PDF-(READ)-A Short History of Nearly Everything

One of the worlds most beloved writers and New York Times bestselling author of A Walk in the Woods and The Body takes his ultimate journeyinto the most intriguing and intractable questions that science seeks to answerIn A Walk in the Woods Bill Bryson trekked the Appalachian Trailwell most of it In A Sunburned Country he confronted some of the most lethal wildlife Australia has to offer Now in his biggest book he confronts his greatest challenge to understandand if possible answerthe oldest biggest questions we have posed about the universe and ourselves Taking as territory everything from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization Bryson seeks to understand how we got from there being nothing at all to there being us To that end he has attached himself to a host of the worlds most advanced and often obsessed archaeologists anthropologists and mathematicians travelling to their offices laboratories and field camps He has read or tried to read their books pestered them with questions apprenticed himself to their powerful minds A Short History of Nearly Everything is the record of this quest and it is a sometimes profound sometimes funny and always supremely clear and entertaining adventure in the realms of human knowledge as only Bill Bryson can render it Science has never been more involving or entertaining. subtitled A Short History of Modern Delusions only to find that the item had been retitled over here to the indigestible formation above By now coldspurcomIdiotProofhtm Thorne Smith Books New Rare Used Books Alibris Marketplace Idiot Proof A Shor By Emma Grace Mason. “The terms "bench" and "form" can be used interchangeably to refer to backless and elongated wooden seating. Originally a bench may have been freestanding and movable, whereas a form referred to a bench fixed to the wall. Furthermore, the term “bench” has acquired the additional meaning of a work surface, such as a cabinetmaker’s workbench.”. Robert PringleINDONESIA144S HINDU REALMHALFTITLE PAGESBali 26/9/03 239 PM Page 2Ni Wayan Zoe and Ni Made PenelopeShort History of Bali 8/6/04 505 PM Page vAcknowledgments and a word on names spe Teeth are amazing -- the product of half a billion years of evolution. They provide fuel for the body by breaking apart other living things and they must do it again and again over a lifetime without breaking in the process. This means that plants and animals have developed tough or hardtissues for protection, and teeth have evolved ways to sharpen or strengthen themselves to overcome those defenses. And just as different jobs require different tools, animals with different diets have different shaped teeth to deal with the variety of foods that they eat.In this Very Short Introduction, Peter S. Ungar, an award-winning author and leading scientist, presents the story of teeth. Ungar outlines the key concepts, including insight into the origin of teeth and their evolution. Considering why teeth are important, he describes how they are made, and howthey work, including their fundamental importance in the fossil record. Ungar finishes with a review of mammal teeth, looking at how they evolved and how recent changes to our diet are now affecting dental health.About the Series: Oxford\'s Very Short Introductions series offers concise and original introductions to a wide range of subjects--from Islam to Sociology, Politics to Classics, Literary Theory to History, and Archaeology to the Bible. Not simply a textbook of definitions, each volume in this series provides trenchantand provocative--yet always balanced and complete--discussions of the central issues in a given discipline or field. Every Very Short Introduction gives a readable evolution of the subject in question, demonstrating how the subject has developed and how it has influenced society. Eventually, theseries will encompass every major academic discipline, offering all students an accessible and abundant reference library. Whatever the area of study that one deems important or appealing, whatever the topic that fascinates the general reader, the Very Short Introductions series has a handy andaffordable guide that will likely prove indispensable. This is the story of life in Ireland – a story half a billion years in the making.With its castles, crannogs and passage tombs, Ireland is a land where history looms large, but the saga of life on this island dates back millions of years before the first people set foot here.In Life in Ireland, Conor O’Brien guides the reader on a journey around the island to explore the history of natural life here, from the Jurassic Coast of Antrim to the great Ice Age bone-beds of Cork. Along the way, we’ll meet some of the astonishing creatures to have called Ireland home through the ages: shelled monsters huge marine lizards armoured dinosaurs giant deer mighty mammoths. Vital strands in the story of life on Earth have left their mark here, including some of the first creatures to crawl onto land or take to the wing.This epic journey will take us from the first fossils to the present day, to see how our wildlife has adapted to the human age and explore what the future might hold for life in Ireland. A radical retelling of humanity\'s restless, genetically mingled history based on the revolutionary science of archaeogenetics.In this eye-opening book, Johannes Krause, director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, and journalist Thomas Trappe offer a new way of understanding our past, present, and future. Krause is a pioneer in the revolutionary new science of archaeogenetics, archaeology augmented by revolutionary DNA sequencing technology, which has allowed scientists to uncover a new version of human history reaching back more than 100,000 years. Using this technology to re-examine human bones from the distant past, Krause has been able to map not only the genetic profiles of the dead, but also their ancient journeys.In this concise narrative he tells us their long-forgotten stories of migration and intersection. It\'s well known that many human populations carry genetic material from Neanderthals but, as Krause and his colleagues discovered, we also share DNA with a newly uncovered human form, the Denisovans. We know now that a wave of farmers from Anatolia migrated into Europe 8,000 years ago, essentially displacing the dark-skinned, blue-eyed hunter-gatherers who preceded them. The farmer DNA is one of the core genetic components of contemporary Europeans and European Americans. Though the first people to cross into North and South America have long been assumed to be primarily of East Asian descent, we now know that they also share DNA with contemporary Europeans and European Americans. Genetics has an unfortunate history of smuggling in racist ideologies, but our most cutting-edge science tells us that genetic categories in no way reflect national borders.Krause vividly introduces us to prehistoric cultures such as the Aurignacians, innovative artisans who carved animals, people, and even flutes from bird bones more than 40,000 years ago the Varna, who buried their loved ones with gold long before the Pharaohs of Egypt and the Gravettians, big-game hunters who were Europe\'s most successful early settlers until they perished in the ice age. This informed retelling of the human epic confirms that immigration and genetic mingling have always defined our species and that who we are is a question of culture not genetics. “Houses aren’t refuges from history. They are where history ends up.”Bill Bryson and his family live in a Victorian parsonage in a part of England where nothing of any great significance has happened since the Romans decamped. Yet one day, he began to consider how very little he knew about the ordinary things of life as he found it in that comfortable home. To remedy this, he formed the idea of journeying about his house from room to room to “write a history of the world without leaving home.” The bathroom provides the occasion for a history of hygiene the bedroom, sex, death, and sleep the kitchen, nutrition and the spice trade and so on, as Bryson shows how each has figured in the evolution of private life. Whatever happens in the world, he demonstrates, ends up in our house, in the paint and the pipes and the pillows and every item of furniture. Are antisemitism and white supremacy manifestations of a general phenomenon? Why didn\'t racism appear in Europe before the fourteenth century, and why did it flourish as never before in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries? Why did the twentieth century see institutionalized racism in its most extreme forms? Why are egalitarian societies particularly susceptible to virulent racism? What do apartheid South Africa, Nazi Germany, and the American South under Jim Crow have in common? How did the Holocaust advance civil rights in the United States?With a rare blend of learning, economy, and cutting insight, George Fredrickson surveys the history of Western racism from its emergence in the late Middle Ages to the present. Beginning with the medieval antisemitism that put Jews beyond the pale of humanity, he traces the spread of racist thinking in the wake of European expansionism and the beginnings of the African slave trade. And he examines how the Enlightenment and nineteenth-century romantic nationalism created a new intellectual context for debates over slavery and Jewish emancipation.Fredrickson then makes the first sustained comparison between the color-coded racism of nineteenth-century America and the antisemitic racism that appeared in Germany around the same time. He finds similarity enough to justify the common label but also major differences in the nature and functions of the stereotypes invoked. The book concludes with a provocative account of the rise and decline of the twentieth century\'s overtly racist regimes--the Jim Crow South, Nazi Germany, and apartheid South Africa--in the context of world historical developments.This illuminating work is the first to treat racism across such a sweep of history and geography. It is distinguished not only by its original comparison of modern racism\'s two most significant varieties--white supremacy and antisemitism--but also by its eminent readability. From the big bang to black holes, this fast-paced illustrated tour of time and space for the astro-curious unlocks the science of the stars to reveal fascinating theories, surprising discoveries, and ongoing mysteries in modern astronomy and astrophysics.Before the big bang, time, space, and matter didn’t exist. In the 14 billion years since, scientists have pointed their telescopes upward, peering outward in space and backward in time, developing and refining theories to explain the weird and wonderful phenomena they observed. Through these observations, we now understand concepts like the size of the universe (still expanding), the distance to the next-nearest star from earth (Alpha Centauri, 26 trillion miles) and what drives the formation of elements (nuclear fusion), planets and galaxies (gravity), and black holes (gravitational collapse). But are these cosmological questions definitively answered or is there more to discover?Oxford University astrophysicist and popular YouTube personality Dr. Becky Smethurst presents everything you need to know about the universe in ten accessible and engagingly illustrated lessons. In Space at the Speed of Light: The History of 14 Billion Years for People Short on Time, she guides you through fundamental questions, both answered and unanswered, posed by space scientists. Why does gravity matter? How do we know the big bang happened? What is dark matter? Do aliens exist? Why is the sky dark at night? If you have ever looked up at night and wondered how it all works, you will find answers–and many more questions–in this pocket-sized tour of the universe! \"Perfect for ages 8 to 80!Adapted from A Short History of Nearly Everything, this stunningly illustrated book from Bill Bryson takes us from the Big Bang to the dawn of science, and everything in between! Ever wondered how we got from nothing to something?Or thought about how we can weigh the earth?Or wanted to reach the edge of the universe?Uncover the mysteries of time, space and life on earth in this extraordinary book - a journey from the centre of the planet, to the dawn of the dinosaurs, and everything in between. And discover our own incredible journey, from single cell to civilisation, including the brilliant (and sometimes very bizarre) scientists who helped us find out the how and why.The ideal book for curious young readers everywhere. ************************************************************************Reviews for
A Short History of Nearly Everything:
\'It\'s the sort of book I would have devoured as a teenager. It might well turn unsuspecting young readers into scientists.\' Evening Standard\'I doubt that a better book for the layman about the findings of modern science has been written\' Sunday Telegraph \'A thoroughly enjoyable, as well as educational, experience. Nobody who reads it will ever look at the world around them in the same way again\' Daily Express \'The very book I have been looking for most of my life\' Daily Mail\" It is by no means absurd to say that Engels invented Marxism. His work did more than Marx\'s to attract and make converts to the most influential political movement of modern times. He was not only the father of dialectical and historical materialism--the official philosophies of history and science in many communist countries--but was also the first Marxist historian, anthropologist, philosopher, and commentator on early Marx.In his later years Engels developed his materialist interpretation of history, his chief intellectual legacy, which has had revolutionary effects on the arts and social sciences. Terrell Carver traces its source and its effect on the development of Marxist theory and practice, assesses its utility, and discusses the difficulties which Marxists have encountered in defending it.About the Series: Combining authority with wit, accessibility, and style, Very Short Introductions offer an introduction to some of life\'s most interesting topics. Written by experts for the newcomer, they demonstrate the finest contemporary thinking about the central problems and issues in hundreds of key topics, from philosophy to Freud, quantum theory to Islam. Until the publication of this book, historians had largely neglected the effects of technology on the course of human history. Political, economic, and social factors had long been taken into account, but technological advances were not studied in the context of the history of the ages in which they occurred. It remained for the authors of this readable, profusely illustrated survey to relate technological developments to the history of each epoch. Chronologically, the text is divided into two parts, the first telling the story up to ca. A.D. 1750 — the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in Britain — and the second continuing it up to 1900. The book begins with a general historical survey of ancient civilizations, then goes on to consider such topics as food production, metalworking, building construction, early sources of power, and the beginning of the chemical industry. The second and lengthier portion of the text focuses on the development of the steam engine, machine tools, modern transport, mining coal and metals, the rise of the modern chemical industry, textiles, the internal combustion engine, electricity, and more. To help relate the technology to the age, each section is preceded by a historical introduction and the book concludes with a series of tables designed to show the interrelation of events names in the text. Profusely illustrated and brimming with factual data, A Short History of Technology will appeal equally to students, scholars, historians of technology, and general readers. The Benefits of Reading Books Asim .Q. Makhdom. . Def: . Height less than 3 rd percentile for age and sex. Percentile SDS. 3rd 1.9. 2,5. th. 2.