Showing results by publisher "Audible Studios" in Science & Engineering

Del autor de "Una breve historia de casi todo" (200.000 ejemplares vendidos). Nos pasamos toda una vida con un solo cuerpo y casi no sabemos cómo funciona. Desde los genes hasta nuestra capacidad de hablar, pasando por nuestras constantes adaptaciones al medio y los riesgos que corremos, este libro nos descubre que nuestro microcosmos es un verdadero milagro, lleno de prodigios y de secretos asombrosos. Explicar el cuerpo humano en toda su integridad, y hacerlo para todos los públicos, solo está al alcance de un autor como Bill Bryson.

Marine algae are the supreme eco-engineers of life: they oxygenate the waters, create habitat for countless other organisms, and form the base of a food chain that keeps our planet unique in the universe as we know it. In this audiobook Josie Iselin explores both the artistic and the biological presence of 16 seaweeds and kelps that live in the thin region where the Pacific Ocean converges with the North American continent - a place of incomparable richness.

The world needs to change. We have unleashed an ecological mega-crisis which is threatening the future of life on Earth. The actions we take over the next decade are critical. They will determine the destiny of our descendants and the fate of our world. How Soon Is Now presents a compelling manifesto for personal and planetary change. It proposes a revolutionary new narrative for a unified social movement. Through global cooperation, we can face this collective threat ecologically, socially, politically and spiritually.

An exploration of space and time and a journey of discovery through 13 of the most fascinating Christmas Lectures given at the Royal Institution of Great Britain over the last 200 years. Started at the Royal Institution (RI) in 1825 by Michael Faraday, the Christmas Lectures have been broadcast on television since the 1960s and have formed part of the British Christmas tradition for generations.

In our "wireless" world it is easy to take the importance of the undersea cable systems for granted, but the stakes of their successful operation are huge, as they are responsible for carrying almost all transoceanic Internet traffic. In The Undersea Network, Nicole Starosielski follows these cables from the ocean depths to their landing zones on the sandy beaches of the South Pacific, bringing them to the surface of media scholarship and making visible the materiality of the wired network.

From ancient empires to modern economics, veteran journalist Andrew Lawler delivers a sweeping history of the animal that has been most crucial to the spread of civilization across the globe - the chicken. Queen Victoria was obsessed with it. Socrates’ last words were about it. Charles Darwin and Louis Pasteur made their scientific breakthroughs using it. Catholic popes, African shamans, Chinese philosophers, and Muslim mystics praised it.

From the 1992 Rio Earth Summit to the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Conference there was a concerted international effort to stop climate change. Yet greenhouse gas emissions increased, atmospheric concentrations grew, and global warming became an observable fact of life. In this book, philosopher Dale Jamieson explains what climate change is, why we have failed to stop it, and why it still matters what we do.

The human reaction to insects is neither purely biological nor simply cultural. And no one reacts to insects with indifference. Insects frighten, disgust, and fascinate us. Jeff Lockwood explores this phenomenon through evolutionary science, human history, and contemporary psychology, as well as a debilitating bout with entomophobia in his work as an entomologist. Exploring the nature of anxiety and phobia, Lockwood explores the lively debate about how much of our fear of insects can be attributed to ancestral predisposition for our own survival and how much is learned through individual experiences.

The first audiobook of its kind, Mind Wars covers the ethical dilemmas and bizarre history of cutting-edge technology and neuroscience developed for military applications. As the author discusses the innovative Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the role of the intelligence community and countless university science departments in preparing the military and intelligence services for the 21st century, he also charts the future of national security.

For the past 50 years, popular culture has led us to believe in the left brain vs. right brain theory of personality types. It would be an illuminating theory if it did not have one major drawback: It is simply not supported by science. In contrast, the Top Brain, Bottom Brain theory is based on solid research that has stayed within the confines of labs all over the world—until now.

We evolved to eat berries rather than bagels, to live in mud huts rather than condos, to sprint barefoot rather than play football - or did we? Are our bodies and brains truly at odds with modern life? Although it may seem as though we have barely had time to shed our hunter-gatherer legacy, biologist Marlene Zuk reveals that the story is not so simple. Popular theories about how our ancestors lived - and why we should emulate them - are often based on speculation, not scientific evidence. Armed with a razor-sharp wit and brilliant, eye-opening research, Zuk takes us to the cutting edge of biology to show that evolution can work much faster than was previously realized.

Interesting anecdotes and engaging tales make science fun, meaningful, and accessible. Separating sense from nonsense and fact from myth, these essays cover everything from the ups of helium to the downs of drain cleaners and provide answers to numerous mysteries, such as why bug juice is used to color ice cream and how spies used secret inks. Mercury in teeth, arsenic in water, lead in the environment, and aspartame in food are discussed.

In 1999, few people had thought to examine the effects of climate on civilization. Now, due in part to the groundbreaking work of archaeologist Brian Fagan, climate change is a central issue. Revised and updated 10 years after its first publication, Floods, Famines and Emperors remains the definitive account of how the world's best-known climate event had an indelible impact on history.

Have you ever watched a horse flick her tail or had a dog greet you at your door and known in your heart that the animal was exhibiting something more than simple instinctual responses? If so, you must read this book. In it Vicki Hearne asserts that animals that interact with humans are more intelligent than we assume. In fact, they are capable of developing an understanding of "the good", a moral code that influences their motives and actions. Hearne’s thorough studies led her to adopt a new system of animal training that contradicts modern animal behavioral research, but - as her examples show - is astonishingly effective.

Boolean algebra, also called Boolean logic, is at the heart of the electronic circuitry in everything we use - from our computers and cars, to our kitchen gadgets and home appliances. How did a system of mathematics established in the Victorian era become the basis for such incredible technological achievements a century later?

In this revealing romp through the mysteries of human perception, University of California psychologist and researcher Lawrence Rosenblum explores the astonishing abilities of the five senses - skills of which most of us are remarkably unaware. Drawing on groundbreaking insights into the brain's plasticity and integrative powers, including findings from his own research, Rosenblum examines how our brains use the subtlest information to perceive the world.

When asked to name the world’s first major nuclear accident, most people cite the Three Mile Island incident or the Chernobyl disaster. Revealed in this book is one of American history’s best-kept secrets: the world’s first nuclear reactor accident to claim fatalities happened on United States soil. Chronicled here for the first time is the strange tale of SL-1, a military test reactor located in Idaho’s Lost River Desert that exploded on the night of January 3, 1961, killing the three-man maintenance crew on duty.

When planes crash, bridges collapse, and automobile gas tanks explode, we are quick to blame poor design. But Henry Petroski says we must look beyond design for causes and corrections. Known for his masterly explanations of engineering successes and failures, Petroski here takes his analysis a step further, to consider the larger context in which accidents occur. In To Forgive Design he surveys some of the most infamous failures of our time.

Beyond images of emaciated polar bears and drought-cracked lakes, there remains a major part of climate change's impact that the media has neglected: how our health will suffer from higher temperatures and extreme weather. From spiraling rates of asthma and allergies and spikes in heatstroke-related deaths to swarms of invasive insects carrying diseases like dengue or West Nile and increases in heart and lung disease and cancer, the effect of rising temperatures on human health will be far-reaching, and is more imminent than we think.

Bright Rivers chronicles the angling passions and frustrations of one of fly-fishing's greatest men of letters. A city dweller trapped in the complexities of modern life, Nick Lyons has always found solace in his pilgrimages to great rivers. It is there that he fishes for trout, and in Bright Rivers, Lyons recounts the sometimes moving, sometimes hilarious experiences of his expeditions to the Delaware, Beaverkill, Madison, Big Hole, and Yellowstone rivers, sharing reminiscences of trout taken, released, and sometimes lost.