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Books > Biography > Science, technology & engineering
Although his name has become a household word after he published "The Origin of the Species," a one-volume edition of his writings that covers the full gamut of his theoretical as well as scientific writings has not been available for many years. "Charles Darwin: An Anthology," covers the heart of the five books for which the author is best known. This readable volume includes "The Autobiography, The Voyage of the Beagle, The Origin of the Species, The Descent of Man," and "The Expression of the Emotion." The volume also includes parts of Darwin's less well-known works. Although it was published last chronologically, "The Autobiography" is an ideal beginning to the volume. A new introduction by the noted anthropologist Lionel Tiger underlines the continuing importance of Darwin's thinking, and explains why it still infl uences contemporary scholarship in many fi elds. These selections have not been rewritten--they are pure Darwin. The dull and the unessential have been eliminated. What remains is material that best illustrates Darwin's most important and interesting ideas. Th e selection manages as well to retain his most readable prose, while presenting the fundamentals of Darwin's revolutionary thought. Collectively, the volume paints a picture of an immensely curious and indefatigable mind. This volume also includes a critical bibliography that will prove valuable to those interested in further reading. "Marston Bates" (1906-1974) was an American zoologist. His studies on mosquitoes led to the understanding of the causes of yellow fever in South America. He is the author of numerous science books including "The Land and Wildlife of South America" and "The Nature of Natural History." "Philip S. Humphrey" is Curator Emeritus and former Director of the Natural History Museum at the University of Kansas. "Lionel Tiger" is Charles Darwin Professor of Anthropology at Rutgers University. He is the author of "The Decline of Males, Optimism, The Pursuit of Pleasure, China's Food, The Manufacture of Evil, Men in Groups," and with Robin Fox, "The Imperial Animal." He directs the anthropology publishing eff ort at Transaction Publishers.
This is a biography of 'England's greatest medieval scientist, a man who solved major practical and theoretical problems to build an extraordinary and pioneering astronomical and astrological clock'. John North tells an extraordinary story here; Richard of Wallingford (1292-1336) was the son of a blacksmith who became Abbot of St Albans, where he invented his clock, before finally succumbing to leprosy. The story of the invention of the clock and its science, is accompanied by a fascinating discussion of early 14th-century scientific endeavour, which examines the Oxford that Richard knew from his studies there, and how science and theology merged in the minds of medieval intellectuals. John North examines Richard's career at the great abbey of St Albans as well as its people and, in particular, its mills. Half of the study, however, focuses on the clock and its principles. North looks at the history of horologia , the sources, and Richard's own manual which North identified in the Bodleian Library in the 1960s. Finally, North discusses the history of astronomy and natural philosophy, the instruments used and the enormous legacy that Richard left even though so few have heard his name today. This is an excellent book, with fine illustrations throughout.
Few people have changed the world like the Nobel Prize winners. Their breakthrough discoveries have revolutionised medicine, chemistry, physics and economics. Nobel Life consists of original interviews with twenty-four Nobel Prize winners. Each of them has a unique story to tell. They recall their eureka moments and the challenges they overcame along the way, give advice to inspire future generations and discuss what remains to be discovered. Engaging and thought-provoking, Nobel Life provides an insight into life behind the Nobel Prize winners. A call from Stockholm turned a group of twenty-four academics into Nobel Prize winners. This is their call to the next generations worldwide.
Imagining the Elephant is a biography of Allan MacLeod Cormack, a physicist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1979 for his pioneering contributions to the development of the computer-assisted tomography (CAT) scanner, an honor he shared with Godfrey Hounsfield. A modest genius who was also a dedicated family man, the book is a celebration of Cormack's life and work. It begins with his ancestral roots in the far north of Scotland, and then chronicles his birth and early years in South Africa, his education at the University of Cape Town (UCT) and Cambridge University, and his subsequent academic appointments at UCT and Tufts University in Boston, USA. It details his discovery of the problem at Cape Town in 1956, traces his scientific footsteps all the way to Stockholm in December 1979, and then extends the odyssey to his pursuits beyond the Nobel Prize.
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.
Jesse Ramsden was one of the most prominent manufacturers of scientific instruments in the latter half of the eighteenth century. To own a Ramsden instrument, be it one of his great theodolites or one of the many sextants and barometers produced at his London workshop, was to own not only an instrument of incredible accuracy and great practical use, but also a thing of beauty. In this, the first biography of Jesse Ramsden, Dr Anita McConnell reconstructs his life and career and presents us with a detailed account of the instrument trade in this period. By studying the life of one prominent instrument maker, the entire practice of the trade is illuminated, from the initial commission, the intricate planning and design, through the practicalities of production, delivery and, crucially, payment for the work. The book will naturally be of immeasurable interest to historians of science and scientific instruments but, as it also sheds light on the increasing commercialisation of the scientific trade on the cusp of the Industrial Revolution, should also interest social and economic historians of the eighteenth century.
When the British prototype Concorde took off from RAF Fairford on April 9, 1969, at the controls was Captain Brian Trubshaw. Here is the full and fascinating story of Brian Trubshaw's life as an experimental test pilot, written from his own unique viewpoint on the flight deck and covering a period of tremendous upheaval in the British aircraft industry.
THE MASSIVE NO.1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER. A powerful, heart-warming and inspiring memoir from the UK's most famous and beloved vet, Professor Noel Fitzpatrick - star of the Channel 4 series The Supervet. Growing up on the family farm in Ballyfin, Ireland, Noel's childhood was spent tending to the cattle and sheep, the hay and silage, the tractors and land, his beloved sheepdog Pirate providing solace from the bullies that plagued him at school. It was this bond with Pirate, and a fateful night spent desperately trying to save a newborn lamb, that inspired Noel to enter the world of veterinary science - and set him on the path to becoming The Supervet. Now, in this long-awaited memoir, Noel recounts this often-surprising journey that sees him leaving behind a farm animal practice in rural Ireland to set up Fitzpatrick Referrals in Surrey, one of the most advanced small animal specialist centres in the world. We meet the animals that paved the way, from calving cows and corralling bullocks to talkative parrots and bionic cats and dogs. Noel has listened to the many lessons that the animals in his care have taught him, and especially the times he has shared with his beloved Keira, the scruffy Border Terrier who has been by Noel's side as he's dealt with the unbelievable highs and crushing lows of his extraordinary career. As heart-warming and life-affirming as the TV show with which he made his name, Listening to the Animals is a story of love, hope and compassion, and about rejoicing in the bond between humans and animals that makes us the very best we can be.
This book, first published in 1991, is an invaluable guide to biographies of scientists from a wide variety of scientific fields. The books selected for this highly descriptive bibliography help librarians shatter readers' stereotypes of scientists as monomaniacal and uninteresting people by providing interesting and provocative titles to capture the interest of students and other readers. The biographies included in this very special bibliography were carefully selected for their humour and human insights to give future scientists encouragement, inspiration, and an understanding of the origins of particular scientific fields. These biographies are unique in that they explore the whole personality of the scientist, giving students a glimpse at the variety and drama of the lives beyond well-known contributions or Nobel prize accomplishments.
It is well known that Einstein founded twentieth-century physics with his work on relativity and quanta, but what do we really know about these ground breaking ideas? How were they discovered? What should we retain today from the conceptual upheavals he initiated? Through a selection of concrete scenes taken from Einstein's life, the author offers a view into the formation of his theories, as well as reminders of the day-to-day applications of his ideas. Simultaneously the reader is lead through a reflection on their philosophical impact: How should we think of time according to the theory of relativity, which removes any meaningful "now" and shows that twins can have different ages? How should we think of reality when quantum theory predicts that spatially separated objects nevertheless remain connected through Einstein's notion of "entanglement," which has recently been verified through scientific observation? This book puts readers in Einstein's place, allowing them to share some of those particular moments when he succeeded in "lifting a corner of the great veil."
Solomon Carter Fuller: Where My Caravan Has Rested is the documentation of the life and accomplishments of an African American who would not allow racism to quench resolve and commitment to a productive life in medicine and scientific research. Dr. Fuller was born in Africa in 1872, the grandson of American slaves. He was America's first black psychiatrist and one of the first black physicians to hold faculty rank at an American medical school. He was a widely published neuropathologist and a pioneer in Alzheimer's disease research. To provide the reader with some insight into the life experiences that influenced and motivated Dr. Fuller, the book traces his family history from the days of slavery to the 1950s, crossing the North American, African, and European continents. Information obtained from his personal notes and interviews with his family provide a glimpse of the racial oppression that Fuller sought to overcome in both his personal and professional lives. This classic "Horatio Alger" strive and succeed story has important implications for our understanding of American, African, and European culture. Fuller's biography is an important addition to black history and to the history of medicine, not only for its account of a man whose achievements were many, but also for its portrait of what it was like to be black in the days of slavery, during the colonization of Liberia, and as a husband, father, and physician in early 20th century white America.
An inside account of the fight to contain the world's deadliest diseases,and the panic and corruption that make them worseThroughout history, humankind's biggest killers have been infectious diseases: the Black Death, the Spanish Flu, and AIDS alone account for over one hundred million deaths. We ignore this reality most of the time, but when a new threat,Ebola, SARS, Zika,seems imminent, we send our best and bravest doctors to contain it. People like Dr. Ali S. Khan.In his long career as a public health first responder- protected by a thin mask from infected patients, napping under nets to keep out scorpions, making life-and-death decisions on limited, suspect information- Khan has found that rogue microbes will always be a problem, but outbreaks are often caused by people. We make mistakes, politicize emergencies, and, too often, fail to imagine the consequences of our actions. The Next Pandemic is a firsthand account of disasters like anthrax, bird flu, and others,and how we could do more to prevent their return. It is both a gripping story of our brushes with fate and an urgent lesson on how we can keep ourselves safe from the inevitable next pandemic.
The scientific and proto-scientific community of Elizabethan and Jacobean London has lately attracted much scholarly attention. This book advances the subject by means of an investigation of the life and work of Sir Hugh Plat (1552-1611), an author, alchemist, speculator and inventor whose career touched on the fields of alchemy, general scientific curiosity, cookery and sugar work, cosmetics, gardening and agriculture, food manufacture, victualling, supplies and marketing. Unlike many of his colleagues and correspondents, much manuscript material, in the form of notebooks and workings, has survived. Not much, however, is known of his personal life and among his manuscripts there are few letters, diaries or other private materials. What can be learned about him is summarised by Malcolm Thick in the first chapter, before he proceeds to analyse various aspects of his public output. Plat has such a wide range of interests that modern scholars have tended to concentrate on that aspect of his work which most affects their own research. Most recently he has fallen amongst historians of science and while they have carefully examined his written and published works they have, in some cases, interpreted almost all that he wrote as a quest for scientific knowledge, in the same way that the gardening writers thought him primarily a gardener or the cookery writers treated his cookery book as his most important work. By devoting a whole book to his multifarious interests, Thick illustrates Plat as a gentlemen of varied interests, a Londoner trying to make his way in the world, and as a man of his time and place. The chapter on military inventions, for instance, reveals Plat as an inventor who talked to military commanders and bent his mind to their most pressing military needs. His work on famine relief was an immediate response to a run of bad harvests that threatened the food supply of by far the largest city in the country. The medicines he developed aimed to cure the diseases most feared by his friends and neighbours. Even something as frivolous as his work on cosmetics was of great value to those at court, where appearance might dictate fortune. Two important aspects of his research, alchemy and enquiries about the current technology of various trades, were not so immediately dictated by the needs of the time. While his alchemical writings are the most esoteric and complex of his surviving manuscripts, much had a practical end in view - to develop powerful, effective medicines. His work on the technology of trades was by no means disinterested; in more than one instance, he developed better ways of carrying out industrial processes than was then practised and tried, by patents or other means, to make money thereby. The chapters, backed up by a full bibliography, references and documentary appendices, are as follows: Introduction; Biography; Gardening; Agriculture; Military Food & Medicine; The Writing of Delightes for Ladies and Sundrie new and artificiall remedies against famine; Alchemy; Medicine; Scientific Thought and Technique; Inventions; Moneymaking.
The essential book on how not to be a doctor - and how to be a better one. Drawn from his popular medical columns over the years, John Launer shares fifty of his best-loved essays, covering topics from essentials skills they don't teach you in medical school to his poignant account of being a patient himself as he received treatment for a life-threatening illness. Taken together, the stories make the case that being a doctor should mean drawing on every aspect of yourself, your interests and your experiences no matter how remote they seem from the medical task at hand. How Not to Be a Doctor combines humour, candour and the human touch to inform and entertain readers on both ends of the stethoscope. ***PRAISE FOR HOW NOT TO BE A DOCTOR*** 'An essential read... It is a gem.' Dr. Fiona Moss, CBE, Dean of the Royal Society of Medicine 'This collection is warm, wise, generous, thoughtful and thought-provoking... imbued with a moving humanity which offers inspiration and reassurance in equal measure.' Dr. Deborah Bowman, MBE, BBC Broadcaster and Professor of Medical Ethics and Law 'Witty and wise. Shows how important it is that doctors are allowed to be human.' Kit Wharton, author of Emergency Admissions: Memoirs of an Ambulance Driver 'An all-round excellent book, which would appeal to a wide range of healthcare professionals and students... a light-hearted way of looking at serious subjects.' BMA Panel of Judges 'I raced through this book, laughing, nodding, highlighting and then read some favourite bits again. Every chapter has a gem of wisdom as well as being so very elegantly written and entertaining.' Jenny Rogers, Co-Author of Coaching for Health 'Bursting with wonder and wisdom, this seductively readable book imparts courage and joy in equal measure.' Dr. Iona Heath, CBE. Former President, Royal College of General Practitioners and author of The Mystery of General Practice 'Gets to the heart and soul of current medical practice. Written by a doctor, but incorporates life experience and wisdom, making it an easy, thought provoking read.' Professor Jane Dacre, President of the Royal College of Physicians
'Birkhead has combined ingenuity and perseverance to produce an
evocative portrait of a great pioneer in the scientific study of birds'
Literary Review
"This book is a search for 'the real Anandibai Joshee' -- a search in which the readers are invited to participate." In her short and eventful life, Anandibai Joshee, the first Indian woman to earn a medical degree, broke many stereotypes. Literate at a time when it was taboo for a girl to attend school or even 'pick up a paper', she was courageous, articulate, and assertive. And ambitious. Fuelled by a desire to improve the healthcare that was available to Indian women at that time, she travelled across the seas to the United States to study medicine. Meera Kosambi's biography of Anandibai is more than just a retelling of the life of a woman who was ahead of her times. Drawing on a host of narratives, Kosambi recovers Anandibai's many voices, which have been submerged in history - that of a conflicted feminist, a nationalist, and a reformer, among others - and her engagement with the world at large. This volume is a testament to Meera Kosambi's commitment to social history. When she passed away in 2015, she left an incomplete manuscript that has painstakingly been put together by the editors. Drawing on archival research, including a host of Anandibai's letters, her poems in Marathi, newspaper reports, and rare photographs, this book will be of immense interest to scholars and researchers of modern Indian history, sociology, gender, and South Asian studies.
300 years ago, in April 1721, a smallpox epidemic was raging in England. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu knew that she could save her 3-year-old daughter using the process of inoculation. She had witnessed this at first hand in Turkey, while she was living there as the wife of the British ambassador. She also knew that by inoculating - making her daughter the first person protected in the West - she would face opposition from doctors, politicians and clerics. Her courageous action eventually led to the eradication of smallpox and the prevention of millions of deaths. But Mary was more than a scientific campaigner. She mixed with the greatest politicians, writers, artists and thinkers of her day. She was also an important early feminist, writing powerfully and provocatively about the position of women. She was best friends with the poet Alexander Pope. They collaborated on a series of poems, which made her into a household name, an 'It Girl'. But their friendship turned sour and he used his pen to vilify her publicly. Aristocratic by birth, Mary chose to elope with Edward Wortley Montagu, whom she knew she did not love, so as to avoid being forced into marrying someone else. In middle age, her marriage stale, she fell for someone young enough to be her son - and, unknown to her, bisexual. She set off on a new life with him abroad. When this relationship failed, she stayed on in Europe, narrowly escaping the coercive control of an Italian conman. After twenty-two years abroad, she returned home to London to die. The son-in-law she had dismissed as a young man had meanwhile become Prime Minister.
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.
Following their New York Times-bestselling graphic novel Feynman, Jim Ottaviani and Leland Myrick deliver a gripping biography of Stephen Hawking, one of the most important scientists of our time. From his early days at the St Albans School and Oxford, Stephen Hawking's brilliance and good humor were obvious to everyone he met. A lively and popular young man, it's no surprise that he would later rise to celebrity status. At twenty-one he was diagnosed with ALS, a degenerative neuromuscular disease. Though the disease weakened his muscles and limited his ability to move and speak, it did nothing to limit his mind. He went on to do groundbreaking work in cosmology and theoretical physics for decades after being told he had only a few years to live. He brought his intimate understanding of the universe to the public in his 1988 bestseller, A Brief History of Time. Soon after, he added pop-culture icon to his accomplishments by playing himself on shows like Star Trek, The Simpsons, and The Big Bang Theory, and becoming an outspoken advocate for disability rights. In Hawking, writer Jim Ottaviani and artist Leland Myrick have crafted an intricate portrait of the great thinker, the public figure, and the man behind both identities.
Samuel Smiles published his "Lives of the Engineers" in 1862, presenting engineers as heroic characters, conquering nature and often overcoming impossible problems on their way to success. He also invented much of it, so while an interesting historical document, it must be taken with a pinch of salt. Anthony Burton has turned his attention to a new book collating the lives of the great engineers of the 18th and 19th centuries, the extraordinary men who made the industrial revolution possible. This definitive study investigates the common themes that run between each man's story, and how they learned from one another, truly standing on the shoulders of giants. This book presents ten incredible engineers: Jack Metcalf, James Brindley, John Smeaton, William Jessop, John Rennie, Thomas Telford, James Watt, Richard Trevithick, George and Robert Stephenson, and Isambard Brunel.
Just two months before the September 11 terrorist attacks, Dr. Judy Melinek began her training as a New York City forensic pathologist. While her husband and their toddler held down the home front, Judy threw herself into the fascinating world of death investigation-performing autopsies, investigating death scenes, counseling grieving relatives. Working Stiff chronicles Judy's two years of training, taking readers behind the police tape of some of the most harrowing deaths in the Big Apple, including a firsthand account of the events of September 11, the subsequent anthrax bio-terrorism attack, and the disastrous crash of American Airlines Flight 587. An unvarnished portrait of the daily life of medical examiners-complete with grisly anecdotes, chilling crime scenes, and a welcome dose of gallows humor-Working Stiffoffers a glimpse into the daily life of one of America's most arduous professions, and the unexpected challenges of shuttling between the domains of the living and the dead. The body never lies-and through the murders, accidents, and suicides that land on her table, Dr. Melinek lays bare the truth behind the glamorized depictions of autopsy work on television to reveal the secret story of the real morgue. "Haunting and illuminating...the stories from her average workdays...transfix the reader with their demonstration that medical science can diagnose and console long after the heartbeat stops" (The New York Times).
Originally published in 1990, Nobel Laureates in Medicine or Physiology is a biographical reference work about the recipients of Nobel Prizes in Medicine or Physiology from 1901-1989. Each article is written by an accomplished historian of medicine or science. The book is designed to be accessible to students and general readers as well as to specialists in medical science and history. Each article combines personal and scientific biography, and each has an extensive biography to guide further reading and research. |
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