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The Life of a Butterfly: Super Science Readers (I Can Read About Science Library)
by Bernard RobinThe life cycle of a monarch butterfly is described from its egg stage through adulthood using wonderful photographs and simple text.
The Life of a Number: Measurement, Meaning and the Media
by B.T. LawsonDo numbers have a life of their own or do we give them meaning? How do data play a role in constructing people’s perceptions of the world around them? How far can we trust numbers to speak truth to power? The COVID-19 pandemic offers a unique moment to answer these questions. This book examines how politicians, experts and journalists gave meaning to data through the story of seven iconic numbers from the pandemic. Shedding light on a new dawn of data, this book makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of the relationship between numbers, meaning and society.
The Life of the Mind (Comparative Cognition and Neuroscience Series)
by Jason W. BrownThis detailed look at the development of microgenetic theory provides a comprehensive and coherent model of cognitive processing in the brain, based on patterns of breakdown in pathology. In so doing, it illustrates the clinical record that supports and documents microgenetic theory, and presents a basis for future work in the study of the brain. Coverage includes topics in language and dominance, the function of the right hemisphere, action, perception, memory, and the concept of time.
The Life of the Spider
by J. Henri FabreFabre had many scholarly achievements. He was a popular teacher, physicist, chemist, and botanist. However, he is probably best known for his findings in the field of entomology, the study of insects, and is considered by many to be the father of modern entomology.
The Life, Science and Times of Lev Vasilevich Shubnikov: Pioneer Of Soviet Cryogenics (Springer Biographies)
by L. J. ReindersThis book describes the life, times and science of the Soviet physicist Lev Vasilevich Shubnikov (1901-1937). From 1926 to 1930 Shubnikov worked in Leiden where he was the co-discoverer of the Shubnikov-De Haas effect. After his return to the Soviet Union he founded in Kharkov in Ukraine the first low-temperature laboratory in the Soviet Union, which in a very short time became the foremost physics institute in the country and among other things led to the discovery of type-II superconductivity. In August 1937 Shubnikov, together with many of his colleagues, was arrested and shot early in November 1937. This gripping story gives deep insights into the pioneering work of Soviet physicists before the Second World War, as well as providing much previously unpublished information about their brutal treatment at the hands of the Stalinist regime.
The Light Ages: The Surprising Story Of Medieval Science
by Seb FalkAn illuminating guide to the scientific and technological achievements of the Middle Ages through the life of a crusading astronomer-monk. Soaring Gothic cathedrals, violent crusades, the Black Death: these are the dramatic forces that shaped the medieval era. But the so-called Dark Ages also gave us the first universities, eyeglasses, and mechanical clocks. As medieval thinkers sought to understand the world around them, from the passing of the seasons to the stars in the sky, they came to develop a vibrant scientific culture. In The Light Ages, Cambridge science historian Seb Falk takes us on a tour of medieval science through the eyes of one fourteenth-century monk, John of Westwyk. Born in a rural manor, educated in England’s grandest monastery, and then exiled to a clifftop priory, Westwyk was an intrepid crusader, inventor, and astrologer. From multiplying Roman numerals to navigating by the stars, curing disease, and telling time with an ancient astrolabe, we learn emerging science alongside Westwyk and travel with him through the length and breadth of England and beyond its shores. On our way, we encounter a remarkable cast of characters: the clock-building English abbot with leprosy, the French craftsman-turned-spy, and the Persian polymath who founded the world’s most advanced observatory. The Light Ages offers a gripping story of the struggles and successes of an ordinary man in a precarious world and conjures a vivid picture of medieval life as we have never seen it before. An enlightening history that argues that these times weren’t so dark after all, The Light Ages shows how medieval ideas continue to color how we see the world today.
The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth
by Zoë SchlangerNEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The New Yorker’s Best Books of 2024 • TIME’s 10 Best Nonfiction Books of 2024 • New York Magazine’s 10 Best Books of the Year • Washington Post’s 50 Notable Works of Nonfiction of 2024 • Smithsonian’s 10 Best Science Books of the Year • A Best Book of the Year: Boston Globe, Scientific American, New York Public Library, Christian Science Monitor, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly • An Amazon Best Nonfiction Book of the YearLonglisted for the National Book Critics Circle Nonfiction Prize • Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize • Winner of the National Outdoor Book Award for Natural History“A masterpiece of science writing.” –Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of Braiding Sweetgrass“Mesmerizing, world-expanding, and achingly beautiful.” –Ed Yong, author of An Immense World“Rich, vital, and full of surprises. Read it!” –Elizabeth Kolbert, author of Under a White Sky and The Sixth Extinction Award-winning Atlantic staff writer Zoë Schlanger delivers a groundbreaking work of popular science that probes the hidden world of the plant kingdom, “destabilizing not just how we see the green things of the world but also our place in the hierarchy of beings, and maybe the notion of that hierarchy itself.” (The New Yorker)It takes tremendous biological creativity to be a plant. To survive and thrive while rooted in a single spot, plants have adapted ingenious methods of survival. In recent years, scientists have learned about their ability to communicate, recognize their kin and behave socially, hear sounds, morph their bodies to blend into their surroundings, store useful memories that inform their life cycle, and trick animals into behaving to their benefit, to name just a few remarkable talents.The Light Eaters is a deep immersion into the drama of green life and the complexity of this wild and awe-inspiring world that challenges our very understanding of agency, consciousness, and intelligence. In looking closely, we see that plants, rather than imitate human intelligence, have perhaps formed a parallel system. What is intelligent life if not a vine that grows leaves to blend into the shrub on which it climbs, a flower that shapes its bloom to fit exactly the beak of its pollinator, a pea seedling that can hear water flowing and make its way toward it? Zoë Schlanger takes us across the globe, digging into her own memories and into the soil with the scientists who have spent their waking days studying these amazing entities up close.What can we learn about life on Earth from the living things that thrive, adapt, consume, and accommodate simultaneously? More important, what do we owe these life forms once we come to understand their rich and varied abilities? Examining the latest epiphanies in botanical research, Schlanger spotlights the intellectual struggles among the researchers conceiving a wholly new view of their subject, offering a glimpse of a field in turmoil as plant scientists debate the tenets of ongoing discoveries and how they influence our understanding of what a plant is.We need plants to survive. But what do they need us for—if at all? An eye-opening and informative look at the ecosystem we live in, this book challenges us to rethink the role of plants—and our own place—in the natural world.
The Light and Smith Manual: Intertidal Invertebrates from Central California to Oregon
by James T. CarltonThe Fourth Edition of The Light and Smith Manual continues a sixty-five-year tradition of providing to both students and professionals an indispensable, comprehensive, and authoritative guide to Pacific coast marine invertebrates of coastal waters, rocky shores, sandy beaches, tidal mud flats, salt marshes, and floats and docks. This classic and unparalleled reference has been newly expanded to include all common and many rare species from Point Conception, California, to the Columbia River, one of the most studied areas in the world for marine invertebrates. In addition, although focused on the central and northern California and Oregon coasts, this encyclopedic source is useful for anyone working in North American coastal ecosystems, from Alaska to Mexico. More than one hundred scholars have provided new keys, illustrations, and annotated species lists for over 3,500 species of intertidal and many shallow water marine organisms ranging from protozoans to sea squirts. This expanded volume covers sponges, sea anemones, hydroids, jellyfish, flatworms, polychaetes, amphipods, crabs, insects, snails, clams, chitons, and scores of other important groups. The Fourth Edition also features introductory chapters on marine habitats and biogeography, interstitial marine life, and intertidal parasites, as well as expanded treatments of common planktonic organisms likely to be encountered in near-to-shore shallow waters.
The Light-Sheet Microscopy: Biological Structural Research in a Lateral View (essentials)
by Rolf Theodor BorlinghausThis essential explains what distinguishes light sheet microscopy from ordinary light microscopy. The author briefly examines the history of such principles, focusing on the technical concepts. Finally, current manifestations are presented without descending into the depths of the art of engineering. The unusual feature of light-sheet microscopy is not only that observation and illumination take place at a right angle, but also that this type of microscopy gains in particular from the fact that the type of illumination only passes through a very small part of the specimen. The appropriate selection of optical elements ensures that the observed image no longer contains any blurred parts.This Springer essential is a translation of the original German 1st edition essentials, Die Lichtblattmikroskopie by Rolf Theodor Borlinghaus, published by Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature in 2017. The translation was done with the help of artificial intelligence (machine translation by the service DeepL.com). A subsequent human revision was done primarily in terms of content, so that the book will read stylistically differently from a conventional translation. Springer Nature works continuously to further the development of tools for the production of books and on the related technologies to support the authors.
The Lightest Metals: Science and Technology from Lithium to Calcium (EIC Books)
by Timothy P. HanusaThe first seven metals in the periodic table are lithium, beryllium, sodium, magnesium, aluminium, potassium and calcium, known collectively as the “lightest metals”. The growing uses of these seven elements are enmeshing them ever more firmly into critical areas of 21st century technology, including energy storage, catalysis, and various applications of nanoscience. This volume provides comprehensive coverage of the fundamentals and recent advances in the science and technology of the lightest metals. Opening chapters of the book describe major physical and chemical properties of the metals, their occurrence and issues of long-term availability. The book goes on to disucss a broad range of chemical features, including low oxidation state chemistry, organometallics, metal-centered NMR spectroscopy, and cation-π interactions. Current and emerging applications of the metals are presented, including lithium-ion battery technology, hydrogen storage chemistry, superconductor materials, transparent ceramics, nano-enhanced catalysis, and research into photosynthesis and photoelectrochemical cells.The content from this book will be added online to the Encyclopedia of Inorganic and Bioinorganic Chemistry: http://www.wileyonlinelibrary.com/ref/eibc
The Lightness of Being: Mass, Ether, and the Unification of Forces
by Frank WilczekOur understanding of nature's deepest reality has changed radically, but almost without our noticing, over the past twenty-five years. Transcending the clash of older ideas about matter and space, acclaimed physicist Frank Wilczek explains a remarkable new discovery: matter is built from almost weightless units, and pure energy is the ultimate source of mass. He calls it "The Lightness of Being." Space is no mere container, empty and passive. It is a dynamic Grid-a modern ether- and its spontaneous activity creates and destroys particles. This new understanding of mass explains the puzzling feebleness of gravity, and a gorgeous unification of all the forces comes sharply into focus.The Lightness of Being is the first book to explore the implications of these revolutionary ideas about mass, energy, and the nature of "empty space." In it, Wilczek masterfully presents new perspectives on our incredible universe and envisions a new golden age of fundamental physics.
The Lightning Discharge
by Martin A. UmanIn this readable, absorbing, up-to-date monograph, one of the nation's foremost experts on lightning sets forth most of what has been learned about the subject. To make the material more easily understandable, the author has organized the chapters primarily by lightning process. Following a general introduction and chapters on lightning phenomenology and cloud and lightning charges, he looks into the types and stages of lightning, with chapters on the stepped leader, the attachment process, the return stroke, the dart leader, continuing current, J- and K-processes in discharges to the ground, positive lightning, upward lightning and the artificial initiation of lightning, and cloud discharges. In the final two chapters, Dr. Uman investigates lightning on other planets and examines the phenomenon of thunder.Each chapter contains a reference list, and the book as a whole is augmented with a generous selection of diagrams, charts, and photographs. Appendices on electromagnetics, statistics, and experimental techniques help to clarify some of the concepts covered in the text. A fourth appendix lists relevant books. Of special interest to physicists, meteorologists, and electrical engineers, the newly corrected edition of this detailed study offers a deep understanding of one of nature's most intriguing phenomena. 144 illustrations. Appendices. Index.
The Lightning Rod as a Danger
by Jan MeppelinkThis book investigates the physical effects of a lightning flash on a person near the down conductor of a lightning protection system. These effects are the touch voltage, the step voltage and the side flash. For this purpose, a full-scale simulation model of the human body with a resistance of 1000 ohms was first created. In the simulation model, the body can touch the down conductor or be placed close to it. Furthermore, the specific resistance of the earth is varied. Likewise, insulating layers such as asphalt can be incorporated into the simulation model. Also, special cases like water permeable layers or water layers on an asphalt layer can be calculated. In post-processing, all relevant values can be determined, such as the energy converted in the body, the charge, the current and the voltage applied to the body. A comparison with the permissible limit values then shows for the lightning protection classes whether there is danger or not and provides information on necessary measures. There is a risk for death and injury if the down conductor is touched. However, there is also a risk of a side flash if a person is standing next to a discharge. Site isolation with dry asphalt is effective, but there is a residual risk of surface discharges. In real situations with wet asphalt, water-permeable layers or asphalt with a water layer, however, there is a great risk of death or injury. Equipotential bonding with an earthing grid is a necessary but not sufficient solution with regard to the induced voltage at negative subsequent stroke. Therefore, the situation must always be examined on a case-by-case basis with regard to the safety requirements. The only effective measure to prevent injury and death due to touch voltage is an insulating down conductor in conjunction with equipotential bonding. The measures for reducing the touch voltage, such as site insulation and equipotential bonding, basically also apply to limiting the step voltage. A risk calculation according to IEC 62305-2 gives the mean time between two events of injury and death MG = 1/RA. The tolerable risk is: RA = 0,0001 or MT = 10.000 years, equivalent to one death in 10.000 years.
The Lightning Thread: Fishological Moments and The Pursuit of Paradise
by David ProfumoFrom award winning novelist and journalist David Profumo comes a dazzling work about the restorative power of nature and finding joy in simple pleasures. The Lightning Thread takes the reader on a journey of unexpected delight, personal pleasure and profound discovery. From angling with his father on a spating burn at the height of the Profumo Affair to knocking back mojitos while hunting for Permit, &‘the Robocop of the sea&’, off the coast of Cuba. Much more than just another book about fishing, The Lightning Thread is an exploration of joy and a celebration of simple pleasures in a too complicated world. The significance of angling, as David writes about it, far transcends the mere catching of fish. It is about the extraordinary places he has visited, the remarkable people he has met and the great happiness pursuing his life&’s passion has brought him. Written with warmth, wit and lightly worn erudition, his references range from Ted Hughes to Wittgenstein, from W.C. Fields to Milton, and always hovering in the background is the spectre of Isaak Walton&’s TheCompleat Angler, the Ur-text of halieutic literature. A work of the passionate eclecticism, deep intelligence and virtuosically exuberant prose from one of our finest writers, The Lightning Thread is a future classic and the culmination of lifetime's obsession.
The Lignan Handbook
by Norman G. Lewis Laurence B. Davin V. Ranjit N. Munasinghe Andrew D. RobertsLignans are aromatic compounds isolated from plants. This handbook presents an authoritative and comprehensive review of lignan chemistry, biochemistry, nomenclature, uses, and occurrence. Lignans are used in a wide variety of industries and this book will appeal to those working in the pulp and paper industries, renewable energy, specialty chemicals, pharmaceuticals, flavors and fragrances, agriculture and forestry, evolution and ecology. Additionally, the book features a comprehensive lignans dictionary section, drawn from the prestigious Dictionary of Natural Products. Other features include: Presents a comprehensive and up-to-date account of this important group of natural products Addresses and resolves problems in current lignan nomenclature Edited by the leaders in the field of lignan chemistry and biochemistry
The Lignin Macromolecule: A Compendium of Sustainable Technologies (SpringerBriefs in Applied Sciences and Technology)
by Silvio Vaz Jr.This book covers lignin, a renewable source of carbonaceous material derived from biomass, which is a subject of research, development and innovation in both academia and industry. From lignin we can obtain chemicals (e.g., aromatics, phenols), materials (e.g., fibres, engineered plastics, modified polymers), specialties (e.g., additives as antioxidant), among other products in diverse levels of technology readiness. However, there are challenges to overcome in terms of chemical structure, industrial yields of conversion processes, and the quality of raw material in order to reach the best uses and applications according to the sustainability vision for products and processes. This book deals with the main biochemical pathways of synthesis; advanced analytical techniques; extraction strategies; chemical, biochemical, biological, and physical processing for chemicals and materials; circularity and sustainability aspects for actual and future production chains, allied to life cycle assessment and industrial ecology.
The Limits of Control: Experiments in Mediation and Virulence
by Ryan DiduckRyan Diduck turns his attention to control societies and their protocols in the wake of the global COVID-19 pandemic. What are the political implications of government measures to combat Coronavirus?The end of the world as we know it is no longer imaginary.Severe acute respiratory syndrome Coronavirus 2 (also known as SARS-CoV-2 or COVID-19) is a potent virus that is upturning nearly every aspect of life on earth. But the novel Coronavirus is more than just a virus. It is a marketplace and media event, too, broadcasting at speed, oscillating against the transmission of its mediations. Ultimately, COVID-19 is the pretext upon which nations around the world have enacted social controls of varying severity, strictly limiting the communication, movement, and daily activities of billions of people. This could be a moment of overwhelming consolidation of capital. Or it could further reveal the cracks in a system which has exacerbated the coronavirus pandemic. We are rapidly approaching the limits of control. In the tradition of William S. Burroughs, Naomi Klein, Mark Fisher, and other key theorists of discipline and jurisdiction, The Limits of Control offers a timely new analysis of control societies, and a sibylline roadmap for living together in a hypervirulent world. What we imagine from now on has never mattered more.
The Limits of Genius: The Surprising Stupidity of the World's Greatest Minds
by Katie SpaldingA hilarious look at how the line between 'genius' and 'extremely lucky idiot' is finer than we'd like to admit.The more you delve into the stories behind history's greatest names, the more you realise they have something in common: a mystifying lack of common sense. Take Marie Curie, famous for both discovering radioactivity and having absolutely zero lab safety protocols. Or Lord Byron, who literally took a bear with him to university. Or James Glaisher, a hot-air balloon pioneer who nearly ended up as the world's first human satellite...From Nikola Tesla falling in love with a pigeon to non-swimmer Albert Einstein's near-fatal love of sailing holidays, The Limits of Genius is filled with examples of the so-called brightest and best of humanity doing, to put it bluntly, some really dumb shit. These are the stories that deserve to be told but never are: the hilarious, regrettable and downright baffling lesser-known achievements of the men and women who somehow managed to bungle their way into our history books.(P) 2023 Headline Publishing Group Ltd
The Limits of Genius: The Surprising Stupidity of the World's Greatest Minds
by Katie SpaldingA hilarious look at how the line between 'genius' and 'extremely lucky idiot' is finer than we'd like to admit.The more you delve into the stories behind history's greatest names, the more you realise they have something in common: a mystifying lack of common sense. Take Marie Curie, famous for both discovering radioactivity and having absolutely zero lab safety protocols. Or Lord Byron, who literally took a bear with him to university. Or James Glaisher, a hot-air balloon pioneer who nearly ended up as the world's first human satellite...From Nikola Tesla falling in love with a pigeon to non-swimmer Albert Einstein's near-fatal love of sailing holidays, The Limits of Genius is filled with examples of the so-called brightest and best of humanity doing, to put it bluntly, some really dumb shit. These are the stories that deserve to be told but never are: the hilarious, regrettable and downright baffling lesser-known achievements of the men and women who somehow managed to bungle their way into our history books.
The Limits of Matter: Chemistry, Mining, and Enlightenment
by Hjalmar ForsBy studying the chemists at the Swedish Bureau of Mines and their networks, and integrating their practices into the wider European context, the author illustrates how they and their successors played a significant role in the development of our modern notion of matter and made a significant contribution to the modern European view of reality.
The Limits of Organic Life in Planetary Systems
by National Research Council of the National AcademiesThe search for life in the solar system and beyond has to date been governed by a model based on what we know about life on Earth (terran life). Most of NASA's mission planning is focused on locations where liquid water is possible and emphasizes searches for structures that resemble cells in terran organisms. It is possible, however, that life exists that is based on chemical reactions that do not involve carbon compounds, that occurs in solvents other than water, or that involves oxidation-reduction reactions without oxygen gas. To assist NASA incorporate this possibility in its efforts to search for life, the NRC was asked to carry out a study to evaluate whether nonstandard biochemistry might support life in solar system and conceivable extrasolar environments, and to define areas to guide research in this area. This book presents an exploration of a limited set of hypothetical chemistries of life, a review of current knowledge concerning key questions or hypotheses about nonterran life, and suggestions for future research.
The Limits of Resolution (Series in Optics and Optoelectronics)
by Geoffrey de Villiers E. Roy Pike"This beautiful book can be read as a novel presenting carefully our quest to get more and more information from our observations and measurements. Its authors are particularly good at relating it." --Pierre C. Sabatier "This is a unique text - a labor of love pulling together for the first time the remarkably large array of mathematical and statistical techniques used for analysis of resolution in many systems of importance today – optical, acoustical, radar, etc…. I believe it will find widespread use and value." --Dr. Robert G.W. Brown, Chief Executive Officer, American Institute of Physics "The mix of physics and mathematics is a unique feature of this book which can be basic not only for PhD students but also for researchers in the area of computational imaging." --Mario Bertero, Professor, University of Geneva "a tour-de-force covering aspects of history, mathematical theory and practical applications. The authors provide a penetrating insight into the often confused topic of resolution and in doing offer a unifying approach to the subject that is applicable not only to traditional optical systems but also modern day, computer-based systems such as radar and RF communications." --Prof. Ian Proudler, Loughborough University "a ‘must have’ for anyone interested in imaging and the spatial resolution of images. This book provides detailed and very readable account of resolution in imaging and organizes the recent history of the subject in excellent fashion.… I strongly recommend it." --Michael A. Fiddy, Professor, University of North Carolina at Charlotte This book brings together the concept of resolution, which limits what we can determine about our physical world, with the theory of linear inverse problems, emphasizing practical applications. The book focuses on methods for solving illposed problems that do not have unique stable solutions. After introducing basic concepts, the contents address problems with "continuous" data in detail before turning to cases of discrete data sets. As one of the unifying principles of the text, the authors explain how non-uniqueness is a feature of measurement problems in science where precision and resolution is essentially always limited by some kind of noise.
The Limits of Technology and the End of History: Marx and Beyond
by Yefim KatsThis book examines the long-standing belief in infinite scientific and technological progress and links it to the Enlightenment ideal of man as a universal being and subject of the universal world history, destined to become a 'master and possessor of nature.' The author analyzes a broad range of issues in epistemology, the philosophy of history, and the philosophy of science and technology. Marx’s philosophy is explored to the extent that his dialectic of labor sheds light on Western technological optimism and the ideal of human universality and offers an elaborate framework for analyzing the intrinsic limits to technological progress. The focus is on his ‘early’ works, providing a theoretical and humanistic underbelly for the ‘mature’ ideas of the Capital. Examining the epistemic foundations of the belief in infinite progress, the author argues that actual infinity, either in the form of unbounded technological/scientific expansion or infinite complexity of nature, is redundant for the universality of man, his scientific pursuit and historical experience. The conundrum of universality and power calls for a systematic critique of instrumental reason, its practical applicability and value structure.