Imagined Life

Imagined Life PDF Author: James Trefil
Publisher: Smithsonian Institution
ISBN: 1588346730
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
The captivating possibilities of extraterrestrial life on exoplanets, based on current scientific knowledge of existing worlds and forms of life 2023 Canopus Awards for Interstellar Writing Finalist It is now known that we live in a galaxy with more planets than stars. The Milky Way alone encompasses 30 trillion potential home planets. Scientists Trefil and Summers bring readers on a marvelous experimental voyage through the possibilities of life--unlike anything we have experienced so far--that could exist on planets outside our own solar system. Life could be out there in many forms: on frozen worlds, living in liquid oceans beneath ice and communicating (and even battling) with bubbles; on super-dense planets, where they would have evolved body types capable of dealing with extreme gravity; on tidally locked planets with one side turned eternally toward a star; and even on "rogue worlds," which have no star at all. Yet this is no fictional flight of fancy: the authors take what we know about exoplanets and life on our own world and use that data to hypothesize about how, where, and which sorts of life might develop. Imagined Life is a must-have for anyone wanting to learn how the realities of our universe may turn out to be far stranger than fiction.

Imagined Life

Imagined Life PDF Author: James Trefil
Publisher: Smithsonian Institution
ISBN: 1588346730
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 270

Get Book Here

Book Description
The captivating possibilities of extraterrestrial life on exoplanets, based on current scientific knowledge of existing worlds and forms of life 2023 Canopus Awards for Interstellar Writing Finalist It is now known that we live in a galaxy with more planets than stars. The Milky Way alone encompasses 30 trillion potential home planets. Scientists Trefil and Summers bring readers on a marvelous experimental voyage through the possibilities of life--unlike anything we have experienced so far--that could exist on planets outside our own solar system. Life could be out there in many forms: on frozen worlds, living in liquid oceans beneath ice and communicating (and even battling) with bubbles; on super-dense planets, where they would have evolved body types capable of dealing with extreme gravity; on tidally locked planets with one side turned eternally toward a star; and even on "rogue worlds," which have no star at all. Yet this is no fictional flight of fancy: the authors take what we know about exoplanets and life on our own world and use that data to hypothesize about how, where, and which sorts of life might develop. Imagined Life is a must-have for anyone wanting to learn how the realities of our universe may turn out to be far stranger than fiction.

The Ashgate Research Companion to Feminist Legal Theory

The Ashgate Research Companion to Feminist Legal Theory PDF Author: Vanessa E. Munro
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317043421
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 436

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Book Description
As a distinct scholarly contribution to law, feminist legal theory is now well over three decades old. Those three decades have seen consolidation and renewal of its central concerns as well as remarkable growth, dynamism and change. This Companion celebrates the strength of feminist legal thought, which is manifested in this dynamic combination of stability and change, as well as in the diversity of perspectives and methodologies, and the extensive range of subject-matters, which are now included within its ambit. Bringing together contributors from across a range of jurisdictions and legal traditions, the book provides a concise but critical review of existing theory in relation to the core issues or concepts that have animated, and continue to animate, feminism. It provides an authoritative and scholarly review of contemporary feminist legal thought, and seeks to contribute to the ongoing development of some of its new approaches, perspectives, and subject-matters. The Companion is divided into three parts, dealing with 'Theory', 'Concepts' and 'Issues'. The first part addresses theoretical questions which are of significance to law, but which also connect to feminist theory at the broadest and most interdisciplinary level. The second part also draws on general feminist theory, but with a more specific focus on debates about equality and difference, race, culture, religion, and sexuality. The 'Issues' section considers in detail more specific areas of substantive legal controversy.

The Ancestor

The Ancestor PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 346

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Book Description


The Knowledge Web

The Knowledge Web PDF Author: James Burke
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439128219
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 294

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Book Description
In The Knowledge Web, James Burke, the bestselling author and host of television's Connections series, takes us on a fascinating tour through the interlocking threads of knowledge running through Western history. Displaying mesmerizing flights of fancy, he shows how seemingly unrelated ideas and innovations bounce off one another, spinning a vast, interactive web on which everything is connected to everything else: Carmen leads to the theory of relativity, champagne bottling links to wallpaper design, Joan of Arc connects through vaudeville to Buffalo Bill. Illustrating his open, connective theme in the form of a journey across a web, Burke breaks down complex concepts, offering information in a manner accessible to anybody -- high school graduates and Ph.D. holders alike. The journey touches almost two hundred interlinked points in the history of knowledge, ultimately ending where it begins. At once amusing and instructing, The Knowledge Web heightens our awareness of our interdependence -- with one another and with the past. Only by understanding the interrelated nature of the modern world can we hope to identify complex patterns of change and direct the process of innovation to the common good.

Noni's Island

Noni's Island PDF Author: Rafe Bates
Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
ISBN: 1783061375
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
Rafe Bate’s latest novel is an enticing blend of romance, mystery and sailing, set in the Caribbean and loosely based on Rafe’s own adventures Set mostly against a background of three magnificent and innovative trading schooners, this interwoven tale of romance and adventure is concerned with an attempt to reform and implement justice. It brings together a cast of diverse characters who become united in this endeavour, creating a formidable team. Their efforts, aided by mysterious mental forces, ensure that with the re-appearance of The Settler, there is growing apprehension amongst those who evade or subvert justice. Within this exciting yarn, the book poses possibilities in regard to our origins. The authenticity of the storms and sailing adventures most certainly come from the direct experience of the author who built his own aluminium schooner and sailed widely. Author Rafe Bates has lived an extraordinary life during which he has gained wide personal experience in many spheres. His writing draws on these experiences and therefore carries a powerful authenticity which he recounts in an easy narrative style without mincing words or opinions. This new novel follows the hard-hitting The Settler and Lest I Forget his factual and outspoken controversial memoirs. He now lives in the Azores in mid-Atlantic Ocean.

Speculative Everything

Speculative Everything PDF Author: Anthony Dunne
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262019841
Category : Design
Languages : en
Pages : 235

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Book Description
How to use design as a tool to create not only things but ideas, to speculate about possible futures. Today designers often focus on making technology easy to use, sexy, and consumable. In Speculative Everything, Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby propose a kind of design that is used as a tool to create not only things but ideas. For them, design is a means of speculating about how things could be—to imagine possible futures. This is not the usual sort of predicting or forecasting, spotting trends and extrapolating; these kinds of predictions have been proven wrong, again and again. Instead, Dunne and Raby pose “what if” questions that are intended to open debate and discussion about the kind of future people want (and do not want). Speculative Everything offers a tour through an emerging cultural landscape of design ideas, ideals, and approaches. Dunne and Raby cite examples from their own design and teaching and from other projects from fine art, design, architecture, cinema, and photography. They also draw on futurology, political theory, the philosophy of technology, and literary fiction. They show us, for example, ideas for a solar kitchen restaurant; a flypaper robotic clock; a menstruation machine; a cloud-seeding truck; a phantom-limb sensation recorder; and devices for food foraging that use the tools of synthetic biology. Dunne and Raby contend that if we speculate more—about everything—reality will become more malleable. The ideas freed by speculative design increase the odds of achieving desirable futures.

The Contemporary Review

The Contemporary Review PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Great Britain
Languages : en
Pages : 840

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Book Description


8 Souls

8 Souls PDF Author: Rachel Rust
Publisher: Entangled: Teen
ISBN: 164063794X
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 222

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Book Description
Spending the summer across the street from the famous Axe Murder House in Villisca, Iowa isn't something Chessie Carpenter is looking forward to. But when she runs into David Higgins at his father's hardware store there's something about the cute boy that feels so familiar. If only she could pinpoint why. When the "ghost squad" she calls to help her deal with the spirits invading her room turns out to be David and his friend, Mateo, the three sort out the clues that would explain the century old murder mystery. But the closer Chessie gets to David, the more everything she learns points to him somehow being involved. As her time in Villisca runs out, Chessie must figure out the ties that connect her, David, and the spirits haunting the Axe Murder House before it's too late...for all of them.

Social Policy and Risk

Social Policy and Risk PDF Author: Ian Culpitt
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 1446265668
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 191

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Book Description
`As the study of social policy comes increasingly to address issues of theorising welfare in a period of fundamental social change, Culpitt′s book is especially welcome in helping to update the reader in many of the debates and explorations surrounding social change, in particular those instigated by Foucault some two decades ago - his work on "governmentality" is central to Culpitt′s book - and by Beck on risk more recently. The book also serves as a useful introduction to other key thinkers influencing social theory today whose work also addresses issues central to social policy, such as Giddens, Honneth and Turner′ - Martin Hewitt, University of Hertfordshire This book examines the notion of risk in relation to social policy. It takes ideas about risk (as expressed by sociologists such as Ulrich Beck in Risk Society), and applies them to recent changes in welfare. The author shows neo-liberals have used various aspects of risk to attack welfare dependency, and how various rhetoric′s of risk have been used to reshape contemporary politics. Social Policy and Risk makes a major contribution to our understanding of contemporary welfare politics.

No Fixed Address

No Fixed Address PDF Author: Robyn Davidson
Publisher: Black Inc.
ISBN: 1925203573
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 40

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Book Description
'In every religion I can think of, there exists some variation on the theme of abandoning the settled life and walking one's way to godliness. The Hindu Sadhu, leaving behind family and wealth to live as a beggar; the pilgrims of Compostela walking away their sins; the circumambulators of the Buddhist kora; the Hajj. By taking to the road we free ourselves of baggage, both physical and psychological. We walk back to our original condition, to our best selves.' Robyn Davidson has spent a good part of her life with nomads. In this fascinating and moving essay she evokes a vanishing way of life, and notes a paradox- that even as classical nomads are disappearing, hypermobility has become the hallmark of contemporary life. In a time of environmental peril, she argues, the nomadic way with nature still offers valuable lessons. No Fixed Address is part lament, part evocation and part exhilarating speculative journey.