Showing results by publisher "Dreamscape Media" in Science & Engineering

Each June, Tory Bilski meets up with fellow women travelers in Reykjavik where they head to northern Iceland, near the Greenland Sea. They escape their ordinary lives to live an extraordinary one at a horse farm perched at the edge of the world. If only for a short while.

On the evening of April 13, 1970, the three astronauts aboard Apollo 13 were just hours from the third lunar landing in history. But as they soared through space, 200,000 miles from Earth, an explosion badly damaged their spacecraft. Thirteen is the shocking and miraculous true story of how the astronauts and ground crew guided Apollo 13 back to Earth. Expanding on dispatches written for The New Yorker, Henry S. F. Cooper Jr. brings listeners unparalleled detail on the moment-by-moment developments of one of NASA’s most dramatic missions.

Some 73,000 years ago, the Mount Toba supervolcano in toda's Indonesia erupted, releasing the energy of a million tons of explosives. So much ash and debris was injected into the stratosphere that it partially blocked the sun's radiation and caused global temperatures to drop for a decade. In this book, Donald R. Prothero presents the controversial argument that the Toba catastrophe nearly wiped out the human race, leaving only about a thousand to ten thousand breeding pairs of humans worldwide.

We often don't realize how much control we have over our thoughts, feelings, and actions. On some days, the most minor irritation can upset us, but, on others, we are in our best form and can rise to challenges with grace. These fluctuations depend on the neural networks firing in our brains, but we have the power to consciously break hardwired thought patterns. Author Due Quach developed an intimate understanding of the brain during her personal journey of healing from PTSD.

Astronomers have recently discovered thousands of planets that orbit stars throughout the Milky Way. Much of what has captured the imagination of planetary scientists and the public is the unexpected strangeness of these distant worlds. The quest to find other worlds brims with possibility, and Donald Goldsmith presents the science of exoplanets and the search for extraterrestrial life in a way that even Earthlings with little to no background in astronomy or astrophysics can understand and enjoy.

Big History, the field that studies the entire known past of our universe to give context to human existence, has so far been the domain of historians. Geologist Walter Alvarez - best known for his Impact Theory explaining dinosaur extinction - makes a compelling case for a new, science-first approach to Big History.

Most gardeners realize that plants need to be fed but know little to nothing about the nature of the nutrients involved or how they get into plants. Teaming with Nutrients explains how nutrients move into plants and what both macro-nutrients and micro-nutrients do once inside. It shows organic gardeners how to provide these essentials.

The year is 2393, and the world is almost unrecognizable. Clear warnings of climate catastrophe went ignored for decades, leading to soaring temperatures, rising sea levels, widespread drought, and the disaster now known as the Great Collapse of 2093. Dramatizing science in ways traditional nonfiction cannot, The Collapse of Western Civilization reasserts the importance of scientists and the work they do, providing a welcome moment of clarity amid the cacophony of climate-change literature. 

Flying helicopters is more dangerous than flying fixed-wing aircraft - and helicopter rescue is one of the most dangerous occupations on earth. Now, Col. Fleming takes listeners along for a bracing ride as he recounts the most thrilling episodes of his long career. With all the nail-biting excitement of a thriller, Heart of the Storm brings to life dramatic jungle rescues in the Philippines, the longest helicopter rescue mission in history to save crew members of a Ukrainian freighter 840 miles off the coast of Nova Scotia, and many more.

In his international bestseller, Kohei Saito argues that while unfettered capitalism is often blamed for inequality and climate change, subsequent calls for “sustainable growth” and a “Green New Deal” are a dangerous compromise. Instead, Saito advocates for degrowth and deceleration, which he conceives as the slowing of economic activity through the democratic reform of labor and production. In practical terms, he argues for the following:

Why is the genome of a salamander 40 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? In this lively and wide-ranging meditation on the curious accidents and unexpected detours on the path of life, Daniel Milo argues that we ask these questions because we’ve embraced a faulty conception of how evolution - and human society - really works.

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. Secondhand takes us through the often painful and heartbreaking process of cleaning out a lifetime’s worth of possessions and shows that used stuff still has a place in a world that values the new and shiny.

From one of the finest scientists and writers of our time comes an engaging record of a life spent in close observation of the natural world, one that has yielded marvelous, mind-altering insight and discoveries. In essays that span several decades, Bernd Heinrich finds himself at his beloved camp in Maine, plays host to annoying visitors from Europe (the cluster fly) and more helpful guests from Asia (ladybugs), and unravels the far-reaching ecological consequences of elephants in Botswana bruising mopane trees.

How is it that we can walk unfamiliar streets while maintaining a sense of direction? How can we come up with shortcuts on the fly, in places we've never traveled? The answer is the complex mental map in our brains. This feature of our cognition is easily taken for granted, but it's also critical to our species' evolutionary success. In From Here to There, Michael Bond tells stories of the lost and found - Polynesian sailors, orienteering champions, early aviators - and surveys the science of human navigation.

One of the largest, fastest, and most beautiful ships in the world, the Andrea Doria was en route to New York from Italy. Departing from the United States was the much smaller Stockholm. On the foggy night of July 25, 1956, 53 miles southeast of Nantucket, the Stockholm sliced through the Doria's steel hull. Within minutes, the sea was pouring into the Italian liner. Eleven hours later, she capsized and sank into the ocean.

When the struggle to save oil-soaked birds and restore blackened beaches left him feeling frustrated and helpless, John Francis decided to take a more fundamental and personal stand: He stopped using all forms of motorized transportation. Soon after embarking on this quest that would span two decades and two continents, the young man took a vow of silence that endured for 17 years.

Equine behavior specialist Shelby Dennis challenges traditional horse training with a science–backed, force–free approach that builds trust and partnership between horse and rider, debunking myths and exploring the deeper behavior and communication of horses. Secrets of the Horse is a...

A tiny honeybee emerges through the wax cap of her cell. Driven to protect and take care of her hive, she cleans the nursery and feeds the larvae and the queen. But is she strong enough to fly? Not yet!  Apis builds wax comb to store honey and transfers pollen from other bees into the storage. She defends the hive from invaders. And finally, she begins her new life as an adventurer.  The confining walls of the hive fall away as Apis takes to the air, finally free, into a clear blue sky full of promise.

An Ojibwe elder once counseled Nerburn to "always teach by stories, because stories lodge deep in the heart.'' Using skills learned from Native storytellers as well as a deep reverence for the world's spiritual traditions, Nerburn takes us to an Ojibwe burial, down lonely winter roads, and into landscapes where trees have presence and the earth is made alive by the mystical power of water and light.

We know that plants are important. They maintain the atmosphere by absorbing carbon dioxide and producing oxygen. They nourish other living organisms and supply psychological benefits to humans as well, improving our moods and beautifying the landscape around us. But plants don’t just passively provide. They also take action. Beronda L. Montgomery explores the vigorous, creative lives of organisms often treated as static and predictable.