This book details the lives of two married geniuses, Aden and Marjorie Meinel, who helped to pioneer modern optics and solar energy in the U.S. Aden B. Meinel and Marjorie P. Meinel stood at the confluence of several overarching technological developments during their lifetimes, including postwar aerial surveillance by spy planes and satellites, solar energy, the evolution of telescope design, interdisciplinary optics, and photonics. Yet, their incredible stories and their long list of scientific contributions have never been adequately recognized in one place. In this book, James Breckinridge and Alec M. Pridgeon correct this oversight by sharing the story of this powerful duo. The book follows their lives and covers large scientific developments between World War II to the Cold War. James B. Breckinridge, a previous advisee and later colleague to the Meinels, and historian and scientist Alec M. Pridgeon collected more than 200 hours of oral interviews with those who worked closely with the Meinels and some who built their careers around the findings made possible by their work. The book shares and analyzes the work done by the Meinels, and it also includes incredible insights from an unpublished Meinel autobiography.

One day in 1996, the neuroscientist Eric R. Kandel took a call from his program officer at the National Institute of Mental Health, who informed him that he had been awarded a key grant. Also, the officer said, he and his colleagues thought Kandel would win the Nobel Prize. "I hope not soon," Kandel's wife, Denise, said when she heard this. Sociologists had found that Nobel Prize winners often did not contribute much more to science, she explained. In this book, Kandel recounts his remarkable career since receiving the Nobel in 2000-or his experience of proving to his wife that he was not yet "completely dead intellectually." He takes readers through his lab's scientific advances, including research into how long-term memory is stored in the brain, the nature of age-related memory loss, and the neuroscience of drug addiction and schizophrenia. Kandel relates how the Nobel Prize gave him the opportunity to reach a far larger audience, which in turn allowed him to discover and pursue new directions. He describes his efforts to promote public understanding of science and to put brain science and art into conversation with each other. Kandel also discusses his return to Austria, which he had fled as a child, and observes Austria's coming to terms with the Nazi period. Showcasing Kandel's accomplishments, erudition, and wit, There Is Life After the Nobel Prize is a candid account of the working life of an acclaimed scientist.

The award-winning New York Times bestseller about the extraordinary things that can happen when we harness the power of both the brain and the heart

Growing up in the high desert of California, Jim Doty was poor, with an alcoholic father and a mother chronically depressed and paralyzed by a stroke. Today he is the director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARE) at Stanford University, of which the Dalai Lama is a founding benefactor. But back then his life was at a dead end until at twelve he wandered into a magic shop looking for a plastic thumb. Instead he met Ruth, a woman who taught him a series of exercises to ease his own suffering and manifest his greatest desires. Her final mandate was that he keep his heart open and teach these techniques to others. She gave him his first glimpse of the unique relationship between the brain and the heart.

Doty would go on to put Ruth's practices to work with extraordinary results--power and wealth that he could only imagine as a twelve-year-old, riding his orange Sting-Ray bike. But he neglects Ruth's most important lesson, to keep his heart open, with disastrous results--until he has the opportunity to make a spectacular charitable contribution that will virtually ruin him. Part memoir, part science, part inspiration, and part practical instruction, Into the Magic Shop shows us how we can fundamentally change our lives by first changing our brains and our hearts.

Impressive stories of women using geospatial technology to create sustainable solutions for problems the world faces. The third volume in the Women and GIS series shows how 31 diverse women in various STEAM fields discovered their passion, broke down barriers, and used maps, analysis, imagery, and geographic information systems (GIS) to advance their fields and improve the world. Sharing their experiences from childhood and throughout their careers, each woman reveals her journey in an inspiring recollection of the obstacles she has overcome, the knowledge she has gained along the way, and how tenacity and determination have helped her succeed. Each woman shares tips and words of wisdom that she's gained along the way, including: Priscilla Mbama Abasi: "Think big! Think about going to space, think about building things no one has seen before." Arianna Armelli: "If you are like me and crave the freedom to explore a path of the unknown, aka entrepreneurship, a career in STEM will foster the technical foundation to achieve those goals." Gabi Fleury: "The best advice I was given starting out was 'forge your own path.' Conservation isn't a structured, straight-line career, you can get into it in many ways. This is exciting, but it also can be really challenging, because you have to be flexible, innovative, and always on the lookout for the next opportunity." Healy Hamilton: "Success, to me, is a daily feeling that you are living true to your values, that you are meaningfully contributing to the world you want to create." Katharine Hayhoe: "While it's important to have people you respect and trust give you feedback at key points in your career, when it all comes down to it, you have to make the decisions that feel right for you, not the ones that necessarily look best on paper. You're the one who has to live with them." Featuring strong, persevering women from around the globe, the stories found in Women and GIS, Volume 3: Champions of a Sustainable World will inspire readers who are developing their own life stories to strive for success and achieve amazing accomplishments.

From Snow White to Moana, from Pinocchio to Frozen, the animated films of Walt Disney Studios have moved and entertained millions. But few fans know that behind these groundbreaking features was an incredibly influential group of women who fought for respect in an often ruthless male-dominated industry and who have slipped under the radar for decades. In The Queens of Animation, bestselling author Nathalia Holt tells their dramatic stories for the first time, showing how these women infiltrated the boys' club of Disney's story and animation departments and used early technologies to create the rich artwork and unforgettable narratives that have become part of the American canon. As the influence of Walt Disney Studios grew---and while battling sexism, domestic abuse, and workplace intimidation---these women also fought to transform the way female characters are depicted to young audiences. With gripping storytelling, and based on extensive interviews and exclusive access to archival and personal documents, The Queens of Animation reveals the vital contributions these women made to Disney's Golden Age and their continued impact on animated filmmaking, culminating in the record-shattering Frozen, Disney's first female-directed full-length feature film.

A treasure trove of illuminating and entertaining quotations from the legendary naturalist Here is Charles Darwin in his own words--the naturalist, traveler, scientific thinker, and controversial author of On the Origin of Species, the book that shook the Victorian world. Featuring hundreds of quotations carefully selected by world-renowned Darwin biographer Janet Browne, The Quotable Darwin draws from Darwin's writings, letters to friends and family, autobiographical reminiscences, and private scientific notebooks. It offers a multifaceted portrait that takes readers through his youth, the famous voyage of the Beagle, the development of his thoughts about evolution, his gradual loss of religious faith, and the time spent turning his ideas into a well-articulated theory about the natural origin of all living beings--a theory that dangerously included the origin of humans. The Quotable Darwin also includes many of the key responses to Darwin's ideas from figures across the social spectrum, scientists and nonscientists alike--and criticism too. We see Darwin as an innovative botanist and geologist, an affectionate husband and father, and a lively correspondent who once told his cousin that he liked to play billiards because "it drives the horrid species out of my head." This book gives us an intimate look at Darwin at work, at home, as a public figure, and on his travels. Complete with a chronology of Darwin's life by Browne, The Quotable Darwin provides an engagingly fresh perspective on a remarkable man who was always thinking deeply about the natural world.

This book strips away the myths surrounding the famed scientist George Washington Carver and portrays him as a brilliant, creative man who nonetheless possessed very human peculiarities and frailties. This insightful work chronicles the life of George Washington Carver, the renowned African American scientist and teacher. George Washington Carver: A Biography begins with a discussion of the political and social circumstances in Missouri where Carver was born into slavery, circa 1864. Readers will follow Carver through his formal education to his decision to accept Booker T. Washington's offer to teach and do research at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. The bulk of the volume focuses on Carver's career at Tuskegee, a career that spanned nearly five decades, from 1896 until Carver's death in January 1943.The book highlights Carver's major achievements, including his championing of crop rotation and the hundreds of products he created from peanuts, sweet potatoes, and other plants native to the South. In addition to Carver the scientist, students will meet Carver the man, who, for example, loved art and painted throughout his life. A dozen black-and-white photographs that help document the life of George Washington Carver A "Selected Bibliography" of sources most useful in understanding the life of George Washington Carver

In this work, Carl Anthony shares his perspectives as an African-American child in post-World War II Philadelphia; a student and civil rights activist in 1960s Harlem; a traveling student of West African architecture; and an architect, planner, and environmental justice advocate in Berkeley. He contextualizes this within American urbanism and human origins, making profoundly personal both African American and American urban histories as well as planetary origins and environmental issues, to not only bring a new worldview to people of color, but to set forth a truly inclusive vision of our shared planetary future. The Earth, the City, and the Hidden Narrative of Race connects the logics behind slavery, community disinvestment, and environmental exploitation to address the most pressing issues of our time in a cohesive and foundational manner. Most books dealing with these topics and periods silo issues apart from one another, but this book contextualizes the connections between social movements and issues, providing tremendous insight into successful movement building. Anthony's rich narrative describes both being at the mercy of racism, urban disinvestment, and environmental injustice as well as fighting against these forces with a variety of strategies. Because this work is both a personal memoir and an exposition of ideas, it will appeal to those who appreciate thoughtful and unique writing on issues of race, including individuals exploring their own African American identity, as well as progressive audiences of organizations and community leaders and professionals interested in democratizing power and advancing equitable policies for low-income communities and historically disenfranchised communities.

After watching his mother die of tuberculosis at age thirteen, for two years, John lived with his abusive alcoholic father. During those two years, he was arrested three times for minor crimes. At fifteen, he changed the date on his birth certificate, and joined the army. As an orderly at Walter Reed Army Hospital, he witnessed an appendectomy and at that moment he decided to be a surgeon. Unable to get suitable work after his army discharge, he joined the navy. After three years in the Navy, he applied to two colleges, and both rejected his applications because he didn't have a valid high school diploma. After attending night school, he received a valid high school diploma and St. Peter's College accepted him. In the face of adversity, he finished college, medical school, a rotating internship, a surgical residency and successfully passed the general surgical boards. He went on to enjoy a prosperous career as a general, chest and vascular surgeon. "Juvenile Delinquent to Surgeon" tells Dr. Wrable's story of hard work, persistence, and determination that are the essential ingredients to achieve a dream.

In a society uprooted by two world wars, industrialization, and dehumanizing technology, a revolutionary farmer turns to poetry to reconnect his people to the land and one another. A farmer, poet, activist, pastor, and mystic, Britts (1917-1949) has been called a British Wendell Berry. His story is no romantic agrarian elegy, but a life lived in the thick of history. As his country plunged headlong into World War II, he joined an international pacifist community, the Bruderhof, and was soon forced to leave Europe for South America. Amidst these great upheavals, his response - to root himself in faith, to dedicate himself to building community, to restore the land he farmed, and to use his gift with words to turn people from their madness - speaks forcefully into our time. In an age still wracked by racism, nationalism, materialism, and ecological devastation, the life he chose and the poetry he composed remain a prophetic challenge.

Very few individuals can truthfully say that their work impacts every person on earth. Forrest Galante is one of them. As a wildlife biologist and conservationist, Galante devotes his life to studying, rediscovering, and protecting our planet's amazing lifeforms. Part memoir, part biological adventure, Still Alive celebrates the beauty and determined resiliency of our world, as well as the brave conservationists fighting to save it. In his debut book, Galante takes readers on an exhilarating journey to the most remote and dangerous corners of the world. He recounts miraculous rediscoveries of species that were thought to be extinct and invites readers into his wild life: from his upbringing amidst civil unrest in Zimbabwe to his many globetrotting adventures, including suspenseful run-ins with drug cartels, witch doctors, and vengeful government officials. He shares all of the life-threatening bites, fights, falls, and jungle illnesses. He also investigates the connection between wildlife mistreatment and human safety, particularly in relation to COVID-19. Still Alive is much more than just a can't-put-down adventure story bursting with man-eating crocodiles, long-forgotten species rediscovered, and near-death experiences. It is an impassioned, informative, and undeniably inspiring examination of the importance of wildlife conservation today and how every individual can make a difference.

In a cloth-covered box, the physical treasures of Susan Freeman's life quietly stand as a monument to love.

The box contains letters she and her husband, Leslie, wrote to one another over a span of twenty-seven years. The first one, dated 1975, was written by Susan during her days working on a farm in North Dakota. The last one, dated April 12, 2002, was written by Leslie on the day he committed an act of self-deliverance to escape the final ravages of cancer.

But their story doesn't end with his physical death.

Six months after he passed away, Susan received a channeled message that began "I, who have left you ..." They have a spiritual connection that allows them to communicate between dimensions. Susan's memoir shares their story, their letters, and messages from the other side.

Susan Freeman has written a memoir that speaks to the deepest longing in every heart-to know that love cannot and never does die. The promise her husband, Leslie, made to her before his passing has come true. He promised he would never leave her. He has communicated to her from "the outer realm" through a clairaudient who could never know the details of their twenty-seven year odyssey. In long, lyrical letters over a nine-year period, Leslie revisits details of their exotic travels in Arabia, refers to gifts he gave her, and constantly reassures her of his presence and his love of her through lifetimes. "There are only three things you need fear," he tells her. "Not being able to love, closing yourself off, and holding on too tightly to the past." This book is a rare and inspiring gift of spirit.
-Gail Carr Feldman PhD, author, "Midlife Crash Course: The Journey From Crisis To Full Creative Power"

In My Watery Self: An Aquatic Memoir, author/scientist Stephen Spotte traces a fascinating trail through a life that began in West Virgina coal camps, drifted through reckless bohemian times of countercultural indulgence in Beach Haven, New Jersey, and led to a career as a highly-respected marine biologist. Together, these stories form a view not just of one man's life, but that of a generation that often refused to take a direct path to the workplace, insisting instead on a winding unveiling of true self-realization, to achieve previously-unimagined outcomes. For Spotte, the key was water: His years of beach living led to a self-initiated study of literature and the sea. He eventually returned to college and received his training as a marine biologist, and discovered, through his singular voice, a wet and occasionally very weird perspective on the world. His writing is engrossing throughout, the stories he shares--such as his stint as curator of the New York Aquarium at Coney Island at the tail end of the hippie era--are compelling and thoroughly enjoyable as he elevates the people and situations he encounters to mythical levels, blending empirical observation with literary prose.

Louis Bromfield was a World War I ambulance driver, a Paris expat, and a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist as famous in the 1920s as Hemingway or Fitzgerald. But he cashed in his literary success to finance a wild agrarian dream in his native Ohio. The ideas he planted at his utopian experimental farm, Malabar, would inspire America's first generation of organic farmers and popularize the tenets of environmentalism years before Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. A lanky Midwestern farm boy dressed up like a Left Bank bohemian, Bromfield stood out in literary Paris for his lavish hospitality and his green thumb. He built a magnificent garden outside the city where he entertained aristocrats, movie stars, flower breeders, and writers of all stripes. Gertrude Stein enjoyed his food, Edith Wharton admired his roses, Ernest Hemingway boiled with jealousy over his critical acclaim. Millions savored his novels, which were turned into Broadway plays and Hollywood blockbusters, yet Bromfield's greatest passion was the soil. In 1938, Bromfield returned to Ohio to transform 600 badly eroded acres into a thriving cooperative farm, which became a mecca for agricultural pioneers and a country retreat for celebrities like Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall (who were married there in 1945). This sweeping biography unearths a lost icon of American culture, a fascinating, hilarious and unclassifiable character who-between writing and plowing-also dabbled in global politics and high society. Through it all, he fought for an agriculture that would enrich the soil and protect the planet. While Bromfield's name has faded into obscurity, his mission seems more critical today than ever before.

Dame Cicely Saunders was the founder of the Hospice Movement, in which Britain leads the world. Her work transformed our approach to the care of the dying, and also the debate about euthanasia. She died in 2005 and her memorial service was held in Westminster Abbey in March 2006. Over 1600 people attended. This biography, by Shirley du Boulay, includes a 4-page plate section and new chapters by Marianne Rankin covering the years after 1984.

""Leonhard Euler and the Bernoullis" is a fascinating tale of the Bernoulli family and Euler's association with them. Successful merchants in the 16th and 17th centuries, the Bernoullis were driven out of Antwerp during the persecution of the Huguenots and settled first in Frankfurt, and then in Basel, where one of the most remarkable mathematical dynasties evolved with Jacob, Johann, and Daniel Bernoulli the most prominent among them. Euler, fortunate to have had Johann Bernoulli as a tutor, quickly rose to prominence in the academies of Berlin and St. Petersburg, and became the most prolific and profound mathematician that ever lived.

The story of these remarkable men, their great ambitions and dedication to their science-often against parental authority-is skillfully told by the author. Refreshing fictional dialogue is interspersed throughout into an otherwise accurate historical scenario. The book is intended for the young adult audience of middle school and early high school ages, but surely will also appeal to a general audience, with or without mathematical background."

--Walter Gautschi, Purdue University

This monograph presents a groundbreaking scholarly treatment of the German mathematician Jost Burgi's original work on logarithms, Arithmetische und Geometrische Progress Tabulen. It provides the first-ever English translation of Burgi's text and illuminates his role in the development of the conception of logarithms, for which John Napier is traditionally given priority. High-resolution scans of each page of the his handwritten text are reproduced for the reader and as a means of preserving an important work for which there are very few surviving copies. The book begins with a brief biography of Burgi to familiarize readers with his life and work, as well as to offer an historical context in which to explore his contributions. The second chapter then describes the extant copies of the Arithmetische und Geometrische Progress Tabulen, with a detailed description of the copy that is the focus of this book, the 1620 "Graz manuscript". A complete facsimile of the text is included in the next chapter, along with a corresponding transcription and an English translation; a transcription of a second version of the manuscript (the "Gdansk manuscript") is included alongside that of the Graz edition so that readers can easily and closely examine the differences between the two. The final chapter considers two important questions about Burgi's work, such as who was the copyist of the Graz manuscript and what the relationship is between the Graz and Gdansk versions. Appendices are also included that contain a timeline of Burgi's life, the underlying concept of Napier's construction of logarithms, and scans of all 58 sheets of the tables from Burgi's text. Anyone with an appreciation for the history of mathematics will find this book to be an insightful and interesting look at an important and often overlooked work. It will also be a valuable resource for undergraduates taking courses in the history of mathematics, researchers of the history of mathematics, and professors of mathematics education who wish to incorporate historical context into their teaching.

"There are only a handful of exceedingly rare diseases whose diagnoses can engender as much fear and anxiety as the diagnosis of cancer. The word 'malignancy' alone is so pervasively menacing as to conjure the image of a malevolent being crawling through a loved one's body ... or the darkest of poisons seeping through their veins."

--Dr. Shane Dormady, from the foreword

"52 Days: The Cancer Journal" is the true story of one woman's heroic battle with a rare and aggressive cancer that persistently sought to take her life and left her in a coma for nearly two weeks. This awe-inspiring narrative is told through the eyes of her son-in-law who fastidiously documented the emotional stages that the cancer patient and her loved ones navigated; disbelief, helplessness, despair, fear, and sometimes, even hope.

"52 Days: The Cancer Journal" is a must read for anyone who has been touched by cancer's pervasive reach and especially for someone who has been diagnosed with cancer and is fighting for his or her life.

"Axel Munthe: The Road to San Michele" tells for the first time the riveting life-story of an extraordinary individual, who came to define the times he lived in.

The precociously bright son of a Swedish pharmacist, Axel Munthe worked under Jean Martin Charcot, and in 1880, became the youngest doctor in French history. By the 1890s, he was world-famous for his healing powers, believed by some to be supernatural. He moved in the most colourful and exalted circles of fin-de-siecle Europe, counting amongst his friends Henry James, Howard Carter, Rainer Maria Rilke, Lady Ottoline Morrell and Count Zeppelin. Though physician to the Swedish court, where he became the lover of the Crown Princess Victoria, Munthe was more at home with nature than with people. He travelled through remotest Lapland, as well as across Europe, and his great love was animals, which he went to great lengths to protect. In 1929 he published "The Story of San Michele," an account of his life, shot through with his love for Italy and Capri, where he built a bird sanctuary and the house of his dreams, the Villa San Michele. The book became an international best seller, translated into 40 languages, and has become one of the classics of the last century. Bengt Jangfeldt is the first person to have gone through Munthe's diaries, letters and notebooks to produce this definitive account of one of 20th Century Europe's most vibrant figures.

Written with the verve and exuberance of its subject, "Axel Munthe: The Road to San Michele" evokes a lost time, a life of passions, and a man who believed in every sense in the power of dreams.

Have you ever had to decide what to do with an unidentified corpse by a Devonian cowshed when the herd is due in for milking? And how would you react if one of your patients was abducted by aliens? If you are a GP it seems these are routine matters. From coping with the suicide of a colleague to the unusual whereabouts of a jar of Coleman's mustard, this is the story of one rural doctor's often misguided attempts to make sense of the career in which he has unwittingly found himself. Dr Sparrow's adventures would be utterly unbelievable were they not 100% true stories. His bedside manner may sometimes leave a little to be desired but, if you're in dire straits, this doctor will have you in stitches.

In The First Cell, Azra Raza offers a searing account of how both medicine and our society (mis)treats cancer, how we can do better, and why we must. A lyrical journey from hope to despair and back again, The First Cell explores cancer from every angle: medical, scientific, cultural, and personal. Indeed, Raza describes how she bore the terrible burden of being her own husband's oncologist as he succumbed to leukemia. Like When Breath Becomes Air, The First Cell is no ordinary book of medicine, but a book of wisdom and grace by an author who has devoted her life to making the unbearable easier to bear.

Situated more than one hundred miles off Italy's southern coast, the rocky island of Lampedusa has hit world headlines in recent years as the first port of call for hundreds of thousands of African and Middle Eastern refugees fleeing civil war and terrorism and hoping to make a new life in Europe. Dr. Pietro Bartolo, who runs the lone medical clinic on the island, has been caring for many of them-both the living and the dead-for a quarter century. Tears of Salt is Dr. Bartolo's moving account of his life and work set against one of the signal crises of our time. With quiet dignity and an unshakable moral center, he tells unforgettable tales of pain and hope, stories of those who didn't make it and those who did.

'Poignant, funny, engrossing' - Jo Brand Meet Dr Ben Cave. For over thirty years he has worked in prisons and secure hospitals diagnosing and treating some of the most troubled men and women in society. A lifetime of care takes us from delusional disorders to schizophrenia, steroid abuse to drug dependency, personality disorders to paedophilia, and depression so severe a mother can kill her own baby. These are the human stories behind the headlines. The reality of a life spent working with patients with the severest mental health disorders. The tragic and often frightening truth about what happens behind closed doors. Dr Ben Cave takes us on a journey to the heart of this highly emotive environment, putting himself under the microscope as well as his patients. In the process, he allows us to share what they have taught each other, and how it has changed them. To share the psychological battle scars that come with a career on the frontline of our health service. To learn about the brilliant mental health nurses for whom physical injury and verbal abuse are a daily hazard. To learn about ourselves, and what we fear most. ------ Thoughtful, revealing, often haunting and always enlightening, if you liked Unnatural Causes, Do No Harm and This is Going to Hurt this book is for you.