Mars

Mars PDF Author: Viorel Badescu
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3642036295
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 716

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Book Description
th th Mars, the Red Planet, fourth planet from the Sun, forever linked with 19 and 20 Century fantasy of a bellicose, intelligent Martian civilization. The romance and excitement of that fiction remains today, even as technologically sophisticated - botic orbiters, landers, and rovers seek to unveil Mars’ secrets; but so far, they have yet to find evidence of life. The aura of excitement, though, is justified for another reason: Mars is a very special place. It is the only planetary surface in the Solar System where humans, once free from the bounds of Earth, might hope to establish habitable, self-sufficient colonies. Endowed with an insatiable drive, focused motivation, and a keen sense of - ploration and adventure, humans will undergo the extremes of physical hardship and danger to push the envelope, to do what has not yet been done. Because of their very nature, there is little doubt that humans will in fact conquer Mars. But even earth-bound extremes, such those experienced by the early polar explorers, may seem like a walk in the park compared to future experiences on Mars.

Mars

Mars PDF Author: Viorel Badescu
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3642036295
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 716

Get Book Here

Book Description
th th Mars, the Red Planet, fourth planet from the Sun, forever linked with 19 and 20 Century fantasy of a bellicose, intelligent Martian civilization. The romance and excitement of that fiction remains today, even as technologically sophisticated - botic orbiters, landers, and rovers seek to unveil Mars’ secrets; but so far, they have yet to find evidence of life. The aura of excitement, though, is justified for another reason: Mars is a very special place. It is the only planetary surface in the Solar System where humans, once free from the bounds of Earth, might hope to establish habitable, self-sufficient colonies. Endowed with an insatiable drive, focused motivation, and a keen sense of - ploration and adventure, humans will undergo the extremes of physical hardship and danger to push the envelope, to do what has not yet been done. Because of their very nature, there is little doubt that humans will in fact conquer Mars. But even earth-bound extremes, such those experienced by the early polar explorers, may seem like a walk in the park compared to future experiences on Mars.

Origin and Evolution of the Universe

Origin and Evolution of the Universe PDF Author: Royal Society of Canada
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 9780773506183
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
Does the universe have the character it has because of design? In this collection of essays first presented at a symposium sponsored by the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research and the Royal Society of Canada, seventeen scientists and philosophers re-examine the "Argument by Design" in light of current scientific theories. Scientists in such diverse fields as cosmology, physics, geology, biology, and psychology provide syntheses of the state of their respective disciplines with regard to questions such as the origin or evolution of the universe and of life, the interaction of life and terrestrial environment, and verbal communication in prehumans. Contributions by philosophers cover such areas as arguments for a designer and the question of whether nature's laws and initial conditions could be viewed as "fine tuned" for the production of life. Many of the chapters demonstrate the awe-inspiring success of modern science in explaining the universe in terms of fairly straightforward natural laws, countering those versions of the design argument which try to find evidence of God's activities in the supposed failures of scientific laws to cover various phenomena.

Humans and Their Environment, Beyond the Nature/Culture Opposition

Humans and Their Environment, Beyond the Nature/Culture Opposition PDF Author: Claude Calame
Publisher: Transnational Press London
ISBN: 1801351856
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 101

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Book Description
The modern concept of “nature” appeared during the 17th Century: nature as a mechanical object to be submitted to reason man. A long tradition refers to the concept of nature in the Greek phusis. It is referring to a dynamic process that engages in criticizing the modern paradigm of nature as opposed to culture. As it is, the principle of the domination and exploitation by humans of what we consider as nature is at the heart of the ideological, economic and financial models imposed by neoliberal capitalism. Based on the objective of growth, this model shapes and destroys human communities as well as the environment on which they rely and sustain. The climatic urgency as well as the limited capacity of the resources of the earth, require a transition towards an ecosocialism for another world. The anthropological confrontation with the Greek phusis invites to a break with capitalism based on a large scale and speedy use of technologies and with the only objective of financial gain. The result has been destructive productivism. Instead, we have to take into account the complexity of and interactions between human societies and their technical practices in their environment. The survival of one or the other is at stake. In sum, nature is culture. Contents ​​​​​​​Preface to the English Edition. 3 Introduction. 9 Between Nature and Culture. 15 I. Humans and Their Milieu in Ancient Greece. 19 II. From the Enlightenment Philosophers to Modern Anthropologists 37 III. Beyond Anthropological Determinisms: Permeabilities 47 IV. The Human Being and its Environment: Interactive Relationships 57 V. For an Ecosocialist Understanding of Humans and their Milieu. 65

Re-Imagining Nature

Re-Imagining Nature PDF Author: Alfred Kentigern Siewers
Publisher: Bucknell University Press
ISBN: 1611485258
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 293

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Book Description
Re-Imagining Nature: Environmental Humanities and Ecosemiotics explores new horizons in environmental studies, which consider communication and meaning as core definitions of ecological life, essential to deep sustainability. It considers landscape as narrative, and applies theoretical frameworks in eco-phenomenology and ecosemiotics to literary, historical, and philosophical study of the relationship between text and landscape. It considers in particular examples and lessons to be drawn from case studies of medieval and Native American cultures, to illustrate in an applied way the promise of environmental humanities today. In doing so, it highlights an environmental future for the humanities, on the cutting edge of cultural endeavor today.

Spin

Spin PDF Author: Robert Charles Wilson
Publisher: Tor Books
ISBN: 1429915439
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 468

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Book Description
From the author of Axis and Vortex, the first Hugo Award-winning novel in the environmental apocalyptic Spin Trilogy... One night in October when he was ten years old, Tyler Dupree stood in his back yard and watched the stars go out. They all flared into brilliance at once, then disappeared, replaced by a flat, empty black barrier. He and his best friends, Jason and Diane Lawton, had seen what became known as the Big Blackout. It would shape their lives. The effect is worldwide. The sun is now a featureless disk--a heat source, rather than an astronomical object. The moon is gone, but tides remain. Not only have the world's artificial satellites fallen out of orbit, their recovered remains are pitted and aged, as though they'd been in space far longer than their known lifespans. As Tyler, Jason, and Diane grow up, space probe reveals a bizarre truth: The barrier is artificial, generated by huge alien artifacts. Time is passing faster outside the barrier than inside--more than a hundred million years per day on Earth. At this rate, the death throes of the sun are only about forty years in our future. Jason, now a promising young scientist, devotes his life to working against this slow-moving apocalypse. Diane throws herself into hedonism, marrying a sinister cult leader who's forged a new religion out of the fears of the masses. Earth sends terraforming machines to Mars to let the onrush of time do its work, turning the planet green. Next they send humans...and immediately get back an emissary with thousands of years of stories to tell about the settling of Mars. Then Earth's probes reveal that an identical barrier has appeared around Mars. Jason, desperate, seeds near space with self-replicating machines that will scatter copies of themselves outward from the sun--and report back on what they find. Life on Earth is about to get much, much stranger. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Reimagining Livelihoods

Reimagining Livelihoods PDF Author: Ethan Miller
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 1452960445
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 401

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Book Description
A provocative reassessment of the concepts underlying the struggle for sustainable development Much of the debate over sustainable development revolves around how to balance the competing demands of economic development, social well-being, and environmental protection. “Jobs vs. environment” is only one of the many forms that such struggles take. But what if the very terms of this debate are part of the problem? Reimagining Livelihoods argues that the “hegemonic trio” of economy, society, and environment not only fails to describe the actual world around us but poses a tremendous obstacle to enacting a truly sustainable future. In a rich blend of ethnography and theory, Reimagining Livelihoods engages with questions of development in the state of Maine to trace the dangerous effects of contemporary stories that simplify and domesticate conflict. As in so many other places around the world, the trio of economy, society, and environment in Maine produces a particular space of “common sense” within which struggles over life and livelihood unfold. Yet the terms of engagement embodied by this trio are neither innocent nor inevitable. It is a contingent, historically produced configuration, born from the throes of capitalist industrialism and colonialism. Drawing in part on his own participation in the struggle over the Plum Creek Corporation’s “concept plan” for a major resort development on the shores of Moosehead Lake in northern Maine, Ethan Miller articulates a rich framework for engaging with the ethical and political challenges of building ecological livelihoods among diverse human and nonhuman communities. In seeking a pathway for transformative thought that is both critical and affirmative, Reimagining Livelihoods provides new frames of reference for living together on an increasingly volatile Earth.

The Routledge Handbook of Urban Ecology

The Routledge Handbook of Urban Ecology PDF Author: Ian Douglas
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429015267
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 1411

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Book Description
This second edition covers recent developments around the world with contributors from 33 different countries. It widens the handbook’s scope by including ecological design; consideration of cultural dimensions of the use and conservation of urban nature; the roles of government and civil society; and the continuing issues of equity and fairness in access to urban greenspaces. New features include an emphasis on the biophilic design of homes and workplaces, demonstrating the value of nature, in order to counter the still prevalent attitude among many developers that nature is a constraint rather than a value. The volume explores great practical achievements that have occurred since the first edition, with many governments increasingly recognizing and legislating on urban nature and green infrastructure matters, since cities play a major role in adapting to change, particularly to climate crisis. New topics such as the ecological role of light at night and human microbiota in the urban ecosystem are introduced. Additional attention is given to food production in cities, particularly the multiple roles of urban agriculture and household gardens in different contexts from wealthy communities to the poorest informal settlements in deprived communities. The emphasis is on demonstrating what can be achieved, and what is already being done. The book aims to help scholars and graduate students by providing an invaluable and up-to-date guide to current urban ecological thinking across the range of disciplines, such as geography, ecology, environmental science/studies, planning, and urban studies, that converge in the study of towns and cities and urban design and living. It will also assist practitioners and civil society members in discovering the ways diff erent specialists and thinkers approach urban nature.

The Spin Saga Trilogy

The Spin Saga Trilogy PDF Author: Robert Charles Wilson
Publisher: Tor Books
ISBN: 1250305551
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 1061

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Book Description
A discounted ebundle of author Robert Charles Wilson's Hugo Award-winning and critically-acclaimed Spin Saga Trilogy, which includes: Spin, Axis, and Vortex “Robert Charles Wilson is a hell of a storyteller.” —Stephen King on Spin “Wilson does so many fine things, it’s hard to know where to begin to praise him.” —The Washington Post on Spin Spin One night in October when he was ten years old, Tyler Dupree stood in his back yard and watched the stars go out. They all flared into brilliance at once, then disappeared, replaced by a flat, empty black barrier. He and his best friends, Jason and Diane Lawton, had seen what became known as the Big Blackout. It would shape their lives... Life on Earth is about to get much, much stranger. Axis Visit the "world next door"—the planet engineered by the mysterious Hypotheticals to support human life, and connected to Earth by way of the Arch that towers hundreds of miles over the Indian Ocean. Humans are colonizing this new world—and, predictably, fiercely exploiting its resources, chiefly large deposits of oil in the western deserts of the continent of Equatoria. Vortex Turk and his young friend Isaac Dvali are taken up by a community of fanatics who use them to enable a passage to the dying Earth, where they believe a prophecy of human/Hypothetical contact will be fulfilled. The prophecy is only partly true, however, and Turk must unravel the truth about the nature and purpose of the Hypotheticals before they carry him on a journey through warped time to the end of the universe itself. Tor books by Robert Charles Wilson Last Year The Affinities Burning Paradise Julian Comstock Blind Lake The Chronoliths The Perseids and Other Stories Bios Darwinia Mysterium A Bridge of Years A Hidden Place At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Oceanic

Oceanic PDF Author: Greg Egan
Publisher: Gollancz
ISBN: 0575086556
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 476

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Book Description
Collected together here for the first time are twelve stories by the incomparable Greg Egan, one of the most exciting writers of science fiction working today. In these dozen glimpses into the future Egan continues to explore the essence of what it is to be human, and the nature of what - and who - we are, in stories that range from parables of contemporary human conflict and ambition to far-future tales of our immortal descendants. Return to the universe of the meta-civilisation known as the Amalgam, which Egan explored in his critically acclaimed novel Incandescence: 'Riding the Crocodile', which recounts an epic endeavour a million years from now to bridge the divide between the Amalgam and the reclusive Aloof; 'Glory', set in the same future, in which two archaeologists strive to decipher the artefacts of an ancient civilisation, and 'Hot Rock', where an obscure, sunless world conceals mind-spinning technological marvels, bitter factional struggles, and a many-layered secret history. This superb collection also includes the title story, the Hugo Award-winning 'Oceanic': a boy is inducted into a religion that becomes the centre of his life, but as an adult he must face evidence that casts a new light on his faith.

Mapping Mars

Mapping Mars PDF Author: Oliver Morton
Publisher: Picador
ISBN: 0312707932
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 388

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Book Description
Who are the extraordinary individuals that will take us on the next great space race, the next great human endeavor, our exploration and colonization of the planet Mars? And more importantly, how are they doing it? Acclaimed science writer Oliver Morton explores the peculiar and fascinating world of the new generation of explorers: geologists, scientists, astrophysicists and dreamers. Morton shows us the complex and beguiling role that mapping will play in our understanding of the red planet, and more deeply, what it means for humans to envision such heroic landscapes. Charting a path from the 19th century visionaries to the spy-satellite pioneers to the science fiction writers and the arctic explorers -- till now, to the people are taking us there -- Morton unveils the central place that Mars has occupied in the human imagination, and what it will mean to realize these dreams. A pioneering work of journalism and drama, Mapping Mars gives us our first exciting glimpses of the world to come and the curious, bizarre, and amazing people who will take us there.