askscience
1–20 of 37 results
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Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen
1835The astonishing national bestseller and hugely entertaining story that completely changed the way we run.An epic adventure that began with one simple question: Why does my foot hurt? Isolated by Mexico’s deadly Copper Canyons, the blissful Tarahumara Indians have honed the ability to run hundreds of miles without rest or injury. In a riveting narrative, award-winning journalist and often-injured runner Christopher McDougall sets out to discover their secrets. In the process, he takes his read…
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Battery Management Systems for Large Lithium Ion Battery Packs
1423A battery management system (BMS) is any electronic device that manages a rechargeable battery pack. The BMS monitors the battery pack’s state, calculates secondary data, offers protection, and controls its environment. This timely book provides a solid understanding of battery management systems (BMS) in large Li-Ion battery packs, describing the important technical challenges in this field and exploring the most effective solutions. Professionals find in-depth discussions on BMS topologies,…
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The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail – But Some Don’t
1369“Nate Silver’s The Signal and the Noise is The Soul of a New Machine for the 21st century.” —Rachel Maddow, author of DriftNate Silver built an innovative system for predicting baseball performance, predicted the 2008 election within a hair’s breadth, and became a national sensation as a blogger—all by the time he was thirty. He solidified his standing as the nation’s foremost political forecaster with his near perfect prediction of the 2012 election. Silver is the founder and editor in chief…
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Ancient Marine Reptiles
1359Vertebrate evolution has led to the convergent appearance of many groups of originally terrestrial animals that now live in the sea. Among these groups are familiar mammals like whales, dolphins, and seals. There are also reptilian lineages (like plesiosaurs, ichthyosaurs, mosasaurs, thalattosaurs, and others) that have become sea creatures. Most of these marine reptiles, often wrongly called “dinosaurs”, are extinct. This edited book is devoted to these extinct groups of marine reptiles. The…
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1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
1160In this groundbreaking work of science, history, and archaeology, Charles C. Mann radically alters our understanding of the Americas before the arrival of Columbus in 1492. Contrary to what so many Americans learn in school, the pre-Columbian Indians were not sparsely settled in a pristine wilderness; rather, there were huge numbers of Indians who actively molded and influenced the land around them. The astonishing Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan had running water and immaculately clean streets…
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An Introduction to the Biology of Vision
1024This main goals of this text are to provide undergraduates with a working vocabulary and knowledge of the biology of vision and to acquaint them with the major themes in biological vision research. Part I treats the eye as an image-forming organ and provides an overview of the projections from the retina to key visual structures of the brain. The second part builds on this material, examining the functions of the retina and its central projections in greater detail. Part III addresses certain…
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Neuroanatomy: Text and Atlas
959A Doody’s Core Title for 2011! The most comprehensive approach to neuroanatomy from both a functional and regional perspective! With over 400 illustrations, this thoroughly updated Third Edition examines how parts of the nervous system work together to regulate body systems and produce behavior. The illustration program features brain views produced by MRI and PET imaging technology, 2-color line illustrations, and myelin-stained sections as well as an 80-page atlas of key views of the surfa…
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The Earth’s Biosphere: Evolution, Dynamics, and Change (MIT Press)
888In his latest book, Vaclav Smil tells the story of the Earth’s biosphere from its origins to its near and long-term future. He explains the workings of its parts and what is known about their interactions. With essay-like flair, he examines the biosphere’s physics, chemistry, biology, geology, oceanography, energy, climatology, and ecology, as well as the changes caused by human activity. He provides both the basics of the story and surprising asides illustrating critical but often neglected …
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The Power of Music: Pioneering Discoveries in the New Science of Song
873The award-winning creator of the acclaimed documentary “The Music Instinct: Science & Song,” explores the power of music and its connection to the body, the brain, and the world of nature. Only recently has science sought in earnest to understand and explain this impact. One remarkable recent study, analyzing the cries of newborns, shows that infants’ cries contain common musical intervals, and children tease each other in specific, singsong ways no matter where in the world they live. Physic…
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Body Images: Development, Deviance, and Change
795How does an individual form a body image? Where do the internal representations of one’s body image intersect with the external bodily reality? How does a person adjust the image to reflect the changes wrought by aging, disease, deformity, or injury? What is the role of body images in the development of eating disorders and other psychological disorders? What psychotherapeutic and medical procedures facilitate positive body-image changes?In the last two decades, questions such as these have…
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Lost Islands: The Story of Islands That Have Vanished from Nautical Charts
780Hundreds of islands that once appeared on nautical charts and general atlases are now known to have vanished — or never even existed. How were they detected in the first place? An expert oceanographer chronicles the “discoveries” of these phantom islands, relating fascinating anecdotes of navigational errors, optical illusions, wishful thinking, and other mishaps. Scores of black-and-white illustrations and charts illuminate the text.
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Hallucinations
718Have you ever seen something that wasn’t really there? Heard someone call your name in an empty house? Sensed someone following you and turned around to find nothing? Hallucinations don’t belong wholly to the insane. Much more commonly, they are linked to sensory deprivation, intoxication, illness, or injury. People with migraines may see shimmering arcs of light or tiny, Lilliputian figures of animals and people. People with failing eyesight, paradoxically, may become immersed in a hallucina…
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Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
683“Fascinating…. Lays a foundation for understanding human history.”―Bill Gates Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Guns, Germs, and Steel is a brilliant work answering the question of why the peoples of certain continents succeeded in invading other continents and conquering or displacing their peoples. This edition includes a new chapter on Japan and all-new illustrations drawn from the television series. Until around 11,000 BC, all peoples were still Stone Age hunter/gatherers. At that point, a …
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Parachute Recovery Systems Design Manual
656The Parachute Recovery Systems Design Manual by T.W. Knacke provides the tools to evaluate, select, design, test, manufacture, and operate parachute recovery systems. These systems range from simple, one-parachute assemblies to multiple-parachute systems, and include equipment for impact attenuation, flotation, location, retrieval, and disposition. All system aspects are discussed, including the selection of the most suitable recovery system concept, a computerized approach to parachut…
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The Golden Age
597The Golden Age is Grand Space Opera, a large-scale SF adventure novel in the tradition of A. E. Van vogt and Roger Zelazny, with perhaps a bit of Cordwainer Smith enriching the style. It is an astounding story of super science, a thrilling wonder story that recaptures the excitements of SF’s golden age writers.The Golden Age takes place 10,000 years in the future in our solar system, an interplanetary utopian society filled with immortal humans. Within the frame of a traditional tale-the one …
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Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality
595Since Darwin’s day, we’ve been told that sexual monogamy comes naturally to our species. Mainstream science–as well as religious and cultural institutions–has maintained that men and women evolved in families in which a man’s possessions and protection were exchanged for a woman’s fertility and fidelity. But this narrative is collapsing. Fewer and fewer couples are getting married, and divorce rates keep climbing as adultery and flagging libido drag down even seemingly solid marriages. Ho…
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Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Adventures of a Curious Character)
562A New York Times bestseller―the outrageous exploits of one of this century’s greatest scientific minds and a legendary American original.Richard Feynman, winner of the Nobel Prize in physics, thrived on outrageous adventures. Here he recounts in his inimitable voice his experience trading ideas on atomic physics with Einstein and Bohr and ideas on gambling with Nick the Greek; cracking the uncrackable safes guarding the most deeply held nuclear secrets; accompanying a ballet on his bongo drum…
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Ergonomics: How to Design for Ease and Efficiency (2nd Edition)
526An easy-to-use reference book written by a practicing ergonomics engineer, Ergonomics: How to Design for Ease and Efficincy explores the “why” and “how” of human engineering/ergonomics. Topics include Working Under Water, Home Computer Workstation, Data Input Devices, Effective Training for Safe Lifting, Use of Liftbelts. Deals with Space exploration, Work under water, Scuba diving, New ways to communicate with the computer, Avoiding Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and other RSIs, Lift belts in…
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Great Mambo Chicken And The Transhuman Condition: Science Slightly Over The Edge
514Enter the gray area between overheated imagination and overheated reality, and meet a network of scientists bent on creating artificial life forms, building time machines, hatching plans for dismantling the sun, enclosing the solar system in a cosmic eggshell, and faxing human minds to the far side of the galaxy. With Ed Regis as your guide, walk the fine line between science fact and fiction on this freewheeling and riotously funny tour through some of the most serious science there is….
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The Falling Sky: Words of a Yanomami Shaman
503The Falling Sky is a remarkable first-person account of the life story and cosmo-ecological thought of Davi Kopenawa, shaman and spokesman for the Yanomami of the Brazilian Amazon. Representing a people whose very existence is in jeopardy, Davi Kopenawa paints an unforgettable picture of Yanomami culture, past and present, in the heart of the rainforest–a world where ancient indigenous knowledge and shamanic traditions cope with the global geopolitics of an insatiable natural resources extra…