James T. Costa takes readers on a journey from Charles Darwin's youth and travels on the HMS Beagle to Down House, his bustling home of forty years. To test his insights into evolution, Darwin devised experiments using his garden and greenhouse, the surrounding land and his home-turned-field-station. His experiments yielded universal truths about nature and evidence for his revolutionary arguments in On the Origin of Species and other watershed works. We accompany Darwin in his myriad pursuits against the backdrop of his enduring marriage, chronic illness, grief at the loss of three children and joy in scientific revelation. At each chapter's end, Costa shows how we can investigate the wonders of nature, with directions on how to re-create Darwin's experiments.

First published in 2003. Hewett Cottrell Watson was a pioneer in a new science not yet defined in Victorian times - ecology - and was practically the first naturalist to conduct research on plant evolution, beginning in 1834. The correspondence between Watson and Darwin, analysed for the first time in this book, reveals the extent to which Darwin profited from Watson's data. Darwin's subsequent fame, however, is one of the reasons why Watson became almost forgotten. This biography traces both the influences and characteristics that shaped Watson's outlook and personality, and indeed his science, and the institutional contexts within which he worked. At the same time, it makes evident the extent of his real contributions to the science of the plant ecology and evolution.

A RICHARD AND JUDY BOOK CLUB PICK 'With poignancy, humour and compassion, Jones invites us into "the invigorating chaos of pre-hospital care" . . . a panorama of experiences: the mundane, the ridiculous, the heartbreaking and the tragic' - The Guardian 'This beautifully written book, punctuated with wry humour, is a sobering portrayal of the ailing, the distressed and the lonely... Yet it's also an uplifting read which will make you thankful that should your hour of need arrive, so will someone like Jones' - Daily Express A memoir of the chaos, intensity and occasional beauty of life as a paramedic. A young man has stopped breathing in a supermarket toilet. A pedestrian with a nasty head injury won't let the crew near him on a busy road. A newborn baby is worryingly silent. An addict urinates on the ambulance floor when denied a fix. This is the life of an ambulance paramedic. Jake Jones has worked in the UK ambulance service for ten years: every day, he sees a dozen of the scenes we hope to see only once in a lifetime. Can You Hear Me? - the first thing he says when he arrives on the scene - is a memoir of the chaos, intensity and occasional beauty of life on the front-lines of medicine in the UK. As well as a look into dozens of extraordinary scenes - the hoarder who won't move his collection to let his ailing father leave the house, the blood-soaked man who tries to escape from the ambulance, the life saved by a lucky crew who had been called to see someone else entirely - Can You Hear Me? is an honest examination of the strains and challenges of one of the most demanding and important jobs anyone can do.

Everyone knows the story of the codebreaker and computer science pioneer Alan Turing. Except ... When Dermot Turing is asked about his famous uncle, people want to know more than the bullet points of his life. They want to know everything - was Alan Turing actually a codebreaker? What did he make of artificial intelligence? What is the significance of Alan Turing's trial, his suicide, the Royal Pardon, the GBP50 note and the film The Imitation Game? In Reflections of Alan Turing, Dermot strips off the layers to uncover the real story. It's time to discover a fresh legacy of Alan Turing for the twenty-first century.

What's Wrong with My Child? reveals a mother's quest for answers about her son's psych symptoms that leads to shocking discoveries that could impact struggling families in the United States and possibly globally. Elizabeth Harris' son Cody was eleven when, out of the blue, he started exhibiting signs of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). The OCD turned into something far more sinister when Cody started having episodes where he seemed to lose total control over his actions, leading to Cody being committed to a county youth detention center. There, he was placed in solitary confinement for weeks. For five years, Elizabeth fought a hard battle to find out what was going on with her son and their family while simultaneously battling an unsympathetic judicial system. Driven to find a cure, Elizabeth visited countless doctors across the USA. She quickly became frustrated by the fact that there was no agreement in the medical community regarding PANDAS (Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Strep), the disease behind Cody's transformation. In her quest for answers, this science-minded spa owner found proof of weaponized bacteria not only impacting their extended family, but that could be making families around the USA and possibly globally sick as well.

Following his blockbuster biography of Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson’s New York Times bestselling and critically acclaimed The Innovators is a “riveting, propulsive, and at times deeply moving” (The Atlantic) story of the people who created the computer and the internet.

What were the talents that allowed certain inventors and entrepreneurs to turn their visionary ideas into disruptive realities? What led to their creative leaps? Why did some succeed and others fail?

The Innovators is a masterly saga of collaborative genius destined to be the standard history of the digital revolution—and an indispensable guide to how innovation really happens. Isaacson begins the adventure with Ada Lovelace, Lord Byron’s daughter, who pioneered computer programming in the 1840s. He explores the fascinating personalities that created our current digital revolution, such as Vannevar Bush, Alan Turing, John von Neumann, J.C.R. Licklider, Doug Engelbart, Robert Noyce, Bill Gates, Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, Tim Berners-Lee, and Larry Page.

This is the story of how their minds worked and what made them so inventive. It’s also a narrative of how their ability to collaborate and master the art of teamwork made them even more creative. For an era that seeks to foster innovation, creativity, and teamwork, The Innovators is “a sweeping and surprisingly tenderhearted history of the digital age” (The New York Times).

A woman's fight to reclaim her body after a paralysis-inducing cycling accident In the early evening on October 1, 2003, Christina Crosby was three miles into a seventeen mile bicycle ride, intent on reaching her goal of 1,000 miles for the riding season. She was a respected senior professor of English who had celebrated her fiftieth birthday a month before. As she crested a hill, she caught a branch in the spokes of her bicycle, which instantly pitched her to the pavement. Her chin took the full force of the blow, and her head snapped back. In that instant, she was paralyzed. In A Body, Undone, Crosby puts into words a broken body that seems beyond the reach of language and understanding. She writes about a body shot through with neurological pain, disoriented in time and space, incapacitated by paralysis and deadened sensation. To address this foreign body, she calls upon the readerly pleasures of narrative, critical feminist and queer thinking, and the concentrated language of lyric poetry. Working with these resources, she recalls her 1950s tomboy ways in small-town, rural Pennsylvania, and records growing into the 1970s through radical feminism and the affirmations of gay liberation. Deeply unsentimental, Crosby communicates in unflinching prose the experience of "diving into the wreck" of her body to acknowledge grief, and loss, but also to recognize the beauty, fragility, and dependencies of all human bodies. A memoir that is a meditation on disability, metaphor, gender, sex, and love, A Body, Undone is a compelling account of living on, as Crosby rebuilds her body and fashions a life through writing, memory, and desire.

An autobiography of a ground-breaking medical doctor. Dr. David A. Hamburg started as a medical student with interest in stress disorders, paying special attention to the propensity toward violence, including the evolution of human aggression. This lead him on a path to becoming one of the most highly celebrated doctors in America - he was a member of President Clinton's Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom (the highest civilian award of the United States). Most recently, he chaired committees at the United Nations and European Union on the prevention of genocide. This book will be inspirational for emerging scientists today.

Charles Darwin is well-known throughout the world for his revolutionary work from 1859; The Origin of Species, the foundational study of evolution which greatly challenged the near-universal belief in the Christian world, at that time, of creationism. Originally published in 1928, Dorsey attempts to provide a detailed account of the scientist's life and personality informed by letters, published works and an autobiography written by Darwin. Darwin's life was full of challenges both in his personal life as well as his career and The Evolution of Charles Darwin explores all aspects of his life from birth to death emphasising the great impact his work had in the scientific community and humanity as a whole.

Marylebone has been home to its fair share of rogues, villains and eccentrics, and their stories are told here. The authors also want to remind the reader that alongside the glamour of Society, there has also been hardship and squalor in the parish, as was graphically illustrated in Charles Booth's poverty maps of London in 1889. Over the past 10 years the Marylebone Journal has printed historical essays on the people, places, and events that have helped shape the character of the area. Some are commemorated with a blue plaque, but many are not. This is not a check-list of the grandees of Marylebone, though plenty appear in these pages. The essays have been grouped into themes of: history, politicians and warriors, culture and sport (from pop music and television to high art), love and marriage (stories from romance to acrimonious divorce), criminals, science and medicine, buildings and places, and the mad bad and dangerous to know - those whose stories don't fit a convenient box but are too good not to tell.

Alan Turing is a patron saint of Manchester, remembered as the Mancunian who won the war, invented the computer, and was all but put to death for being gay. Each myth is related to a historical story. This is not a book about the first of those stories, of Turing at Bletchley Park. But it is about the second two, which each unfolded here in Manchester, of Turing's involvement in the world's first computer and of his refusal to be cowed about his sexuality. Manchester can be proud of Turing, but can we be proud of the city he encountered?

An autobiography of a ground-breaking medical doctor. Dr. David A. Hamburg started as a medical student with interest in stress disorders, paying special attention to the propensity toward violence, including the evolution of human aggression. This lead him on a path to becoming one of the most highly celebrated doctors in America - he was a member of President Clinton's Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom (the highest civilian award of the United States). Most recently, he chaired committees at the United Nations and European Union on the prevention of genocide. This book will be inspirational for emerging scientists today.

Nnedi Okorafor was never supposed to be paralyzed. A college track star and budding entomologist, Nnedi's lifelong battle with scoliosis was just a bump in her plan - something a simple surgery would easily correct. But when Nnedi wakes from the surgery to find she can't move her legs, her entire sense of who she is begins to waver. Confined to a hospital bed for months, unusual things begin to happen. Psychedelic bugs crawl her hospital walls; strange dreams visit her nightly. She begins to feel as if she's turning into a cyborg. Unsure if she'll ever walk again, Nnedi begins to put these experiences into writing, conjuring up strange, fantastical stories. What Nnedi discovers during her confinement would prove to be the key to her life as a successful science fiction writer: In science fiction, when something breaks, something greater often emerges from the cracks. While she may be bedridden, instead of stopping her journey Nnedi's paralysis opens up new windows in her mind, kindles her creativity and ultimately leads her to become more alive than she ever could have imagined. Nnedi takes the reader on a journey from her hospital bed deep into her memories, from her painful first experiences with racism as a child in Chicago to her powerful visits to her parents' hometown in Nigeria, where she got her first inkling that science fiction has roots beyond the West. This was not the Africa that Nnedi knew from Western literature - an Africa that she always read was a place left behind. The role of technology in Nigeria opened her eyes to future-looking Africa: cable TV and cell phones in the village, 419 scammers occupying the cybercafes, the small generator connected to her cousin's desktop computer, everyone quickly adapting to portable tech devices due to unreliable power sources. Nnedi could see that Africa was far from broken, as she'd been taught, and her experience there planted the early seeds of sci-fi - a genre that speculates about technologies, societies, and social issues - from an entirely new lens. In Broken Places & Outer Spaces, Nnedi uses her own experience as a jumping off point to follow the phenomenon of creativity born from hardship. From Frida Kahlo to Mary Shelly, she examines great artists and writers who have pushed through their limitations, using hardship to fuel their work. Through these compelling stories and her own, Nnedi reveals a universal truth: What we perceive as limitations have the potential to become our greatest strengths - far greater than when we were unbroken.

A vibrant graphic adaptation of the classic science memoir Regarded as one of the world's preeminent biologists, Edward O. Wilson spent his boyhood exploring the forests and swamps of south Alabama and the Florida panhandle, collecting snakes, butterflies, and ants--the latter to become his lifelong specialty. His memoir Naturalist, called "one of the finest scientific memoirs ever written" by the Los Angeles Times, is an inspiring account of Wilson's growth as a scientist and the evolution of the fields he helped define. This graphic edition, adapted by Jim Ottaviani and illustrated by C.M.Butzer, brings Wilson's childhood and celebrated career to life through dynamic full-color illustrations and Wilson's own lyric writing. In this adaptation of Naturalist, vivid illustrations draw readers in to Wilson's lifelong quest to explore and protect the natural world. His success began not with an elite education but an insatiable curiosity about Earth's wild creatures, and this new edition of Naturalist makes Wilson's work accessible for anyone who shares his passion. On every page, striking art adds immediacy and highlights the warmth and sense of humor that sets Wilson's writing apart. Naturalist was written as an invitation--a reminder that curiosity is vital and scientific exploration is open to all of us. Each dynamic frame of this graphic adaptation deepens Wilson's message, renewing his call to discover and celebrate the little things of the world.

Book of the Year in The Economist, Guardian, New Statesman, Wall Street Journal and New York Times. Shortlisted for the Duff Cooper Prize & the Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography. 'A wonderful book about one of the most important, brilliant and flawed scientists of the 20th century.' Peter Frankopan 'Superb' Matt Ridley, The Times 'Fascinating... The best Haldane biography yet.' New York Times J.B.S. Haldane's life was rich and strange, never short on genius, never lacking for drama. He is best remembered as a geneticist who revolutionized our understanding of evolution, but his peers thought him a polymath; one student called him 'the last man who knew all there was to be known'. Beginning in the 1930s, Haldane was also a staunch Communist - a stance that enhanced his public profile, led him into trouble, and even drew suspicions that he was spying for the Soviets. He wrote copiously on science and politics for the layman, in newspapers and magazines, and he gave speeches in town halls and on the radio, all of which made him, in his day, as famous in Britain as Einstein. Arthur C. Clarke called Haldane 'the most brilliant science popularizer of his generation'. He frequently narrated aspects of his life: of his childhood, as the son of a famous scientist; of his time in the trenches in the First World War and in Spain during the Civil War; of his experiments upon himself; of his secret research for the British Admiralty; of his final move to India, in 1957. A Dominant Character unpacks Haldane's boisterous life in detail, and it examines the questions he raised about the intersections of genetics and politics - questions that resonate all the more strongly today.

This book is an enthusiastic account of Pierre Laszlo's life and pioneering work on catalysis of organic reactions by modified clays, and his reflections on doing science from the 1960s to 1990s. In this autobiography, readers will discover a first-hand testimony of the chemical revolution in the second half of the 20th century, and the author's perspective on finding a calling in science and chemistry, as well as his own experience on doing science, teaching science and managing a scientific career. During this period, Pierre Laszlo led an academic laboratory and worked also in three different countries: the US, Belgium and France, where he had the opportunity to meet remarkable colleagues. In this book, he recalls his encounters and collaborations with important scientists, who shaped the nature of chemistry at times of increased pace of change, and collates a portrait of the worldwide scientific community at that time. In addition, the author tells us about the turns and twists of his own life, and how he ended up focusing his research on clay based chemistry, where clay minerals were turned in his lab to catalysis of key chemical transformations. Given its breath, the book offers a genuine information on the life and career of a chemist, and it will appeal not only to scientists and students, but also to historians of science and to the general reader.

This book resurrects the Franz Alexanderian legacy, reminding his behemoth contributions and offers the reader with a deeply tender and touching portrait. It also considers his personal and professional life, the role of family in his decisions, and how those decisions affected other family members.

This book is about the life and work of a Turkish-American social scientist, Muzafer Sherif (1905-1988). He was known for his seminal work on norm and group formations, social judgment, and intergroup conflicts and cooperation. Although Sherif is identified as one of the founders of social psychology, his contribution to the science of psychology goes beyond the limits of social psychology as it is generally defined today. This volume aims to rediscover the theory and research of its subject in the socio-historical context of his time, as well as his relevance for contemporary psychology. Chapters cover a range of topics: an in-depth portrayal of Sherif's life and intellectual struggle in Turkey and in the United States; his metatheoretical considerations on the science of psychology; his theory and research on group and intergroup relationships, social norms and social change; formation and change of frames of reference, ego- involvements and identity; and psychology of slogans. Sherif had profound life experiences in different cultural contexts from the Ottoman Empire and World War I to American universities, which enabled him to see the essentiality of the historico-cultural context in the formation of human phenomena. Sherif's psychology is an elegant exemplar of an integrative science of psychology that is worth rediscovering.

"Much more than a coming-of-age story, "Badluck Way" is an important meditation on what it means to share space and breathe the same air as truly wild animals, and the necessary damage that can occur when boundaries are crossed" (Tom Groneberg, author of "The Secret Life of Cowboys").
In this gripping memoir of a young man, a wolf, their parallel lives and ultimate collision, Bryce Andrews describes life on the remote, windswept Sun Ranch in southwest Montana. The Sun's twenty thousand acres of rangeland occupy a still-wild corner of southwest Montana--a high valley surrounded by mountain ranges and steep creeks with portentous names like Grizzly and Bad Luck. Just over the border from Yellowstone National Park, the Sun holds giant herds of cattle and elk amid many predators--bears, mountain lions, and wolves.
In lyrical, haunting language, Andrews recounts marathon days and nights of building fences, riding, roping, and otherwise learning the hard business of caring for cattle, an initiation that changes him from an idealistic city kid into a skilled ranch hand. But when wolves suddenly begin killing the ranch's cattle, Andrews has to shoulder a rifle, chase the pack, and do what he'd hoped he would never have to do.
Called "an elegant memoir" by the "Great Falls Tribune," "Badluck Way" is about transformation and complications, about living with dirty hands every day. It is about the hard choices that wake us at night and take a lifetime to reconcile. Above all, "Badluck Way" celebrates the breathtaking beauty of wilderness and the satisfaction of hard work on some of the harshest, most beautiful land in the world.

Through Francesco Bianchini, the 'greatest Italian of his time' this book explores the exciting meeting of science, history, and politics in early modern Europe. Born in a time where entry into the church granted power, privilege, and access to the most exciting ideas of his time, the magnificent Monsignor Francesco Bianchini was an accomplished player in the political, scientific, and historical arenas of early modern Europe. Among his accomplishments were writing a universal history from the creation to the fall of Assyria; discovering, excavating, and interpreting ancient buildings; and designing a papal collection of antiquities that was later partially realized in the Vatican museums. He was also responsible for confirming and publicizing Newton's theories of light and color; discovering several comets; and building the most beautiful and exact heliometer in the world in the basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Rome. Bianchini's international reputation earned him election to the Academie royale des sciences of Paris and the Royal Society of London. As a trusted servant of Pope Clement XI, he helped to execute the difficult balancing act the papacy practiced during the War of the Spanish Succession, which pitted Britain, the Dutch Republic, and the Habsburg Empire against France and Spain. One of his assignments also resulted in attachment to the cause and person of the Old Pretender, James III, the Stuart claimant to the thrones of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Through the career of this eminent and adept diplomat, astronomer, archaeologist, and historian, J. L. Heilbron introduces a world of learning and discovery, Church and State, and politics and power.

The incredible true story of the origin of human flight, by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author David McCullough. On a winter day in 1903, in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, two unknown brothers from Ohio changed history. But it would take the world some time to believe what had happened: the age of flight had begun, with the first heavier-than-air, powered machine carrying a pilot. Who were these men and how was it that they achieved what they did? David McCullough, two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, tells the surprising, profoundly human story of Wilbur and Orville Wright. Far more than a couple of unschooled Dayton bicycle mechanics who happened to hit on success, they were men of exceptional courage and determination, and of far-ranging intellectual interests and ceaseless curiosity, much of which they attributed to their upbringing. In this thrilling book, McCullough draws on the immense riches of the Wright Papers, including private diaries, notebooks, scrapbooks and more than a thousand letters from private family correspondence to tell the human side of the Wright Brothers' story, including the little-known contributions of their sister, Katharine, without whom things might well have gone differently for them.

Everyone has heard of famous scientists like Einstein, Curie, Galileo, and Darwin. But some scientists have been overlooked by history. Virginia Apgar, Caroline Herschel, Percy Julian, and Rosalind Franklin are scientists who had to overcome adversity in order to succeed in their fields. Readers will be captivated by the inspirational stories of these unsung heroes of science! Packed with fun facts and fascinating sidebars, this full-color informational text explores and celebrates diversity through high-interest content. Featuring TIME content and images, this nonfiction book has text features such as a glossary, an index, and a table of contents to engage students in reading as they build their comprehension, vocabulary, and reading skills. The Reader's Guide and extended Try It! activity increase understanding of the material, and develop higher-order thinking. Check It Out! offers print and online resources for additional reading. Keep students reading from cover to cover with this captivating text!