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Storytelling Apes: Primatology Narratives Past and Future (Animalibus: Of Animals and Cultures #5)
by Mary Sanders PollockThe annals of field primatology are filled with stories about charismatic animals native to some of the most challenging and remote areas on earth. There are, for example, the chimpanzees of Tanzania, whose social and family interactions Jane Goodall has studied for decades; the mountain gorillas of the Virungas, chronicled first by George Schaller and then later, more obsessively, by Dian Fossey; various species of monkeys (Indian langurs, Kenyan baboons, and Brazilian spider monkeys) studied by Sarah Hrdy, Shirley Strum, Robert Sapolsky, Barbara Smuts, and Karen Strier; and finally the orangutans of the Bornean woodlands, whom Biruté Galdikas has observed passionately. Humans are, after all, storytelling apes. The narrative urge is encoded in our DNA, along with large brains, nimble fingers, and color vision, traits we share with lemurs, monkeys, and apes. In Storytelling Apes, Mary Sanders Pollock traces the development and evolution of primatology field narratives while reflecting upon the development of the discipline and the changing conditions within natural primate habitat. Like almost every other field primatologist who followed her, Jane Goodall recognized the individuality of her study animals: defying formal scientific protocols, she named her chimpanzee subjects instead of numbering them, thereby establishing a trend. For Goodall, Fossey, Sapolsky, and numerous other scientists whose works are discussed in Storytelling Apes, free-living primates became fully realized characters in romances, tragedies, comedies, and never-ending soap operas. With this work, Pollock shows readers with a humanist perspective that science writing can have remarkable literary value, encourages scientists to share their passions with the general public, and inspires the conservation community.
Storytelling Apes: Primatology Narratives Past and Future (Animalibus)
by Mary Sanders PollockThe annals of field primatology are filled with stories about charismatic animals native to some of the most challenging and remote areas on earth. There are, for example, the chimpanzees of Tanzania, whose social and family interactions Jane Goodall has studied for decades; the mountain gorillas of the Virungas, chronicled first by George Schaller and then later, more obsessively, by Dian Fossey; various species of monkeys (Indian langurs, Kenyan baboons, and Brazilian spider monkeys) studied by Sarah Hrdy, Shirley Strum, Robert Sapolsky, Barbara Smuts, and Karen Strier; and finally the orangutans of the Bornean woodlands, whom Biruté Galdikas has observed passionately. Humans are, after all, storytelling apes. The narrative urge is encoded in our DNA, along with large brains, nimble fingers, and color vision, traits we share with lemurs, monkeys, and apes. In Storytelling Apes, Mary Sanders Pollock traces the development and evolution of primatology field narratives while reflecting upon the development of the discipline and the changing conditions within natural primate habitat. Like almost every other field primatologist who followed her, Jane Goodall recognized the individuality of her study animals: defying formal scientific protocols, she named her chimpanzee subjects instead of numbering them, thereby establishing a trend. For Goodall, Fossey, Sapolsky, and numerous other scientists whose works are discussed in Storytelling Apes, free-living primates became fully realized characters in romances, tragedies, comedies, and never-ending soap operas. With this work, Pollock shows readers with a humanist perspective that science writing can have remarkable literary value, encourages scientists to share their passions with the general public, and inspires the conservation community.
Stoßprobleme in Physik, Technik und Medizin: Grundlagen und Anwendungen
by Emanuel WillertDieses Open Access Buch widmet sich dem Problem der Mechanik des Zusammenstoßes zweier makroskopischer Körper. Falls die Dynamik der Körper als Ganzes dies erlaubt, ohne in unüberschaubare Komplexität zu verfallen (in der Regel ist das nur für das reine Normalstoßproblem der Fall), werden allgemeine axialsymmetrische Stoßpartner betrachtet. Für das allgemeine räumliche Stoßproblem wird sich auf den Kontakt von Kugeln beschränkt. Zunächst werden im Buch sehr ausführlich die kontaktmechanischen Grundlagen (Elastizität, Plastizität, Viskoelastizität, Adhäsion, Gradientenmedien) dargestellt und anschließend auf das Stoßproblem übertragen. Mit der Methode der Dimensionsreduktion, der ein eigenes Kapitel gewidmet ist, steht außerdem seit wenigen Jahren ein Werkzeug zu Verfügung, das die sehr effiziente analytische und numerische Behandlung von dynamischen Kontaktproblemen (wie z.B. Stößen) ermöglicht.Den Abschluss des Buch bilden Anwendungsfälle aus verschiedenen Gebieten.
Stowaway to the Mushroom Planet
by Eleanor CameronDoes anyone but Chuck Masterson and David Topman and Mr. Bass know about the Mushroom Planet? Well, there's Mr. Tyco Bass's cousin, Mr. Theo. He is a Mushroom Person, like Mr. Tyco, so he knows. And of course David and Chuck told their families about THE WONDERFUL FLIGHT TO THE MUSHROOM PLANET (along with a good many thousands of readers). But what if just an ordinary human being should happen to find out about it? Would it ruin everything? The answer is in this second story about Basidium, the small planet which can only be seen when Tyco Bass's special filter is affixed to the telescope. David and Chuck, returning to Basidium in their new space ship, have considerable difficulty carrying out Mr. Bass's wish that the planet be kept a dead secret. One Horatio Q. Peabody makes this trip even more of an adventure than the first one.
Strahlen und Gesundheit: Nutzen und Risiken
by Jürgen KieferStrahlen und Gesundheit beschreibt in allgemein verständlicher Form sowohl die diagnostischen und therapeutischen Möglichkeiten der Strahlenanwendung als auch die Gefahren für die menschliche Gesundheit. Dabei werden die Erkenntnisse von medizinischer Technik, Strahlenbiologie und -medizin und Strahlenepidemiologie berücksichtigt, ohne sich zu sehr in wissenschaftlichen Details zu verlieren. In einem eher wissenschaftlich orientierten zweiten Teil werden die Grundlagen ausführlicher erläutert und Verweise auf die aktuelle Literatur gegeben. Die Behandlung erstreckt sich nicht nur auf ionisierende Strahlungen wie Röntgen- und Gammastrahlen, sondern auch auf das Ultraviolett und die Anwendungen in der Mobilkommunikation. Ein spezielles Kapitel widmet sich der Strahlung in der Umwelt.
Straight Up: America's Fiercest Climate Blogger Takes on the Status Quo Media, Politicians, and Clean Energy Solutions
by Joseph J. RommIn 2009, Rolling Stone named Joe Romm to its list of "100 People Who Are Changing America." Romm is a climate expert, physicist, energy consultant, and former official in the Department of Energy. But it's his influential blog, one of the "Top Fifteen Green Websites" according to Time magazine, that's caught national attention. Climate change is far more urgent than people understand, Romm says, and traditional media, scientists, and politicians are missing the story.Straight Up draws on Romm's most important posts to explain the dangers of and solutions to climate change that you won't find in newspapers, in journals, or on T.V
Strain Engineering
by James A. WilliamsClassical methods for microbial strain engineering, used to improve the production of bioproducts, have serious drawbacks and have been found to be unsuitable for complex strain development applications. In Strain Engineering: Methods and Protocols, powerful new genetic engineering-based strain engineering methods are presented for rational modification of a variety of model organisms. These methods are particularly powerful when utilized to manipulate microbes for which sequenced and annotated genomes are available. Collectively, these methods systematically introduce genome alterations in a precise manner, allowing the creation of novel strains carrying only desired genome alterations. In the first section, E. coli-based bacterial strain engineering strategies are reviewed, while the second section presents analogous microbial engineering strategies for eukaryotic cells using the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae as a model. The third section covers examples of the proliferative adaptations of these base technologies to strain engineer industrially important prokaryotic or eukaryotic microbial systems. Written in the highly successful Methods in Molecular BiologyTM series format, chapters contain introductions to their respective topics, lists of the necessary materials and reagents, step-by-step, readily reproducible laboratory protocols, and notes on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls. Authoritative and accessible, Strain Engineering: Methods and Protocols serves as an ideal guide to scientists in academia, pharmaceutical science, and biotechnology who perform microbial strain engineering.
Strain Hardening Cement Composites: Structural Design and Performance
by Volker Slowik Yuichi Uchida Kanakubo Toshiyuki Haruhiko Suwada Tetsushi Kanda Keitetsu Rokugo Hiroshi Fukuyama Petr KabeleStrain Hardening Cement Composites, SHCC hereafter, demonstrate excellent mechanical behavior showing tensile strain hardening and multiple fine cracks. This strain hardening behavior improves the durability of concrete structures employing SHCC and the multiple fine cracks enhance structural performance. Reliable tensile performance of SHCC enables us to design structures explicitly accounting for SHCC's tensile properties. Reinforced SHCC elements (R/SHCC) indicate large energy absorbing performance under large seismic excitation. Against various types of loads, R/SHCC elements can be designed by superimposing re-bar performance and SHCC's tensile performance. This report focuses on flexural design, shear design, FE modeling and anti-seismic design of R/SHCC elements as well as application examples. Establishing design methods for new materials usually leads to exploring application areas and this trend should be demonstrated by collecting actual application examples of SHCC in structures.
Strain Solitons in Solids and How to Construct Them
by Alexander M. SamsonovAlthough the theory behind solitary waves of strain shows that they hold significant promise in nondestructive testing and a variety of other applications, an enigma has long persisted-the absence of observable elastic solitary waves in practice. Inspired by this apparent contradiction, Strain Solitons in Solids and How to Construct Them refines th
Strain Variation in the Mycobacterium tuberculosis Complex: Its Role in Biology, Epidemiology and Control
by Sebastien GagneuxUntil about 10 years ago, the general view in the field was that Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the causative agent of human tuberculosis was a "clone" with insufficient natural sequence variation between clinical strains to be considered biologically and epidemiologically "relevant". This view has now changed quite dramatically thanks to the -omics revolution, particularly the advent of next generation DNA sequencing. Large-scale comparative genomic studies over the last few years have revealed that M. tuberculosis clinical strains are more genetically diverse than appreciated previously. Moreover, an increasing number of experimental and epidemiological studies are showing that this genetic diversity also translates into important phenotypic variation. Taken together, these findings have led to a paradigm shift, such that currently phylogenetic diversity among M. tuberculosis clinical strains is being considered in the development of new tools to combat tuberculosis. The purpose of this book is to bring together a series of contributions from some of the most influential groups working on various aspects of M. tuberculosis diversity, and which through their work have contributed to the this paradigm shift. This includes authors focusing on the evolution of M. tuberculosis in relation to other members of the M. tuberculosis complex adapted to animals, the co-evolution between M. tuberculosis and humans, the phenotypic consequences of strains diversity both from an experimental and epidemiological point of view, the ecology and evolution of drug resistant tuberculosis, the diversity and evolution of the BCG vaccine strains, and the use of mathematical modelling to study strain diversity and drug resistance in human tuberculosis. No such book has ever been published, and given the paradigm shift described above, this book will be a valuable resource both for established researchers as well as new scientists, clinicians and public health officials joining the growing field of tuberculosis research.
Strained-Si Heterostructure Field Effect Devices (Series in Materials Science and Engineering)
by null C.K Maiti null S Chattopadhyay null L.K BeraA combination of the materials science, manufacturing processes, and pioneering research and developments of SiGe and strained-Si have offered an unprecedented high level of performance enhancement at low manufacturing costs. Encompassing all of these areas, Strained-Si Heterostructure Field Effect Devices addresses the research needs associated wi
Stralingsdeskundigheid in de praktijk (Medische beeldvorming en radiotherapie)
by Relinde Croezen Stijn Laarakkers Lars MurrerDit is hét studieboek voor diverse opleidingen Toezichthoudend Medewerker Stralingsbescherming (TMS). Een compleet en begrijpelijk geschreven boek over stralingstoepassingen dat de opvolger is van zowel Fysica als Radiobiologie en stralingsbescherming. Gericht op de praktijk, to-the-point en met voldoende diepgang. Het boek is voorzien van alle recente informatie ten aanzien van stralingsbeschermingsgrootheden, wetswijzigingen en andere (internationale) ontwikkelingen. De focus ligt niet alleen op fysica maar ook op radiobiologie. Aan de orde komen: (ioniserende) straling, radioactiviteit, de wisselwerking van straling met materie en afscherming, dosimetrie, detectie, radiobiologie, inwendige besmetting, wetgeving, praktische stralingsbescherming en radiobiologie in de radiotherapie.Stralingsdeskundigheid in de praktijk maakt deel uit van de serie Medische beeldvorming en radiotherapie. Behalve als leerboek voor MBRT-studenten en MBB'ers (medisch beeldvormings- en bestralingsdeskundigen) in opleiding, is Stralingsdeskundigheid in de praktijk ook uitermate geschikt als naslagwerk voor hen die reeds die reeds werkzaam zijn in de praktijk van de radiologie, nucleaire geneeskunde en radiotherapie. Het boek bevat de nodige tools voor TMS medische toepassingen (MT), TMS verspreidbare radioactieve stoffen, niveau C (VRS-C) en TMS versnellers op niveau C (VER-C), en andere TMS-toepassingen en opleidingen.
Strange and Non-Strange D-meson Production in pp, p-Pb, and Pb-Pb Collisions with ALICE at the LHC (Springer Theses)
by Fabrizio GrosaThis thesis provides a comprehensive view of the physics of charmed hadrons in high-energy proton-proton and heavy-ion collisions. Given their large masses, charm quarks are produced in the early stage of a heavy-ion collision and they subsequently experience the full system evolution probing the colour-deconfined medium called quark-gluon plasma (QGP) created in such collisions. In this thesis, the mechanisms of charm-quark in-medium energy loss and hadronisation are discussed via the measurements of the production of charm mesons with (Ds+) and without (D+) strange-quark content in different colliding systems, using data collected by the ALICE experiment at the CERN LHC. The participation of the charm quark and its possible thermalisation in the QGP are studied via measurements of azimuthal anisotropies in the production of D+ mesons. Finally, the prospects for future measurements with the upgraded ALICE experimental apparatus and with more refined machine learning techniques are presented.
Strange Angel: The Otherworldly Life of Rocket Scientist John Whiteside Parsons
by George Pendle'Forget geek stereotypes. Parsons' life seems straight out of a Hollywood thriller ... Pendle's book leaves us with a taste of genius's energy and fragility' Los Angeles Magazine'You couldn't make it up' Physics World'As a history of space travel, STRANGE ANGEL is a cornerstone ... Highly recommended' Ray BradburyBRILLIANT ROCKET SCIENTIST KILLED IN EXPLOSION screamed the front-page headline of the Los Angeles Times on 18 June 1952. John Parsons, a maverick rocketeer whose work had helped transform the rocket from a derided sci-fi plotline into a reality, was at first mourned as a tragically young victim of mishandled chemicals. But as reporters dug deeper a shocking story emerged. Parsons had been performing occult rites and summoning spirits as a follower of Alesteir Crowley.George Pendle tells Parsons' extraordinary life story for the first time. Fuelled from childhood by dreams of space flight, Parsons was a crucial innovator during rocketry's birth. But his visionary imagination also led him into the occult community thriving in 1930s Los Angeles, and when fantasy's pull became stronger than reality, he lost both his work and his wife. Parsons was just emerging from his personal underworld when he died - aged thirty-seven. In Strange Angel, Pendle recovers a fascinating life and explores the unruly consequences of genius.
Strange Angel: The Otherworldly Life of Rocket Scientist John Whiteside Parsons
by George PendleNow a CBS All Access series: &“A riveting tale of rocketry, the occult, and boom-and-bust 1920s and 1930s Los Angeles&” (Booklist). The Los Angeles Times headline screamed: ROCKET SCIENTIST KILLED IN PASADENA EXPLOSION. The man known as Jack Parsons, a maverick rocketeer who helped transform a derided sci-fi plotline into actuality, was at first mourned as a scientific prodigy. But reporters soon uncovered a more shocking story: Parsons had been a devotee of the city&’s occult scene. Fueled by childhood dreams of space flight, Parsons was a leader of the motley band of enthusiastic young men who founded the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a cornerstone of the American space program. But Parsons&’s wild imagination also led him into a world of incantations and orgiastic rituals—if he could make rocketry a reality, why not black magic? George Pendle re-creates the world of John Parsons in this dazzling portrait of prewar superstition, cold war paranoia, and futuristic possibility. Peopled with such formidable real-life figures as Howard Hughes, Aleister Crowley, L. Ron Hubbard, and Robert Heinlein, Strange Angel explores the unruly consequences of genius. The basis for a new miniseries created by Mark Heyman and produced by Ridley Scott, this biography &“vividly tells the story of a mysterious and forgotten man who embodied the contradictions of his time . . . when science fiction crashed into science fact. . . . [It] would make a compelling work of fiction if it weren&’t so astonishingly true&” (Publishers Weekly).
Strange Animals
by National Geographic LearningDescribes unusual things animals do to keep safe. A leveled reading book (level 22).
Strange Attractors: Chaos, Complexity, and the Art of Family Therapy
by Michael R. Butz Linda L. Chamberlain William G. MccownThe text offers a powerful prism through which behaviour of complex and organic systems can be understood. Leading chaos theorists explain how this paradigm can be applied to understand the dynamics of the family.
Strange Beasts (Anything But Ordinary)
by Nel YomtovAnimals come in all shapes and sizes. Some are cute and cuddly. Some are frightening and fierce. And some are downright strange! Have you ever seen a blobfish? This deep-sea creature looks like a swimming blob. How about a glass frog? You can see right through its skin to its beating heart! Take a look at these amazing animals and many more strange beasts.
Strange Beauty: Murray Gell-Mann and the Revolution in Twentieth-Century Physics
by George JohnsonWith a New Afterword"Our knowledge of fundamental physics contains not one fruitful idea that does not carry the name of Murray Gell-Mann."--Richard FeynmanAcclaimed science writer George Johnson brings his formidable reporting skills to the first biography of Nobel Prize-winner Murray Gell-Mann, the brilliant, irascible man who revolutionized modern particle physics with his models of the quark and the Eightfold Way. Born into a Jewish immigrant family on New York's Lower East Side, Gell-Mann's prodigious talent was evident from an early age--he entered Yale at 15, completed his Ph.D. at 21, and was soon identifying the structures of the world's smallest components and illuminating the elegant symmetries of the universe.Beautifully balanced in its portrayal of an extraordinary and difficult man, interpreting the concepts of advanced physics with scrupulous clarity and simplicity, Strange Beauty is a tour-de-force of both science writing and biography.From the Trade Paperback edition.
Strange Bedfellows: Adventures in the Science, History, and Surprising Secrets of STDs
by Ina Park"Joyful and funny . . . Park uses science, compassion, humor, diverse stories and examples of her own shame-free living to take the stigma out of these infections." —The New York TimesWith curiosity and wit, Strange Bedfellows rips back the bedsheets to expose what really happens when STDs enter the sack.Sexually transmitted diseases have been hidden players in our lives for the whole of human history, with roles in everything from World War II to the growth of the Internet to The Bachelor. But despite their prominence, STDs have been shrouded in mystery and taboo for centuries, which begs the question: why do we know so little about them?Enter Ina Park, MD, who has been pushing boundaries to empower and inform others about sexual health for decades. With Strange Bedfellows, she ventures far beyond the bedroom to examine the hidden role and influence of these widely misunderstood infections and share their untold stories.Covering everything from AIDS to Zika, Park explores STDs on the cellular, individual, and population-level. She blends science and storytelling with historical tales, real life sexual escapades, and interviews with leading scientists—weaving in a healthy dose of hilarity along the way.The truth is, most of us are sexually active, yet we’re often unaware of the universe of microscopic bedfellows inside our pants. Park aims to change this by bringing knowledge to the masses in an accessible, no-nonsense, humorous way—helping readers understand the broad impact STDs have on our lives, while at the same time erasing the unfair stigmas attached to them.A departure from the cone of awkward silence and shame that so often surrounds sexual health, Strange Bedfellows is the straight-shooting book about the consequences of sex that all curious readers have been looking for.
Strange Chemistry: The Stories Your Chemistry Teacher Wouldn't Tell You
by Steven FarmerThis book opens the audience’s eyes to the extraordinary scientific secrets hiding in everyday objects. Helping readers increase chemistry knowledge in a fun and entertaining way, the book is perfect as a supplementary textbook or gift to curious professionals and novices.• Appeals to a modern audience of science lovers by discussing multiple examples of chemistry in everyday life• Addresses compounds that affect everyone in one way or another: poisons, pharmaceuticals, foods, and illicit drugs; thereby evoking a powerful emotional response which increases interest in the topic at hand• Focuses on edgy types of stories that chemists generally tend to avoid so as not to paint chemistry in a bad light; however, these are the stories that people find interesting• Provides detailed and sophisticated stories that increase the reader’s fundamental scientific knowledge• Discusses complex topics in an engaging and accessible manner, providing the “how” and “why” that takes readers deeper into the stories
Strange Concepts and the Stories They Make Possible: Cognition, Culture, Narrative
by Lisa ZunshineIn this fresh and often playful interdisciplinary study, Lisa Zunshine presents a fluid discussion of how key concepts from cognitive science complicate our cultural interpretations of "strange" literary phenomena.From Short Circuit to I, Robot, from The Parent Trap to Big Business, fantastic tales of rebellious robots, animated artifacts, and twins mistaken for each other are a permanent fixture in popular culture and have been since antiquity. Why do these strange concepts captivate the human imagination so thoroughly? Zunshine explores how cognitive science, specifically its ideas of essentialism and functionalism, combined with historical and cultural analysis, can help us understand why we find such literary phenomena so fascinating.Drawing from research by such cognitive evolutionary anthropologists and psychologists as Scott Atran, Paul Bloom, Pascal Boyer, and Susan A. Gelman, Zunshine examines the cognitive origins of the distinction between essence and function and how unexpected tensions between these two concepts are brought into play in fictional narratives. Discussing motifs of confused identity and of twins in drama, science fiction’s use of robots, cyborgs, and androids, and nonsense poetry and surrealist art, she reveals the range and power of key concepts from science in literary interpretation and provides insight into how cognitive-evolutionary research on essentialism can be used to study fiction as well as everyday strange concepts.
Strange Creatures: Exploring the Wonderful and Weird Animals that Share this Planet with Us (Animalogic Presents)
by Andres SalazarLearn about the most beautiful and unusual creatures, all in one incredible animal encyclopedia for adults. Cool animals, fascinating facts. From the hognose snake to the mudskipper, you will learn all about the wacky and wonderful animals that walk, run, swim, and slither all over our magnificent planet. In Strange Creatures, you will get a deeper look into the lives of these glorious animals and learn how connected they are to the world we live in. A book of wild animals living remarkable lives. Step outside of your own world and into the world of Strange Creatures. Look through the eyes of the banana slug, understand how the wolf eel lives, and find out what separates a glow worm from a velvet worm. Discover the eccentric creatures around us and gain a greater view of our world. Inside, you&’ll find: Strange facts about animals that will ignite a passion for cool critters and wow-worthy wildlife A new way to expand your knowledge by learning about a different type of animal every chapter A different perspective on the world through these wonderfully weird animals and their lively stories If you liked Zoology: Inside the Secret World of Animals, Knowledge Encyclopedia, or Coyote Peterson&’s Brave Adventures, you&’ll love Strange Creatures.
Strange Fire (The Anchor & Sophia #1)
by Tommy WallachFor teens who grew up reading and adoring The Giver and The City of Ember. Oregon Trail meets Westworld in this epic new trilogy from the New York Times bestselling author of We All Looked Up, Tommy Wallach.Knowledge has always been the enemy of faith. They said that the first generation of man was brought low by its appetites: for knowledge, for power, for wealth. They said mankind’s voracity was so great, the Lord sent his own Daughter to bring fire and devastation to the world. The survivors were few, but over the course of centuries they banded together to form a new civilization—the Descendancy—founded on the belief that the mistakes of the past must never be repeated. Brothers Clive and Clover Hamill, the sons of a well-respected Descendant minister, have spent their lives spreading that gospel. But when their traveling ministry discovers a community intent on rediscovering the blasphemous technologies of the past, a chain of events will be set in motion that will pit city against city…and brother against brother. Along with Gemma Poplin, Clive’s childhood sweetheart, and Paz Dedios, a revolutionary who dreams of overthrowing the Descendancy, Clive and Clover will each play a pivotal role in determining the outcome of this holy war, and the fate of humanity itself.
Strange Frequencies: The Extraordinary Story of the Technological Quest for the Supernatural
by Peter BebergalA journey through the attempts artists, scientists, and tinkerers have made to imagine and communicate with the otherworldly using various technologies, from cameras to radiowaves.Strange Frequencies takes readers on an extraordinary narrative and historical journey to discover how people have used technology in an effort to search for our own immortality. Bebergal builds his own ghostly gadgets to reach the other side, too, and follows the path of famous inventors, engineers, seekers, and seers who attempted to answer life's ultimate mysteries. He finds that not only are technological innovations potent metaphors keeping our spiritual explorations alive, but literal tools through which to experiment the boundaries of the physical world and our own psyches.Peter takes the reader alongside as he explores: * the legend of the golem and the strange history of automata; * a photographer who is trying to capture the physical manifestation of spirits; * a homemaker who has recorded voicemails from the dead; * a stage magician who combines magic and technology to alter his audience's consciousness; * and more.<