![]() |
![]() |
Your cart is empty |
||
Books > Language & Literature > Biography & autobiography > Science, technology & engineering
Join Hloni Bookholane on his journey of becoming a doctor: from student to intern at the world-famous Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town to the best school of public health in the world across the Atlantic, and back home amid the COVID-19 pandemic. There are highs and lows – learnings and unlearnings – about the personal versus political as he discovers how government policy, socioeconomics and more influence disease and medicine.
THE NO.1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 'A beautiful little book by a brilliant mind' DAILY TELEGRAPH 'Effortlessly instructive, absorbing, up to the minute and - where it matters - witty' GUARDIAN The world-famous cosmologist and #1 bestselling author of A Brief History of Time leaves us with his final thoughts on the universe's biggest questions in this brilliant posthumous work. Is there a God? How did it all begin? Can we predict the future? What is inside a black hole? Is there other intelligent life in the universe? Will artificial intelligence outsmart us? How do we shape the future? Will we survive on Earth? Should we colonise space? Is time travel possible? Throughout his extraordinary career, Stephen Hawking expanded our understanding of the universe and unravelled some of its greatest mysteries. But even as his theoretical work on black holes, imaginary time and multiple histories took his mind to the furthest reaches of space, Hawking always believed that science could also be used to fix the problems on our planet. And now, as we face potentially catastrophic changes here on Earth - from climate change to dwindling natural resources to the threat of artificial super-intelligence - Stephen Hawking turns his attention to the most urgent issues for humankind. Wide-ranging, intellectually stimulating, passionately argued, and infused with his characteristic humour, Brief Answers to the Big Questions, the final book from one of the greatest minds in history, is a personal view on the challenges we face as a human race, and where we, as a planet, are heading next. A percentage of all royalties will go to charity.
For more than twenty-five years, David Nott has taken unpaid leave from his job as a general and vascular surgeon with the NHS to volunteer in some of the world’s most dangerous war zones. From Sarajevo under siege in 1993, to clandestine hospitals in rebel-held eastern Aleppo, he has carried out life-saving operations and field surgery in the most challenging conditions, and with none of the resources of a major London teaching hospital. The conflicts he has worked in form a chronology of twenty-first-century combat: Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Darfur, Congo, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Gaza and Syria. But he has also volunteered in areas blighted by natural disasters, such as the earthquakes in Haiti and Nepal. Driven both by compassion and passion, the desire to help others and the thrill of extreme personal danger, he is now widely acknowledged to be the most experienced trauma surgeon in the world. But as time has gone on, David Nott began to realize that flying into to a catastrophe - whether war or natural disaster – was not enough. Doctors on the ground needed to learn how to treat the appalling injuries that war inflicts upon its victims. Since 2015, the Foundation he set up with his wife, Elly, has disseminated the knowledge he has gained, training other doctors in the art of saving lives threatened by bombs and bullets. War Doctor is his extraordinary story.
The best-selling author of Leonardo da Vinci and Steve Jobs returns. In 2012, Nobel Prize winning scientist Jennifer Doudna hit upon an invention that will transform the future of the human race: an easy-to-use tool that can edit DNA. Known as CRISPR, it opened a brave new world of medical miracles and moral questions. It has already been deployed to cure deadly diseases, fight the coronavirus pandemic of 2020, and make inheritable changes in the genes of babies. But what does that mean for humanity? Should we be hacking our own DNA to make us less susceptible to disease? Should we democratise the technology that would allow parents to enhance their kids? After discovering this CRISPR, Doudna is now wrestling these even bigger issues. THE CODE BREAKERS is an examination of how life as we know it is about to change - and a brilliant portrayal of the woman leading the way.
The pioneer astronauts who took America into space tell their
personal stories about the challenges they faced -- their fears,
joys, friendships, and successes. Chosen from hundreds of crackerjack pilots for their fitness, intelligence, and courage, the original Mercury Seven astronauts risked their lives to cross the space frontier. In "We Seven, " they take readers behind the scenes to show them their training, technology, and teamwork, and to share personal stories, including the lighter moments of their mission. They bring readers inside the Mercury program -- even into the space capsules themselves. "We Seven" straps you in with the astronauts and rockets you along for the ride. Share Alan Shepard's exhilaration as he breaks through the earth's atmosphere. Endure moments of panic with Gus Grissom when his hatch blows, stranding him in the open sea. Race with John Glenn as he makes split-second life-or-death maneuvers during reentry, and feel his relief when he emerges safe but drenched with sweat. Despite such heroism, Project Mercury was more than the story of individual missions. It defined the manned space flight program to come, from Gemini through Apollo. In "We Seven, " America's original astronauts tell us firsthand -- as only they can -- about the space program they pioneered, and share with us the hopes and dreams of the U.S. at the dawn of a new era.
This biography of the eye surgeon Arthur Ferguson MacCallan is an insightful perspective on the life and work of the exceptional medical and ophthalmic pioneer. In 1903, Arthur MacCallan accepted a position in Egypt to establish the country's first travelling ophthalmic hospital, funded by the British philanthropist Sir Ernest Cassel. Over the next two decades, Arthur established an extensive network of over twenty ophthalmic hospitals which attended to over 1.5 million patients and performed over 76,000 operations. He also founded the Memorial Ophthalmic Laboratory at Giza which continues to play a pivotal role in ophthalmic care today. Arthur was a world authority on trachoma, and the MacCallan Classification, developed in 1905, was adopted by the World Health Organisation as its standard in 1952. This is still recognised today as a major contribution in the fight against trachoma. Set against the backdrop of political unrest, world war, and the rapidly changing relationship between Britain and Egypt during the momentous years of the early 1900s, Arthur's grandson Michael tells his fascinating story, brought to life through original letters, documents, colourful anecdotes and 160 photographs. Lord Cromer, British Consul General, Egypt (1883-1907) said "I regard the campaign against ophthalmia as one of the most important and useful works undertaken in Egypt."
Humorous, illuminating, poignant and sad anecdotes, illustrate the life of a family doctor working when general medical practice was very different from today. The GP cared for patients night and day, every day of the year and personal and professional lives intertwined. Colourful personalities, conniving rogues, the deceitful and the desperate, saint and sinner pass through the consulting room to provide fascinating glimpses of individuals, the doctor's life and the vagaries of human existence. Their tales are fascinating and a record of the social and medical fabric of the time.
'Who would have guessed that a philosopher's life could be so full of
adventures?'
When Oliver Sacks was twelve years old, a perceptive schoolmaster wrote in his report: 'Sacks will go far, if he does not go too far'. It is now abundantly clear that Sacks has never stopped going . . . From its opening pages on his youthful obsession with motorcycles and speed, On the Move is infused with his restless energy. As he recounts his experiences as a young neurologist in the early 1960s, first in California and then in New York, where he discovered a long-forgotten illness in the back wards of a chronic hospital, as well as with a group of patients who would define his life, it becomes clear that Sacks's earnest desire for engagement has occasioned unexpected encounters and travels - sending him through bars and alleys, over oceans, and across continents. With unbridled honesty and humour, Sacks shows us that the same energy that drives his physical passions -bodybuilding, weightlifting, and swimming - also drives his cerebral passions. He writes about his love affairs, both romantic and intellectual, his guilt over leaving his family to come to America, his bond with his schizophrenic brother, and the writers and scientists - Thom Gunn, A. R. Luria, W. H. Auden, Gerald M. Edelman, Francis Crick - who influenced him. On the Move is the story of a brilliantly unconventional physician and writer - and of the man who has illuminated the many ways that the brain makes us human.
When faced with events as devastating and rare as 1 in 100 million, you need the help of people who are 1 in a million In April 2013, at the age of fourteen George contracted a devastating infection that put him at death's door and changed his future. His experiences became the kernel of this book. Beginning on that fateful day and continuing until July 2014 with a critical operation, Better Angels tells George's inspiring story in his voice, his fight to return to normality and deal with consequences for the rest of his life. He and his family cope with a switch from full health to near death in the space of five hours. We see George find a maturity he is forced to take on and his parents search for positives at the bleakest of times. Extraordinary people rally to help George. These better angels gave rise to the title of the book and it is their story, their compassion & selflessness that inspires. Better Angels is a chronology of strength and fortitude- a description of a family thrown sideways by events, the compassion & expertise of healthcare teams to get them back on track, but above all George's journey to find himself again.
Unlocking the Sky tells the extraordinary tale of the race to design, refine, and manufacture a manned flying machine, a race that took place in the air, on the ground, and in the courtrooms of America. While the Wright brothers threw a veil of secrecy over their flying machine, Glenn Hammond Curtiss -- perhaps the greatest aviator and aeronautical inventor of all time -- freely exchanged information with engineers in America and abroad, resulting in his famous airplane, the June Bug, which made the first ever public flight in America. Fiercely jealous, the Wright brothers took to the courts to keep Curtiss and his airplane out of the sky and off the market. Ultimately, however, it was Curtiss's innovations and designs, not the Wright brothers', that served as the model for the modern airplane. |
![]() ![]() You may like...
Bandpass Sigma Delta Modulators…
Jurgen Van Engelen, Rudy J.Van De Plassche
Hardcover
R5,413
Discovery Miles 54 130
Learning-Based Reconfigurable Multiple…
Tho Le-Ngoc, Atoosa Dalili Shoaei
Hardcover
R3,025
Discovery Miles 30 250
An Interdisciplinary Approach to Modern…
Sabyasachi Pramanik, Anand Sharma, …
Hardcover
R3,268
Discovery Miles 32 680
|