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A riveting history of the Mount St. Helens eruption that will "long stand as a classic of descriptive narrative" (Simon Winchester). For months in early 1980, scientists, journalists, sightseers, and nearby residents listened anxiously to rumblings in Mount St. Helens, part of the chain of western volcanoes fueled by the 700-mile-long Cascadia fault. Still, no one was prepared when an immense eruption took the top off of the mountain and laid waste to hundreds of square miles of verdant forests in southwestern Washington State. The eruption was one of the largest in human history, deposited ash in eleven U.S. states and five Canadian providences, and caused more than one billion dollars in d...
A thrilling narrative of scientific triumph, decades of secrecy, and the unimaginable destruction wrought by the creation of the atomic bomb. It began with plutonium, the first element ever manufactured in quantity by humans. Fearing that the Germans would be the first to weaponize the atom, the United States marshaled 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 and weaponize 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,...
The author describes his younger brother's experiences finding out that he had diabetes and learning to live with this condition.
Each summer six math whizzes selected from nearly a half-million American teens compete against the world's best problem solvers at the International Mathematical Olympiad.Steve Olson followed the six 2001 contestants from the intense tryouts to the Olympiad's nail-biting final rounds to discover not only what drives these extraordinary kids but what makes them both unique and typical.In the process he provides fascinating insights into the science of intelligence and learning and, finally, the nature of genius.Brilliant, but defying all the math-nerd stereotypes, these teens want to excel in whatever piques their curiosity, and they are curious about almost everything - music, games, politi...
Until just a few years ago, we knew surprisingly little about the 150,000 or so years of human existence before the advent of writing. Some of the most momentous events in our past - including our origins, our migrations across the globe, and our acquisition of language - were veiled in the uncertainty of 'prehistory'. That veil is being lifted at last by geneticists and other scientists. Mapping Human History is nothing less than an astonishing 'history of prehistory'. Steve Olson travelled through four continents to gather insights into the development of humans and our expansion throughout the world. He describes, for example, new thinking about how centres of agriculture sprang up among disparate foraging societies at roughly the same time. He tells why most of us can claim Julius Caesar and Confucius among our forebears. He pinpoints why the ways in which the story of the Jewish people jibes with, and diverges from, biblical accounts. And using very recent genetic findings, he explodes the myth that human races are a biological reality.
“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.
If the professor chooses this optional free bundle, this CD-ROM contains unique video footage from our brand new video program. Featured researchers include Claude Steele, Craig Anderson, Vicki Helgeson, Stanley Milgram, Greg Herek, Jeanne Tsai, Mahzarin Banaji among others.
The lives of comfortably middle-class gay professionals are turned upside down when a homophobic bigot and his televangelist wife move into their all-gay neighborhood and begin a statewide antigay rights campaign. This funny and outrageous novel tackles the personal and political battles surrounding gay culture and the religious right, and deals with issues many gay people face on a day-to-day basis: group identity, personal freedom, privacy, spirituality, gay history, and AIDS. Set in Portland, Oregon, Queer Comers is a moving, humorous, and sometimes shocking portrait of a community turned on its ear.
From Baltimore's earliest days as mobtown to current drug and gang violence, this memorial volume, written by two veteran officers presents brief biographies of the 124 men and women of the Baltimore Police Department who lost their lives serving their city, with emphasis on the circumstances surrounding the death of each.
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