Stewart explores the dizzying array of herbs, flowers, trees, fruits, and fungi that humans have, through ingenuity, inspiration, and sheer desperation, contrived to transform into alcohol over the centuries.
From roulette tables to racetracks, provides a look at how scientists and mathematicians throughout the years have tried to figure out how to beat the house while gambling.
What is math? And how exactly does it work? In How to Bake Pi, math professor Eugenia Cheng provides and accessible introduction to the logic of mathematics-sprinkled throughout with recipes for everything from crispy duck to cornbread-that illustrates to the general reader the beauty of math. Rather than dwell on the math of our high school classes, with formulas to memorize an confusing symbols to decipher, Cheng takes us into a world of abstract mathematics, showing us how math can be so much more than we ever thought possible.
The story of enigmantic scientist-turned-priest, Nicholas Steno, who first proposed that the shell-shaped rocks commonly found on Italian mountaintops actually were fossils--a notion completely antithetical to the 17th century theological and scientific world view, which maintained that the earth was only 6000 years old.
A developmental psychologist evaluates the ways in which reading and writing have transformed the human brain, in an anecdotal study that reveals the significant changes in evolutionary brain physiology throughout history.
Astrophysicist and bestselling author Neil deGrasse Tyson addresses questions regarding the cosmos, such as: What is the nature of space and time? How do we fit within the universe? How does the universe fit within us?
What separates a human mind from an animal's? Is it the design of tools, sense of self, or grasp of past and future? These claims have been disproved outright by the study of animal cognition. Here de Waal explores the scope and depth of animal intelligence, which we have greatly underestimated.
Birds are among the most successful vertebrates on Earth. An important part of our natural environment and deeply embedded in our culture, birds are studied by more professional ornithologists and enjoyed by more amateur enthusiasts than ever before. However, both amateurs and professionals typically focus on birds' behaviour and appearance and only superficially understand the characteristics that make birds so unique. The Inner Bird introduces readers to the avian skeleton, then moves beyond anatomy to discuss the relationships between birds and dinosaurs and other early ancestors.
Since the 1990s, there has been an upsurge in renewable electricity co-operatives across Canada as hundreds of community organizations have turned to the sun, wind, and rivers as sources of local power generation. Empowering Electricity offers an illuminating analysis of these co-operatives within the context of larger debates over climate change, renewable electricity policy, sustainable community development, and provincial power-sector ownership.
