Download or read book A Brief History of Stuff written by DK and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2024-06-25 with total page 560 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Learn how 30,000 bath toys and the work of amateur beachcombers have helped scientists study ocean currents. Explore how the search for a death ray led to the creation of the microwave oven and ready-made meals. Discover the surprising link between sticky tape and the Nobel Prize. Uncover the extraordinary stories of ordinary objects in this perfect gift for curious minds. From the creators of the A Brief History of Stuff podcast and inspired by the incredible artifacts in the Science Museum Group Collection, this collection of entertaining essays reveals the fascinating history behind some of the most mundane items in our homes.
Download or read book Sweet Stuff written by Deborah Jean Warner and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2011-09-16 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sweeteners have long played an important role in the American diet and economy, yet are largely absent from accounts of the American past. Sweet Stuff rectifies that oversight in the first in-depth history of sugar and other major sweeteners, both natural and artificial, in the American experience. Sweet Stuff discusses sweeteners in the context of diet, science and technology, business and labor, politics, and popular culture.
Download or read book Railways written by Christopher Valkoinen and published by . This book was released on 2020-11-03 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exquisite drawings of locomotives, carriages, and stations offering unparalleled insight into the design and operation of the British railway system.
Download or read book Stuff You Should Know written by Josh Clark and published by Flatiron Books. This book was released on 2020-11-24 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the duo behind the massively successful and award-winning podcast Stuff You Should Know comes an unexpected look at things you thought you knew. Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant started the podcast Stuff You Should Know back in 2008 because they were curious—curious about the world around them, curious about what they might have missed in their formal educations, and curious to dig deeper on stuff they thought they understood. As it turns out, they aren't the only curious ones. They've since amassed a rabid fan base, making Stuff You Should Know one of the most popular podcasts in the world. Armed with their inquisitive natures and a passion for sharing, they uncover the weird, fascinating, delightful, or unexpected elements of a wide variety of topics. The pair have now taken their near-boundless "whys" and "hows" from your earbuds to the pages of a book for the first time—featuring a completely new array of subjects that they’ve long wondered about and wanted to explore. Each chapter is further embellished with snappy visual material to allow for rabbit-hole tangents and digressions—including charts, illustrations, sidebars, and footnotes. Follow along as the two dig into the underlying stories of everything from the origin of Murphy beds, to the history of facial hair, to the psychology of being lost. Have you ever wondered about the world around you, and wished to see the magic in everyday things? Come get curious with Stuff You Should Know. With Josh and Chuck as your guide, there’s something interesting about everything (...except maybe jackhammers).
Download or read book Stuff Matters written by Mark Miodownik and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2014 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An eye-opening adventure deep inside the everyday materials that surround us, from concrete and steel to denim and chocolate, packed with surprising stories and fascinating science.
Download or read book The Science of Managing Our Digital Stuff written by Ofer Bergman and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2016-11-04 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why we organize our personal digital data the way we do and how design of new PIM systems can help us manage our information more efficiently. Each of us has an ever-growing collection of personal digital data: documents, photographs, PowerPoint presentations, videos, music, emails and texts sent and received. To access any of this, we have to find it. The ease (or difficulty) of finding something depends on how we organize our digital stuff. In this book, personal information management (PIM) experts Ofer Bergman and Steve Whittaker explain why we organize our personal digital data the way we do and how the design of new PIM systems can help us manage our collections more efficiently. Bergman and Whittaker report that many of us use hierarchical folders for our personal digital organizing. Critics of this method point out that information is hidden from sight in folders that are often within other folders so that we have to remember the exact location of information to access it. Because of this, information scientists suggest other methods: search, more flexible than navigating folders; tags, which allow multiple categorizations; and group information management. Yet Bergman and Whittaker have found in their pioneering PIM research that these other methods that work best for public information management don't work as well for personal information management. Bergman and Whittaker describe personal information collection as curation: we preserve and organize this data to ensure our future access to it. Unlike other information management fields, in PIM the same user organizes and retrieves the information. After explaining the cognitive and psychological reasons that so many prefer folders, Bergman and Whittaker propose the user-subjective approach to PIM, which does not replace folder hierarchies but exploits these unique characteristics of PIM.
Download or read book Crap written by Wendy A. Woloson and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2020-10-05 with total page 405 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Crap. We all have it. Filling drawers. Overflowing bins and baskets. Proudly displayed or stuffed in boxes in basements and garages. Big and small. Metal, fabric, and a whole lot of plastic. So much crap. Abundant cheap stuff is about as American as it gets. And it turns out these seemingly unimportant consumer goods offer unique insights into ourselves—our values and our desires. In Crap: A History of Cheap Stuff in America, Wendy A. Woloson takes seriously the history of objects that are often cynically-made and easy to dismiss: things not made to last; things we don't really need; things we often don't even really want. Woloson does not mock these ordinary, everyday possessions but seeks to understand them as a way to understand aspects of ourselves, socially, culturally, and economically: Why do we—as individuals and as a culture—possess these things? Where do they come from? Why do we want them? And what is the true cost of owning them? Woloson tells the history of crap from the late eighteenth century up through today, exploring its many categories: gadgets, knickknacks, novelty goods, mass-produced collectibles, giftware, variety store merchandise. As Woloson shows, not all crap is crappy in the same way—bric-a-brac is crappy in a different way from, say, advertising giveaways, which are differently crappy from commemorative plates. Taking on the full brilliant and depressing array of crappy material goods, the book explores the overlooked corners of the American market and mindset, revealing the complexity of our relationship with commodity culture over time. By studying crap rather than finely made material objects, Woloson shows us a new way to truly understand ourselves, our national character, and our collective psyche. For all its problems, and despite its disposability, our crap is us.
Download or read book Pluto s Secret written by Margaret Weitekamp and published by Abrams. This book was released on 2013-03-12 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: People, children especially, have been baffled, bewildered, and even outraged by the fact that Pluto is no longer called a planet. Through whimsical artwork and an entertaining dialogue format, Pluto’s Secret explains the true story of this distant world. Providing a history of the small, icy world from its discovery and naming to its recent reclassification, this book presents a fascinating look at how scientists organize and classify our solar system as they gain new insights into how it works and what types of things exist within it. The book includes a glossary and bibliography. Praise for Pluto's Secret "Pairing a lighthearted narrative in a hand-lettered†“style typeface with informally drawn cartoon illustrations, this lively tale of astronomical revelations begins with the search for Planet X.†? —Kirkus Reviews "This picture book offers a fresh, positive perspective on Pluto, showing that its change of status is not a demotion but a correction." —Booklist "Light-hearted imagining of a gregarious Pluto.†? —Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books "Fun reading... The book provides a factual history of our faraway 'dwarf,' and on its companion icy worlds, and on the discovery of Kuiper-like bands around other stars." —School Library Journal Award New York Public Library’s annual Children’s Books list: 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing 2013
Download or read book Innocent Experiments written by Rebecca Onion and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2016-10-04 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the 1950s to the digital age, Americans have pushed their children to live science-minded lives, cementing scientific discovery and youthful curiosity as inseparable ideals. In this multifaceted work, historian Rebecca Onion examines the rise of informal children’s science education in the twentieth century, from the proliferation of home chemistry sets after World War I to the century-long boom in child-centered science museums. Onion looks at how the United States has increasingly focused its energies over the last century into producing young scientists outside of the classroom. She shows that although Americans profess to believe that success in the sciences is synonymous with good citizenship, this idea is deeply complicated in an era when scientific data is hotly contested and many Americans have a conflicted view of science itself. These contradictions, Onion explains, can be understood by examining the histories of popular science and the development of ideas about American childhood. She shows how the idealized concept of “science” has moved through the public consciousness and how the drive to make child scientists has deeply influenced American culture.
Download or read book The Science Museum A Brief History of Stuff written by DK and published by Dorling Kindersley Ltd. This book was released on 2024-06-06 with total page 560 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explore the past, present and future of the everyday stuff in your home, from tinned food to tampons. Learn how 30,000 bath toys and the work of amateur beachcombers have helped scientists study ocean currents. Explore how the search for a death ray led to the creation of the microwave oven and ready meals. Discover the surprising link between sticky tape and the Nobel Prize. Uncover the extraordinary stories of ordinary objects in this perfect gift for curious minds. From the creators of the A Brief History of Stuff podcast and inspired by the incredible artefacts in the Science Museum Group Collection, this collection of entertaining essays reveals the fascinating history behind some of the most mundane items in our homes.
Download or read book Paleontology written by Ian Tattersall and published by Templeton Foundation Press. This book was released on 2011-07-01 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Endlessly absorbing and informative. It would be hard to imagine a better introduction to this most important and fascinating field.”—Bill Bryson, author of A Short History of Nearly Everything Paleontology: A Brief History of Life is the fifth title published in the Templeton Science and Religion Series, in which scientists from a wide range of fields distill their experience and knowledge into brief tours of their respective specialties. In this volume, Ian Tattersall, a highly esteemed figure in the fields of anthropology, archaeology, and paleontology, leads a fascinating tour of the history of life and the evolution of human beings. Starting at the very beginning, Tattersall examines patterns of change in the biosphere over time, and the correlations of biological events with physical changes in the Earth’s environment. He introduces the complex of evolutionary processes, situates human beings in the luxuriant diversity of Life (demonstrating that however remarkable we may legitimately find ourselves to be, we are the product of the same basic forces and processes that have driven the evolutionary histories of all other creatures), and he places the origin of our extraordinary spiritual sensibilities in the context of the exaptational and emergent acquisition of symbolic cognition and thought. Concise and yet comprehensive, historically penetrating and yet up-to-date, responsibly factual and yet engaging, Paleontology serves as the perfect entrée to science's greatest story.
Download or read book The Huge Book of Amazing Facts and Interesting Stuff 2023 written by Jenny Kellett and published by Bellanova Books. This book was released on 2023-03-09 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Be More Interesting" Already in its seventh edition, Jenny Kellett brings you her bestselling HUGE Book of Amazing Facts, updated for 2023. Chock-full of incredible, curious, and mind-blowing Facts, you'll be able to impress your friends or simply improve your knowledge with over 800 of only the very best hand-picked trivia facts. The facts are divided into categories for easy reference. Whether you're into sports, history, science or something a little bit bizarre—there are hundreds of amazing facts for you. Did you know... • The word 'quarantine' comes from quarantena, meaning 40 days in old Venetian. During the Black Plague, the Venetians imposed a 40-day ban on arrivals into the city. • 'Mountain Dew' was once a slang term for moonshine (homemade whiskey) in the south of the US and parts of the UK. Neil Armstrong and his Apollo 11 colleagues had to go through US Customs when they landed back on Earth from the moon. • The time difference between the Stegosaurus and Tyrannosaurus Rex is greater than the time difference between Tyrannosaurus Rex and the first humans. • In ancient Egypt, Pharaohs would smear their servants with honey so that they would attract the flies. Discover these amazing facts and hundreds more in The Huge Book of Amazing Facts and Interesting Stuff 2023. It's the ideal gift for children (12+) and adults. Give the gift of knowledge with the internet's most up-to-date fact book.
Download or read book The Huge Book of Amazing Facts and Interesting Stuff 2024 written by Jenny Kellett and published by Bellanova Books. This book was released on 2024-04-07 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Biggest Edition Ever!" **Updated in 2024** Celebrate a decade of astonishing discoveries with the 10th Anniversary Edition of The Huge Book of Amazing Facts and Interesting Stuff 2024 – the biggest edition yet! What’s new? • Updated in 2024 • 400+ pages of facts • Bonus Then and Now section - a decade of change This special volume brings together a treasure trove of knowledge, with a bonus "Then and Now" section that explores the most monumental changes and advancements of the last ten years. From technological breakthroughs to cultural evolutions, travel through time in a compendium of curiosities that's sure to amaze. Whether you're a trivia buff or just curious about the world, this anniversary edition is the ultimate guide to the wonders of our times. Contents • Then & Now (2014-2024) • Science & Technology Facts • Animals & Nature Facts • World Geography & Culture Facts • Business & Politics Facts • History Facts • Music & Entertainment Facts • Literature & Art Facts • Sports & Leisure Facts • Miscellaneous & Bizarre Facts Did you know?! • In 2023, Chinese scientists were able to grow part-human kidneys within pig embryos. • Adults spend nearly 50 per cent of their time letting their minds wander • If you could get into your car and drive 60 mph (96.5 km/h) straight up, it would only take one hour to reach outer space. • When you move your eyes, your eardrums also move. • Per area, the United Kingdom has more tornadoes per year than anywhere else in the world. Discover these facts and thousands more in The Huge Book of Amazing Facts & Interesting Stuff 2024. Order your copy today!
Download or read book The Cat in the Hat written by Dr. Seuss and published by . This book was released on 1985 with total page 73 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two children sitting at home on a rainy day are visited by the cat who shows them some tricks and games.
Download or read book The Trojan War Museum and Other Stories written by Ayse Papatya Bucak and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2019-08-20 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Short-listed for the 2020 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection “As profound as it is lyrical. The stories are music.” —Marcela Davison Avilés, NPR In Ayse Papatya Bucak’s dreamlike narratives, dead girls recount gas explosions and a chess-playing automaton falls in love. A student stops eating, and no one knows whether her act is personal or political. A Turkish wrestler, a hero in the East, is seen as a brute in the West. And in the masterful title story, the Greek god Apollo confronts his personal history to memorialize, and make sense of, generations of war. A joy and a provocation, Bucak’s stories confront the nature of memory with humor and myth, performance and authenticity.
Download or read book The Feather Thief written by Kirk Wallace Johnson and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-04-24 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As heard on NPR's This American Life “Absorbing . . . Though it's non-fiction, The Feather Thief contains many of the elements of a classic thriller.” —Maureen Corrigan, NPR’s Fresh Air “One of the most peculiar and memorable true-crime books ever.” —Christian Science Monitor A rollicking true-crime adventure and a captivating journey into an underground world of fanatical fly-tiers and plume peddlers, for readers of The Stranger in the Woods, The Lost City of Z, and The Orchid Thief. On a cool June evening in 2009, after performing a concert at London's Royal Academy of Music, twenty-year-old American flautist Edwin Rist boarded a train for a suburban outpost of the British Museum of Natural History. Home to one of the largest ornithological collections in the world, the Tring museum was full of rare bird specimens whose gorgeous feathers were worth staggering amounts of money to the men who shared Edwin's obsession: the Victorian art of salmon fly-tying. Once inside the museum, the champion fly-tier grabbed hundreds of bird skins—some collected 150 years earlier by a contemporary of Darwin's, Alfred Russel Wallace, who'd risked everything to gather them—and escaped into the darkness. Two years later, Kirk Wallace Johnson was waist high in a river in northern New Mexico when his fly-fishing guide told him about the heist. He was soon consumed by the strange case of the feather thief. What would possess a person to steal dead birds? Had Edwin paid the price for his crime? What became of the missing skins? In his search for answers, Johnson was catapulted into a years-long, worldwide investigation. The gripping story of a bizarre and shocking crime, and one man's relentless pursuit of justice, The Feather Thief is also a fascinating exploration of obsession, and man's destructive instinct to harvest the beauty of nature.
Download or read book Pop Up Earth written by and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2021-04-06 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A dazzling pop-up book full of amazing facts about our planet, certain to entertain the entire family! You live on it, but how much do you really know about the planet Earth? In this incredible pop-up book, discover why the Earth is so special by learning about how it’s changed over time, how all living things are connected, how tectonic plates form mountains, and about different ecosystems around the world. In Pop-Up Earth five colorful, breathtaking pop-ups reveal the inner workings of the planet. Intricate illustrations and fact-filled pages connect us to our world, making this a perfect gift for young ecologists and climate activists. Budding geologists and anyone curious about how our planet works will be amazed!
