National Network for Equitable Library Service

Human curiosity has led us to explore our solar system, landing on the moon and sending spacecraft to study distant planetary objects. The next step in our great adventure is putting humans on Mars, but what will it really take to achieve this' In 2011, Mars One announced its intentions to establish a permanent human settlement on Mars beginning as early as 2024; in 2013 it launched its astronaut-selection program and received thousands of applications.

In Ray Kurzweil's New York Times bestseller The Singularity is Near, the futurist and entrepreneur describes the Singularity, a likely future utterly different than anything we can imagine. The Singularity is triggered by the tremendous growth of human and computing intelligence that is an almost inevitable outcome of Moore's Law. Since the book's publication, the coming of the Singularity is now eagerly anticipated by many of the leading thinkers in Silicon Valley, from PayPal mastermind Peter Thiel to Google co-founder Larry Page.

The scientific consensus is that our ability to understand human speech has evolved over hundreds of thousands of years. After all, there are whole portions of the brain devoted to human speech. We learn to understand speech too quickly and with almost no training and can seamlessly absorb enormous amounts of information simply by hearing it. Surely we evolved this capability over thousands of generations. Or did we' Portions of the human brain are also devoted to reading.

As news of war and terror dominates the headlines, scientist Malcolm Potts and veteran journalist Thomas Hayden take a step back to explain it all. In the spirit of Guns, Germs and Steel, Sex and War asks the basic questions: Why is war so fundamental to our species' And what can we do about it' Malcolm Potts explores these questions from the frontlines, as a witness to war-torn countries around the world.

In The Vision Revolution, Mark Changizi, prominent neuroscientist and vision expert, addresses four areas of human vision and provides explanations for why we have those particular abilities, complete with a number of full-color illustrations to demonstrate his conclusions and to engage the reader. Written for both the casual reader and the science buff hungry for new information, The Vision Revolution is a resource that dispels commonly believed perceptions about sight and offers answers drawn from the field's most recent research.

When Deni B'chard learned of the last living bonobos the matriarchal great apes who are, alongside chimpanzees, our closest relatives he began exploring ways to reverse their alarming decline. Upon arriving in war-ravaged Congo, B'chard connected with the Bonobo Conservation Institute (BCI), a small organization that has done more to save bonobos than any of its larger counterparts.

Erik Larson is a regular contributor to national magazines including Time, The Atlantic, and Harper's. Filled with images as powerful as the hurricane it describes, Isaac's Storm immediately swept onto best-seller lists across the country. In 1900, Isaac Monroe Cline was in charge of the Galveston station of the U.S. Weather Bureau. He was a knowledgeable, seasoned weatherman who considered himself a scientist. When he heard the deep thudding of waves on Galveston's beach in the early morning of September 8th, however, Cline refused to be alarmed.

Simon Head argues that these systems have come to trump human expertise, dictating the goals and strategies of a wide array of businesses, and de-skilling the jobs of middle class workers in the process.

One of our most brilliant social critics-- author of the bestselling The Middle Mind-- presents a scathing critique of the " delusions" of science alongside a rousing defense of the tradition of Romanticism and the " big" questions.

Have you ever wondered what makes popcorn pop' One second a kernel is sitting there, tiny and hard as a rock. Next thing you know, it bursts into a fluffy and delicious snack. If you're curious about this or any of the other mysteries surrounding us every day, then What Makes Popcorn Pop' is the book for you.