Showing titles in History

La nostra vita, ci ricorda Bill Bryson, è il risultato di "una straordinaria dose di fortuna biologica", l'esito di una serie lunghissima di eventi, per molti versi assolutamente misteriosi. Questo libro prova a spiegare come un tale colpo di fortuna si sia potuto verificare.

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, North American and European governments generously funded the discoveries of such famous paleontologists and geologists as Henry de la Beche, William Buckland, Richard Owen, Thomas Hawkins, Edward Drinker Cope, O. C. Marsh, and Charles W. Gilmore. In this book, Jane Davidson explores the motivation behind this rush to fund exploration, arguing that eagerness to discover strategic resources like coal deposits was further fueled by patrons who had a genuine passion for paleontology and the fascinating creatures that were being unearthed.

Ever wonder why onions make you cry? Or why lizards do pushups? Or why leaves change color in the fall? Don't worry, you're not alone. Acclaimed science writer and broadcaster Jay Ingram wonders the same things. After a long career of asking important questions (does time speed up as we age? How much Neanderthal is in me? Why do some animals throw their feces?), he's here to put our scientific quandaries to rest.

This book offers a detailed exploration of the Black Plague's journey through medieval Europe, Asia, and Africa. While it details the human suffering and societal breakdowns caused by the pandemic, it also highlights the remarkable resilience of the survivors. The book examines how the plague sparked innovation in public health, inspired artistic and literary masterpieces, and transformed social structures, ultimately leading to the cultural rebirth of the Renaissance.

Il settore dei trasporti, in particolare quello su strada, è responsabile di un quarto delle emissioni di gas serra e i combustibili fossili che utilizza producono sostanze tossiche per l’uomo e per l’ambiente, oltre a essere soggetti a oscillazioni di prezzo per ragioni geopolitiche. La mobilità elettrica sta emergendo negli ultimi anni per dare una risposta efficace a questi e altri problemi, nella prospettiva di un pianeta sempre più decarbonizzato secondo gli obiettivi già stabiliti dai governi e dai trattati internazionali.

The first-ever inside look at DARPA - the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency - the maverick and controversial group whose futuristic work has had amazing civilian and military applications, from the Internet to GPS to driverless cars

The question of how falling cats land on their feet has intrigued humans since at least the middle of the 19th century. In this playful and eye-opening history, physicist, and cat parent Gregory Gbur explores how attempts to understand the cat-righting reflex have provided crucial insights into puzzles in mathematics, geophysics, neuroscience, and human space exploration....

Look around. Clearly, we humans are radically different from the other creatures on this planet. But why? Where are the Bronze Age beavers? The Iron Age iguanas? Byron Reese argues that we owe our special status to our ability to imagine the future and recall the past, escaping the perpetual present that all other living creatures are trapped in. Envisioning human history as the development of a societal superorganism he names Agora, Reese shows us how this escape enabled us to share knowledge on an unprecedented scale, and predict—and eventually master—the future.

By the end of World War I, Albert Einstein had become the face of the new science of theoretical physics and had made some powerful enemies. One of those enemies, Nobel Prize winner Philipp Lenard, spent a career trying to discredit him. Their story of conflict, pitting Germany's most widely celebrated Jew against the Nazi scientist who was to become Hitler's chief advisor on physics, had an impact far exceeding what the scientific community felt at the time.

Nothing captivates the human imagination like the vast unknowns of space. Ancient petroglyphs present renderings of the heavens, proof that we have been gazing up at the stars with wonder for thousands of years. Since then, mankind has systematically expanded our cosmic possibilities. What were once flights of fancy and dreams of science fiction writers have become nearly routine. Space travel is a sometimes heroic, sometimes humorous, and always dangerous journey fraught with perils. Space Oddities brings unknown, offbeat, and obscure stories of space to life.

Morange covers everything from the first cell theory to the origins of the concept of ecosystems, and offers perspectives on areas that are often neglected by historians of biology, such as ecology, ethology, and plant biology. He highlights the contributions of technology, the important role of hypothesis and experimentation, and the cultural contexts in which some of the most breathtaking discoveries in biology were made. Unrivaled in scope and written by a world-renowned historian of science, A History of Biology is an ideal introduction for students and experts alike.

In The Invisible Siege, Werb unpacks the dynamic history and microscopic complexity of an organism that has wreaked cycles of havoc upon the world for millennia. Elegantly tracing decades of scientific investigation, Werb’s book reveals how Baric’s team of scientists hatched an audacious plan not merely to battle COVID-19 but to end pandemics forever.

In this revised 25th-anniversary edition, acclaimed writer and journalist Vivian Gornick interviews famous and lesser-known scientists, compares their experiences then and now, and shows that, although not much has changed in the world of science, what is different is women's expectations that they can and will succeed.

Simply put, an algorithm is a set of instructions-it's the code that makes computers run. A basic idea that proved elusive for hundreds of years and bent the minds of the greatest thinkers in the world, the algorithm is what made the modern world possible. Without the algorithm, there would have been no computer, no Internet, no virtual reality, no e-mail, or any other technological advance that we rely on every day.

Warriors of the Cloisters tells how key cultural innovations from Central Asia revolutionized medieval Europe and gave rise to the culture of science in the West. Medieval scholars rarely performed scientific experiments, but instead contested issues in natural science, philosophy, and theology using the recursive argument method. This highly distinctive and unusual method of disputation was a core feature of medieval science, the predecessor of modern science.

In the early 17th century, Galileo broke free from the hold of ancient Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy. He drastically changed the framework through which we view the natural world when he asserted that we should base our theory of reality on what we can observe rather than pure thought. In the process, he invented what we would come to call science. This set the stage for all the breakthroughs that followed - from Kepler to Newton to Einstein.

Pour la première fois, l'édition phonographique propose une histoire vivante des expéditions polaires françaises. Dès le début des années 50, des enseignants ont voulu utiliser le sonore comme moyen pédagogique, en faisant réaliser les entretiens par les enfants eux-mêmes dont le besoin de comprendre en fait souvent de meilleurs interviewers, car ils sont capables d'aller du particulier au fondamental. Rétrospectivement, ce travail effectué sous la direction de Pierre Guérin (dans la lignée de Célestin Freinet) devient pour de nombreux sujets un travail historiographique et sociologique extrêmement passionnant.

Why do compass needles point north - but not quite north? What guides the migration of birds, whales, and fish across the world's oceans? How is Earth able to sustain life under an onslaught of solar wind and cosmic radiation? For centuries, the world's great scientists have grappled with these questions, all rooted in the same phenomenon: Earth's magnetism. Over 2000 years after the invention of the compass, Einstein called the source of Earth's magnetic field one of greatest unsolved mysteries of physics.

Here's a biographical profile of Charles Goodyear, the man who gave the world one of its most useful products - vulcanized rubber. Natural rubber, the milky sap of rubber trees, is not a very practical commodity. It melts in hot weather or cracks and freezes in cold weather. In 1839, Charles Goodyear came across a process that made rubber so useful it changed the world we live in. A century later there were 122 rubber factories in Ohio.

The secrets of science meet the drama of the high seas. Amir D. Aczel - the distinguished science writer behind and Mystery of the Aleph - turns detective as he uncovers the fascinating story of the invention of the compass.