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This look at the near future presents the story of Offred, a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead, once the United States, an oppressive world where women are no longer allowed to read and are valued only as long as they are viable for reproduction.
In this Orwellian dramatization, religion becomes a tool of repression and social control to force women into the roles of stay-at-home wives, domestic staff, prostitutes, or surrogate mothers. They have...
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Naomi Oreskes is the Henry Charles Lea Professor of the History of Science and affiliated professor of Earth and planetary sciences at Harvard University. Twitter @NaomiOreskes
Why the social character of scientific knowledge makes it trustworthy
Are doctors right when they tell us vaccines are safe? Should we take climate experts at their word when they warn us about the perils of global warming? Why should we trust science when so many of our...
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There's a well-known story about an older fish who swims by two younger fish and asks, "How's the water?" The younger fish are puzzled. "What's water?" they ask.
Many of us today might ask a similar question: What's technology? Technology defines the world we live in, yet we're so immersed in it, so encompassed by it, that we mostly take it for granted. Seldom, if ever, do we stop to ask what technology is. Failing to ask that question, we fail...
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"Shortlisted for the Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science, Phi Beta Kappa Society" "Finalist for the 2019 Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Science & Technology" "Winner of the 2019 PROSE Award in Popular Science & Popular Mathematics, Association of American Publishers" "Longlisted for the 2019 PEN/E.O. Wilson Prize for Literary Science Writing Award, PEN American Center" "One of EcoLit Books' Best Environmental Books of 2018" "A Choice Outstanding Academic...
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An "insightful" and in-depth look at anti-science politics and its deadly results (Maria Konnikova, New York Times-bestselling author of The Biggest Bluff).
Thomas Jefferson said, "Wherever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government." But what happens when they aren't?
From climate change to vaccinations, transportation to technology, health care to defense, we are in the midst of an unprecedented expansion of scientific...
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A New York Times–bestselling author looks at mathematics education in America-when it's worthwhile, and when it's not.
Why do we inflict a full menu of mathematics-algebra, geometry, trigonometry, even calculus-on all young Americans, regardless of their interests or aptitudes? While Andrew Hacker has been a professor of mathematics himself, and extols the glories of the subject, he also questions some widely held assumptions in this thought-provoking...
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"What can fashionable ideas, blind faith, or pure fantasy possibly have to do with the scientific quest to understand the universe? Surely, theoretical physicists are immune to mere trends, dogmatic beliefs, or flights of fancy? In fact, acclaimed physicist and best-selling author Roger Penrose argues that researchers working at the extreme frontiers of physics are just as susceptible to these forces as anyone else. In this provocative book, he argues...
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The presidential inaugural poet--and unforgettable new voice in American poetry--presents a collection of poems that includes the stirring poem read at the inauguration of the 46th President of the United States.
Gorman explores history, language, identity, and erasure through an imaginative and intimate collage. Harnessing the collective grief of a global pandemic, her poems shine a light on a moment of reckoning and reveal that Gorman has become...
12) The hidden life of trees: what they feel, how they communicate : discoveries from a secret world
Author
Series
Mysteries of nature trilogy volume 1
Pub. Date
2016
Language
English
Description
A NEW YORK TIMES, WASHINGTON POST, AND WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER • One of the most beloved books of our time: an illuminating account of the forest, and the science that shows us how trees communicate, feel, and live in social networks. After reading this book, a walk in the woods will never be the same again.
"Breaks entirely new ground ... [Peter Wohlleben] has listened to trees and decoded their language.
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Baseball, first dubbed the "national pastime" in print in 1856, is the country's most tradition-bound sport. Despite remaining popular and profitable into the twenty-first century, the game is losing young fans, among African Americans and women as well as white men. Furthermore, baseball's greatest charm--a clockless suspension of time--is also its greatest liability in a culture of digital distraction. These paradoxes are explored by the historian...
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Decades before the American Revolution, Benjamin Franklin lamented that English settlers were constantly fleeing over to the Indians -- but Indians almost never did the same. Tribal society has been exerting an almost gravitational pull on Westerners for hundreds of years, and the reason lies deep in our evolutionary past as a communal species. The most recent example of that attraction is combat veterans who come home to find themselves missing the...
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"Do all questions have answers? How much can we know about the world? Is there such a thing as an ultimate truth? To be human is to want to know, to understand our origins and the meaning of our lives. In The Island of Knowledge, physicist Marcelo Gleiser traces our search for answers to the most fundamental questions of existence, the origin of the universe, the nature of reality, and the limits of knowledge. In so doing, he reaches a provocative...
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Pub. Date
2023
Language
English
Description
"The untold story of climate migration-the personal stories of those experiencing displacement, the portraits of communities being torn apart by disaster, and the implications for all of us as we confront a changing future"--
We think about the dangers of climate change in the future tense: that as global warming gets worse over the coming decades, millions of people will scatter around the world fleeing famine and rising seas. What we often don’t...
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"Why don't flight attendants get tipped? If you were a terrorist, how would you attack? And why does KFC always run out of fried chicken? Over the past decade, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner have published more than 8,000 blog posts. Many of them, they freely admit, were rubbish. But now they've gone through and picked the best of the best. You'll discover what people lie about, and why; the best way to cut gun deaths; why it might be time...
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English
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"This accessible and introductory guide to critical thinking will help you think like a scientist, learn to question everything, and understand how your own brain can trip you up. This fresh and exciting approach to science, skepticism, and critical thinking will enlighten and inspire readers of all ages. With a mix of wit and wisdom, it challenges everyone to think like a scientist, embrace the skeptical life, and improve their critical thinking...
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Description
"A People's History of the Civil War is "bottom up" history, illustrated with little-known anecdotes and first-person testimony. David Williams brings to life the brutal, mundane experiences of the war - such as the mutilated bodies which, in the words of one soldier, lay "thick as autumn leaves" over the fields after every major battle - and the harsh realities of battlefield medicine and wartime rations. At the same time, he gives us a moving and...
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