As science and technology have pervaded modern life to an ever greater degree, social scientists have been led to find questions of the causes and consequences of 'expert' knowledge arising in places that would have been felt unlikely hitherto. Varcoe, McNeil and Yearley's book assembles nine exemplary studies by sociologists, each of which explores an aspect of the current scientific-technological 'revolution'. Some popular ideas are challenged. So, too, implicitly, are certain large-scale social scientific theories claiming to have discerned in science and technology an overall meaning.

This book gives a current overview of all facets of urban soils. Different urban land-use types in a number of examples worldwide are introduced. Many examples in different countries are provided in order to illustrate the situation in detail. The contaminant sources of urban soils (e.g., dust deposition, contamination along roadsides, contamination of floodplains, application of wastewater, anthropogenic deposits) are comprehensively presented. For practical application purposes a key with which to identify technogenic materials during field work is presented. Features like reductomorphic conditions in landfill soils, acidification of coal mining heaps and the impact of physical characteristics such as sealing are taken into consideration in the context of the contamination problem. The mobility of contaminants in the soils under consideration is introduced and discussed. The content of the book, however, is not limited to the description of contaminated urban soils. Different methods of assessment (classification, functional assessment, assessment focused on pathways with reference to standardized exposure scenarios) are introduced. Finally, quality standards for contaminated land in a number of countries are listed, compared and discussed. The book links up the contamination problem of urban soils with geographical aspects such as the historical development of city growth, the process of urbanization and the urban-to-rural gradients. Accordingly, the reader will be able to understand the specific problems of contaminated urban soils and will find sensible approaches to assessment.

The essays in this book are based on researches the author has undertaken on a wide range of topics, some using equipment no more elaborate than what one can find in an ordinary kitchen, others making elegant use of sophisticated experimental apparatus. Presenting a personal odyssey in physics, Silverman investigates processes for which no visualizable mechanism can be given, or that seem to violate fundamental physical laws (but do not), or that appear to be well understood but turn out to be subtly devious. Written in an engagingly personal style, the essays will be of interest to students of physics and related disciplines as well as professional physicists. Though they deal with subtle concepts, the discussions use little mathematics, and anyone with a little college physics will be able to read the book with pleasure. Silverman's researches deal with in quantum mechanics, atomic and nuclear physics, electromagnetism and optics, gravity, thermodynamics, and the physics of fluids, and these essays address .such questions as: How does one know that atomic electrons move? Would an "anti-atom" fall upward? How is it possible for randomly emitted particles to arrive at a detector preferentially in pairs? Can one influence electrons in London by not watching them in New York? Can a particle be influenced by a magnetic field through which it does not pass? A basketball is not changed by turning it once around its axis, but what about an electron? Can more light reflect from a surface than is incident upon it? "A Universe of Atoms" is the second edition of Silverman's "And Yet It Moves"; each essay in the earlier collection has been revised and updated, and some new essays on the uncommon physics of common objects have been added

An instant bestseller in 1859, few books have had such a revolutionary impact and left such a lasting impression as On the Origin of Species. Possibly the most important and challenging scientific book ever published, Darwin's language remains surprisingly modern and direct and is presented here in a faithful facsimile edition. The text is taken from the second edition (1860), which is the same as the first except for some minor corrections and so is the purest distillation of Darwin's original vision. It includes a new foreword by David Williams, Researcher at the Natural History Museum,and the introductory appendix, An Historical Sketch of the Recent Progress of Opinion on the Origin, which first appeared in the third edition (1861). As such it is an ideal scholarly resource as well an attractive and excellent value edition for the general reader.

Quantum physicist, New York Times bestselling author, and BBC host Jim Al-Khalili offers a fascinating and illuminating look at what physics reveals about the world Shining a light on the most profound insights revealed by modern physics, Jim Al-Khalili invites us all to understand what this crucially important science tells us about the universe and the nature of reality itself. Al-Khalili begins by introducing the fundamental concepts of space, time, energy, and matter, and then describes the three pillars of modern physics-quantum theory, relativity, and thermodynamics-showing how all three must come together if we are ever to have a full understanding of reality. Using wonderful examples and thought-provoking analogies, Al-Khalili illuminates the physics of the extreme cosmic and quantum scales, the speculative frontiers of the field, and the physics that underpins our everyday experiences and technologies, bringing the reader up to speed with the biggest ideas in physics in just a few sittings. Physics is revealed as an intrepid human quest for ever more foundational principles that accurately explain the natural world we see around us, an undertaking guided by core values such as honesty and doubt. The knowledge discovered by physics both empowers and humbles us, and still, physics continues to delve valiantly into the unknown. Making even the most enigmatic scientific ideas accessible and captivating, this deeply insightful book illuminates why physics matters to everyone and calls one and all to share in the profound adventure of seeking truth in the world around us.

'A quite delightful book on the joys, and universality, of physics. Czerski's enthusiasm is infectious because she brings our humdrum everyday world to life, showing us that it is just as fascinating as anything that can be seen by the Hubble Telescope or created at the Large Hadron Collider.' - Jim Al-Khalili Our world is full of patterns. If you pour milk into your tea and give it a stir, you'll see a swirl, a spiral of two fluids, before the two liquids mix completely. The same pattern is found elsewhere too. Look down on the Earth from space, and you'll find similar swirls in the clouds, made where warm air and cold air waltz. In Storm in a Teacup, Helen Czerski links the little things we see every day with the big world we live in. Each chapter begins with something small - popcorn, coffee stains and refrigerator magnets - and uses it to explain some of the most important science and technology of our time. This is physics as the toolbox of science - a toolbox we need in order to make sense of what is around us and arrive at decisions about the future, from medical advances to solving our future energy needs. It is also physics as the toy box of science: physics as fun, as never before.

The first book-length critical analysis of its kind, Edith Wharton's Travel Writing is an engaging study of Wharton's travel writing as the embodiment of her connoisseurship. Wright reveals how Wharton enacted a new dialectic of tourism by reconstituting what Blake Nevius calls the 'aesthetic spectra' in her travel texts. Wharton abandoned the examples set by American predecessors such as Washington Irving and Nathaniel Hawthorne, who led the 'artless travelers' of her parents' day to lakes, waterfalls, mountains, and ruins echoing sentimental legends and chose to emulate John Ruskin's precise visual observation and Bernard Berenson's scientific methods of appraisal.

In his first book ever, the father of string theory reinvents the world's concept of the known universe and man's unique place within it. Line drawings. Leonard Susskind has been the Felix Bloch Professor in theoretical physics at Stanford University since 1978. The author of The Cosmic Landscape, he is a member of the National Academy of Science and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the recipient of numerous prizes including the science writing prize of the American Institute of Physics for his Scientific American article on black holes. He lives in Palo Alto, California.

With over fifty patents to his name and innumerable awards and accolades, James Lovelock was a distinguished and original thinker, widely recognized by the international scientific community. In this inspiring book, republished in the year of his 100th birthday, Lovelock tells his life story, from his first steps as a scientist to his work with organisations as diverse as NASA, Shell and the Marine Biological Association. Homage to Gaia describes the years of travel and work that led to his crucial scientific breakthroughs in environmental awareness, uncovering how CFCs impact on the ozone layer and creating the concept of Gaia, the theory that the Earth is a self-regulating system. Written in a sharp and energetic style, James Lovelock's book will entertain and inspire anyone interested in science or the creative spirit beyond his legacy.

This is a popular science book on physics, astronomy and related sciences, designed for a wider audience.It is written as a guide for a tour along the ladder of scales from the Universe as a whole to the microcosm. The main scales are the Universe, Solar System, the Earth, normal human size, atoms, and elementary particles. Exotic objects such as black holes and neutron stars are also considered, as well as the foundations of the scientific method, its connection with philosophy, and a story about how modern science arose. This book contains many useful illustrations.The basic concepts of physics are discussed: forces, fields, quantum phenomena, structure of matter, phase transitions, atoms, molecules, dark matter, and dark energy. And also galaxies, supernova explosions, the Sun, planets, exoplanets, black holes, neutron stars, white dwarfs, the possibility of space expansion of mankind. The book also discusses phenomena like rainbow, mirages, lightning, climate on Earth, as well as practical applications like nuclear and thermonuclear reactors, superconductivity and helium-3 mining on the Moon. This book has included the latest results.

100 Chemical Myths deals with popular yet largely untrue misconceptions and misunderstandings related to chemistry. It contains lucid and concise explanations cut through fallacies and urban legends that are universally relevant to a global audience. A wide range of chemical myths are explored in these areas; food, medicines, catastrophes, chemicals, and environmental problems. Connections to popular culture, literature, movies, and cultural history hold the reader's interest whilst key concepts are beautifully annotated with illustrations to facilitate the understanding of unfamiliar material. Chemical Myths Demystified is pitched to individuals without a formal chemistry background to fledgling undergraduate chemists to seasoned researchers and beyond.

Plant stresses are serious threats to the sustainability of crop yields accounting for more crop productivity losses than any other factor in rainfed agriculture. Post-harvest losses mean surplus crops do not reach market, affecting the livelihoods of farming families, and too often these families are left with no other option than to eat contaminated stored food. These constraints impact the food security of these farming families as well as the communities and countries in which they live. This book is the demonstration of a clear synergistic effect of stresses, an effect that was unexpectedly as important as either stress applied alone. This book will add to our current knowledge of abiotic stress response in plants and will provide the groundwork necessary to build future strategies for crop enhancement. The fundamental principles that underpin all biotechnology are explained and a full range of examples discussed to show how these principles are applied; from starting substrate to final product. It will be beneficial to both plant breeders and molecular biologists, because it combines the topics of physiology, tolerance genes, and breeding methods. When these topics are presented together, it is easy to compare all aspects of tolerance mechanisms and breeding methods for abiotic stresses. These comparisons are useful to understand which pathways or which genes are important for rendering more tolerance to a certain abiotic stress, and to bring forward new ideas for improving the tolerance. Features *Cover both plant biotic and abiotic stresses *Important factors in managing crops for water stress conditions *Substantially increase the sustainable productivity of smallholder farmers in developing countries *Genetic and biochemical approaches - if those approaches constitute a substantial improvement on current practices.

This is the story of our quest to understand the most mysterious object in the universe: the human brain.

Today we tend to picture it as a computer. Earlier scientists thought about it in their own technological terms: as a telephone switchboard, or a clock, or all manner of fantastic mechanical or hydraulic devices. Could the right metaphor unlock the its deepest secrets once and for all?

Galloping through centuries of wild speculation and ingenious, sometimes macabre anatomical investigations, scientist and historian Matthew Cobb reveals how we came to our present state of knowledge. Our latest theories allow us to create artificial memories in the brain of a mouse, and to build AI programmes capable of extraordinary cognitive feats. A complete understanding seems within our grasp.

But to make that final breakthrough, we may need a radical new approach. At every step of our quest, Cobb shows that it was new ideas that brought illumination. Where, he asks, might the next one come from? What will it be?

A theoretical physicist takes readers on an awe-inspiring journey—found in "no other book" (Science)—to discover how the universe generates everything from nothing at all: "If you want to know what's really going on in the realms of relativity and particle physics, read this book" (Sean Carroll, author of The Biggest Ideas in the Universe).

In Waves in an Impossible Sea, physicist Matt Strassler tells a startling tale of elementary particles, human experience, and empty space. He begins with a simple mystery of motion. When we drive at highway speeds with the windows down, the wind beats against our faces. Yet our planet hurtles through the cosmos at 150 miles per second, and we feel nothing of it. How can our voyage be so tranquil when, as Einstein discovered, matter warps space, and space deflects matter?

The answer, Strassler reveals, is that empty space is a sea, albeit a paradoxically strange one. Much like water and air, it ripples in various ways, and we ourselves, made from its ripples, can move through space as effortlessly as waves crossing an ocean. Deftly weaving together daily experience and fundamental physics—the musical universe, the enigmatic quantum, cosmic fields, and the Higgs boson—Strassler shows us how all things, familiar and unfamiliar, emerge from what seems like nothing at all.

Accessible and profound, Waves in an Impossible Sea is the ultimate guide to our place in the universe.

Spaceships travel through time at lightspeed, piloted by human clones and talking animals. Serious injuries are healed with the wave of a medical gizmo. The media makes it all look easy. Can scientists hope to accomplish such amazing feats in the real world, or are they merely flights of fancy? This book is a fun look at what can, and can't, be achieved with current technology in today's laboratory experiments.

Fans of the "Jetsons," "Star Trek," and "Star Wars" will learn the facts behind the fiction through entires that describe the scientific inventions and procedures on the screen, and how they differ from the reality. Van Riper shows us who innovators like Charles Darwin, Benjamin Franklin, and Isaac Newton really were before they were mythologized. He discusses how animals such as chimpanzees, dolphins, and elephants are portrayed in books and films, and what we really know about animal intelligence. This book lifts the curtain on science fiction, revealing how and where scientific laws have been discarded for the sake of a good plot.

An expert palaeoarchaeologist reveals how our understanding of the evolution of our species has been transformed by momentous discoveries and technological advancements. Who are we? How do scientists define Homo sapiens, and how does our species differ from the extinct hominins that came before us? This illuminating book explores how the latest scientific advances, especially in genetics, are revolutionizing our understanding of human evolution. Paul Pettitt reveals the extraordinary story of how our ancestors adapted to unforgiving and relentlessly changing climates, leading to remarkable innovations in art, technology and society that we are only now beginning to comprehend. Drawing on twenty-five years of experience in the field, Paul Pettitt immerses readers in the caves and rockshelters that provide evidence of our African origins, dispersals to the far reaches of Eurasia, Australasia and ultimately the Americas. Popular accounts of the evolution of Homo sapiens emphasize biomolecular research, notably genetics, but this book also draws from the wealth of information from specific excavations and artefacts, including the author's own investigations into the origins of art and how it evolved over its first 25,000 years. He focuses in particular on behaviour, using archaeological evidence to bring an intimate perspective on lives as they were lived in the almost unimaginably distant past.

A lively and highly readable account of the origins, invention and discovery of just about everything on the planet, the truly global coverage of The First of Everything ranges from the Big Bang to driverless cars.

The First of Everything follows a context-setting introduction with seven stimulating sections: In the Beginning (The Big Bang to Homo Sapiens), At Home (the first glass windows to dentures and bikinis); Health and Medicine (herbs to heart transplants); Getting About (donkeys to double deckers); Science and Engineering (potter's wheel to webcam); Peace and War (the first king to fighter-bombers); and Culture (cave painting to rap). This fascinating book takes in the full sweep of human development and ingenuity over twelve millennia; Africa, for example, gave us the first monarch, algebra and great religions emerged from the Middle East, democracy was born in Europe, and America made the first flying machines. More than just a string of dry lists, the colourful text's intriguing insights and asides make it as enjoyable for the casual browser as the more serious researcher.

This book is a long-term history of optics, from early Greek theories of vision to the nineteenth-century victory of the wave theory of light. It shows how light gradually became the central entity of a domain of physics that no longer referred to the functioning of the eye; it retraces the subsequent competition between medium-based and corpuscular concepts of light; and it details the nineteenth-century flourishing of mechanical ether theories. The author critically exploits and sometimes completes the more specialized histories that have flourished in the past few years. The resulting synthesis brings out the actors' long-term memory, their dependence on broad cultural shifts, and the evolution of disciplinary divisions and connections. Conceptual precision, textual concision, and abundant illustration make the book accessible to a broad variety of readers interested in the origins of modern optics.

An Observer, New Statesman, Financial Times, Irish Times and Scotsman 2021 Non-Fiction Highlight 'Searing yet beautiful ... less a hot take that an astute manifesto for what matters most in life, as well as in medicine.' Rachel Clarke, author of Breathtaking: Inside the NHS in a Time of Pandemic and Your Life in My Hands 'Well written, often entertaining and occasionally deeply moving; an unmissable account of a year we will all try too hard to forget.' The Times 'Inspiring. I can't recommend it too strongly. You will learn a lot from it, and you will find much more that is encouraging.' Allan Massie, Scotsman Intensive Care is about how coronavirus emerged, spread across the world and changed all of our lives forever. But it's not, perhaps, the story you expect. Gavin Francis is a GP who works in both urban and rural communities, splitting his time between Edinburgh and the islands of Orkney. When the pandemic arrived in our society he saw how it affected every walk of life: the anxious teenager, the isolated care home resident, the struggling furloughed worker and homeless ex-prisoner, all united by their vulnerability in the face of a global disaster. And he saw how the true cost of the virus was measured not just in infections, or deaths, or ITU beds, but in the consequences of the measures taken against it. In this deeply personal account of nine months spent caring for a society in crisis, Francis will take you from rural village streets to local clinics and communal city stairways. And in telling this story, he reveals others: of loneliness and hope, illness and recovery, and of what we can achieve when we care for each other.

The theory of nonlinear, complex systems has become by now a proven problem-solving approach in the natural sciences. And it is now also recognized that many if not most of our social, ecological, economical and political problems are essentially of a global, complex and nonlinear nature. And it is now further accepted than any holistic perspective of the human mind and brain can hardly be achieved by any other approach. In this wide-ranging, scholarly but very concise treatment, physicist, computer scientist and philosopher Klaus Mainzer discusses, in essentially nontechnical language, the common framework behind these ideas and challenges. Emphasis is given to the evolution of new structures in natural and cultural systems and we are lead to see clearly how the new integrative approach can give insights not available from traditional reductionistic methods. The fifth edition enlarges and revises almost all sections and supplements an entirely new chapter on the complexity of economic systems.

From the reviews of the fourth edition:

"This book is ambitious, incredibly erudite with 22 pages of references, and is indisputably clearly and beautifully written and illustrated. It is perfectly suited to a first course on the science of complexity. Even beginners and young graduate students will have something to learn from this book." (Andre Hautot, Physicalia, Vol. 57 (3), 2005)

"All-in-all, this highly recommended book is a wonderful resource for intuitive basic ideas in the need of rigorous formulation." (Albert A. Mullin, Zentralblatt MATH, vol. 1046, 2004)

"Readers of this book will enjoy Mainzer's exposition, which is based on a tight coupling between classical andhistorical concepts from Plato and Aristotle to modern, mathematical and physical developments . Every chapter begins with a section designed to orient the reader to the perspective of philosophical developments through the ages pertinent to the topic at hand. The author takes pains to point out essential differences between classical science and the science of complexity. Thinking in Complexity is an outstandingly readable book." (Anutosh Moitra, The Industrial Physicist, August/September, 2004)

Stephen Webb, author of WHERE IS EVERYBODY?, takes the interested amateur on a thrilling and enlightening tour of the amazing, even bizarre, new ideas of modern physics, including alternatives to the Big Bang, parallel universes, and an imaginary trip to the other side of the black hole.

Long before GPS, Google Earth, and global transit, humans traveled vast distances using only environmental clues and simple instruments. John Huth asks what is lost when modern technology substitutes for our innate capacity to find our way. Encyclopedic in breadth, weaving together astronomy, meteorology, oceanography, and ethnography, The Lost Art of Finding Our Way puts us in the shoes, ships, and sleds of early navigators for whom paying close attention to the environment around them was, quite literally, a matter of life and death. Haunted by the fate of two young kayakers lost in a fogbank off Nantucket, Huth shows us how to navigate using natural phenomena-the way the Vikings used the sunstone to detect polarization of sunlight, and Arab traders learned to sail into the wind, and Pacific Islanders used underwater lightning and "read" waves to guide their explorations. Huth reminds us that we are all navigators capable of learning techniques ranging from the simplest to the most sophisticated skills of direction-finding. Even today, careful observation of the sun and moon, tides and ocean currents, weather and atmospheric effects can be all we need to find our way. Lavishly illustrated with nearly 200 specially prepared drawings, Huth's compelling account of the cultures of navigation will engross readers in a narrative that is part scientific treatise, part personal travelogue, and part vivid re-creation of navigational history. Seeing through the eyes of past voyagers, we bring our own world into sharper view.

A GUARDIAN, ECONOMIST AND PROSPECT BOOK OF THE YEAR 'A superb book' Simon Sebag Montefiore 'An empowering story of human ingenuity' Economist 'Full of curious facts' The Times Causes of death have changed irrevocably across time. In the course of a few centuries we have gone from a world where disease or violence were likely to strike anyone at any age, and where famine could be just one bad harvest away, to one where in many countries excess food is more of a problem than a lack of it. Why have the reasons we die changed so much? How is it that a century ago people died mainly from infectious disease, while today the leading causes of death in industrialised nations are heart disease and stroke? And what do changing causes of death reveal about how previous generations have lived? University of Manchester Professor Andrew Doig provides an eye-opening portrait of death throughout history, looking at particular causes - from infectious disease to genetic disease, violence to diet - who they affected, and the people who made it possible to overcome them. Along the way we hear about the long and torturous story of the discovery of vitamin C and its role in preventing scurvy; the Irish immigrant who opened the first washhouse for the poor of Liverpool, and in so doing educated the public on the importance of cleanliness in combating disease; and the Church of England curate who, finding his new church equipped with a telephone, started the Samaritans to assist those in emotional distress. This Mortal Coil is a thrilling story of growing medical knowledge and social organisation, of achievement and, looking to the future, of promise.

Insightful, good-humored essays on the possibilities of alien life and the uses of space exploration, based on an astrobiologist's everyday conversations with his fellow humans-taxi drivers, to be precise. If you've ever sat in the back seat of a taxi, you know that cabbies like to talk. Sports or politics, your job or theirs, taxi drivers are fine conversationalists on just about any topic. And when the passenger is astrobiologist Charles Cockell, that topic is usually space and what, if anything, lives out there. Inspired by conversations with drivers all over the world, Taxi from Another Planet tackles the questions that everyday people have about the cosmos and our place in it. Will we understand aliens? What if there isn't life out in the universe? Is Mars our Plan B? And why is the government spending tax dollars on space programs anyway? Each essay in this genial collection takes questions like these as a starting point on the way to a range of insightful, even poignant, observations. Cockell delves into debates over the inevitability of life and looks to both human history and scientific knowledge to consider what first contact will be like and what we can expect from spacefaring societies. He also offers a forceful argument for the sympathies between space exploration and environmentalism. A shrewd and entertaining foray into the most fundamental mysteries, Taxi from Another Planet brings together the wisdom of scientific experts and their fellow citizens of Earth, the better to understand how life might unfold elsewhere.

Gaia's Gift, the second of Anne Primavesi's explorations of human relationships with the earth, asks that we complete the ideological revolution set in motion by Copernicus and Darwin concerning human importancene. They challenged the notion of our God-given centrality within the universe and within earth's evolutionary history. Yet as our continuing exploitation of earth's resources and species demonstrates, we remain wedded to the theological assumption that these are there for our sole use and benefit. Now James Lovelock's scientific understanding of the existential reality of Gaia's gift of life again raises the question of our proper place within the universe. It turns us decisively towards an understanding of ourselves as dependent on, rather than in control of, the whole earth community.