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A New York Times Bestseller A Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of 2020 Named a Best Book of 2020 by NPR   “A fascinating scientific, cultural, spiritual and evolutionary history of the way humans breathe—and how we’ve all been doing it wrong for a long, long time.” —Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Big Magic and Eat Pray Love No matter what you eat, how much you exercise, how skinny or young or wise you are, none of it matters if you’re not breathing properly. There is nothing more essential to our health and well-being than breathing: take air in, let it out, repeat twenty-five thousand times a day. Yet, as a species, humans have lost the ability to breathe correctly, with grave consequences. Journalist James Nestor travels the world to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it. The answers aren’t found in pulmonology labs, as we might expect, but in the muddy digs of ancient burial sites, secret Soviet facilities, New Jersey choir schools, and the smoggy streets of São Paulo. Nestor tracks down men and women exploring the hidden science behind ancient breathing practices like Pranayama, Sudarshan Kriya, and Tummo and teams up with pulmonary tinkerers to scientifically test long-held beliefs about how we breathe. Modern research is showing us that making even slight adjustments to the way we inhale and exhale can jump-start athletic performance; rejuvenate internal organs; halt snoring, asthma, and autoimmune disease; and even straighten scoliotic spines. None of this should be possible, and yet it is. Drawing on thousands of years of medical texts and recent cutting-edge studies in pulmonology, psychology, biochemistry, and human physiology, Breath turns the conventional wisdom of what we thought we knew about our most basic biological function on its head. You will never breathe the same again. |
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#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Winner of the 2024 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing • Winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize for Nonfiction • Winner of the 2024 J.W. Dafoe Book Prize • Winner of the 2024 Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize • Finalist for the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction • Finalist for the National Book Award in Nonfiction • One of the New York Times ’ Top Ten Books of The Year • Finalist for the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in Non-Fiction • Finalist for the 2024 Lane Anderson Award A stunning account of the colossal wildfire at Fort McMurray, and a panoramic exploration of the rapidly changing relationship between fire and humankind from the award-winning, best-selling author of The Tiger and The Golden Spruce . Named a Best Book of the Year by The Guardian • TIME • The Globe and Mail • The New Yorker • Financial Times • CBC • Smithsonian • Air Mail Weekly • Slate • NPR • Toronto Star • The Washington Post • The Times • Orion Magazine In May 2016, Fort McMurray, the hub of Canada's petroleum industry and America's biggest foreign supplier, was overrun by wildfire. The multi-billion-dollar disaster melted vehicles, turned entire neighborhoods into firebombs, and drove 88,000 people from their homes in a single afternoon. Through the lens of this apocalyptic conflagration—the wildfire equivalent of Hurricane Katrina—John Vaillant warns that this was not a unique event but a shocking preview of what we must prepare for in a hotter, more flammable world.     For hundreds of millennia, fire has been a partner in our evolution, shaping culture, civilization, and, very likely, our brains. Fire has enabled us to cook our food, defend and heat our homes, and power the machines that drive our titanic economy. Yet this volatile energy source has always threatened to elude our control, and in our new age of intensifying climate change, we are seeing its destructive power unleashed in previously unimaginable ways.     With masterly prose and a cinematic eye, Vaillant takes us on a riveting journey through the intertwined histories of North America's oil industry and the birth of climate science, to the unprecedented devastation wrought by modern forest fires, and into lives forever changed by these disasters. John Vaillant's urgent work is a book for—and from—our new century of fire, which has only just begun. |
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The instant New York Times bestseller “Excellent . . . Outstanding for its breadth of research, the liveliness of the writing, and the depth of humanity it conveys.” – Wall Street Journal One of our great behavioral scientists, the bestselling author of Behave , mounts a devastating scientific and philosophical case against free will—an argument with profound consequences Robert Sapolsky’s Behave , his now classic account of why humans do good and why they do bad, pointed toward an unsettling conclusion: we may not grasp exactly how nature and nurture create the physics and chemistry that cause all human behavior, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. In Determined , Sapolsky takes his argument all the way, mounting a brilliant (and in his inimitable way, delightful) full-frontal assault on the pleasant fantasy that there is some separate self who tells our biology what to do. Determined offers a marvelous synthesis of what we know about consciousness—the tight weave between reason and emotion and between stimulus and response in the moment and over a life. One by one, Sapolsky takes out all the major arguments for free will, cutting a path through the thickets of chaos theory and quantum physics. But as Sapolsky acknowledges, it’s sometimes impossible to uncouple from our zeal to judge people, including ourselves. Determined applies this new understanding to some of our most essential questions around punishment, morality, and living well together. Most of all, Sapolsky argues that while accepting the reality about free will is monumentally difficult, it will make for a much more humane world. |
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The science and history of what lies between us and space: “I never knew air could be so interesting.” —Bill Bryson, New York Times bestselling author of The Body: A Guide for Occupants A flamboyant Renaissance Italian discovers how heavy our air really is (the air filling Carnegie Hall, for example, weighs seventy thousand pounds). A one-eyed barnstorming pilot finds a set of winds that constantly blow five miles above our heads. An impoverished American farmer figures out why hurricanes move in a circle by carving equations with his pitchfork on a barn door. A well-meaning inventor nearly destroys the ozone layer (he also came up with the idea of putting lead in gasoline). A reclusive mathematical genius predicts, thirty years before he’s proven right, that the sky contains a layer of floating metal fed by the glowing tails of shooting stars. We don’t just live in the air; we live because of it. It’s the most miraculous substance on earth, responsible for our food, our weather, our water, and our ability to hear. In this exuberant book, science writer Gabrielle Walker peels back the layers of our atmosphere with the stories of the people who have uncovered its secrets. “A sense of wonder . . . animates Ms. Walker’s high-spirited narrative and speeds it along like a fresh-blowing westerly.” — The New York Times “A fabulous introduction to the world above our heads.” — Daily Mail on Sunday “A lively history of scientists’ and adventurers’ exploration of this important and complex contributor to life on Earth . . . readers will find this informative book to be a breath of fresh air.” — Publishers Weekly |
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ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW'S 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR A major book about the future of the world, blending intellectual and natural history and field reporting into a powerful account of the mass extinction unfolding before our eyes Over the last half a billion years, there have been five mass extinctions, when the diversity of life on earth suddenly and dramatically contracted. Scientists around the world are currently monitoring the sixth extinction, predicted to be the most devastating extinction event since the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs. This time around, the cataclysm is us. In The Sixth Extinction , two-time winner of the National Magazine Award and New Yorker writer Elizabeth Kolbert draws on the work of scores of researchers in half a dozen disciplines, accompanying many of them into the field: geologists who study deep ocean cores, botanists who follow the tree line as it climbs up the Andes, marine biologists who dive off the Great Barrier Reef. She introduces us to a dozen species, some already gone, others facing extinction, including the Panamian golden frog, staghorn coral, the great auk, and the Sumatran rhino. Through these stories, Kolbert provides a moving account of the disappearances occurring all around us and traces the evolution of extinction as concept, from its first articulation by Georges Cuvier in revolutionary Paris up through the present day. The sixth extinction is likely to be mankind's most lasting legacy; as Kolbert observes, it compels us to rethink the fundamental question of what it means to be human. |
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#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “The story of modern medicine and bioethics—and, indeed, race relations—is refracted beautifully, and movingly.”— Entertainment Weekly NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE FROM HBO® STARRING OPRAH WINFREY AND ROSE BYRNE • ONE OF THE “MOST INFLUENTIAL” (CNN), “DEFINING” ( LITHUB ), AND “BEST” ( THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER ) BOOKS OF THE DECADE • ONE OF ESSENCE ’S 50 MOST IMPACTFUL BLACK BOOKS OF THE PAST 50 YEARS • WINNER OF THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE HEARTLAND PRIZE FOR NONFICTION NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • Entertainment Weekly • O: The Oprah Magazine • NPR • Financial Times • New York • Independent (U.K.) • Times (U.K.) • Publishers Weekly • Library Journal • Kirkus Reviews • Booklist • Globe and Mail Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells—taken without her knowledge—became one of the most important tools in medicine: The first “immortal” human cells grown in culture, which are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb’s effects; helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions. Yet Henrietta Lacks remains virtually unknown, buried in an unmarked grave. Henrietta’s family did not learn of her “immortality” until more than twenty years after her death, when scientists investigating HeLa began using her husband and children in research without informed consent. And though the cells had launched a multimillion-dollar industry that sells human biological materials, her family never saw any of the profits. As Rebecca Skloot so brilliantly shows, the story of the Lacks family—past and present—is inextricably connected to the dark history of experimentation on African Americans, the birth of bioethics, and the legal battles over whether we control the stuff we are made of. Over the decade it took to uncover this story, Rebecca became enmeshed in the lives of the Lacks family—especially Henrietta’s daughter Deborah. Deborah was consumed with questions: Had scientists cloned her mother? Had they killed her to harvest her cells? And if her mother was so important to medicine, why couldn’t her children afford health insurance? Intimate in feeling, astonishing in scope, and impossible to put down, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks captures the beauty and drama of scientific discovery, as well as its human consequences. |
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'Science has never had an advocate quite like David Deutsch ... A computational physicist on a par with his touchstones Alan Turing and Richard Feynman, and a philosopher in the line of his greatest hero, Karl Popper. His arguments are so clear that to read him is to experience the thrill of the highest level of discourse available on this planet and to understand it' Peter Forbes, Independent In our search for truth, how far have we advanced? This uniquely human quest for good explanations has driven amazing improvements in everything from scientific understanding and technology to politics, moral values and human welfare. But will progress end, either in catastrophe or completion - or will it continue infinitely? In this profound and seminal book, David Deutsch explores the furthest reaches of our current understanding, taking in the Infinity Hotel, supernovae and the nature of optimism, to instill in all of us a wonder at what we have achieved - and the fact that this is only the beginning of humanity's infinite possibility. 'This is Deutsch at his most ambitious, seeking to understand the implications of our scientific explanations of the world ... I enthusiastically recommend this rich, wide-ranging and elegantly written exposition of the unique insights of one of our most original intellectuals' Michael Berry, Times Higher Education Supplement 'Bold ... profound ... provocative and persuasive' Economist 'David Deutsch may well go down in history as one of the great scientists of our age' Scotsman |
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EYE TO EYE WITH DEATH:  THE WOLF PROJECT Hordes of bloodthirsty wolves are slaughtering the arctic caribou, and the government's Wildlife Service assigns naturalist Farley Mowat to investigate. Mowat is dropped alone onto the frozen tundra, where he begins his mission to live among the howling wolf packs and study their ways. Contact with his quarry comes quickly, and Mowat discovers not a den of marauding killers but a courageous family of skillful providers and devoted protectors of their young. As Mowat comes closer to the wolf world, he comes to fear with them the onslaught of bounty hunters and government exterminators out to erase the noble wolf community from the Arctic.  Never Cry Wolf is one of the brilliant narratives on the myth and magic of wild wolves and man's true place among the creatures of nature. "We have doomed the wolf not for what it is, but for what we deliberately and mistakenly perceive it to be — the mythologized epitome of a savage, ruthless killer — which is, in reality, no more than the reflected image of ourself." — From the new Preface |
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Reef Fish Identification – Florida Caribbean Bahamas enhanced ebook includes 688 species documented in more than 1200 color underwater photographs. This enhanced ebook features 201 additional photos and 5 more species than the printed version. Pages of thumbnail photos show all species included in a chapter. Thumbnail photos are also included at the beginning of each family section introducing the individual species. Each species is presented on a single page with a photo gallery including multiple photos and a drawing showing identification marks. Photos can be expanded to fill the screen.The easy to use quick-reference format is the most comprehensive and beautiful visual ID reference published for the region. Information on each species includes common, scientific and family names, descriptions, habitat and behavior, abundance/distribution and reaction to divers. |
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New York Times best-selling author and primatologist Frans de Waal explores the fascinating world of animal and human emotions. New York Times best-selling author and primatologist Frans de Waal explores the fascinating world of animal and human emotions. New York Times best-selling author and primatologist Frans de Waal explores the fascinating world of animal and human emotions. Frans de Waal has spent four decades at the forefront of animal research. Following up on the best-selling Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?, which investigated animal intelligence, Mama’s Last Hug delivers a fascinating exploration of the rich emotional lives of animals. Mama’s Last Hug begins with the death of Mama, a chimpanzee matriarch who formed a deep bond with biologist Jan van Hooff. When Mama was dying, van Hooff took the unusual step of visiting her in her night cage for a last hug. Their goodbyes were filmed and went viral. Millions of people were deeply moved by the way Mama embraced the professor, welcoming him with a big smile while reassuring him by patting his neck, in a gesture often considered typically human but that is in fact common to all primates. This story and others like it form the core of de Waal’s argument, showing that humans are not the only species with the capacity for love, hate, fear, shame, guilt, joy, disgust, and empathy. De Waal discusses facial expressions, the emotions behind human politics, the illusion of free will, animal sentience, and, of course, Mama’s life and death. The message is one of continuity between us and other species, such as the radical proposal that emotions are like organs: we don’t have a single organ that other animals don’t have, and the same is true for our emotions. Mama’s Last Hug opens our hearts and minds to the many ways in which humans and other animals are connected, transforming how we view the living world around us. |
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“With a delightfully irascible sense of humor, Henry Gee reflects on our origin . . . an excellent primer on how—and how not—to think about human evolution.” —Carl Zimmer, author of Parasite Rex The idea of a missing link between humanity and our animal ancestors predates evolution and popular science and actually has religious roots in the deist concept of the Great Chain of Being. Yet, the metaphor has lodged itself in the contemporary imagination, and new fossil discoveries are often hailed in headlines as revealing the elusive transitional step, the moment when we stopped being “animal” and started being “human.” In The Accidental Species , Henry Gee, longtime paleontology editor at Nature , takes aim at this misleading notion, arguing that it reflects a profound misunderstanding of how evolution works and, when applied to the evolution of our own species, supports mistaken ideas about our own place in the universe. Gee presents a robust and stark challenge to our tendency to see ourselves as the acme of creation. Far from being a quirk of religious fundamentalism, human exceptionalism, Gee argues, is an error that also infects scientific thought. Touring the many features of human beings that have recurrently been used to distinguish us from the rest of the animal world, Gee shows that our evolutionary outcome is one possibility among many, one that owes more to chance than to an organized progression to supremacy. He starts with bipedality, which he shows could have arisen entirely by accident, as a by-product of sexual selection, then moves on to technology, large brain size, intelligence, language, and, finally, sentience. He reveals each of these attributes to be alive and well throughout the animal world—they are not, indeed, unique to our species. The Accidental Species combines Gee’s expertise and experience with healthy skepticism and humor to create a book that aims to overturn popular thinking on human evolution. The key is not what’s missing—but how we’re linked. |
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WINNER OF THE 2023 BMO WINTERSET AWARD FINALIST FOR THE 2023 GOVERNOR GENERAL'S LITERARY AWARD FOR NONFICTION SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2023 SCIENCE WRITERS AND COMMUNICATORS BOOK AWARD SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2024 LANE ANDERSON AWARD From the heart of the Labrador Current to the furthest reaches of our global oceans, Message in a Bottle conjures an exquisite diversity of marine life and warns of a central threat to its survival: ocean plastic. The dovekie is a stocky seabird the size of a child’s heart that spends its winters on the coast of Newfoundland, thriving in one of the toughest climates on Earth. The polar bear is an apex predator, designed to persevere in the Arctic's extreme conditions. The North Atlantic right whale outweighs the humpback by more than twenty tons and feeds on enormous quantities of tiny plankton in northeastern waters before migrating south for the winter. In Message in a Bottle , wildlife biologist and writer Holly Hogan brings to life the wonder of these creatures and many other birds, fish and marine mammals she has encountered in her thirty years of ocean travel. On these voyages, Hogan has noticed a troubling pattern: the constant presence of plastic, in the form of adrift fishing gear ("ghost gear"), garbage and micro-plastics that create an invisible but pervasive smog in our oceans and threaten even the most seemingly resilient forms of sea life. Bringing together nature, science and adventure writing, Hogan shines a light on our plastic-addicted lifestyle, offering an eyewitness account of its devastating effects on the marine environment—and highlighting international efforts to combat it. With lyrical prose and a reverential eye for the majesty and fragility of our natural world, Message in a Bottle is a clarion call to protect global oceans and the life they sustain, including our own. |
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Call it “Zen and the Art of Farming” or a “Little Green Book,” Masanobu Fukuoka’s manifesto about farming, eating, and the limits of human knowledge presents a radical challenge to the global systems we rely on for our food. At the same time, it is a spiritual memoir of a man whose innovative system of cultivating the earth reflects a deep faith in the wholeness and balance of the natural world. As Wendell Berry writes in his preface, the book “is valuable to us because it is at once practical and philosophical. It is an inspiring, necessary book about agriculture because it is not just about agriculture.” Trained as a scientist, Fukuoka rejected both modern agribusiness and centuries of agricultural practice, deciding instead that the best forms of cultivation mirror nature’s own laws. Over the next three decades he perfected his so-called “do-nothing” technique: commonsense, sustainable practices that all but eliminate the use of pesticides, fertilizer, tillage, and perhaps most significantly, wasteful effort. Whether you’re a guerrilla gardener or a kitchen gardener, dedicated to slow food or simply looking to live a healthier life, you will find something here—you may even be moved to start a revolution of your own. |
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Covering 13.8 billion years in some 100 pages, a concise, wryly intelligent history of everything, from the Big Bang to the advent of human civilization. With wonder, wit, and flair—and in record time and space—geophysicist David Bercovici explains how everything came to be everywhere, from the creation of stars and galaxies to the formation of Earth’s atmosphere and oceans, to the origin of life and human civilization. Bercovici marries humor and legitimate scientific intrigue, rocketing readers across nearly fourteen billion years and making connections between the essential theories that give us our current understanding of topics as varied as particle physics, plate tectonics, and photosynthesis. Bercovici’s unique literary endeavor is a treasure trove of real, compelling science and fascinating history, providing both science lovers and complete neophytes with an unforgettable introduction to the fields of cosmology, geology, genetics, climate science, human evolution, and more. “For determined minds hoping for cogent, clever explanations for what we know of the history of the universe, Bercovici nails it.” — Shelf Awareness   “Explaining life, the universe and everything in 100 pages may be a tall order, but physicist and volcano enthusiast Bercovici rises to the challenge. . . . Origins delivers on its promise—and (bonus!) it’s even fun to read.” — Discover “Clear, concise, comprehensive, and written with verve and a sense of humor, The Origins of Everything is a delightful journey through time from the big bang to the present day.” —Doug Macdougall, author of Frozen Earth |
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THE NO. 1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER Head back down to Clarkson Farm with the latest bestseller from our favourite welly-wearing wannabe farmer, Jeremy Clarkson ___________ Enthusiastic trainee farmer Jeremy Clarkson made just £144 in his first year at Diddly Squat Farm. This year he's determined to do better. Not because he now knows what he's doing. But because he's fed up of getting stick from Kaleb. Yet farming continues to be a challenge. For instance . . . · Loading a grain trailer was more demanding than flying an Apache gunship? · Cows were more dangerous than motor-racing? · It's easier to get planning permission to build a nuclear plant than to turn a barn into a restaurant? Jeremy's always got a plan. Loads of them. Often cunning. Not always greeted with wild enthusiasm by Kaleb and Cheerful Charlie, however . . . ___________ PRAISE FOR DIDDLY SQUAT 'Clarkson has done more for farmers in one series than Countryfile achieved in 30 years' James Rebanks, author of A Shepherd's Life 'Clarkson has showcased the passion, humour and personalities of the people who work throughout the year to grow the nation's food . . . and brought an understanding of many of the issues faced by farmers to the British public' National Farmers Union 'A deserving Farming Champion of the Year' Farmers Weekly 'I don't know anything about farming. It's like David Attenborough doing jet-skiing, or Nicholas Witchell saying, "I'm going to be a cage fighter'" Jeremy Clarkson |
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A richly illustrated, portable guide to two of the most challenging groups of flycatchers to identify in the field The identification of flycatchers can be a daunting challenge for even the most seasoned birder. The Field Guide to North American Flycatchers series takes bird identification to an entirely new level by training readers to observe subtle differences in structure, color patterns, and vocalizations before delving into the finer details of a particular species. Because the plumages of flycatchers are so similar, this innovative guide uses illustrations that highlight slight variations among species that photos often miss. One of the last frontiers of bird identification is now accessible to everyone—once one knows what to look for. Uses a holistic approach that makes flycatcher identification possible even for beginnersFeatures a wealth of beautiful illustrations that depict every species in North AmericaShows how to observe subtle differences in structure, plumage contrasts, and vocalizations, which together create a distinctive overall impression of the birdIncludes detailed audio spectrograms and seasonal distribution maps for each speciesShares invaluable tips for successful identification in all kinds of field settingsCompact and field-friendly—the ideal travel companion for any birder This guide is dedicated to kingbirds and Myiarchus flycatchers. Combined with the first volume in this identification series, which focuses on Empidonax flycatchers and pewees, these companion guides are the most comprehensive and accessible treatments of flycatcher identification to date. |
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The Class 9 Chemistry Multiple Choice Questions (MCQ Quiz) with Answers PDF (Grade 9 Chemistry MCQ PDF Download): Quiz Questions Chapter 1-8 & Practice Tests with Answers Key (Chemistry Textbook Notes, MCQs & Study Guide) includes revision guide for problem solving with hundreds of solved MCQs. Class 9 Chemistry MCQ with Answers PDF book covers basic concepts, analytical and practical assessment tests. "Class 9 Chemistry MCQ" PDF book helps to practice test questions from exam prep notes. The Class 9 Chemistry MCQs with Answers PDF eBook includes revision guide with verbal, quantitative, and analytical past papers, solved MCQs. Class 9 Chemistry Multiple Choice Questions and Answers (MCQs) PDF : Free download chapter 1, a book covers solved quiz questions and answers on chapters: Chemical reactivity, electrochemistry, fundamentals of chemistry, periodic table and periodicity, physical states of matter, solutions, structure of atoms, structure of molecules tests for school and college revision guide. Class 9 Chemistry Quiz Questions and Answers PDF download, free eBook’s sample covers beginner's solved questions, textbook's study notes to practice tests. The book Class 9 Chemistry MCQs Chapter 1-8 PDF includes high school question papers to review practice tests for exams. Class 9 Chemistry Multiple Choice Questions (MCQ) with Answers PDF digital edition eBook, a study guide with textbook chapters' tests for NEET/MCAT/GRE/GMAT/SAT/ACT competitive exam. 9th Grade Chemistry Practice Tests Chapter 1-8 PDF covers problem solving exam tests from chemistry textbook and practical eBook chapter-wise as: Chapter 1: Chemical Reactivity MCQ Chapter 2: Electrochemistry MCQ Chapter 3: Fundamentals of Chemistry MCQ Chapter 4: Periodic Table and Periodicity MCQ Chapter 5: Physical States of Matter MCQ Chapter 6: Solutions MCQ Chapter 7: Structure of Atoms MCQ Chapter 8: Structure of Molecules MCQ Practice "Chemical Reactivity MCQ" PDF, book's chapter 1 test to solve MCQ questions: Metals, and non-metals. Practice "Electrochemistry MCQ" PDF, book's chapter 2 test to solve MCQ questions: Corrosion and prevention, electrochemical cells, electrochemical industries, oxidation and reduction, oxidation reduction and reactions, oxidation states, oxidizing and reducing agents. Practice "Fundamentals of Chemistry MCQ" PDF, book's chapter 3 test to solve MCQ questions: Atomic and mass number, Avogadro number and mole, branches of chemistry, chemical calculations, elements and compounds particles, elements compounds and mixtures, empirical and molecular formulas, gram atomic mass molecular mass and gram formula, ions and free radicals, molecular and formula mass, relative atomic mass, and mass unit. Practice "Periodic Table and Periodicity MCQ" PDF, book's chapter 4 test to solve MCQ questions: Periodic table, periodicity and properties. Practice "Physical States of Matter MCQ" PDF, book's chapter 5 test to solve MCQ questions: Allotropes, gas laws, liquid state and properties, physical states of matter, solid state and properties, types of bonds, and typical properties. Practice "Solutions MCQ" PDF, book's chapter 6 test to solve MCQ questions: Aqueous solution solute and solvent, concentration units, saturated unsaturated supersaturated and dilution of solution, solubility, solutions suspension and colloids, and types of solutions. Practice "Structure of Atoms MCQ" PDF, book's chapter 7 test to solve MCQ questions: Atomic structure experiments, electronic configuration, and isotopes. Practice "Structure of Molecules MCQ" PDF, book's chapter 8 test to solve MCQ questions: Atoms reaction, bonding nature and properties, chemical bonds, intermolecular forces, and types of bonds. |
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Learn to master basic programming tasks from scratch with real-life scientifically relevant examples and solutions drawn from both science and engineering. Students and researchers at all levels are increasingly turning to the powerful Python programming language as an alternative to commercial packages and this fast-paced introduction moves from the basics to advanced concepts in one complete volume, enabling readers to quickly gain proficiency. Beginning with general programming concepts such as loops and functions within the core Python 3 language, and moving onto the NumPy, SciPy and Matplotlib libraries for numerical programming and data visualisation, this textbook also discusses the use of IPython notebooks to build rich-media, shareable documents for scientific analysis. Including a final chapter introducing challenging topics such as floating-point precision and algorithm stability, and with extensive online resources to support advanced study, this textbook represents a targeted package for students requiring a solid foundation in Python programming. |
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Ranging from math to literature to philosophy, Uncountable explains how numbers triumphed as the basis of knowledge—and compromise our sense of humanity. Our knowledge of mathematics has structured much of what we think we know about ourselves as individuals and communities, shaping our psychologies, sociologies, and economies. In pursuit of a more predictable and more controllable cosmos, we have extended mathematical insights and methods to more and more aspects of the world. Today those powers are greater than ever, as computation is applied to virtually every aspect of human activity. Yet, in the process, are we losing sight of the human? When we apply mathematics so broadly, what do we gain and what do we lose, and at what risk to humanity? These are the questions that David and Ricardo L. Nirenberg ask in Uncountable , a provocative account of how numerical relations became the cornerstone of human claims to knowledge, truth, and certainty. There is a limit to these number-based claims, they argue, which they set out to explore. The Nirenbergs, father and son, bring together their backgrounds in math, history, literature, religion, and philosophy, interweaving scientific experiments with readings of poems, setting crises in mathematics alongside world wars, and putting medieval Muslim and Buddhist philosophers in conversation with Einstein, Schrödinger, and other giants of modern physics. The result is a powerful lesson in what counts as knowledge and its deepest implications for how we live our lives.   |
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An exploration of the science behind being alive and aware, from the author of Brainstorms and Darwin’s Dangerous Idea . “Brilliant . . . as audacious as its title. . . . Mr. Dennett’s exposition is nothing short of brilliant, the best example I’ve seen of a science book aimed at both professionals and general readers.” —George Johnson, New York Times Book Review Consciousness Explained  is a full-scale exploration of human consciousness. In this landmark book, Daniel Dennett refutes the traditional, commonsense theory of consciousness and presents a new model, based on a wealth of information from the fields of neuroscience, psychology, and artificial intelligence. Our current theories about conscious life—of people, animal, even robots—are transformed by the new perspectives found in this book. “Dennett is a witty and gifted scientific raconteur, and the book is full of fascinating information about humans, animals, and machines. The result is highly digestible and a useful tour of the field.” — Wall Street Journal |
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Does the universe embody beautiful ideas? Artists as well as scientists throughout human history have pondered this “beautiful question.” With Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek as your guide, embark on a voyage of related discoveries, from Plato and Pythagoras up to the present. Wilczek’s groundbreaking work in quantum physics was inspired by his intuition to look for a deeper order of beauty in nature. In fact, every major advance in his career came from this intuition: to assume that the universe embodies beautiful forms, forms whose hallmarks are symmetry—harmony, balance, proportion—and economy. There are other meanings of “beauty,” but this is the deep logic of the universe—and it is no accident that it is also at the heart of what we find aesthetically pleasing and inspiring. Wilczek is hardly alone among great scientists in charting his course using beauty as his compass. As he reveals in A Beautiful Question , this has been the heart of scientific pursuit from Pythagoras, the ancient Greek who was the first to argue that “all things are number,” to Galileo, Newton, Maxwell, Einstein, and into the deep waters of twentiethcentury physics. Though the ancients weren’t right about everything, their ardent belief in the music of the spheres has proved true down to the quantum level. Indeed, Wilczek explores just how intertwined our ideas about beauty and art are with our scientific understanding of the cosmos. Wilczek brings us right to the edge of knowledge today, where the core insights of even the craziest quantum ideas apply principles we all understand. The equations for atoms and light are almost literally the same equations that govern musical instruments and sound; the subatomic particles that are responsible for most of our mass are determined by simple geometric symmetries. The universe itself, suggests Wilczek, seems to want to embody beautiful and elegant forms. Perhaps this force is the pure elegance of numbers, perhaps the work of a higher being, or somewhere between. Either way, we don’t depart from the infinite and infinitesimal after all; we’re profoundly connected to them, and we connect them. When we find that our sense of beauty is realized in the physical world, we are discovering something about the world, but also something about ourselves. Gorgeously illustrated, A Beautiful Question is a mind-shifting book that braids the age-old quest for beauty and the age-old quest for truth into a thrilling synthesis. It is a dazzling and important work from one of our best thinkers, whose humor and infectious sense of wonder animate every page. Yes: The world is a work of art, and its deepest truths are ones we already feel, as if they were somehow written in our souls. |
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Popular science writer Philip Ball explores a range of sciences to map our answers to a huge, philosophically rich question: How do we even begin to think about minds that are not human?   Sciences from zoology to astrobiology, computer science to neuroscience, are seeking to understand minds in their own distinct disciplinary realms. Taking a uniquely broad view of minds and where to find them—including in plants, aliens, and God—Philip Ball pulls the pieces together to explore what sorts of minds we might expect to find in the universe. In so doing, he offers for the first time a unified way of thinking about what minds are and what they can do, by locating them in what he calls the “space of possible minds.” By identifying and mapping out properties of mind without prioritizing the human, Ball sheds new light on a host of fascinating questions: What moral rights should we afford animals, and can we understand their thoughts? Should we worry that AI is going to take over society? If there are intelligent aliens out there, how could we communicate with them? Should we? Understanding the space of possible minds also reveals ways of making advances in understanding some of the most challenging questions in contemporary science: What is thought? What is consciousness? And what (if anything) is free will? Informed by conversations with leading researchers, Ball’s brilliant survey of current views about the nature and existence of minds is more mind-expanding than we could imagine. In this fascinating panorama of other minds, we come to better know our own. |
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Why do we do the things we do? Over a decade in the making, this game-changing book is Robert Sapolsky's genre-shattering attempt to answer that question as fully as perhaps only he could, looking at it from every angle. Sapolsky's storytelling concept is delightful but it also has a powerful intrinsic logic: he starts by looking at the factors that bear on a person's reaction in the precise moment a behavior occurs, and then hops back in time from there, in stages, ultimately ending up at the deep history of our species and its genetic inheritance. And so the first category of explanation is the neurobiological one. What goes on in a person's brain a second before the behavior happens? Then he pulls out to a slightly larger field of vision, a little earlier in time: What sight, sound, or smell triggers the nervous system to produce that behavior? And then, what hormones act hours to days earlier to change how responsive that individual is to the stimuli which trigger the nervous system? By now, he has increased our field of vision so that we are thinking about neurobiology and the sensory world of our environment and endocrinology in trying to explain what happened. Sapolsky keeps going--next to what features of the environment affected that person's brain, and then back to the childhood of the individual, and then to their genetic makeup. Finally, he expands the view to encompass factors larger than that one individual. How culture has shaped that individual's group, what ecological factors helped shape that culture, and on and on, back to evolutionary factors thousands and even millions of years old. The result is one of the most dazzling tours de horizon of the science of human behavior ever attempted, a majestic synthesis that harvests cutting-edge research across a range of disciplines to provide a subtle and nuanced perspective on why we ultimately do the things we do...for good and for ill. Sapolsky builds on this understanding to wrestle with some of our deepest and thorniest questions relating to tribalism and xenophobia, hierarchy and competition, morality and free will, and war and peace. Wise, humane, often very funny, Behave is a towering achievement, powerfully humanizing, and downright heroic in its own right. |
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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER  • Deepak Chopra joins forces with leading physicist Menas Kafatos to explore some of the most important and baffling questions about our place in the world.  "A riveting and absolutely fascinating adventure that will blow your mind wide open!" —Dr. Rudolph E. Tanzi   What happens when modern science reaches a crucial turning point that challenges everything we know about reality? In this brilliant, timely, and practical work, Chopra and Kafatos tell us that we've reached just such a point. In the coming era, the universe will be completely redefined as a "human universe" radically unlike the cold, empty void where human life is barely a speck in the cosmos.   You Are the Universe  literally means what it says--each of us is a co-creator of reality extending to the vastest reaches of time and space. This seemingly impossible proposition follows from the current state of science, where outside the public eye, some key mysteries cannot be solved, even though they are the very issues that define reality itself:   • What Came Before the Big Bang? • Why Does the Universe Fit Together So Perfectly? • Where Did Time Come From? • What Is the Universe Made Of? • Is the Quantum World Linked to Everyday Life? • Do We Live in a Conscious Universe? • How Did Life First Begin?   “The shift into a new paradigm is happening,” the authors write. “The answers offered in this book are not our invention or eccentric flights of fancy. All of us live in a participatory universe. Once you decide that you want to participate fully with mind, body, and soul, the paradigm shift becomes personal. The reality you inhabit will be yours either to embrace or to change.” What these two great minds offer is a bold, new understanding of who we are and how we can transform the world for the better while reaching our greatest potential. |
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INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER As you read these words, copies of you are being created.   Sean Carroll, theoretical physicist and one of this world’s most celebrated writers on science, rewrites the history of 20th century physics. Already hailed as a masterpiece, Something Deeply Hidden shows for the first time that facing up to the essential puzzle of quantum mechanics utterly transforms how we think about space and time.  His reconciling of quantum mechanics with Einstein’s theory of relativity changes, well, everything. Most physicists haven’t even recognized the uncomfortable truth: physics has been in crisis since 1927. Quantum mechanics  has always had obvious gaps—which have come to be simply ignored. Science popularizers keep telling us how weird it is,  how impossible it is to understand. Academics discourage students from working on the "dead end" of quantum foundations. Putting his professional reputation on the line with this audacious yet entirely reasonable book, Carroll says that the crisis can now come to an end. We just have to accept that there is more than one of us in the universe. There are many, many Sean Carrolls. Many of every one of us.   Copies of you are generated thousands of times per second. The Many Worlds Theory of quantum behavior says that every time there is a quantum event, a world splits off with everything in it the same, except in that other world the quantum event didn't happen. Step-by-step in Carroll's uniquely lucid way, he tackles the major objections to this otherworldly revelation until his case is inescapably established.   Rarely does a book so fully reorganize how we think about our place in the universe. We are on the threshold of a new understanding—of where we are in the cosmos, and what we are made of. |
