National Network for Equitable Library Service

By building his own microscope, Antony van Leeuwenhoek advanced humanity's understanding of the oft-invisible world around us. Microbes are everywhere: in the soil and oceans, in snow, and inside our bodies. But in Antony van Leeuwenhoek's time, people believed that what they saw with their own eyes was all that existed in the world. How did a simple tradesman - who didn't go to college or speak English or Latin like all the other scientists - change everyone's minds?

Before John Glenn orbited the Earth or astronauts walked on the moon, a group of dedicated female mathematicians known as "human computers" used their knowledge, pencils, adding machines, and writing paper to calculate the orbital mechanics needed to launch spacecraft. Katherine Johnson was one of these mathematicians who used trajectories and complex equations to chart the space program. Even as Virginia's Jim Crow laws were in place in the early 1950s, Katherine worked analyzing data at the NACA (later NASA) Langley laboratory.

Real dinosaurs! Read about Triceratops' horns and their purpose. Did you know that there are animals alive today that move similarly to dinosaurs? Sometimes museums display copies of dinosaur fossils instead of the real thing. Learn how the Smithsonian made an exact copy of a dinosaur skeleton. A dinosaur fan's dreams came true as he watched a dinosaur skeleton being rebuilt. Stories by Sharon Pochron, Cheryl M. Reifsnyder, Ph.D., Suzanne McIntire, and Don Lessem, Dinosaur Editor.

Experience earth from the big bang to the dinosaurs and beyond in this beautifully written, vibrant overview of our home planet's journey from creation to our time today.

When you drop a box of unwanted items off at the local thrift store, where do they go? Probably across the country-or even halfway across the world-to people and places eager to reuse what you don't want. In Secondhand, Adam Minter delves into the vast, multibillion-dollar industry that resells used stuff around the world. He follows the trail of unwanted objects from the closets, garages, and storage units of Middle America to epic used-goods markets in Canada, Mexico, Japan, Ghana, India, Malaysia, and beyond.

Young Neil deGrasse Tyson was starstruck when he first visited the sky theater at the Hayden Planetarium in New York City. He couldn't believe the crowded, glittering night sky at the planetarium was real-until a visit to the country years later revealed the impossible. That discovery was like rocket fuel for Neil's passion about space.

A hard-hitting look at the battle now raging over the fate of the public lands in the American West-and a plea for the protection of these last wild places The public lands of the western United States comprise some 450 million acres of grassland, steppe land, canyons, forests, and mountains. It's an American commons, and it is under assault as never before. Journalist Christopher Ketcham has been documenting the confluence of commercial exploitation and governmental misconduct in this region for over a decade.

Although dinosaur fossils were first found in England, a series of dramatic discoveries during the late 1800s turned North America into a world center for vertebrate paleontology. At the same time, the United States emerged as the world's largest industrial economy, and creatures like tyrannosaurus, brontosaurus, and triceratops became emblems of American capitalism. Large, fierce, and spectacular, American dinosaurs dominated the popular imagination, making front-page headlines and appearing in feature films.

In this spirited and irreverent critique of Darwin's long hold over our imagination, a distinguished philosopher of science makes the case that, in culture as well as nature, not only the fittest survive: the world is full of the "good enough" that persist too. Why is the genome of a salamander forty times larger than that of a human? Why does the avocado tree produce a million flowers and only a hundred fruits? Why, in short, is there so much waste in nature?

From a Vice magazine columnist whose beat is "the future," here is entertaining speculation featuring both authoritative research and a bit of mischief: a look at how humanity is likely to weather such happenings as the day nuclear war occurs, the day the global internet goes down, the day we run out of effective antibiotics, and the day immortality is achieved. If you live on planet Earth you're probably scared of the future. How could you not be? Some of the world's most stable democracies are looking pretty shaky. Technology is invading personal relationships and taking over jobs.