Thinking about moving to mars? Well, why not? Mars, after all,is the planet that holds the greatest promise for humancolonization. But why speculate about the possibilities when youcan get the real scientific scoop from someone who's been happilyliving and working there for years? Straight from thenot-so-distant future, this intrepid pioneer's tips for physical,financial, and social survival on the Red Planet cover: - How toget to Mars (Cycling spacecraft offer cheap rides, but the smell isnot for everyone.)- Choosing a spacesuit (The old-fashioned butreliable pneumatic Neil Armstrong style versus the sleek new--butanatomically unforgiving--elastic "skinsuit.")- Selecting a habitat(Just like on Earth: location, location, location.)- Finding a jobthat pays well and doesn't kill you (This is not a metaphor onMars.)- How to meet the opposite sex (Master more than fortyMars-centric pickup lines.) With more than twenty originalillustrations by Michael Carroll, Robert Murray, and other renownedspace artists,

Tile dynamics underlying tile major problems of ourtime--,cancer,crime, pollution, nuclear powej', inflation, theenergy shortage are alltile same. We have reach~d.a time ofdramatic and potentiallydangerous change, a turning point for theplanet as a whole. We need a new vision of reality, one that allowstile forces transforming our world to flow together as a positivemovement for social change. Now (listinguished scientist FritjofCapra gives us that vision, a holisticpara(ligm of science andspirit.

From Nobel Prize-winning scientist James D. Watson, a livinglegend for his work unlocking the structure of DNA, comes thiscandid and entertaining memoir, filled with practical advice forthose starting out their academic careers. In Avoid Boring People , Watson lays down a life’s wisdom forgetting ahead in a competitive world. Witty and uncompromisinglyhonest, he shares his thoughts on how young scientists shouldchoose the projects that will shape their careers, the supremeimportance of collegiality, and dealing with competitors within thesame institution. It’s an irreverent romp through Watson’s colorfulcareer and an indispensable guide to anyone interested in nurturingthe life of the mind.

David Carroll has dedicated his life to art and to wetlands.He is as passionate about swamps, bogs, and vernal ponds and thecreatures who live in them as most of us are about our families andclosest friends. He knows frogs and snakes, muskrats and minks,dragonflies, water lilies, cattails, sedges--everything that swims,flies, trudges, slithers, or sinks its roots in wet places. In this"intimate and wise book" (Sue Hubbell), Carroll takes us on alively, unforgettable yearlong journey, illustrated with his ownelegant drawings, through the wetlands and reveals why they are soimportant to his life and ours -- and to all life on Earth.

Diane Ackerman's lusciously written grand tour of the realm ofthe senses includes conversations with an iceberg in Antarctica anda professional nose in New York, along with dissertations on kissesand tattoos, sadistic cuisine and the music played by the planetEarth. "Delightful . . . gives the reader the richest possiblefeeling of the worlds the senses take in."--The New York Times.(Literature--Classics Contemporary)

Fritjof Capra, bestselling author of The Tao of Physics and The Web of Life , here explores another frontier in thehuman significance of scientific ideas—applying complexity theoryto large-scale social interaction. In the 1980s, complexity theory emerged as a powerful alternativeto classic, linear thought. A forerunner of that revolution,Fritjof Capra now continues to expand the scope of that theory byestablishing a framework in which we can understand and solve someof the most important issues of our time. Capra posits that inorder to sustain life, the principles underlying our socialinstitutions must be consistent with the broader organization ofnature. Discussing pertinent contemporary issues ranging from thecontroversial practices of the World Trade Organization (WTO) tothe Human Genome Project, he concludes with an authoritative, oftenprovocative plan for designing ecologically sustainable communitiesand technologies as alternatives to the current economicglobalization.

A dazzling journey across the sciences and humanities in searchof deep laws to unite them. -- The Wall Street Journal One of our greatest living scientists--and the winner of twoPulitzer Prizes for On Human Nature and TheAnts --gives us a work of visionary importance that may be thecrowning achievement of his career. In Consilience (a wordthat originally meant "jumping together"), Edward O. Wilson renewsthe Enlightenment's search for a unified theory of knowledge indisciplines that range from physics to biology, the social sciencesand the humanities. Using the natural sciences as his model, Wilson forges dramaticlinks between fields. He explores the chemistry of the mind and thegenetic bases of culture. He postulates the biological principlesunderlying works of art from cave-drawings to Lolita. Presentingthe latest findings in prose of wonderful clarity and oratoricaleloquence, and synthesizing it into a dazzling whole, Consilience is science in the path-clearing traditions ofNewton, Einstein, and R

How did the replication bomb we call life begin and where inthe world, or rather, in the universe, is it heading? Writing withcharacteristic wit and an ability to clarify complex phenomena (theNew York Times described his style as the sort of science writingthat makes the reader feel like a genius), Richard Dawkinsconfronts this ancient mystery.

暂无

In this fascinating volume, today’s foremost scientistsdiscuss their own versions and visions of Einstein: how he hasinfluenced their worldviews, their ideas, their science, and theirprofessional and personal lives. These twenty-four essays are atestament to the power of scientific legacy and are essentialreading for scientist and layperson alike. Contributors include: Roger Highfield on the Einstein myth John Archibald Wheeler on his meetings with Einstein Gino C. Segrè, Lee Smolin, and Anton Zeilinger on Einstein’sdifficulties with quantum theory Leon M. Lederman on the special theory of relativity Frank J. Tipler on why Einstein should be seen as a scientificreactionary rather than a scientific revolutionary

In Electric Universe , David Bodanis weaves tales ofromance, divine inspiration, and fraud through a lucid account ofthe invisible force that permeates our universe. In these pages thevirtuoso scientists who plumbed the secrets of electricity comevividly to life, including familiar giants like Thomas Edison; thevisionary Michael Faraday, who struggled against the prejudices ofthe British class system; and Samuel Morse, a painter who, beforeinventing the telegraph, ran for mayor of New York on a platform ofpersecuting Catholics. Here too is Alan Turing, whose dream of amarvelous thinking machine—what we know as the computer—was metwith indifference, and who ended his life in despair after Britishauthorities forced him to undergo experimental treatments to “cure”his homosexuality. From the frigid waters of the Atlantic to the streets of Hamburgduring a World War II firestorm to the interior of the human body, Electric Universe is a mesmerizing journey of discovery by amaster science writer.

Anthrax. Smallpox. Incurable and horrifying Ebola-relatedfevers. For two decades, while a fearful world prepared for nuclearwinter, an elite team of Russian bioweaponeers began to till a newkilling field: a bleak tract sown with powerful seeds of massdestruction--by doctors who had committed themselves to creating abiological Armageddon. Biohazard is the never-before-told story ofRussia's darkest, deadliest, and most closely guarded Cold Warsecret. No one knows more about Russia's astounding experiments withbiowarfare than Ken Alibek. Now the mastermind behind Russia's germwarfare effort reveals two decades of shocking breakthroughs...howMoscow's leading scientists actually reengineered hazardousmicrobes to make them even more virulent...the secrets behind thediscovery of an invisible, untraceable new class of biologicalagents just right for use in political assassinations...thestartling story behind Russia's attempt to turn a sample of theAIDS virus into the ultimate bioweapon. And in a chilling

A riveting tale of the battle over genetically engineeredfoods, and an inside look at a biotech food empire. Ultimately astory of idealism, and conflicting dreams about the shape of abetter world. Softcover.

Rosemary and Peter Grant and those assisting them have spendtwenty years on Daphne Major, an island in the Galapagos studyingnatural selection. They recognize each individual bird on theisland, when there are four hundred at the time of the author'svisit, or when there are over a thousand. They have observed abouttwenty generations of finches -- continuously. Jonathan Weiner follows these scientists as they watch Darwin'sfinches and come up with a new understanding of life itself.

Around 60,000 years ago, a man—genetically identical to us—livedin Africa. Every person alive today is descended from him. How didthis real-life Adam wind up as the father of us all? What happenedto the descendants of other men who lived at the same time? Andwhy, if modern humans share a single prehistoric ancestor, do wecome in so many sizes, shapes, and races? Examining the hidden secrets of human evolution in our geneticcode, Spencer Wells reveals how developments in the revolutionaryscience of population genetics have made it possible to create afamily tree for the whole of humanity. Replete with marvelousanecdotes and remarkable information, from the truth about the realAdam and Eve to the way differing racial types emerged, TheJourney of Man is an enthralling, epic tour through the historyand development of early humankind.

Two world-renowned scientists present an audacious new vision ofthe cosmos that "steals the thunder from the Big Bang theory."--"Wall Street Journal"The Big Bang theory--widely regarded as theleading explanation for the origin of the universe--posits thatspace and time sprang into being about 14 billion years ago in ahot, expanding fireball of nearly infinite density. Over the lastthree decades the theory has been repeatedly revised to addresssuch issues as how galaxies and stars first formed and why theexpansion of the universe is speeding up today. Furthermore, anexplanation has yet to be found for what caused the Big Bang in thefirst place. In "Endless Universe," Paul J. Steinhardt and NeilTurok, both distinguished theoretical physicists, present a boldnew cosmology. Steinhardt and Turok "contend that what we think ofas the moment of creation was simply part of an infinite cycle oftitanic collisions between our universe and a parallel world"("Discover"). They recount the remarkable developments inastronom

In his first book since the bestselling Fermat's Enigma ,Simon Singh offers the first sweeping history of encryption,tracing its evolution and revealing the dramatic effects codes havehad on wars, nations, and individual lives. From Mary, Queen ofScots, trapped by her own code, to the Navajo Code Talkers whohelped the Allies win World War II, to the incredible (andincredibly simple) logisitical breakthrough that made Internetcommerce secure, The Code Book tells the story of the mostpowerful intellectual weapon ever known: secrecy. Throughout the text are cleartechnological and mathematical explanations, and portrayals of theremarkable personalities who wrote and broke the world's mostdifficult codes. Accessible, compelling, and remarkablyfar-reaching, this book will forever alter your view of history,what drives it, and how private that e-mail you just sent reallyis.

Evolutionary science lies at the heart of a modernunderstanding of the natural world. Darwin’s theory has withstood150 years of scientific scrutiny, and today it not only explainsthe origin and design of living things, but highlights theimportance of a scientific understanding in our culture and in ourlives. Recently the movement known as “Intelligent Design” has attractedthe attention of journalists, educators, and legislators. Thescientific community is puzzled and saddened by this trend–not onlybecause it distorts modern biology, but also because it divertspeople from the truly fascinating ideas emerging from the realscience of evolution. Here, join fifteen of our preeminent thinkerswhose clear, accessible, and passionate essays reveal the fact andpower of Darwin’s theory, and the beauty of the scientific quest tounderstand our world.

An adventure into the heart of Nothing by bestselling authorK. C. Cole. Once again, acclaimed science writer K. C. Cole bringsthe arcane and acad-emic down to the level of armchair scientistsin The Hole in the Universe, an entertaining and edifying searchfor nothing at all. Open the newspaper on any given day and youwill read of a newly discovered planet, star, and so on. Yetscientists and mathematicians have spent generations searching thefar reaches of the universe for that one elusive state-nothingness.Although this may sound like a simple task, every time the absolutevoid appears within reach, something new is discovered in itsplace: a black hole, an undulating string, an additional dimensionof space or time-even another universe. A fascinating and literarytour de force, The Hole in the Universe is a virtual romp into theunknown that you never knew wasn't there.