Download or read book Insulin the Crooked Timber written by Kersten T. Hall and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2022 with total page 476 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Before the discovery of insulin, a diagnosis of Type 1 diabetes was a death sentence. To mark the centenary of this landmark in medicine, this book charts the journey of how insulin was transformed from what one clinician called 'thick brown muck' into the very first drug to be produced using genetic engineering, and which earned the founders of US biotech company Genentech a small fortune. Taking the reader on a fascinating journey, starting with the discovery of insulin in the 1920s through to the present day, Insulin - The Crooked Timber reveals a story of monstrous egos, toxic career rivalries, and a few unsung heroes and heroines. It discusses in detail the circumstances of Canadian scientist Frederick Banting whose award of the 1923 Nobel Prize for this life-saving discovery proved to be both a blessing and a curse for him and explores how the human story behind this discovery still remains one of ongoing political and scientific controversy. The book is the result of the author's own shocking diagnosis with Type 1 diabetes and its story reminds us all of what technology can - and cannot do - for us. As the world struggles to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic and face future challenges such as climate change, the lessons that we can learn from the story of insulin have never been more important.
Download or read book Freedom From the Market written by Mike Konczal and published by The New Press. This book was released on 2021-02-02 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The progressive economics writer redefines the national conversation about American freedom “Mike Konczal [is] one of our most powerful advocates of financial reform‚ [a] heroic critic of austerity‚ and a huge resource for progressives.”—Paul Krugman Health insurance, student loan debt, retirement security, child care, work-life balance, access to home ownership—these are the issues driving America’s current political debates. And they are all linked, as this brilliant and timely book reveals, by a single question: should we allow the free market to determine our lives? In the tradition of Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine, noted economic commentator Mike Konczal answers this question with a resounding no. Freedom from the Market blends passionate political argument and a bold new take on American history to reveal that, from the earliest days of the republic, Americans have defined freedom as what we keep free from the control of the market. With chapters on the history of the Homestead Act and land ownership, the eight-hour work day and free time, social insurance and Social Security, World War II day cares, Medicare and desegregation, free public colleges, intellectual property, and the public corporation, Konczal shows how citizens have fought to ensure that everyone has access to the conditions that make us free. At a time when millions of Americans—and more and more politicians—are questioning the unregulated free market, Freedom from the Market offers a new narrative, and new intellectual ammunition, for the fight that lies ahead.
Download or read book The Discovery of Insulin written by Michael Bliss and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2017-06-22 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The discovery of insulin at the University of Toronto in 1921-22 was one of the most dramatic events in the history of the treatment of disease. Insulin was a wonder-drug with ability to bring patients back from the very brink of death, and it was no surprise that in 1923 the Nobel Prize for Medicine was awarded to its discoverers, the Canadian research team of Banting, Best, Collip, and Macleod. In this engaging and award-winning account, historian Michael Bliss recounts the fascinating story behind the discovery of insulin – a story as much filled with fiery confrontation and intense competition as medical dedication and scientific genius. Originally published in 1982 and updated in 1996, The Discovery of Insulin has won the City of Toronto Book Award, the Jason Hannah Medal of the Royal Society of Canada, and the William H. Welch Medal of the American Association for the History of Medicine.
Download or read book The Man in the Monkeynut Coat written by Kersten T. Hall and published by Oxford University Press (UK). This book was released on 2014 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tells the story of the English physicist and molecular biologist William T. Astbury and how his work forms a previously untold chapter in the story of the discovery of the structure of DNA.
Download or read book Diabetes written by Arleen Marcia Tuchman and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2020-08-05 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Who gets diabetes and why? An in-depth examination of diabetes in the context of race, public health, class, and heredity Who is considered most at risk for diabetes, and why? In this thorough, engaging book, historian Arleen Tuchman examines and critiques how these questions have been answered by both the public and medical communities for over a century in the United States. Beginning in the late nineteenth century, Tuchman describes how at different times Jews, middle-class whites, American Indians, African Americans, and Hispanic Americans have been labeled most at risk for developing diabetes, and that such claims have reflected and perpetuated troubling assumptions about race, ethnicity, and class. She describes how diabetes underwent a mid-century transformation in the public's eye from being a disease of wealth and "civilization" to one of poverty and "primitive" populations. In tracing this cultural history, Tuchman argues that shifting understandings of diabetes reveal just as much about scientific and medical beliefs as they do about the cultural, racial, and economic milieus of their time.
Download or read book Breakthrough written by Thea Cooper and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2010-09-14 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is 1919 and Elizabeth Hughes, the eleven-year-old daughter of America's most-distinguished jurist and politician, Charles Evans Hughes, has been diagnosed with juvenile diabetes. It is essentially a death sentence. The only accepted form of treatment – starvation – whittles her down to forty-five pounds skin and bones. Miles away, Canadian researchers Frederick Banting and Charles Best manage to identify and purify insulin from animal pancreases – a miracle soon marred by scientific jealousy, intense business competition and fistfights. In a race against time and a ravaging disease, Elizabeth becomes one of the first diabetics to receive insulin injections – all while its discoverers and a little known pharmaceutical company struggle to make it available to the rest of the world. Relive the heartwarming true story of the discovery of insulin as it's never been told before. Written with authentic detail and suspense, and featuring walk-ons by William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson, and Eli Lilly himself, among many others.
Download or read book Insulin written by Stuart Bradwel and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2023-06-08 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1922, an unlikely team of researchers in Toronto made one of the most important medical breakthroughs of the century: insulin. Their discovery seemed miraculous. When it was given to diabetic patients on the brink of death, their condition rapidly improved. Those present could barely believe their eyes: they had witnessed resurrection. However, this was no simple cure. Injections must be taken for life. Without them, symptoms quickly return, often with fatal results. But while a lifetime on insulin poses great challenges, it also offers opportunities. In this revelatory history, Stuart Bradwel looks back on one of medicine’s most celebrated innovations. Setting professional narrative against subjective patient experience, he tells the story of a drug that has challenged many of the basic assumptions upon which medical practice is built, both inside and outside the clinic. Nevertheless, Bradwel reminds us that the centenary of this apparent “wonder drug” should be no cause for celebration. Insulin often remains inaccessible to those who need it most: elusive prescriptions, uneven availability and sky-high prices result in rationing and desperate do-it-yourself research and development. In the face of bootstraps rhetoric and “Pharma Bro” capitalists, patients across the world are left to fend for themselves. There is a long way to go in the twenty-first century until insulin truly fulfils the extraordinary promises made by its discovery.
Download or read book Last Best Gifts written by Kieran Healy and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2010-08-15 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More than any other altruistic gesture, blood and organ donation exemplifies the true spirit of self-sacrifice. Donors literally give of themselves for no reward so that the life of an individual—often anonymous—may be spared. But as the demand for blood and organs has grown, the value of a system that depends solely on gifts has been called into question, and the possibility has surfaced that donors might be supplemented or replaced by paid suppliers. Last Best Gifts offers a fresh perspective on this ethical dilemma by examining the social organization of blood and organ donation in Europe and the United States. Gifts of blood and organs are not given everywhere in the same way or to the same extent—contrasts that allow Kieran Healy to uncover the pivotal role that institutions play in fashioning the contexts for donations. Procurement organizations, he shows, sustain altruism by providing opportunities to give and by producing public accounts of what giving means. In the end, Healy suggests, successful systems rest on the fairness of the exchange, rather than the purity of a donor’s altruism or the size of a financial incentive.
Download or read book The Artistry of the Homeric Simile written by William C. Scott and published by UPNE. This book was released on 2012-01-15 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An examination of the aesthetic qualities of the Homeric simile
Download or read book Hoosiers and the American Story written by Madison, James H. and published by Indiana Historical Society. This book was released on 2014-10 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A supplemental textbook for middle and high school students, Hoosiers and the American Story provides intimate views of individuals and places in Indiana set within themes from American history. During the frontier days when Americans battled with and exiled native peoples from the East, Indiana was on the leading edge of America’s westward expansion. As waves of immigrants swept across the Appalachians and eastern waterways, Indiana became established as both a crossroads and as a vital part of Middle America. Indiana’s stories illuminate the history of American agriculture, wars, industrialization, ethnic conflicts, technological improvements, political battles, transportation networks, economic shifts, social welfare initiatives, and more. In so doing, they elucidate large national issues so that students can relate personally to the ideas and events that comprise American history. At the same time, the stories shed light on what it means to be a Hoosier, today and in the past.
Download or read book A Male Hysteria written by Edward Beasley and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2024-07-30 with total page 457 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book explores the history and treatment of diabetes. It focuses on the nineteenth-century understanding of the disease and medicine's attempts to grapple with the disorder for the past two centuries"--
Download or read book The Genetic Age written by Matthew Cobb and published by Profile Books. This book was released on 2022-09-01 with total page 403 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A TIMES ENVIRONMENT AND SCIENCE BOOK OF THE YEAR 2022 'The ideal guide to what is not just a fiendishly complex area of science but also an ethical minefield' Mail on Sunday A new gene editing technology, invented just seven years ago, has turned humanity into gods. Enabling us to manipulate the genes in virtually any organism with exquisite precision, CRISPR has given scientists a degree of control that was undreamt of even in science fiction. But CRISPR is just the latest, giant leap in a long journey to master genetics. The Genetic Age shows the astonishing, world-changing potential of the new genetics and the possible threats it poses, sifting between fantasy and the reality when it comes to both benefits and dangers. By placing each phase of discovery, anticipation and fear in the context of over fifty years of attempts to master the natural world, Matthew Cobb, the Baillie-Gifford-shortlisted author of The Idea of the Brain, weaves the stories of science, history and culture to shed new light on our future. With the powers now at our disposal, it is a future that is almost impossible to imagine - but it is one we will create ourselves.
Download or read book As Gods written by Matthew Cobb and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2022-11-15 with total page 502 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The thrilling and terrifying history of genetic engineering In 2018, scientists manipulated the DNA of human babies for the first time. As biologist and historian Matthew Cobb shows in As Gods, this achievement was one many scientists have feared from the start of the genetic age. Four times in the last fifty years, geneticists, frightened by their own technology, have called a temporary halt to their experiments. They ought to be frightened: Now we have powers that can target the extinction of pests, change our own genes, or create dangerous new versions of diseases in an attempt to prevent future pandemics. Both awe-inspiring and chilling, As Gods traces the history of genetic engineering, showing that this revolutionary technology is far too important to be left to the scientists. They have the power to change life itself, but should we trust them to keep their ingenuity from producing a hellish reality?
Download or read book Forestry Economics written by John E. Wagner and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2011-07-26 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Forestry Economics introduces students and practitioners to all aspects of the management and economics of forestry. The book adopts the approach of managerial economics textbooks and applies this to the unique processes and problems faced by managers of forests. While most forestry economics books are written by economists for future economists, what many future forest and natural resource managers need is to understand what economic information is and how to use it to make better business and management decisions. John E. Wagner draws on his twenty years of experience teaching and working in the field of forest resource economics to present students with an accessible understanding of the unique production processes and problems faced by forest and other natural resource managers. There are three unique features of this book: The first is its organization. The material is organized around two common economic models used in forest and natural resources management decision making. The second is the use of case studies from various disciplines: Outdoor and Commercial Recreation, Wood Products Engineering, Forest Products, and Forestry. The purpose of these case studies is to provide students with applications of the concepts being discussed within the text. The third is revisiting the question of how to use economic information to make better business decisions at the end of each chapter. This ties each chapter to the preceding ones and reinforces the hypothesis that a solid working knowledge of these economic models and the information they contain are necessary for making better business decisions. This textbook is an invaluable source of clear and accessible information on forestry economics and management for not only economics students, but for students of other disciplines and those already working in forestry and natural resources.
Download or read book The Paleoanthropology and Archaeology of Big Game Hunting written by John D. Speth and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2010-09-08 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since its inception, paleoanthropology has been closely wedded to the idea that big-game hunting by our hominin ancestors arose, first and foremost, as a means for acquiring energy and vital nutrients. This assumption has rarely been questioned, and seems intuitively obvious—meat is a nutrient-rich food with the ideal array of amino acids, and big animals provide meat in large, convenient packages. Through new research, the author of this volume provides a strong argument that the primary goals of big-game hunting were actually social and political—increasing hunter’s prestige and standing—and that the nutritional component was just an added bonus. Through a comprehensive, interdisciplinary research approach, the author examines the historical and current perceptions of protein as an important nutrient source, the biological impact of a high-protein diet and the evidence of this in the archaeological record, and provides a compelling reexamination of this long-held conclusion. This volume will be of interest to researchers in Archaeology, Evolutionary Biology, and Paleoanthropology, particularly those studying diet and nutrition.
Download or read book Nature and Society written by European Association of Social Anthropologists. Conference and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 1996 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First Published in 1996. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Download or read book Encyclopedia of Biology written by Don Rittner and published by Infobase Publishing. This book was released on 2004-08 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contains approximately 800 alphabetical entries, prose essays on important topics, line illustrations, and black-and-white photographs.
