Three great scientific revolutions have shaped our understanding of the cosmos and our relationship to it. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries witnessed the Copernican Revolution, which bodychecked the Earth as the pivot point of creation and joined us with the rest of the cosmos as one planet among many orbiting the Sun. Three centuries later came the second great scientific revolution: the Darwinian Revolution. It removed us from a distinct, divine biological status to place us wholly in the ebb and flow of all terrestrial life.
This book describes how we're in the midst of a third great scientific revolution, five centuries in the making: the Stardust Revolution. It is the merging of the once-disparate realms of astronomy and evolutionary biology, and of the Copernican and Darwinian Revolutions, placing life in a cosmic context.
"The Stardust Revolution" takes readers on a grand journey that begins on the summit of California's Mount Wilson, where astronomers first realized that the universe is both expanding and evolving, to a radio telescope used to identify how organic molecules--the building blocks of life--are made by stars. It's an epic story told through a scientific cast that includes some of the twentieth century's greatest minds--including Nobel laureate Charles Townes, who discovered cosmic water--as well as the most ambitious scientific explorers of the twenty-first century, those racing to find another living planet.
Today, an entirely new breed of scientists--astrobiologists and astrochemists--are taking the study of life into the space age. Astrobiologists study the origins, evolution, and distribution of life, not just on Earth, but in the universe. Stardust science is filling in the missing links in our evolutionary story, ones that extend our family tree back to the stars.

Hungry Hollow is simply an ordinary creek winding through about a mile of ordinary forest and meadow somewhere east of the Rocky Mountains. But like all such places, it is also a vast and intricate web of life with extensions that reach around the planet, back into prehistoric time, and within to a teeming, bizarre microscopic world. In dozens of short, wonderfully imaginative chapters, A.K. Dewdney introduces us to the denizens of this world. We encounter a hackberry tree whose branches perfectly reproduce the taxonomic Tree of Life, learn how it would look and feel to shrink by stages to the size of an amoeba while swimming in a river, watch a toad win the lottery, and see the world of Hungry Hollow from the viewpoint of bears, earthworms, and even stones. This is an excursion into natural history like no other.

Death by Euphoria. Dysgenics. Population Death Spiral. Genetic Superhumans. Geomagnetic Reversal. Galactic Collision. Strangelets. Whether we like it or not, everything's going to come to a pretty unpleasant halt on our planet at some point in the future. What we don't know is what form our extinction is likely to take. In this accessible and entertaining book, acclaimed writer Alok Jha explains the head-spinning apocalyptic science behind 50 horrifying doomsday scenarios.

One of the greatest scientific and technological achievements of the 21st century will be to cast a light on the eternal darkness of the deep ocean and this book identifies the key determinants of life or death in its extreme environment. Dr. Erik Seedhouse examines how individuals survive free dives to 200m, how humans adapt to breathing exotic gas mixes at depths exceeding 700m, and how technological innovation will enable humans to enter unendurable realms. The book describes the problems unique to the hostile environment of the deep ocean, such as decompression sickness, discusses how the human body responds to increased pressure, and what happens when adaptive mechanisms fail. Ocean Outpost describes how the technology will evolve, how crews will be selected and trained and what a typical underwater mission will entail. The book also chronicles the frontiers of diving medicine that will eventually take humans into the midst of a world we could once only guess at.

The ability to measure accurately the hormones regulating calcium homeosta sis is the fundamental first step toward understanding the roles these hormones play in health and disease. Techniques for such measurements have only been available for the past 10 years or so and remain in a state of rapid development. Sensitive parathyroid hormone (PTH) radioimmunoassays appeared in the early 1970s, and with them came a whole new appreciation for the prevalence and implications of hyperparathyroidism, primary or secondary, in the popu lation. The calcitonin (CT) radioimmunoassay came later and achieved rapid success in the. diagnosis of a previously poorly understood cancer, medullary carcinoma of the thyroid, frequently associated with the familial multiple endo crine neoplasia type 2 syndromes (a and b). As the sensitivity of the calcitonin radioimmunoassay has improved, our understanding of the role of calcitonin in normal physiological processes has increased. The knowledge that vitamin D must be metabolized to produce its biologic effects is only 15 years old. This has had profound implications in our understanding of a variety of metabolic bone, kidney, and gastrointestinal diseases. Assays to measure the major cir culating form of vitamin D, 25-hydroxyvitamin D, were described 10 years ago. Assays for the other metabolites, in particular, 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D, were described even more recently. As of today, we know of many vitamin D metabolites and have developed the techniques to measure most of them; how ever, many questions remain concerning their physiological role."

The human body is a remarkable machine that goes through extraordinary measures to fight disease. However, it has always been a challenge for the curious general reader to find a concise and entertaining explanation of the biological processes that combat illness. Dying to Live addresses this need. Written in a clear and accessible style, this book gives an up-to-date account of the inner workings of our immune systems. Aimed at the lay reader, it examines important areas of medical science such as fever, AIDS and cancer. The book highlights the role of the mother in protecting the developing child during and after pregnancy and draws our attention to the changes in our immune system throughout life. The author looks at vaccinations and how pathogens evade their effects and considers the impact of lifestyle, stress, exercise, dietary, and hereditary factors on our ability to fight disease. The theme central to the book, from which the title derives, is the idea that in the war against disease our bodies sacrifice millions of cells--antibodies and other specialized elements of the immune system. Only by pitting these immune cells against infectious agents can we continue to survive. This current and enlightening book will interest anyone who has ever wondered what is happening in our bodies when we get ill and how we recover. An expert on immunology in general and the thymus gland in particular, Marion Kendall has edited several books and published over 100 articles on these subjects. Dr. Kendall has lectured extensively in Europe, Canada, and the United States.

Feynman once selected, as the single most important statement in science, that everything is made of atoms. It follows that the properties of everything depend on how these atoms are joined together, giving rise to the vast field we know of today as chemistry. In this unique book specifically written to bridge the gap between chemistry and the layman, Braterman has put together a series of linked essays on chemistry related themes that are particularly engaging.The book begins with the age of the earth, and concludes with the life cycle of stars. In between, there are atoms old and new, the ozone hole mystery and how it was solved, synthetic fertilisers and explosives, reading the climate record, the extraction of metals, the wetness of water, and how the greenhouse effect on climate really works. A chapter in praise of uncertainty leads on to the "fuzziness" and sharing of electrons, and from there to molecular shape, grass-green and blood-red, the wetness of water, and molecular recognition as the basis of life.Organised in such a way as to illustrate and develop underlying principles and approaches, this book will appeal to anyone interested in chemistry, as well as its history and key personalities. Where many other titles have failed, this book succeeds brilliantly in capturing the spirit and essence of chemistry and delivering the science in easily digestible terms.

The acclaimed author of In Search of Schrodinger's Cat searches for life on other planets Are we alone in the universe? Surely amidst the immensity of the cosmos there must be other intelligent life out there. Don't be so sure, says John Gribbin, one of today's best popular science writers. In this fascinating and intriguing new book, Gribbin argues that the very existence of intelligent life anywhere in the cosmos is, from an astrophysicist's point of view, a miracle. So why is there life on Earth and (seemingly) nowhere else? What happened to make this planet special? Taking us back some 600 million years, Gribbin lets you experience the series of unique cosmic events that were responsible for our unique form of life within the Milky Way Galaxy. Written by one of our foremost popular science writers, author of the bestselling In Search of Schrodinger's Cat Offers a bold answer to the eternal question, "Are we alone in the universe?" Explores how the impact of a "supercomet" with Venus 600 million years ago created our moon, and along with it, the perfect conditions for life on Earth From one of our most talented science writers, this book is a daring, fascinating exploration into the dawning of the universe, cosmic collisions and their consequences, and the uniqueness of life on Earth.

Phthalate esters are an important class of chemicals widely used in commercial applications, primarily as plasticizers to soften vinyl, but they are also used in consumer products. This book reviews the state of the scientific knowledge of phthalate esters in the environment. Key information reported includes: analytical methodologies; a compilation of concentration measurements in water, sediment, soil, air, dust, and food; plus an assessment of critical exposure pathways. In addition, key physical properties data and fate characteristics that control exposure are reviewed. Also included are pertinent ecotoxicity data and mammalian toxicity and human health information. Finally, the monograph addresses potential environmental risks.

This highly informative and fascinating book brings together perspectives on sound by leading experts from a wide variety of disciplines. These include anthropology, physiology, zoology, physics, music, phonetics and film. Through crossing disciplinary boundaries, the volume hopes to inspire a richer and more creative approach to the acoustic world. Whilst aiming for a general audience and presented in an accessible style, several chapters also represent important contributions within their own disciplines or will serve as core texts for students. The sequence of nine chapters passes from cultural perspectives on silence, via the physics of sound, physiology of the ear, songs of birds, and sounds of human speech, to music. From the reconstruction of medieval music, via twentieth-century composition and the music of the Kaluli of Papua New Guinea, the volume concludes with the role of sound in film. Life will never sound the same again.

The twentieth century is the period during which the history of Greek mathematics reached its greatest acme. Indeed, it is by no means exaggerated to say that Greek mathematics represents the unique field from the wider domain of the general history of science which was included in the research agenda of so many and so distinguished scholars, from so varied scientific communities (historians of science, historians of philosophy, mathematicians, philologists, philosophers of science, archeologists etc. ), while new scholarship of the highest quality continues to be produced. This volume includes 19 classic papers on the history of Greek mathematics that were published during the entire 20th century and affected significantly the state of the art of this field. It is divided into six self-contained sections, each one with its own editor, who had the responsibility for the selection of the papers that are republished in the section, and who wrote the introduction of the section. It constitutes a kind of a Reader book which is today, one century after the first publications of Tannery, Zeuthen, Heath and the other outstanding figures of the end of the 19th and the beg- ning of 20th century, rather timely in many respects.

The Soviet-American race to land the first man on the Moon was a technical challenge unlike anything in modern human history. BBC Aerospace Correspondent Reginald Turnill covered the story, and his reports were heard and seen by millions worldwide. With unparalleled access to the politicians, scientists, and technicians involved in the race to the Moon, Turnill knew all the early astronauts--Alan Shepard, John Glenn, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin--as they pioneered the techniques that made the Moon landings possible. He became a friend of Dr. Wernher von Braun, the German rocket pioneer and mastermind behind the technology. Turnill's unique eyewitness account of one of the most thrilling adventures of the twentieth century is clearly written and is packed with action and drama, making this a fascinating read for all those interested in the story of the race to the Moon. Reginald Turnill started work in Fleet Street at the age of 15, and by 19 he was covering the national news as a Press Association staff reporter. After joining the BBC in 1956 he covered the launch of Sputnik 1 and found it so exciting that he made space reporting his speciality. As the BBC Aerospace Correspondent, Turnill spent the rest of his career covering all the manned space missions as well as planetary missions like Mariner, Pioneer, Viking, and Voyager. Since leaving the BBC staff, Turnill has continued to broadcast and write on space, and he created the first spaceflight directory. Turnill is the only non-American to have been presented with NASA's Chroniclers Award for contributions to public understanding of the space program.

This is a study and translation of the Zhou bi suan jing, a Chinese work on astronomy and mathematics which reached its final form around the first century AD. The author provides the first easily accessible introduction to the developing mathematical and observational practices of ancient Chinese astronomers and shows how the generation and validation of knowledge about the heavens in Han dynasty China related closely to developments in statecraft and politics. The book will be of equal interest to historians of science and those studying the history of Chinese culture.

In the words of the great poet Senghor, Cedric Villani makes the bold claim that Mathematics is the Poetry of Science. Perhaps paradoxical to some, both disciplines are concerned with describing the world around us, understanding its parts, and using this knowledge to create something profound. World-renowned mathematician and Fields Medallist Cedric Villani explores this analogy in this engaging and intelligent text, and shows how mathematics, one of the world's few universal languages, holds deep similarities to the literary genre. A great lover of poetry, he insists that the two are intrinsically linked in their aim of both tackling the complexities of our reality as well as distancing us from it so that we may better appreciate its beauty. In a more light-hearted and concise approach than his more theoretical academic works, this book represents one of Villani's attempts to communicate his love of mathematics to a wider audience, drawing daring parallels between two universes that meet in their aspiration of the sublime.

The Bible was the first scientific textbook of all; and it got some things right (and plenty more wrong). Steve Jones' new book rewrites it in the light of modern science. Are we all descended from a single couple, a real-life Adam and Eve? Was the Bible's great flood really a memory of the end of the Ice Age? Will we ever get back to Methuselah given that British life expectancy is still rising by six hours a day, every day? Many people deny the power of faith, many more the power of science. In this ground-breaking work, geneticist Steve Jones explores their shared mysteries - from the origins of life and humankind to sex, age, death and the end of the universe. He steps aside from the noisy debate between believers and unbelievers to show how the same questions preoccupy us today as in biblical times - and that science offers many of the answers. Erudite and accessible, The Serpent's Promise is a witty and thoughtful account of the ability and the limits of science to tell us what we are.

Evolution is a fundamental process that cuts across boundaries of art and science and has beguiled thinkers for ages. This collection of articles about all aspects of evolution is a feast of challenging ideas, drawing together world-renowned thinkers and communicators with their own intriguing insights. This impressive cast of contributors takes on such questions as: Why and how do civilizations and societies change over time? Why do our cells develop the way they do? Why are some villages still villages while others have grown into vast cities? Can we learn from our evolutionary past to plan a better future for our health and society? Tracing the history of biological evolution, through the evolution of cultures, society, science and the universe, contributors such as Stephen Jay Gould, Freeman Dyson, and Martin Rees address these mysteries by considering parallels from all levels of life. From the evolution of the embryo to the evolution of a star, common threads emerge to tell a fascinating story with surprising implications.

This engaging volume for the general reader explores how individuals and societies remember, forget and commemorate events of the past. The collection of eight essays takes an interdisciplinary approach to address the relationships between individual experience and collective memory, with leading experts from the arts and sciences. We might expect scientists to be concerned with studying just the mental and physical processes involved in remembering, and humanities scholars to be interested in the products of memory, such as books, statues and music. This collection exposes the falseness of such a dichotomy, illustrating the insights into memory which can be gained by juxtaposing the complementary perspectives of specialists venturing beyond the normal boundaries of their disciplines. The authors come from backgrounds as diverse as psychoanalysis, creative writing, neuroscience, social history and medicine.

Understanding Catastrophe examines the immense and varied impact that catastrophic change can have on the development of life on earth. Opening with a remarkable account of supernovae and the nature of stellar catastrophe, it then examines the way evolution itself can proceed through genetic jumps of catastrophic proportions. The primal forces of the earth, manifested in such natural catastrophes as earthquakes and cyclones, and the devastating impact these can have even today on human populations across the world receive extended scrutiny as does the power of famine historically in determining the future of humankind. To conclude, a fascinating final chapter on changing medical and social attitudes to epidemic diseases such as tuberculosis offers--in the age of AIDS particularly--some unsettling insights into our fundamental incapacity when confronted by major threats to life and health. The book originates in the fifth annual series of Darwin College Lectures, delivered in Cambridge in 1990 under the title 'Catastrophes'. The contributors include Robert Kirshner on Stellar Catastrophe; Walter Alvarez on the Extinction of the Dinosaurs; Martin Rudwick on Darwin and Catastrophe; Christopher Zeeman on Catastrophe and Evolution; Claudio Vita Finzi on Earthquakes; Nicholas Cook on Storms and Cyclones; Peter Garnsey on Famine and History; and Roy Porter on Changing Attitudes to Disease.

Consciousness is our gateway to experience: it enables us to recognize Van Gogh's starry skies, be enraptured by Beethoven's Fifth, and stand in awe of a snowcapped mountain. Yet consciousness is subjective, personal, and famously difficult to examine: philosophers have for centuries declared this mental entity so mysterious as to be impenetrable to science. In The Ravenous Brain , neuroscientist Daniel Bor departs sharply from this historical view, and builds on the latest research to propose a new model for how consciousness works. Bor argues that this brain-based faculty evolved as an accelerated knowledge gathering tool. Consciousness is effectively an idea factory- that choice mental space dedicated to innovation, a key component of which is the discovery of deep structures within the contents of our awareness. This model explains our brains' ravenous appetite for information- and in particular, its constant search for patterns. Why, for instance, after all our physical needs have been met, do we recreationally solve crossword or Sudoku puzzles? Such behaviour may appear biologically wasteful, but, according to Bor, this search for structure can yield immense evolutionary benefits- it led our ancestors to discover fire and farming, pushed modern society to forge ahead in science and technology, and guides each one of us to understand and control the world around us. But the sheer innovative power of human consciousness carries with it the heavy cost of mental fragility. Bor discusses the medical implications of his theory of consciousness, and what it means for the origins and treatment of psychiatric ailments, including attention-deficit disorder, schizophrenia, manic depression, and autism. All mental illnesses, he argues, can be reformulated as disorders of consciousness- a perspective that opens up new avenues of treatment for alleviating mental suffering. A controversial view of consciousness, The Ravenous Brain links cognition to creativity in an ingenious solution to one of science's biggest mysteries.

'Read this book, then look and wonder' Sunday Times We have to learn to live as part of nature, not apart from it. And the first step is to start looking after the insects, the little creatures that make our shared world go round. Insects are essential for life as we know it - without them, our world would look vastly different. Drawing on the latest ground-breaking research and a lifetime's study, Dave Goulson reveals the long decline of insect populations that has taken place in recent decades and its potential consequences. Eye-opening and inspiring, Silent Earth asks for profound change at every level and a passionate argument or us to love, respect and care for our six-legged friends. 'Compelling - Silent Earth is a wake-up call' Isabella Tree, author of Wilding 'Enlightening, urgent and funny, Goulson's book is a timely call for action' New Statesman

Collecting curiosities was a gentlemanly occupation for wealthy and educated 18th-century Europeans. Few creatures aroused more curiosity than those from Australia. But collections demand organisation, and classification itself reveals patterns to life that cannot be ignored. From a leisurely occupation, the science of biology was born. Cabinets de curiosites became national museums, with specimens from Australia playing an integral role in all kinds of biological debates. Australian museums now foster their own research and continue to provide major and sometimes unexpected perspectives to international scientific developments. Continent of Curiosities follows the thread of individual natural history stories through the scientists of one of Australia's oldest museums, Museum Victoria. Together, these stories weave a history of the development of biological science from an Australian perspective, with insights into the people and places that influence the way we see and understand the natural world around us.

Can a Christian escape from a lion? How quickly can a rumour spread? Can you fool an airline into accepting oversize baggage? Recreational mathematics is full of frivolous questions where the mathematician's art can be brought to bear. But play often has a purpose. In mathematics, it can sharpen skills, provide amusement, or simply surprise, and books of problems have been the stock-in-trade of mathematicians for centuries. This collection is designed to be sipped from, rather than consumed in one sitting. The questions range in difficulty: the most challenging offer a glimpse of deep results that engage mathematicians today; even the easiest prompt readers to think about mathematics. All come with solutions, many with hints, and most with illustrations. Whether you are an expert, or a beginner or an amateur mathematician, this book will delight for a lifetime.

Telecommunications is a major global industry, and this unique book chronicles the development of this complex technology from the electric telegraph to the Internet in a simple, accessible, and entertaining way. The book opens with the early years of the electric telegraph. The reader will learn how the Morse telegraph evolved into an international network that spanned the globe, starting with the development of international undersea cables, and the heroic attempts to lay a trans-Atlantic cable. The book describes the events that led to the invention of the telephone, and the subsequent disputes over who had really invented it. It takes a look at some of the most important applications that have appeared on the Internet, the mobile revolution, and ends with a discussion of future key developments in the telecommunications industry.

Boeing's 737 is indisputably the most popular and arguably the safest commercial airliner in the world. But the plane had a lethal flaw, and only after several disastrous crashes and years of painstaking investigation was the mystery of its rudder failure solved. This book tells the story of how engineers and scientists finally uncovered the defect that had been engineered into the plane. One of its novel features is that it portrays the complex interaction of different experts and opposing interests in investigating and solving the mystery of this single crash.

In Internet for the People, leading tech writer Ben Tarnoff offers an answer. The internet is broken, he argues, because it is owned by private firms and run for profit. Google annihilates your privacy and Facebook amplifies right-wing propaganda because it is profitable to do so. But the internet wasn't always like this-it had to be remade for the purposes of profit maximization, through a years-long process of privatization that turned a small research network into a powerhouse of global capitalism. Tarnoff tells the story of the privatization that made the modern internet, and which set in motion the crises that consume it today. The solution to those crises is straightforward: deprivatize the internet. Deprivatization aims at creating an internet where people, and not profit, rule. It calls for shrinking the space of the market and diminishing the power of the profit motive. It calls for abolishing the walled gardens of Google, Facebook, and the other giants that dominate our digital lives and developing publicly and cooperatively owned alternatives that encode real democratic control. To build a better internet, we need to change how it is owned and organized. Not with an eye towards making markets work better, but towards making them less dominant. Not in order to create a more competitive or more rule-bound version of privatization, but to overturn it. Otherwise, a small number of executives and investors will continue to make choices on everyone's behalf, and these choices will remain tightly bound by the demands of the market. It's time to demand an internet by, and for, the people now.