Download or read book Underbug written by Lisa Margonelli and published by Scientific American / Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2018-08-21 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The award-winning journalist Lisa Margonelli, national bestselling author of Oil on the Brain: Petroleum’s Long, Strange Trip to Your Tank, investigates the environmental and economic impact termites inflict on human societies in this fascinating examination of one of nature’s most misunderstood insects. Are we more like termites than we ever imagined? In Underbug, the award-winning journalist Lisa Margonelli introduces us to the enigmatic creatures that collectively outweigh human beings ten to one and consume $40 billion worth of valuable stuff annually—and yet, in Margonelli’s telling, seem weirdly familiar. Over the course of a decade-long obsession with the little bugs, Margonelli pokes around termite mounds and high-tech research facilities, closely watching biologists, roboticists, and geneticists. Her globe-trotting journey veers into uncharted territory, from evolutionary theory to Edwardian science literature to the military industrial complex. What begins as a natural history of the termite becomes a personal exploration of the unnatural future we’re building, with darker observations on power, technology, historical trauma, and the limits of human cognition. Whether in Namibia or Cambridge, Arizona or Australia, Margonelli turns up astounding facts and raises provocative questions. Is a termite an individual or a unit of a superorganism? Can we harness the termite’s properties to change the world? If we build termite-like swarming robots, will they inevitably destroy us? Is it possible to think without having a mind? Underbug burrows into these questions and many others—unearthing disquieting answers about the world’s most underrated insect and what it means to be human.
Download or read book Animal Architecture written by Paul Dobraszczyk and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2023-05-17 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A provocative call for architects to remember and embrace the nonhuman lives that share our spaces. A spider spinning its web in a dark corner. Wasps building a nest under a roof. There’s hardly any part of the built environment that can’t be inhabited by nonhumans, and yet we are extremely selective about which animals we keep in or out. This book imagines new ways of thinking about architecture and the more-than-human and asks how we might design with animals and the other lives that share our spaces in mind. Animal Architecture is a provocative exploration of how to think about building in a world where humans and other animals are already entangled, whether we acknowledge it or not.
Download or read book Mind vs Matter written by Konrad Koenigsmann and published by Outskirts Press. This book was released on 2016-03-30 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The year is 2067. World War III has come and gone, and the world has been carved into empires. Its people are oppressed and suffering more than ever before. When a mysterious man named Karl von Liebnitz, the leader of a shadowy organization known as Tyrannei, makes plans to take over the planet, there is nothing the empires can do to stop him...until, that is, a new force emerges. Will Hartford and his son, Pierre, have unparalleled mental capabilities, and soon Karl, Will, and Pierre begin to use their mental prowess to battle for control of the world. But as the two sides move closer to their final clash, questions begin to arise. What if the two factions cannot save the world from themselves? What if there is no scenario where the destruction of the world does not happen? Mind vs. Matter is a gripping and thought-provoking novel by an up-and-coming new voice in fiction.
Download or read book What Is a Human written by James Paul Gee and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-09-17 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a sweeping synthesis of new research in a number of different disciplines, this book argues that we humans are not who we think we are. As he explores the interconnections between cutting-edge work in bioanthropology, evolutionary biology, neuroscience, human language and learning, and beyond, James Paul Gee advances, also, a personal philosophy of language, learning, and culture, informed by his decades of work across linguistics and the social sciences. Gee argues that our schools, institutions, legal systems, and societies are designed for creatures that do not exist, thus resulting in multiple, interacting crises, such as climate change, failing institutions, and the rise of nationalist nationalism. As Gee constructs an understanding of the human that takes into account our social, collective, and historical nature, as established by recent research, he inspires readers to reflect for themselves on the very question of who we are—a key consideration for anyone interested in society, government, schools, health, activism, culture and diversity, or even just survival.
Download or read book Thereby Hangs a Tale Stories of Curious Word Origins written by Charles Earle Funk and published by Read Books Ltd. This book was released on 2013-04-16 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THEREBY HANGS A TALE Stories of Curious Word Origins Charles Earle Funk, Litt. D. PERENNIAL LIBRARY Harper Row, Publishers New York, Cambridge, Philadelphia, San Francisco London, Mexico City, Sao Paulo, Singapore, Sydney To B. M. F. Who patiently and often has listened to many of these tales, this book is lovingly dedicated. PREFACE THIS book Is the outcome of a collection of material that has been slowly accumulating over the past thirty years or so, since the time when, under the guidance of the late Dr. Frank H. Vizetelly, I began to work as his associate in the editorial department of the Funk Wagnalls New Standard Dictionary. The ancestry of most of the words that we now use glibly or find in books or other cur rent literature, is prosaic. We can trace their lines of descent back to Old English, or Old French, or Latin, or Greek, or other ancient source, but beyond the bare bones supplied by etymologists, which indicate those sources, and the steps by which they became English words, the dictionaries tell us little f or there is little more that can be told. The ancient Roman or Greek, say, who may have been the first to use a word that has strayed on to us, perhaps could have told the story of its origin. It may have been picturesque, based upon some historic episode, like the word anecdote, it may have come from a tale in some older language, for the languages that we consider ancient were themselves based upon still more ancient sources, but that story, if any, cannot now be determined. Thus what we know about the origins of the great majority of the words In our present language can be found in an unabridged dictionary or in a work dealing with etymologies, such as that compiled by W. W. Skeat about seventy years ago, or the one more recently prepared by Ernest Weekley. But there are in our current language a number of fairly common words some old, some new which were born, or grew, or ac quired their meanings in an unusual manner. They came, as our language has, from all sources sources of which the dictionaries, for lack of space, can rarely supply more than a clue. These are the tales that I have been collecting and which are offered here. A number of them may be already familiar to some readers, such as the origin of tantalize, from the Greek legend of the punishment vm - meted out to Tantalus by the wrathful Zeus, or echo, from the fate of the perfidious nymph of that name. Such tales, though familiar to some, are included here for the benefit of those to whom they may be new. But I have found that few but scholars in the language know how the word clue, which was just used, acquired its present meaning that the Portuguese gave us coconut because, to their sailors in the sixteenth century, the nut resembled a coco, a grinning face that sylph was a coinage of that master charlatan or genius, depending upon the point of view, the sixteenth-century alchemist, Paracelsus that we owe our terms chapel and chaplain to the cloak or cape worn by the fourth-century monk, St. Martin that the name Easter was taken from a pagan goddess, and that the names of the days of the week denote dedication to ancient pagan gods. Whenever it has been possible, the stories are historical that is, for example, facts in the life of St. Martin are briefly stated to explain why his cloak was venerated the occasion for the coinage of sylph by Paracelsus is summarized a brief account tells why magenta commemorated a battle short sketches of the invasions of the Vandals and Tatars account for such words as vandal, tartar, and horde-, highly abridged biographies of such persons as the Scottish engineer, John L. McAdam, the Scottish chemist, Charles Macintosh, and others, tell why their names were adopted into the language an explanation is deduced why the French general, Martinet, became a byword in English, but not in French the historical circumstances that introduced the word nepotism are related, and so on, and so on...
Download or read book Official Stud Book and Registry of the American Quarter Horse Association written by American Quarter Horse Association and published by . This book was released on 1985 with total page 990 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Circles where the Head Should be written by Caki Wilkinson and published by University of North Texas Press. This book was released on 2011 with total page 83 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The poems in Circles Where the Head Should Be are full of objects and oddities, bits of news, epic catalogues, and a cast of characters hoping to make sense of it all. Underneath the often whimsical surface, however, lies a search for those connections we long for but so often miss, and a wish for art to bridge the gaps.
Download or read book Thereby Hangs a Tale written by Charles Earle Funk and published by . This book was released on 1950 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Simplicity Principle written by Julia Hobsbawm and published by Kogan Page Publishers. This book was released on 2020-04-03 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WINNER: American Book Fest Best Book Award 2020 - Business: General WINNER: NYC Big Book Award 2020 - Self-Help: General SHORTLISTED: Business Book Awards 2021 - Personal Development & Wellbeing Modern life is complicated, much more so than it used to be. Acclaimed author and social entrepreneur, Julia Hobsbawm, shows you a simpler way. The Simplicity Principle challenges the assumption that all things that are complex have to stay that way. It helps keep things as lean, simple and focused as possible. Smartphone users experience concentration interruptions every 12 minutes of the day, there are over 250 billion emails sent every 24 hours and by 2021 the internet will have created more than 3.3 zettabytes of data. Yet complexity doesn't have to dominate, complicate or clutter our lives. Based on a hexagonal model, this book shows you that it's easy to streamline and simplify both your professional and personal lives with lessons based on the natural world. For anyone who feels that life can be too much, The Simplicity Principle will help you break free of the endless choices and complexities that we face in the world today. It's time to gain control of your focus and productivity, and most importantly, KEEP IT SIMPLE.
Download or read book Fuldst ndigt Engelsk Og Dansk Samt Dansk Og Engelsk Haand Lexicon written by Christian Friderich Bay and published by . This book was released on 1807 with total page 1042 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Fuldst ndigt dansk og engelsk Haand Lexicon written by Christian Frederik Bay and published by . This book was released on 1798 with total page 1046 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Fuldstaendigt Dansk og Engelsk haand lexicon written by Christian Friderich Bay and published by . This book was released on 1824 with total page 914 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Super Fly written by Jonathan Balcombe and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-05-25 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the National Outdoor Book Award for Natural History and a New York Times Editors Choice Pick "After reading Super Fly, you will never take a fly for granted again. Thank you, Jonathan Balcombe, for reminding us of the infinite marvels of everyday creatures." —Sy Montgomery, Author of How to Be a Good Creature From an expert in animal consciousness, a book that will turn the fly on the wall into the elephant in the room. For most of us, the only thing we know about flies is that they're annoying, and our usual reaction is to try to kill them. In Super Fly, the myth-busting biologist Jonathan Balcombe shows the order Diptera in all of its diversity, illustrating the essential role that flies play in every ecosystem in the world as pollinators, waste-disposers, predators, and food source; and how flies continue to reshape our understanding of evolution. Along the way, he reintroduces us to familiar foes like the fruit fly and mosquito, and gives us the chance to meet their lesser-known cousins like the Petroleum Fly (the only animal in the world that breeds in crude oil) and the Chocolate Midge (the sole pollinator of the Cacao tree). No matter your outlook on our tiny buzzing neighbors, Super Fly will change the way you look at flies forever. Jonathan Balcombe is the author of four books on animal sentience, including the New York Times bestselling What A Fish Knows, which was nominated for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Award for Science Writing. He has worked for years as a researcher and educator with the Humane society to show us the consciousness of other creatures, and here he takes us to the farthest reaches of the animal kingdom.
Download or read book From the Rivers of Babylon to the Rivers of the Internet written by Hans-Martin Sass and published by LIT Verlag Münster. This book was released on with total page 104 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The ‘rivers of Babylon’ were built 3500 years ago by technical and political leaders between Euphrates and Tigris, creating the high culture of Mesopotamia, cultivating dry desert lands into fertile soil, built central cities and the Gardens of Semiramis, using the waterways for exchange of communication, commerce, and control. The ‘rivers of the Internet’ are built in the 21st century creating integrated cultures of people, of things and everything, of geospaces and cyberspaces, of artificial intelligence (AI) and artificial sensuality (AS), changing individuals, cultures and politics, creating newly integrated state and non-state bodies of culture, commerce, control, politics, and power. New tools and technologies have changed our ideational, environmental, economic, political and cultural biotopes, but people and communities are still good or bad as they were 3500 years ago. Hegel measured progress in world history via the ‘progress of the ‘consciousness of freedom’ in communities and civilizations. The Hegelian geography teacher and 1848 rebel Ernst Kapp measured progress in world history via the ‘cultivation of lands and communities by tools and technologies’. Should we understand World History as unilinear (Hegel), or rotating (Polybius), or spiraling (Burckhardt), or conditional on tools and techniques (Kapp), or based on trends and fashions?
Download or read book Bees Science and Sex in the Literature of the Long Nineteenth Century written by Alexis Harley and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-11-07 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The long nineteenth century (1789-1914) has been described as an axial age in the history of both bees and literature. It was the period in which the ecological and agronomic values that are still attributed to bees by modern industrial society were first established, and it was the period in which one bee species (the European honeybee) completed its dispersal to every habitable continent on Earth. At the same time, literature – which would enable, represent and in some cases repress or disavow this radical transformation of bees’ fortunes – was undergoing its own set of transformations. Bees, Science, and Sex in the Literature of the Long Nineteenth Century navigates the various developments that occurred in the scientific study of bees and in beekeeping during this period of remarkable change, focusing on the bees themselves, those with whom they lived, and how old and new ideas about bees found expression in an ever-diversifying range of literary media. Ranging across literary forms and genres, the studies in this volume show the ubiquity of bees in nineteenth-century culture, demonstrate the queer specificity of writing about and with bees, and foreground new avenues for research into an animal profoundly implicated in the political, economic, ecological, emotional and aesthetic conditions of the modern world.
Download or read book Buzz Books 2018 Spring Summer written by and published by Publishers Lunch. This book was released on 2018-01-08 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Our biannual Buzz Books captures all the excitement of the American Booksellers Association’s Winter Institute and takes it much further. Start off a year of new reading discoveries with substantial excerpts from 40 talked about Buzz Books due to be published in the months ahead. Be among the first to get a taste of new fiction from major bestselling authors including Allison Pearson’s follow up to I Don’t Know How She Does It and beloved romance writer Kristan Higgins’ work of general fiction, Good Luck with That. Samples from award-winning literary authors include Chris Offutt, with his first novel in 20 years, Country Dark; Ottessa Moshfegh with My Year of Rest and Relaxation; bestselling nonfiction author Sheila Heti’s Motherhood, and Peter Swanson’s thriller All the Beautiful Lies. The new Buzz Books shines a light on 11 promising debuts. Bestselling nonfiction author Aimee Molloy’s forthcoming novel The Perfect Mother already has been optioned for film by Kerry Washington. Accomplished comic book writer Charles Soule writes a novel that is part comedy, part thriller, The Oracle Year. Other featured debut authors include Luke Allnutt, Alice Feeney, Jane Rosenberg LaForge, and Zoje Stage. Our fascinating nonfiction section is filled with memoir this time around. In The Fox Hunt, Mohammed Al Samawi describes fighting in the Yemeni Civil War before fleeing to the United States while Tessa Fontaine’s The Electric Woman is about running away to join the circus. Regular readers know that each Buzz Books collection is filled with early looks at titles that will go on to top the bestseller lists and critics' "best of the year" lists. And our comprehensive seasonal preview starts the book off with a curated overview of hundreds of notable books on the way later this year. For still more great previews, check out our separate Buzz Books 2018: Young Adult Spring/Summer as well. For complete download links, lists and more, just visit buzz.publishersmarketplace.com.
Download or read book Fuldst ndigt dansk og engelsk haand lexicon written by Christian Friderich Bay and published by . This book was released on 1807 with total page 1046 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
