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Birthright
People and Nature in the Modern World
Stephen Kellert asserts that man's ability to think, feel, communicate, create and find meaning is inextricably linked to his relationship with nature, and that modern challenges are directly related to today's disconnect from the natural world.
News and Reviews
The Science of Yoga
The Risks and the Rewards
Examines the health claims of modern yoga, drawing on scientific and cultural research to offer advice on how to recognize authentic yoga practice and gain actual benefits.NPR Bestseller
News and Reviews
I Died For Beauty
Dorothy Wrinch and the Cultures of Science
In the vein of A Beautiful Mind, The Man Who Loved Only Numbers, and Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA, this volume tells the poignant story of the brilliant, colorful, controversial mathematician named Dorothy Wrinch. Drawing on her own personal and professional relationship with Wrinch and archives in the United States, Canada, and England, Marjorie Senechal explores the life and work of this provocative, scintillating mind. Senechal portrays a woman who was learned, restless, imperious, exacting, critical, witty, and kind. A young disciple of Bertrand Russell while at Cambridge, the first women to receive a doctor of science degree from Oxford University, Wrinch's contributions to mathematical physics, philosophy, probability theory, genetics, protein structure, and crystallography were anything but inconsequential. But Wrinch, a complicated and ultimately tragic figure, is remembered today for her much publicized feud with Linus Pauling over the molecular architecture of proteins. Pauling ultimately won that bitter battle. Yet, Senechal reminds us, some of the giants of mid-century science--including Niels Bohr, Irving Langmuir, D'Arcy Thompson, Harold Urey, and David Harker — took Wrinch's side in the feud. What accounts for her vast if now-forgotten influence? What did these renowned thinkers, in such different fields, hope her model might explain? Senechal presents a sympathetic portrait of the life and work of a luminous but tragically flawed character. At the same time, she illuminates the subtler prejudices Wrinch faced as a feisty woman, profound culture clashes between scientific disciplines, ever-changing notions of symmetry and pattern in science, and the puzzling roles of beauty and truth.
News and Reviews
Heat
Adventures in the World's Fiery Places
The national best-selling author of Cold tackles the opposite extreme by exploring the higher temperatures by visiting Death Valley, firewalking across coals, describing how matches were invented and dissecting the chemistry of cooking.
News and Reviews
Catastrophic Care
How American Health Care Killed My Father—and How We Can Fix It
David Goldhill's new book tells the story of how he lost his father to hospital-acquired infections. Combining personal experience with research, Goldhill argues against the expansion of insurance coverage while recommending a patient-empowering approach that would make health care transparent, affordable, and effective.
News and Reviews
Fat Chance
Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity, and Disease
Dr. Robert Lustig chronicles how the food industry has replaced fat with sugar and triggered disastrous biochemical changes. Lustig believes the resulting health crisis can be overcome through strategic hormone-adjusting measures.NPR Bestseller
News and Reviews
A Universe From Nothing
Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing
Theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss presents his observations on why the universe came into being.
News and Reviews
On The Map
A Mind-Expanding Exploration Of The Way The World Looks
The award-winning author of Just My Type examines the pivotal relationship between mapping and civilization, demonstrating the unique ways that maps relate and realign history in an account that also shares engaging cartography stories and map lore.
News and Reviews
The Half-Life of Facts
Why Everything We Know Has an Expiration Date
A scientometrics expert analyzes the changing nature of factual information to explain how knowledge in most fields evolves in systematic and predictable ways that, if properly understood, can be powerful tools for training and professional improvement.
News and Reviews
The Visioneers
How a Group of Elite Scientists Pursued Space Colonies, Nanotechnologies, and a Limitless Future
Tells the story of how scientists and the communities they fostered imagined, designed, and popularized such speculative technologies as space colonies and nanotechnologies.
News and Reviews
The Power of Habit
Why We Do What We Do In Life And Business
Identifying the neurological processes behind behaviors while explaining that self-control and success are largely driven by habits, a guide by a Yale-educated investigative reporter for The New York Times shares scientifically based guidelines for achieving personal goals and overall well-being by adjusting specific habits.NPR Bestseller
News and Reviews
All Yesterdays
Unique and Speculative Views of Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Animals
An illustrated survey of possibilities and details that may have been overlooked by paleontologists reconstructing the ways dinosaurs looked — combined with speculation about what future paleontologists may think when confronted with the fossil record modern life will leave.
News and Reviews
The Generals
American Military Command from World War II to Today
The Generals describes the values, strategic thinking and leadership qualities of military leaders from World War II to the present day and how the widening separation between performance and accountability has not resulted in any recent Marshalls, Eisenhowers or Pattons.
News and Reviews
Apocalyptic Planet
Field Guide to the Everending Earth
Discusses the Earth's inherent instability and susceptibility toward violent natural disasters and climate extremes, challenging beliefs about apocalyptic inevitabilities while revealing how to change humanity's place within the planet's cycles.
News and Reviews
A World in One Cubic Foot
Portraits of Biodiversity
Presents portraits of the diverse life forms that moved through one cubic foot of space over twenty-four hours in six different ecosystems around the world.
