to the book for quick reference. If you prefer reading, the book is concise and practical, and each chapter links to relevant videos when you want to understand a topic more deeply or see it used in the real world. Tony covers every aspect of Lightroom in-depth, but structures his teaching so that both beginner and advanced photographers can learn as efficiently as possible. If you just want a quick start, you can watch the first video or read the first chapter and you'll be organizing and editing your pictures in less than an hour. If you want to know more about a specific feature, switch to that video or jump to that chapter in the ebook. If you want to know everything about Lightroom, watch the videos and read the book from start to finish.

    When one of his release sites was raided by a golden eagle, he managed to save a peregrine chick, and decided to make an improbable two-thousand-mile trip with the surviving young falcon, Dolly. From the Canadian border to the Gulf of Mexico, following the autumnal migration of waterfowl, O'Brien taught her to hunt as a wild falcon would, in the hopes of releasing her into the natural world. The Rites of Autumn is the riveting account of their incredible journey. (51/2 X 81/4, 208 pages, map)

    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.

    But how was all this discovered? How was the evidence for it collected and interpreted? And what kinds of people have sought to reconstruct this past that no human witnessed or recorded? In this sweeping and accessible book, Martin J. S. Rudwick, the premier historian of the Earth sciences, tells the gripping human story of the gradual realization that the Earth’s history has not only been unimaginably long but also astonishingly eventful. Rudwick begins in the seventeenth century with Archbishop James Ussher, who famously dated the creation of the cosmos to 4004 BC. His narrative later turns to the crucial period of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, when inquisitive intellectuals, who came to call themselves “geologists,” began to interpret rocks and fossils, mountains and volcanoes, as natural archives of Earth’s history. He then shows how this geological evidence was used—and is still being used—to reconstruct a history of the Earth that is as varied and unpredictable as human history itself. Along the way, Rudwick rejects the popular view of this story as a conflict between science and religion and shows how the modern scientific account of the Earth’s deep history retains strong roots in Judaeo-Christian ideas.  Extensively illustrated, Earth’s Deep History is an engaging and impressive capstone to Rudwick’s distinguished career.  Though the story of the Earth is inconceivable in length, Rudwick moves with grace from the earliest imaginings of our planet’s deep past to today’s scientific discoveries, proving that this is a tale at once timeless and timely.

    Vesuvius, whose eruption in Roman times helped spark the science of geology, and ending in a lab in the West of England where mathematical models and lab experiments replace direct observation, Richard Fortey tells us what the present says about ancient geologic processes. He shows how plate tectonics came to rule the geophysical landscape and how the evidence is written in the hills and in the stones. And in the process, he takes us on a wonderful journey around the globe to visit some of the most fascinating and intriguing spots on the planet.