Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
|
Your cart is empty |
|||
Books > Science & Mathematics > Science: general issues
Digital worlds and cultures-social media, web 2.0, youtube, wearable technologies, health and fitness apps-dominate, if not order, our everyday lives. We are no longer 'just' consumers or readers of digital culture but active producers through facebook, twitter, Instagram, youtube and other emerging technologies. This book is predicated on the assumption that out understanding of our everyday lives should be informed by what is taking place in and through emerging technologies given these (virtual) environments provide a crucial context where traditional, categorical assumptions about the body, identity and leisure may be contested. Far from being 'virtual', the body is constituted within and through emerging technologies in material ways. Recent 'moral panics' over the role of digital cultures in teen suicide, digital drinking games, an endless array of homoerotic images of young bodies being linked with steroid use, disordered eating and body dissatisfaction, facebook games/fundraising campaigns (e.g. for breast cancer), movements devoted to exposing 'everyday sexism' / metoo, twitter abuse (of feminists, of athletes, of racist nature to name but a few), speak to the need for critical engagement with digital cultures. While some of the earlier techno-utopian visions offered the promise of digitality to give rise to participatory, user generator collaborations, within this book we provide critical engagement with digital technologies and what this means for our understandings of leisure cultures. The chapters originally published in a special issue in Leisure Studies.
Comprises four parts, the first of which provides an overview of the topics that are developed from fundamental principles to more advanced levels in the other parts. Presents in the second part an in-depth introduction to the relevant background in molecular and cellular biology and in physical chemistry, which should be particularly useful for students without a formal background in these subjects. Provides in the third part a detailed treatment of microscopy techniques and optics, again starting from basic principles. Introduces in the fourth part modern statistical approaches to the determination of parameters of interest from microscopy data, in particular data generated by single molecule microscopy experiments. Uses two topics related to protein trafficking (transferrin trafficking and FcRn-mediated antibody trafficking) throughout the text to motivate and illustrate microscopy techniques
More than 90 percent of all scientific history has been made during the last half century. So far, however, only a fraction of historical scholarship has dealt with this period. Merely a decade ago, most scientific historians considered recent science - the scientific culture created, lived and remembered by contemporary scientists - an area of study best left to the historical actors themselves. Today, an increasing number of historians are turning to the study of contemporary science. When doing so, they are confronted with new and unfamiliar methodological and theoretical problems. How to handle the huge amounts of published and unpublished source materials? What level of scientific training is necessary to understand contemporary science? Does the lack of historical perspective prevent good scholarship? Can (and will) historians of recent science share the turf with other professional groups, such as active scientists, scholars of science and technology studies, and science journalists? This volume aims to provide answers to these questions. The thirteen contributors are active researchers in what has been called "the last frontier" in the history of science. The book itself is
The U.S. scientific community has long led the world in research on such areas as public health, environmental science, and issues affecting quality of life. Our scientists have produced landmark studies on the dangers of DDT, tobacco smoke, acid rain, and global warming. But at the same time, a small yet potent subset of this community leads the world in vehement denial of these dangers. Merchants of Doubt tells the story of how a loose-knit group of high-level scientists and scientific advisers, with deep connections in politics and industry, ran effective campaigns to mislead the public and deny well-established scientific knowledge over four decades. Remarkably, the same individuals surface repeatedly - some of the same figures who have claimed that the science of global warming is "not settled" denied the truth of studies linking smoking to lung cancer, coal smoke to acid rain, and CFCs to the ozone hole. "Doubt is our product," wrote one tobacco executive. These 'experts' supplied it. Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, historians of science, roll back the rug on this dark corner of the American scientific community, showing how ideology and corporate interests, aided by a too-compliant media, have skewed public understanding of some of the most pressing issues of our era.
The widespread use of the Internet as a tool for gathering and
disseminating information raises serious questions for
journalists--and their readers--about the process of reporting
information. Using virtual sources and publishing online is
changing the way in which journalism takes place and its effect on
the society it serves.
This Elgar Research Agenda showcases insights from leading researchers on the charged issues and questions that lie ahead in the multidisciplinary field of digital politics. Covering the political implications of the Internet, social media, datafication and computational analytics, it looks to the future of how research might address the political challenges of the digital age and maps the key emerging trends in this field. Contributors outline and engage with major questions related to the transformation of campaigns, elections and political partisanship through digital media, and identify the methodological pathways and problems that impact the field. Exploring the implications of digitisation for governance, democracy, privacy, surveillance, advocacy, activism, and political talk, this book highlights the emergent ethical issues that will shape the future of this burgeoning focus of research. Featuring crucial insights into an increasingly pertinent subject, this Research Agenda will be key reading for researchers and graduate students of Internet studies, new media studies and political science. Policy makers, political consultants and anyone with a serious interest in research into digital politics will also benefit from this book's forward-looking approach. Contributors include: N. Anstead, J.G. Blumler, A. Chadwick, S. Coleman, A. Drew, E. Dubois, W.H. Dutton, L. Fernandez, H. Ford, M.I. Franklin, P. Gerbaudo, D. Karpf, L. Lievrouw, W.-Y. Lin, F. Martin-Bariteau, D. McDowell-Naylor, G. Moss, B. O'Loughlin, P. Rossini, V. Schneider, L. Sorenson, S. Wright, X. Zhang
This breakthrough scientific masterwork - and INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER - reveals the underlying forces that have shaped human history and will secure our future... 'Masterful. Galor answers the ultimate mystery' Lewis Dartnell The stunning advances that have transformed human experience in recent centuries are no accident of history - they are the result of universal and timeless forces, operating since the dawn of our species. Drawing on a lifetime's scientific investigation, Oded Galor's ground-breaking new vision overturns a host of long-held assumptions to reveal the deeper causes that have shaped the journey of humanity: Education rather than industrialisation Family size and gender equality as much as inventions and technology Geography and diversity rather than wars, disease and famine 'Unparalleled in its scope and ambition . . . All readers will learn something' Washington Post 'An inspiring, readable, jargon-free and almost impossibly erudite masterwork' New Statesman 'His optimism about humanity shines through' Observer 'If you need an evidence-based antidote to doomscrolling, here it is' Guardian
The Agius Evolution Garden at Kew Gardens opened in the summer of 2019. Designed by Richard Wilford, with interpretation by Sharon Willoughby, the Evolution Garden is arranged according to the latest classification of plants, based on DNA analysis. This book explains the design process, the science behind the garden and lists the plants used to show the plant Tree of Life.
Based on cutting-edge science, Boost Your Brain is internationally recognized neurologist Majid Fotuhi's complete program for increasing brain size and enhancing brain function, including memory, creativity, comprehension, and concentration. Our brains don't have to decline as we get older, argues Dr. Fotuhi. Depending on the things we do or neglect to do, we can actually get smarter and measurably improve our brain speed. In Boost Your Brain, the founder of the NeurExpand Brain Center and host of the PBS series Fight Alzheimer's Early offers a three-month brain-optimization program--with noticeable results in just a few weeks. Boost Your Brain explores the very latest neuroscience research and offers actionable, authoritative advice on how readers of every age can experience the benefits of a bigger, better brain. Featuring more than two dozen black-and-white illustrations, Boost Your Brain: The New Art and Science Behind Enhanced Brain Performance includes a foreword by Michael Roizen, M.D., coauthor of the bestselling YOU series and author of the Real Age books.
A falling apple inspired Isaac Newton's insight into the law of gravity-or so the story goes. Is it true? Perhaps not. But the more intriguing question is why such stories endure as explanations of how science happens. Newton's Apple and Other Myths about Science brushes away popular misconceptions to provide a clearer picture of great scientific breakthroughs from ancient times to the present. Among the myths refuted in this volume is the idea that no science was done in the Dark Ages, that alchemy and astrology were purely superstitious pursuits, that fear of public reaction alone led Darwin to delay publishing his theory of evolution, and that Gregor Mendel was far ahead of his time as a pioneer of genetics. Several twentieth-century myths about particle physics, Einstein's theory of relativity, and more are discredited here as well. In addition, a number of broad generalizations about science go under the microscope of history: the notion that religion impeded science, that scientists typically adhere to a codified "scientific method," and that a bright line can be drawn between legitimate science and pseudoscience. Edited by Ronald Numbers and Kostas Kampourakis, Newton's Apple and Other Myths about Science debunks the widespread belief that science advances when individual geniuses experience "Eureka!" moments and suddenly comprehend what those around them could never imagine. Science has always been a cooperative enterprise of dedicated, fallible human beings, for whom context, collaboration, and sheer good luck are the essential elements of discovery.
As we begin a new century, the astonishing spread of nationally and
internationally accessible computer-based communication networks
has touched the imagination of people everywhere. Suddenly, the
Internet is in everyday parlance, featured in talk shows, in
special business "technology" sections of major newspapers, and on
the covers of national magazines. If the Internet is a new world of
social behavior it is also a new world for those who study social
behavior. This volume is a compendium of essays and research
reports representing how researchers are thinking about the social
processes of electronic communication and its effects in society.
Taken together, the chapters comprise a first gathering of social
psychological research on electronic communication and the
Internet.
This updated edition includes a new afterword that identifies the role the Buck story plays in the Supreme Court's review of emerging state laws that seek to limit access to abortion. "Three generations of imbeciles are enough." Few lines from U.S. Supreme Court opinions are as memorable as this declaration by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. in the landmark 1927 case Buck v. Bell. The ruling allowed states to forcibly sterilize residents in order to prevent "feebleminded and socially inadequate" people from having children. It is the only time the Supreme Court endorsed surgery as a tool of government policy. Though Buck set the stage for more than sixty thousand involuntary sterilizations in the United States and was cited at the Nuremberg trials in defense of Nazi sterilization experiments, it has never been overturned. It has been more than a decade since Paul A. Lombardo's classic Three Generations, No Imbeciles first exposed the Buck case's fraudulent roots. During that time, several of the remaining twentieth-century eugenic sterilization statutes have finally been repealed, and reparations to sterilization survivors have been paid in two states. Discussion of the Buck case has once again engendered controversy in the courts. The Wisconsin Supreme Court invoked Buck most recently in a debate over the power of the state to enact restrictions on citizens and businesses during the COVID-19 crisis, and the US Supreme Court cited Three Generations, No Imbeciles in arguments over the newest state laws seeking to limit access to abortion. This updated edition collects and analyzes information related to events and trends discussed in the earlier volume and includes a completely new afterword, "Looking Back at Buck," that explains how the case remains a key feature of public discourse about disability, government power, and reproductive rights. It also presents restored copies of the letters of Carrie Buck and points readers to an online archive of legal documents, images, and other material relevant to the case. The book remains a key resource for law school faculties, legal and medical historians, and anyone with an interest in the history of reproduction in the United States. "Startling."-Reason "Compelling and well-researched . . . Three Generations, No Imbeciles gives Carrie Buck's long-untold story the attention it deserves."-Harvard Law Review "Three Generations provides valuable, new, and timely revelations for students and professional scholars across many disciplines."-Disability Studies Quarterly "Meticulously detailed and researched history . . . this book is enjoyable, thought provoking, and troubling in equal measure. I highly recommend it."-Psychiatric Services
From Nobel Prize winner Venki Ramakrishnan 'Beyond superb' Bill Bryson 'A wonderful book' Ian McEwan Everyone knows about DNA, the essence of our being, the molecule where our genes reside. But DNA by itself is useless without a machine to decode the genetic information it contains. The ribosome is that machine. Venki Ramakrishnan tells the story of the race to uncover its enormously complex structure, a fundamental breakthrough that resolves an ancient mystery of life itself.
Computer: A History of the Information Machine traces the history of the computer and its unlimited, information-processing potential. Comprehensive and accessibly written, this fully updated fourth edition adds new chapters on the globalization of information technology, the rise of social media, fake news, and the gig economy, and the regulatory frameworks being put in place to tame the ubiquitous computer. Computer is an insightful look at the pace of technological advancement and the seamless way computers are integrated into the modern world. The authors examine the history of the computer including the first steps taken by Charles Babbage in the nineteenth century, and how wartime needs and the development of electronics led to the giant ENIAC, the first electronic computer. For a generation IBM dominated the computer industry. In the 1980s, the desktop PC liberated people from room-sized, mainframe computers. Next, laptops and smartphones made computers available to half of the world's population, leading to the rise of Google and Facebook, and powerful apps that changed the way we work, consume, learn, and socialize. The volume is an essential resource for scholars and those studying computer history, technology history, and information and society, as well as a range of courses in the fields of computer science, communications, sociology, and management.
Relating the story of the transatlantic struggle for subnuclear domination, The Quark Machines: How Europe Fought the Particle Physics War, Second Edition covers the history, the politics, and the personalities of particle physics. Extensively illustrated with many original photographs of the key players in the field, the book sheds new light on the sovereignty issues of modern scientific research as well as the insights it has produced. Throughout the twentieth century, Europe and the United States have vied for supremacy of subnuclear physics. Initially, the advent of World War II and an enforced exodus of scientific talent from Europe boosted American efforts. Then, buoyed along by the need to develop the bomb and the ensuing distrust of the Cold War, the United States vaulted into a commanding role-a position it retained for almost fifty years. Throughout this period, each new particle accelerator was a major campaign, each new particle a battle won. With the end of the Cold War, U.S. preeminence evaporated and Europe retook the advantage. Now CERN, for four decades the spearhead of the European fightback, stands as the leading global particle physics center. Today, particle physics is at a turning point in its history-how well Europe retains its advantage remains to be seen.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is everywhere, yet it causes damage to society in ways that can't be fixed. Instead of helping to address our current crises, AI causes divisions that limit people's life chances, and even suggests fascistic solutions to social problems. This book provides an analysis of AI's deep learning technology and its political effects and traces the ways that it resonates with contemporary political and social currents, from global austerity to the rise of the far right. Dan McQuillan calls for us to resist AI as we know it and restructure it by prioritising the common good over algorithmic optimisation. He sets out an anti-fascist approach to AI that replaces exclusions with caring, proposes people's councils as a way to restructure AI through mutual aid and outlines new mechanisms that would adapt to changing times by supporting collective freedom. Academically rigorous, yet accessible to a socially engaged readership, this unique book will be of interest to all who wish to challenge the social logic of AI by reasserting the importance of the common good.
Finally - a guide to cytological techniques written specifically
for the plant chromosome researcher and student. Plant Chromosomes:
Laboratory Methods thoroughly covers all important approaches to
the study of plant chromosomes. It reviews each specific approach
and describes requisite experimental techniques. These practical
descriptions cover basic, standard techniques as well as the most
recent research advances and state-of-the-art technologies.
What is life? This was a question of particular concern for Mary Shelley and her contemporaries. But how did she, and her fellow Romantic writers, incorporate this debate into their work, and how much were they influenced by contemporary science, medicine and personal loss? This book is the first to compile the many attempts in science and medicine to account for life and death in Mary Shelley's time. It considers what her contemporaries thought of air, blood, sunlight, electricity and other elements believed to be most essential for living. Mary Shelley's (and her circle's) knowledge of science and medicine is carefully examined, alongside the work of key scientific and medical thinkers, including John Abernethy, James Curry, Humphry Davy, John Hunter, William Lawrence and Joseph Priestley. Frankenstein demonstrates what Mary Shelley knew of the advice given by medical practitioners for the recovery of persons drowned, hanged or strangled and explores the contemporary scientific basis behind Victor Frankenstein's idea that life and death were merely 'ideal bounds' he could transgress in the making of the Creature. Interweaving images of the manuscript, portraits, medical instruments and contemporary diagrams into her narrative, Sharon Ruston shows how this extraordinary tale is steeped in historical scientific and medical thought exploring the fascinating boundary between life and death.
FULLY UPDATED FOR 2019 We cannot live without water. But with 7.5 billion people competing for this single unevenly-distributed resource, the planet is drying up. In When the Rivers Run Dry, Fred Pearce explores the growing world water crisis, from Kent to Kenya. His powerful reportage takes us to places where waterways are turning to sand before they reach the ocean; where fields are parched and crops no longer grow; where once fertile ground has turned to desert; where wars are fought over access to water and cultures are dying out. But he offers us hope for the future - if we can radically revolutionise the way we treat water, and take personal responsibility for the water we use. This landmark work, from a respected and accomplished scientist, will transform the way we view the water in our reservoirs and rivers, and change the way we treat the water in our taps.
Combining postmodernism with technoscience, this work considers the viability of public works such as the superconducting supercollider in a postmodern age. Contending that technoscientific projects are contingent upon economic and political support, and not simply upon their scientific feasibility, Sassower illuminates the cultural context of postmodernism vis-a-vis an examination of postmodernism and the philosophy of late 20th-century technoscience. Drawing upon conflicts between Popperians, postmodernists and feminists, Sassower claims that "translation" between competing discourses about technoscience is necessary to avoid cultural collisions and foster fruitful exchange between divergent discourses; also that a discussion of reality, both natural and social, is the common ground for this debate. He emphasizes also the material, political and economic conditions which underlie technoscientific projects, and stresses the indespensible role imagination and art play in teaching the responsible development of technology in the next century.
**AS SEEN ON BBC BREAKFAST** Will we ever truly understand our cosmic home? This is the story of the technologies that allow us to look up, to learn and to discover our place in the cosmos. 'An electrifying new history of the universe' HANNAH FRY, author of Rutherford and Fry's Complete Guide to Absolutely Everything We are part of an incredible chain of events stretching 13.8 billion years into the past and even further into the future. But what does that future hold? And how do scientists study the entire universe? The Universe in a Box is Andrew Pontzen's tribute to simulations - the remarkable computer codes that, over the last century, have allowed us to understand the distant past and far future of the universe. It reframes what we think we know about galaxies, black holes and matter itself. And it reveals the stories of the pioneering scientists who unlocked the mysteries of space, from redshift to improbable dark materials that pass, ghostlike, through solid rock. Illuminating, provocative and bold, this is the story of our home, the cosmos, through simulations: mini-universes inside computers. 'I was enlightened, amazed, and profoundly impressed' SIR PHILIP PULLMAN, author of His Dark Materials
This book covers a wide range of topics from the smart transportation domain. It discusses protocols, applications and security concerns in various vehicular networks using examples and easy-to-understand figures. The first four chapters focus on vehicular network protocols and applications, while the remaining four chapters incorporate security, trust and privacy issues with examples from real-life cases. The book concludes with a vision of what to expect in the near future and will be an invaluable resource for anybody interested in this nascent technology and its variegated applications. Dr. Niaz Chowdhury is a postdoctoral research associate at the Knowledge Media Institute, the Open University in England. Dr. Lewis M. Mackenzie is a senior lecturer in computing science at the University of Glasgow.
This book is packed with practical ideas and advice on the art of teaching science. The use of exposition, demostrations, practical work, investigations, circuses, independent learning, simulations and discussion are explored in detail through a wide variety of richly illustrated examples, alongside the reasons teachers have for choosing one strategy rather than another. The examples are taken from recent classrooms, made more vivid by a large collection of photographs and pen sketches. The book is written primarily for beginning science teachers, but there is much to commend it to an experienced teacher. It will, of course, be important reading for teachers in schools who accept the responsibility of mentoring beginning science teachers. The authors are university tutors at the London Insitute of Education and have responsibility for the training of science teachers.
Learn to: * Master maths with more than 2,000 practice questions * Add, subtract, multiply and divide with confidence * Work with decimals, fractions and percentages * Size up weights and measures Fun, friendly coaching and all the practice you need to tackle maths problems with confidence and ease In his popular Basic Maths For Dummies, professional maths tutor Colin Beveridge proved that he could turn anyone even the most maths-phobic person into a natural-born number cruncher. In this book he supplies more of his unique brand of maths-made-easy coaching, plus 2,000 practice problems to help you master what you learn. Whether you're prepping for a numeracy test or an employability exam, thinking of returning to school, or you'd just like to be one of those know-it-alls who says, 'Oh, that's easy!' about any maths problem that comes your way, this book is for you. *Master basic arithmetic, fast in no time, solving addition, subtraction, multiplication and division problems will seem as easy as tying your shoes *Face down fractions you'll never again feel shy around fractions, decimals, percentages and ratios *Juggle weights and measures like a pro whether it's a question of how much it weighs, how long (or far) it is, or how much it costs, you'll never be at a loss for an answer *Make shapes your playthings circles, squares, triangles and rectangles you'll measure them, draw them and manipulate them with ease Open the book and find: *2,000 pencil-and-paper practice problems * The keys to mastering addition, subtraction, multiplication and division * The lowdown on fractions, decimals and percentages * Basic geometry made easy * How to handle weights, measures and money problems * How to read charts, tables and graphs at a glance |
You may like...
Sapiens - A Brief History Of Humankind
Yuval Noah Harari
Paperback
(4)
Vaxxers - The Inside Story Of The Oxford…
Sarah Gilbert, Catherine Green
Paperback
Third Millennium Thinking - Creating…
Saul Perlmutter, Robert Maccoun, …
Paperback
|