Download or read book The Threat of Pandemic Influenza written by Institute of Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2005-04-09 with total page 431 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Public health officials and organizations around the world remain on high alert because of increasing concerns about the prospect of an influenza pandemic, which many experts believe to be inevitable. Moreover, recent problems with the availability and strain-specificity of vaccine for annual flu epidemics in some countries and the rise of pandemic strains of avian flu in disparate geographic regions have alarmed experts about the world's ability to prevent or contain a human pandemic. The workshop summary, The Threat of Pandemic Influenza: Are We Ready? addresses these urgent concerns. The report describes what steps the United States and other countries have taken thus far to prepare for the next outbreak of "killer flu." It also looks at gaps in readiness, including hospitals' inability to absorb a surge of patients and many nations' incapacity to monitor and detect flu outbreaks. The report points to the need for international agreements to share flu vaccine and antiviral stockpiles to ensure that the 88 percent of nations that cannot manufacture or stockpile these products have access to them. It chronicles the toll of the H5N1 strain of avian flu currently circulating among poultry in many parts of Asia, which now accounts for the culling of millions of birds and the death of at least 50 persons. And it compares the costs of preparations with the costs of illness and death that could arise during an outbreak.

Download or read book Flu written by Gina Kolata and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2011-04-01 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Veteran journalist Gina Kolata's Flu: The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus That Caused It presents a fascinating look at true story of the world's deadliest disease. In 1918, the Great Flu Epidemic felled the young and healthy virtually overnight. An estimated forty million people died as the epidemic raged. Children were left orphaned and families were devastated. As many American soldiers were killed by the 1918 flu as were killed in battle during World War I. And no area of the globe was safe. Eskimos living in remote outposts in the frozen tundra were sickened and killed by the flu in such numbers that entire villages were wiped out. Scientists have recently rediscovered shards of the flu virus frozen in Alaska and preserved in scraps of tissue in a government warehouse. Gina Kolata, an acclaimed reporter for The New York Times, unravels the mystery of this lethal virus with the high drama of a great adventure story. Delving into the history of the flu and previous epidemics, detailing the science and the latest understanding of this mortal disease, Kolata addresses the prospects for a great epidemic recurring, and, most important, what can be done to prevent it.

Download or read book The Rest of the Story written by Sarah Dessen and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2019-06-04 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From #1 New York Times bestselling author Sarah Dessen comes a big-hearted, sweeping novel about a girl who reconnects with a part of her family she hasn’t seen since she was a little girl—and falls in love, all over the course of a magical summer. Emma Saylor doesn’t remember a lot about her mother, who died when Emma was twelve. But she does remember the stories her mom told her about the big lake that went on forever, with cold, clear water and mossy trees at the edges. Now it’s just Emma and her dad, and life is good, if a little predictable…until Emma is unexpectedly sent to spend the summer with her mother’s family that she hasn’t seen since she was a little girl. When Emma arrives at North Lake, she realizes there are actually two very different communities there. Her mother grew up in working class North Lake, while her dad spent summers in the wealthier Lake North resort. The more time Emma spends there, the more it starts to feel like she is also divided into two people. To her father, she is Emma. But to her new family, she is Saylor, the name her mother always called her. Then there’s Roo, the boy who was her very best friend when she was little. Roo holds the key to her family’s history, and slowly, he helps her put the pieces together about her past. It’s hard not to get caught up in the magic of North Lake—and Saylor finds herself falling under Roo’s spell as well. For Saylor, it’s like a whole new world is opening up to her. But when it’s time to go back home, which side of her—Emma or Saylor—will win out?

Download or read book Anniversaries written by Uwe Johnson and published by New York Review of Books. This book was released on 2018-10-16 with total page 1713 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A landmark of 20th Century literature about New York in the late 1960s, now in English for the first time. Late in 1967, Uwe Johnson set out to write a book that would take the unusual form of a chapter for every day of the ongoing year. It would be the tale of Gesine Cresspahl, a thirty-four-year-old single mother who is a German émigré to Manhattan’s Upper West Side, and of her ten-year-old daughter, Marie—a story of work and school, of friends and lovers and the countless small encounters with neighbors and strangers that make up big-city life. An everyday tale, but also a tale of the events of the day, as gleaned by Gesine from The New York Times: Johnson could hardly foresee the convulsions of 1968, but some of the news—the racial unrest roiling America, the escalating war in Vietnam—was sure to be news for some time yet to come. Finally, it would be a tale told by Gesine to Marie about Gesine’s childhood in a small north German town, of her independent and enterprising father, of her troubled mother, of Nazi Germany (Gesine was born the year Hitler came to power) and World War II and Soviet retribution and the grimly regulated realities of Communist East Germany. An ambitious historical novel as well as a wonderfully observed New York novel, Anniversaries would take in the unsettled world of the present along with the twentieth century’s ­disastrous past, while vividly depicting the struggle of a loving, though hardly uncomplicated mother and a bright, indomitably curious girl to understand and care for each other and to shape a human world. Gesine and Marie are among the most memorable and engaging characters in literature, and Anniversaries, at once monumental and intimate, sweeping and full of incident, stylistically adventurous and endlessly absorbing, is quite simply one of the great books of our time.

Download or read book All the Things We Never Knew written by Liara Tamani and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2020-06-09 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Tamani masterfully bounces and slams two hearts up and down a shrouded court of first love and revelations.”—Rita Williams-Garcia, National Book Award Finalist and New York Times-bestselling author “A superb, complex romance full of heart, humor, and unforgettable characters.”—Kirkus (starred review) A glance was all it took. That kind of connection, the immediate and raw understanding of another person, just doesn't come along very often. And as rising stars on their Texas high schools' respective basketball teams, destined for bright futures in college and beyond, it seems like a match made in heaven. But Carli and Rex have secrets. As do their families. Liara Tamani, the author of the acclaimed Calling My Name, follows two teenagers as they discover how first love, heartbreak, betrayal, and family can shape you—for better or for worse. A novel full of pain, joy, healing, and hope for fans of Elizabeth Acevedo, Jacqueline Woodson, and Jenny Han. “A beautifully poignant love letter: to a first love, to basketball, and to that enigmatic bunch we think we know best, only to discover we don't know at all—family. Tamani's latest is a bright shining star.”—David Arnold, New York Times-bestselling author of Mosquitoland

Download or read book War in the Shallows written by John Darrell Sherwood and published by Government Printing Office. This book was released on 2015-09-16 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: War in the Shallows, published in 2015 by the Naval History and Heritage Command, is the authoritative account of the U.S. Navy's hard-fought battle along Vietnam's rivers and coastline from 1965-1968. At the height of the U.S. Navy's involvement in the Vietnam War, the Navy's coastal and riverine forces included more than 30,000 Sailors and over 350 patrol vessels ranging in size from riverboats to destroyers. These forces developed the most extensive maritime blockade in modern naval history and fought pitched battles against Viet Cong units in the Mekong Delta and elsewhere. War in the Shallows explores the operations of the Navy's three inshore task forces from 1965 to 1968. It also delves into other themes such as basing, technology, tactics, and command and control. Finally, using oral history interviews, it reconstructs deckplate life in South Vietnam, focusing in particular on combat waged by ordinary Sailors. Vietnam was the bloodiest war in recent naval history and War in the Shallows strives above all else to provide insight into the men who fought it and honor their service and sacrifice. Illustrated throughout with photographs and maps. Author John Darrell Sherwood has served as a historian with the Naval History and Heritage Command (NHHC) since 1997. -- Provided by publisher.

Download or read book Permutation City written by Greg Egan and published by Greg Egan. This book was released on 1994-04-26 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Paul Durham keeps making Copies of himself: software simulations of his own brain and body which can be run in virtual reality, albeit seventeen times more slowly than real time. He wants them to be his guinea pigs for a set of experiments about the nature of artificial intelligence, time, and causality, but they keep changing their mind and baling out on him, shutting themselves down. Maria Deluca is an Autoverse addict; she’s unemployed and running out of money, but she can’t stop wasting her time playing around with the cellular automaton known as the Autoverse, a virtual world that follows a simple set of mathematical rules as its “laws of physics”. Paul makes Maria a very strange offer: he asks her to design a seed for an entire virtual biosphere able to exist inside the Autoverse, modelled right down to the molecular level. The job will pay well, and will allow her to indulge her obsession. There has to be a catch, though, because such a seed would be useless without a simulation of the Autoverse large enough to allow the resulting biosphere to grow and flourish — a feat far beyond the capacity of all the computers in the world.

Download or read book The Uninhabitable Earth written by David Wallace-Wells and published by Crown. This book was released on 2019-02-19 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “The Uninhabitable Earth hits you like a comet, with an overflow of insanely lyrical prose about our pending Armageddon.”—Andrew Solomon, author of The Noonday Demon NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New Yorker • The New York Times Book Review • Time • NPR • The Economist • The Paris Review • Toronto Star • GQ • The Times Literary Supplement • The New York Public Library • Kirkus Reviews It is worse, much worse, than you think. If your anxiety about global warming is dominated by fears of sea-level rise, you are barely scratching the surface of what terrors are possible—food shortages, refugee emergencies, climate wars and economic devastation. An “epoch-defining book” (The Guardian) and “this generation’s Silent Spring” (The Washington Post), The Uninhabitable Earth is both a travelogue of the near future and a meditation on how that future will look to those living through it—the ways that warming promises to transform global politics, the meaning of technology and nature in the modern world, the sustainability of capitalism and the trajectory of human progress. The Uninhabitable Earth is also an impassioned call to action. For just as the world was brought to the brink of catastrophe within the span of a lifetime, the responsibility to avoid it now belongs to a single generation—today’s. LONGLISTED FOR THE PEN/E.O. WILSON LITERARY SCIENCE WRITING AWARD “The Uninhabitable Earth is the most terrifying book I have ever read. Its subject is climate change, and its method is scientific, but its mode is Old Testament. The book is a meticulously documented, white-knuckled tour through the cascading catastrophes that will soon engulf our warming planet.”—Farhad Manjoo, The New York Times “Riveting. . . . Some readers will find Mr. Wallace-Wells’s outline of possible futures alarmist. He is indeed alarmed. You should be, too.”—The Economist “Potent and evocative. . . . Wallace-Wells has resolved to offer something other than the standard narrative of climate change. . . . He avoids the ‘eerily banal language of climatology’ in favor of lush, rolling prose.”—Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times “The book has potential to be this generation’s Silent Spring.”—The Washington Post “The Uninhabitable Earth, which has become a best seller, taps into the underlying emotion of the day: fear. . . . I encourage people to read this book.”—Alan Weisman, The New York Review of Books

Download or read book American Military History Volume II written by and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 572 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the Publisher: This latest edition of an official U.S. Government military history classic provides an authoritative historical survey of the organization and accomplishments of the United States Army. This scholarly yet readable book is designed to inculcate an awareness of our nation's military past and to demonstrate that the study of military history is an essential ingredient in leadership development. It is also an essential addition to any personal military history library.

Download or read book Morbidity and Mortality written by and published by . This book was released on 1968 with total page 596 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Tombstone written by Yang Jisheng and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2012-10-30 with total page 658 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An account of the famine that killed roughly thirty-six million Chinese during the Great Leap Forward examines how the communist ideologies and collectivization campaigns perpetuated by the country's leaders caused the catastrophe.

Download or read book Sisters of the Snake written by Sasha Nanua and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2021-06-15 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A lost princess. A mysterious puppet master. And a race against time—before all is lost. Princess Rani longs for a chance to escape her gilded cage and prove herself. Ria is a street urchin, stealing just to keep herself alive. When these two lives collide, everything turns on its head: because Ria and Rani, orphan and royal, are unmistakably identical. A deal is struck to switch places—but danger lurks in both worlds, and to save their home, thief and princess must work together. Or watch it all fall into ruin. Deadly magic, hidden temples, and dark prophecies: Sisters of the Snake is an action-packed, immersive fantasy that will thrill fans of The Wrath & the Dawn and The Tiger at Midnight.

Download or read book The Great Influenza written by John M. Barry and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2005-10-04 with total page 580 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 New York Times bestseller “Barry will teach you almost everything you need to know about one of the deadliest outbreaks in human history.”—Bill Gates "Monumental... an authoritative and disturbing morality tale."—Chicago Tribune The strongest weapon against pandemic is the truth. Read why in the definitive account of the 1918 Flu Epidemic. Magisterial in its breadth of perspective and depth of research, The Great Influenza provides us with a precise and sobering model as we confront the epidemics looming on our own horizon. As Barry concludes, "The final lesson of 1918, a simple one yet one most difficult to execute, is that...those in authority must retain the public's trust. The way to do that is to distort nothing, to put the best face on nothing, to try to manipulate no one. Lincoln said that first, and best. A leader must make whatever horror exists concrete. Only then will people be able to break it apart." At the height of World War I, history’s most lethal influenza virus erupted in an army camp in Kansas, moved east with American troops, then exploded, killing as many as 100 million people worldwide. It killed more people in twenty-four months than AIDS killed in twenty-four years, more in a year than the Black Death killed in a century. But this was not the Middle Ages, and 1918 marked the first collision of science and epidemic disease.

Download or read book A Brief History of the 14th Marines written by Ronald J. Brown and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Don t Breathe a Word written by Jordyn Taylor and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2021-05-18 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A fast-paced, exhilarating story about a boarding school shrouded in secrecy and the girl who will do anything to right the institution's wrongs." —Jessica Goodman, Indiebound bestselling author of They Wish They Were Us Critically acclaimed author Jordyn Taylor weaves an addictive thriller perfect for fans of Truly Devious. Eva has never felt like she belonged . . . not in her own family or with her friends in New York City, and certainly not at a fancy boarding school like Hardwick Preparatory Academy. So, when she is invited to join the Fives, an elite secret society, she jumps at the opportunity to finally be a part of something. But what if the Fives are about more than just having the best parties and receiving special privileges from the school? What if they are also responsible for keeping some of Hardwick’s biggest secrets buried? 1962: There is only one reason why Connie would volunteer to be one of the six students to participate in testing Hardwick’s nuclear fallout shelter: Craig Allenby. While the thought of nuclear war sends her into a panic, she can’t pass up the opportunity to spend four days locked in with the school’s golden boy. However, Connie and the other students quickly discover that there is more to this “test” than they previously thought. As they are forced to follow an escalating series of commands, Connie realizes that one wrong move could have dangerous consequences. Separated by sixty years, Eva and Connie’s stories become inextricably intertwined as Eva unravels the mystery of how six students went into the fallout shelter all those years ago . . . but only five came out.

Download or read book To Paradise written by Hanya Yanagihara and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2022-01-11 with total page 720 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • From the award-winning, best-selling author of the classic A Little Life—a bold, brilliant novel spanning three centuries and three different versions of the American experiment, about lovers, family, loss and the elusive promise of utopia. A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: VOGUE • ESQUIRE • NPR • GOODREADS To Paradise is a fin de siècle novel of marvelous literary effect, but above all it is a work of emotional genius. The great power of this remarkable novel is driven by Yanagihara’s understanding of the aching desire to protect those we love—partners, lovers, children, friends, family, and even our fellow citizens—and the pain that ensues when we cannot. In an alternate version of 1893 America, New York is part of the Free States, where people may live and love whomever they please (or so it seems). The fragile young scion of a distinguished family resists betrothal to a worthy suitor, drawn to a charming music teacher of no means. In a 1993 Manhattan besieged by the AIDS epidemic, a young Hawaiian man lives with his much older, wealthier partner, hiding his troubled childhood and the fate of his father. And in 2093, in a world riven by plagues and governed by totalitarian rule, a powerful scientist’s damaged granddaughter tries to navigate life without him—and solve the mystery of her husband’s disappearances. These three sections comprise an ingenious symphony, as recurring notes and themes deepen and enrich one another: A townhouse in Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village; illness, and treatments that come at a terrible cost; wealth and squalor; the weak and the strong; race; the definition of family, and of nationhood; the dangerous righteousness of the powerful, and of revolutionaries; the longing to find a place in an earthly paradise, and the gradual realization that it can’t exist. What unites not just the characters, but these Americas, are their reckonings with the qualities that make us human: Fear. Love. Shame. Need. Loneliness.

Download or read book Space Exploration on Film written by Paul Meehan and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2022-05-10 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the course of several decades, scientific fact has overtaken science fiction as humankind's understanding of the universe has expanded. Mirroring this development, the cinematic depictions of space exploration over the last century have evolved from whimsical sci-fi fantasies to more fact-based portrayals. This book chronologically examines 75 films that depict voyages into outer space and offers the historical, cultural, and scientific context of each. These films range from Georges Melies' fantastical A Trip to the Moon to speculative science fiction works such as 2001: A Space Odyssey, Solaris, and Contact, and fact-based accounts of actual space missions as depicted in The Right Stuff, Apollo 13, Salyut 7 and First Man. Each film is analyzed not only in terms of its direction, screenplay, and other cinematic aspects but also its scientific and historical accuracy. The works of acclaimed directors, including Fritz Lang, George Pal, Stanley Kubrick, Andrei Tarkovsky, Robert Wise, Ron Howard, Robert Zemeckis, Ridley Scott, and Christopher Nolan, are accorded special attention for their memorable contributions to this vital and evolving subgenre of science fiction film.