It began with plutonium, the first element ever manufactured in quantity by humans. Fearing that the Germans would be the first to weaponise the atom, the United States marshalled brilliant minds and seemingly inexhaustible bodies to find a way to create a nuclear chain reaction of inconceivable explosive power. In a matter of months, the Hanford nuclear facility was built to produce the enigmatic and deadly new material that would fuel atomic bombs. In the desert of eastern Washington State, far from prying eyes, scientists Glenn Seaborg, Enrico Fermi and thousands of others-the physicists, engineers, labourers and support staff at the facility-manufactured plutonium for the bomb dropped on Nagasaki, and for the bombs in the current American nuclear arsenal, enabling the construction of weapons with the potential to end human civilisation. With his characteristic blend of scientific clarity and storytelling, Steve Olson asks why Hanford has been largely overlooked in histories of the Manhattan Project and the Cold War. Olson, who grew up just twenty miles from Hanford's B Reactor, recounts how a small Washington town played host to some of the most influential scientists and engineers in American history as they sought to create the substance at the core of the most destructive weapons ever created. The Apocalypse Factory offers a new generation this dramatic story of human achievement and ultimately, of lethal hubris. *2020 marks the 75th anniversary of the United States' detonation of nuclear weapons over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August 1945.

Most people know Greg Graffin as the lead singer of the punk band Bad Religion, but few know that he also received a PhD from Cornell University and teaches evolution at the University of California at Los Angeles. In "Anarchy Evolution," Graffin argues that art and science have a deep connection. As an adolescent growing up when "drugs, sex, and trouble could be had on any given night," Graffin discovered that the study of evolution provided a framework through which he could make sense of the world.

In this provocative and personal book, he describes his own coming of age as an artist and the formation of his naturalist worldview on questions involving God, science, and human existence. While the battle between religion and science is often displayed in the starkest of terms, "Anarchy Evolution" provides fresh and nuanced insights into the long-standing debate about atheism and the human condition. It is a book for anyone who has ever wondered if God really exists.

It began with plutonium, the first element ever manufactured in quantity by humans. Fearing that the Germans would be the first to weaponise the atom, the United States marshalled brilliant minds and seemingly inexhaustible bodies to find a way to create a nuclear chain reaction of inconceivable explosive power. In a matter of months, the Hanford nuclear facility was built to produce the enigmatic and deadly new material that would fuel atomic bombs. In the desert of eastern Washington State, far from prying eyes, scientists Glenn Seaborg, Enrico Fermi and thousands of others-the physicists, engineers, labourers and support staff at the facility-manufactured plutonium for the bomb dropped on Nagasaki, and for the bombs in the current American nuclear arsenal, enabling the construction of weapons with the potential to end human civilisation. With his characteristic blend of scientific clarity and storytelling, Steve Olson asks why Hanford has been largely overlooked in histories of the Manhattan Project and the Cold War. Olson, who grew up just twenty miles from Hanford's B Reactor, recounts how a small Washington town played host to some of the most influential scientists and engineers in American history as they sought to create the substance at the core of the most destructive weapons ever created. The Apocalypse Factory offers a new generation this dramatic story of human achievement and ultimately, of lethal hubris.

For months in early 1980, scientists, journalists and ordinary people listened anxiously to rumblings in the long quiescent volcano Mount St. Helens. Still, when a massive explosion took the top off the mountain, no one was prepared. Fifty-seven people died and the lives of many others were changed forever. Steve Olson interweaves history, science and vivid personal stories to portray the disaster as a multi-faceted turning point. Powerful economic, political and historical forces influenced who died when the volcano erupted. The eruption of Mount St. Helens transformed volcanic science, the study of environmental resilience and our perceptions of how to survive on an increasingly dangerous planet.

"Take one man who rejects authority and religion, and leads a punk band. Take another man who wonders whether vertebrates arose in rivers or in the ocean....Put them together, what do you get? Greg Graffin, and this uniquely fascinating book." --Jared Diamond, author of Guns, Germs, and Steel Anarchy Evolution is a provocative look at the collision between religion and science, by an author with unique authority: UCLA lecturer in Paleontology, and founding member of Bad Religion, Greg Graffin. Alongside science writer Steve Olson (whose Mapping Human History was a National Book Award finalist) Graffin delivers a powerful discussion sure to strike a chord with readers of Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion or Christopher Hitchens God Is Not Great. Bad Religion die-hards, newer fans won over during the band's 30th Anniversary Tour, and anyone interested in this increasingly important debate should check out this treatise on science from the god of punk rock.

What types of instructional experiences help K-8 students learn science with understanding? What do science educators, teachers, teacher leaders, science specialists, professional development staff, curriculum designers, and school administrators need to know to create and support such experiences? Ready, Set, Science! guides the way with an account of the groundbreaking and comprehensive synthesis of research into teaching and learning science in kindergarten through eighth grade. Based on the recently released National Research Council report Taking Science to School: Learning and Teaching Science in Grades K-8, this book summarizes a rich body of findings from the learning sciences and builds detailed cases of science educators at work to make the implications of research clear, accessible, and stimulating for a broad range of science educators. Ready, Set, Science! is filled with classroom case studies that bring to life the research findings and help readers to replicate success. Most of these stories are based on real classroom experiences that illustrate the complexities that teachers grapple with every day. They show how teachers work to select and design rigorous and engaging instructional tasks, manage classrooms, orchestrate productive discussions with culturally and linguistically diverse groups of students, and help students make their thinking visible using a variety of representational tools. This book will be an essential resource for science education practitioners and contains information that will be extremely useful to everyone A-A'A1/2including parents A-A'A1/2directly or indirectly involved in the teaching of science.

The #1 best-seller on franchise development and Amazon #1 best-seller, Grow to Greatness has instantly become the must-read, essential guide on how to build a world-class franchise system faster. This breakthrough book delivers advice and proven, step-by-step systems and processes for emerging and established franchisors, as well as for anyone considering franchising their business. The $29.95 guide has saved existing and potential franchisors thousands of dollars in costly mistakes. -- One hundred+ case examples and checklists reveal how to do it right ... and how not to do it wrong -- Profit from real "best practices" solutions and proven step-by-step processes -- Endorsed by franchising's top brand executives of KFC, Taco Bell, Dunkin' Donuts, Pinkberry, Molly Maids, Postnet, Checkers, AlphaGraphics, Popeye's, Cartridge World, Express Employment Professionals, the International Franchise Association ... and many more. Each benchmark is described in detail, supported by case studies, industry research and steps taken by franchise leaders from various industries. " Steve's Grow to Greatness is the 'Driver's Ed Manual'. It delivers great lessons for startup franchisors and the most seasoned franchise executives. In the words of Bill Rosenberg, founder of Dunkin' Donuts and the International Franchise Association, 'We can avoid failures, if we study success.' Study Grow to Greatness and you will be rewarded." John Reynolds, CFE President, IFA Educational Foundation

In a journey across four continents, acclaimed science writer Steve Olson traces the origins of modern humans and the migrations of our ancestors throughout the world over the past 150,000 years. Like Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel, Mapping Human History is a groundbreaking synthesis of science and history. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including the latest genetic research, linguistic evidence, and archaeological findings, Olson reveals the surprising unity among modern humans and "demonstrates just how naive some of our ideas about our human ancestry have been" (Discover).Olson offers a genealogy of all humanity, explaining, for instance, why everyone can claim Julius Caesar and Confucius as forebears. Olson also provides startling new perspectives on the invention of agriculture, the peopling of the Americas, the origins of language, the history of the Jews, and more. An engaging and lucid account, Mapping Human History will forever change how we think about ourselves and our relations with others.

Every year, public and private funders spend many billions of dollars on large-scale, complex, multi-national health initiatives. The only way to know whether these initiatives are achieving their objectives is through evaluations that examine the links between program activities and desired outcomes. Investments in such evaluations, which, like the initiatives being evaluated, are carried out in some of the world's most challenging settings, are a relatively new phenomenon. In the last five years, evaluations have been conducted to determine the effects of some of the world's largest and most complex multi-national health initiatives. Evaluation Design for Complex Global Initiatives is the summary of a workshop convened by the Institute of Medicine in January 2014 to explore these recent evaluation experiences and to consider the lessons learned from how these evaluations were designed, carried out, and used. The workshop brought together more than 100 evaluators, researchers in the field of evaluation science, staff involved in implementing large-scale health programs, local stakeholders in the countries where the initiatives are carried out, policy makers involved in the initiatives, representatives of donor organizations, and others to derive lessons learned from past large-scale evaluations and to discuss how to apply these lessons to future evaluations. This report discusses transferable insights gained across the spectrum of choosing the evaluator, framing the evaluation, designing the evaluation, gathering and analyzing data, synthesizing findings and recommendations, and communicating key messages. The report also explores the relative benefits and limitations of different quantitative and qualitative approaches within the mixed methods designs used for these complex and costly evaluations. Table of Contents Front Matter 1 Introduction and Overview of the Workshop 2 Overview Framework for Complex Evaluations 3 Framing the Evaluation 4 Developing the Evaluation Design and Selecting Methods 5 Mapping Data Sources and Gathering and Assessing Data 6 Applying Qualitative Methods to Evaluation on a Large Scale 7 Applying Quantitative Methods to Evaluation on a Large Scale 8 Analysis Through Triangulation and Synthesis to Interpret Data in a Mixed Methods Evaluation 9 Evolving Methods in Evaluation Science 10 Lessons from Large-Scale Program Evaluation on a Not-Quite-as-Large Scale 11 Using Evaluation Findings and Communicating Key Messages 12 Envisioning a Future for Evaluation References Appendix A: Statement of Task Appendix B: Workshop Agenda Appendix C: Participant Biographies Appendix D: Evaluation Information Summary for Core Example Initiatives Appendix E: Evaluation Design Resources Highlighted at the Workshop

Benefit-cost analyses hold great promise for influencing policies related to children, youth, and families. By comparing the costs of preventive interventions with the long-term benefits of those interventions, benefit-cost analysis provides a tool for determining what kinds of investments have the greatest potential to reduce the physical, mental, and behavioral health problems of young people. More generally, the growth of benefit-cost analysis as a field of research and practice represents an exciting and promising trend in the development and implementation of public policies.
The utility of benefit-cost analyses has been limited by a lack of uniformity in the methods and assumptions underlying these studies. For years, those who perform and those who use benefit-cost analyses have argued that the development and use of theoretical, technical, and reporting standards for benefit-cost analyses would enhance the validity of results, increase comparability across studies, and accelerate the progress of the field.
"Considerations in Applying Benefit-Cost Analysis to Preventive Interventions for Children, Youth, and Families" is the summary of a workshop convened by the Board on Children, Youth, and Families of the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council in November 2013 as the first phase of a possible two-part effort directed toward guiding future benefit-cost studies and enhancing the relevance of benefit-cost analysis to governments and other organizations wanting to make sound prevention decisions. The workshop brought together leading practitioners in the field, researchers who study the methodological and analytic dimensions of benefit-cost analysis, and representatives of organizations that use the results of benefit-cost analyses to shape and implement public policies. This report discusses a wide range of issues about benefit-cost analysis, including the level of research rigor that should be met before results from an evaluation are used to estimate or predict outcomes in a cost-benefit analysis; best practices and methodologies for costing prevention interventions; prevention outcomes that currently lend themselves to monetization; processes and methodologies that should be used when linking prevention outcomes to avoided costs or increased revenues; and best methods for handling risk and uncertainty in estimates.

Many drug developers have examined new strategies for creating efficiencies in their development processes, including the adoption of genomics-based approaches. Genomic data can identify new drug targets for both common and rare diseases, can predict which patients are likely to respond to a specific treatment, and has the potential to significantly reduce the cost of clinical trials by reducing the number of patients that must be enrolled in order to demonstrate safety and efficacy. A key component of the approval of targeted therapeutics is the ability to identify the population of patients who will benefit from treatment, and this has largely hinged on the co-development and co-submission to the FDA of a companion diagnostic test.The co-development process, or the development of the test and drug for the simultaneous submission to FDA, has led to a major alteration in the way that drugs are being developed, with traditionally separate entities-pharmaceutical and diagnostic companies-now working in close collaboration. Refining Processes for the Co-Development of Genome-Based Therapeutics and Companion Diagnostic Tests is the summary of a workshop held by the Roundtable on Translating Genomic-Based Research for Health on February 27, 2013 to examine and discuss challenges and potential solutions for the codevelopment of targeted therapeutics and companion molecular tests for the prediction of drug response. Prior to the workshop, key stakeholders, including laboratory and medical professional societies, were individually asked to provide possible solutions to resolve the concerns raised about co-development of companion diagnostic tests and therapies. Workshop speakers were charged with addressing these solutions in their presentations by providing insight on (1) whether the proposed solutions address the problems described, (2) whether there are other solutions to propose, and (3) what steps could be taken to effectively implement the proposed solutions. Table of Contents Front Matter 1 Introduction 2 Regulatory Perspectives 3 Perspectives from Patients, Providers, and Laboratory Representatives 4 Perspectives of Diagnostic Test and Pharmaceutical Developers 5 Perspectives of Payers and Regulators 6 Concluding Observations References Appendix A: Workshop Agenda Appendix B: Speaker Biographical Sketches Appendix C: Statement of Task Appendix D: Registered Attendees