What if the development of life, the birth of the earth, and the emergence of humanity were all part of an intricate cosmic design--timed with precision across billions of years? In The Rational Universe Evolving for Humans, the author explores the profound connections between the physical universe and the natural forces that shaped it. From the Big Bang to the emergence of modern civilization, this book uncovers the hidden patterns that have governed the cosmos from its earliest moments. ...

A comprehensive edited volume on important and up-to-date nanolithography techniques and applications. The book includes an introduction on the importance of nanolithography in today’s research and technology, providing examples of its applications.The remainder of the book is split into two sections. The first section contains the most important and established nanolithography techniques. As well as a detailed description of each technique, the reader can obtain useful information...

De-Whitening Intersectionality: Race, Intercultural Communication, and Politics re-evaluates how the logic of color-blindness as whiteness is at play in the current scope of intersectional research on race, intercultural communication, and politics. Calling for a re-centering of difference by exploring the emergence and inception of intersectionality concepts, the coeditors and contributors distinguish between the uses of intersectionality that seem inclusive versus those that actually ena...

Harvard’s acclaimed geologist “charts Earth’s history in accessible style” (AP)“A sublime chronicle of our planet." –Booklist, STARRED reviewHow well do you know the ground beneath your feet?Odds are, where you’re standing was once cooking under a roiling sea of lava, crushed by a towering sheet of ice, rocked by a nearby meteor strike, or perhaps choked by poison gases, drowned beneath ocean, perched atop a mountain range, or roame...

Hailed by The New York Times for writing “with wonderful clarity about science . . . that effortlessly teaches as it zips along,” nationally bestselling author Robert M. Hazen offers a radical new approach to Earth history in this intertwined tale of the planet’s living and nonliving spheres.With an astrobiologist’s imagination, a historian’s perspective, and a naturalist’s eye, Hazen calls upon twenty-first-century discoveries that have revolutionized geo...

In this classic work that continues to inspire its many readers, Jim Lovelock puts forward his idea that life on earth functions as a single organism. Written for non-scientists, Gaia is a journey through time and space in search of evidence with which to support a new and radically different model of our planet. In contrast to conventional belief that living matter is passive in the face of threats to its existence, the book explores the hypothesis that the earth's livingmatter air, ocean...

Covering 13.8 billion years in some 100 pages, a concise, wryly intelligent history of everything, from the Big Bang to the advent of human civilization.With wonder, wit, and flair—and in record time and space—geophysicist David Bercovici explains how everything came to be everywhere, from the creation of stars and galaxies to the formation of Earth's atmosphere and oceans, to the origin of life and human civilization. Bercovici marries humor and legitimate scienti...

"[A] passionate advocate of science education . . . hailed . . . as the next Carl Sagan. . . . features striking photography and graphics and accessible prose." —Boston GlobeIn Wonders of Life: Exploring the Most Extraordinary Force in the Universe, the definitive companion to the Discovery Science Channel series, Professor Brian Cox takes us on an incredible journey to discover the most complex, diverse, and unique force in the universe: life itself....

Why an awareness of Earth’s temporal rhythms is critical to our planetary survivalFew of us have any conception of the enormous timescales in our planet’s long history, and this narrow perspective underlies many of the environmental problems we are creating for ourselves. The passage of nine days, which is how long a drop of water typically stays in Earth’s atmosphere, is something we can easily grasp. But spans of hundreds of years—the time a molecule of carbon di...

The brilliantly told and gripping story of the most familiar - yet, amazingly, still poorly understood - substance in the universe: Water.The extent to which water remains a scientific mystery is extraordinary, despite its prevalence and central importance on Earth. Whether one considers its role in biology, its place in the physical world (where it refuses to obey the usual rules of liquids) or its deceptively simple structure, there is still no complete answer to...

A classic introduction to the story of Earth's origin and evolution—revised and expanded for the twenty-first centurySince its first publication more than twenty-five years ago, How to Build a Habitable Planet has established a legendary reputation as an accessible yet scientifically impeccable introduction to the origin and evolution of Earth, from the Big Bang through the rise of human civilization. This classic account of how our habitable planet was as...

**A Science News Favorite Book of 2019An earth scientist reveals the dynamic biography of the most resonant—and most necessary—chemical element on Earth.**Carbon. It’s in the fibers in your hair, the timbers in your walls, the food that you eat, and the air that you breathe. It’s worth billions of dollars as a luxury and half a trillion as a necessity, but there are still mysteries about the element that can be both diamond and coal. Where does it come from, what d...