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  All the Living and the Dead -...

  Hayley Campbell

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  "Journalist Hayley Campbell explores the often hidden world of those who work closely with death, finding compassion in unexpected settings. Campbell’s British accent and matter-of-fact delivery take the listener on a tour of mortuaries, postmortem experimentation, death-mask artistry, crime-scene cleaning, and executions, among others. Her morbid fascination is evident in her tone as she sheds light on curiosities surrounding a subject that is foreign to many people. Ultimately, Campbell calls for a closer relationship to death, less mystery surrounding this universal passage, and a reduction of fear through greater understanding."- AudioFile on All the Living and the Dead"Campbell is a probing investigator whose tone is always even, quietly emphasizing that death is the most natural thing in the world."- BookpageThis audiobook is read by the author.A deeply compelling exploration of the death industry and the people—morticians, detectives, crime scene cleaners, embalmers, executioners—who work in it and what led them there.We are surrounded by death. It is in our news, our nursery rhymes, our true-crime podcasts. Yet from a young age, we are told that death is something to be feared. How are we supposed to know what we’re so afraid of, when we are never given the chance to look?Fueled by a childhood fascination with death, journalist Hayley Campbell searches for answers in the people who make a living by working with the dead. Along the way, she encounters mass fatality investigators, embalmers, and a former executioner who is responsible for ending sixty-two lives. She meets gravediggers who have already dug their own graves, visits a cryonics facility in Michigan, goes for late-night Chinese with a homicide detective, and questions a man whose job it is to make crime scenes disappear.Through Campbell’s incisive and candid interviews with these people who see death every day, she asks: Why would someone choose this kind of life? Does it change you as a person? And are we missing something vital by letting death remain hidden? A dazzling work of cultural criticism, All the Living and the Dead weaves together reportage with memoir, history, and philosophy, to offer listeners a fascinating look into the psychology of Western death.A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin's Press.

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  A Thirsty Land - The Fight for...

  Seamus McGraw

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  “An important story not just about [Texas’s] water history, but also about its social, economic, and political identity” (Western Historical Quarterly). 
   
  As a changing climate threatens the whole country with deeper droughts and more furious floods that put ever more people and property at risk, Texas has become a bellwether state for water debates. Will there be enough water for everyone? Is there the will to take the steps necessary to defend ourselves against the sea? Is it in the nature of Americans to adapt to nature in flux? 
   
  The most comprehensive—and comprehensible—book on contemporary water issues, A Thirsty Land delves deep into the challenges faced not just by Texas but also by the nation, as we struggle to find a way to balance the changing forces of nature with our own ever-expanding needs. Part history, part science, part adventure story, and part travelogue, this book puts a human face on the struggle to master that most precious and capricious of resources, water. Seamus McGraw goes to the taproots, talking to farmers, ranchers, businesspeople, and citizen activists, as well as to politicians and government employees. Their stories provide chilling evidence that Texas—and indeed the nation—is not ready for the next devastating drought, the next catastrophic flood. Ultimately, however, A Thirsty Land delivers hope. This deep dive into one of the most vexing challenges facing Texas and the nation offers glimpses of the way forward in the untapped opportunities that water also presents. 
   
  “A hard look at a hard problem: finding sufficient water to live in a place without much of it. . . . McGraw’s fine book serves as a useful guide. Observers of Western waterways will want to have this on their shelves alongside the likes of Marc Reisner and Charles Bowden.” —Kirkus Reviews 
   
  “In stark prose that often gleams like a bone pile bleached in the sun, McGraw travels back and forth across Texas to give a free-ranging but deadeye view of the crisis on the horizon.” —Texas Monthly 
   
  “It’s hard to write about the slow creep of environmental crises like drought without resorting to shock tactics or getting lost in the weeds . . . [McGraw] draws out the conflicts in compelling ways by drilling into the plight of individual water users. Even if you feel no connection to Texas, these stories are relevant to every part of the country.” —Outside 
   
  “Interviewing both scientific experts and everyday water users, [McGraw] clearly delineates the competing interests, describes political and geological reality, and makes a compelling argument for statewide water policy that utilizes modern technology and fairly weighs parochial needs against the good of the whole.” —Arizona Daily Star, Southwest Books of the Year

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  Tyrannosaurid Paleobiology

  J. Michael Parrish, Ralph E....

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  Drawn from a 2005 international symposium, these essays explore current tyrannosaurid current research and discoveries regarding Tyrannosaurus rex. 
   
  The opening of an exhibit focused on “Jane,” a beautifully preserved tyrannosaur collected by the Burpee Museum of Natural History, was the occasion for an international symposium on tyrannosaur paleobiology. This volume, drawn from the symposium, includes studies of the tyrannosaurids Chingkankousaurus fragilis and “Sir William” and the generic status of Nanotyrannus; theropod teeth, pedal proportions, brain size, and craniocervical function; soft tissue reconstruction, including that of “Jane”; paleopathology and tyrannosaurid claws; dating the “Jane” site; and tyrannosaur feeding and hunting strategies. Tyrannosaurid Paleobiology highlights the far ranging and vital state of current tyrannosaurid dinosaur research and discovery. 
   
  “Despite being discovered over 100 years ago, Tyrannosaurus rex and its kin still inspire researchers to ask fundamental questions about what the best known dinosaur was like as a living, breathing animal. Tyrannosaurid Paleobiology present a series of wide-ranging and innovative studies that cover diverse topics such as how tyrannosaurs attacked and dismembered prey, the shapes and sizes of feet and brains, and what sorts of injuries individuals sustained and lived with. There are also examinations of the diversity of tyrannosaurs, determinations of exactly when different kinds lived and died, and what goes into making a museum exhibit featuring tyrannosaurs. This volume clearly shows that there is much more to the study of dinosaurs than just digging up and cataloguing old bones.” —Donald M. Henderson, Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology

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  Brain Games

  David Weiner

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  David Weiner brings a witty, down-to-earth perspective to this exploration of what we know and what we don't know about our brains. In layman's terms Mr. Weiner shares his wonder at things even his scientific mind can't comprehend, and points to tantalizing new discoveries about our potential to change the way we think, feel, and act.

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  Sneakiest Uses for Everyday...

  Cy Tymony

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  The third volume in the Sneaky Uses series features fifty all-new amazing projects made from ordinary household items. Master of homemade inventions Cy Tymony is back with the absolute Sneakiest Uses for Everyday Things! Would-be inventers, junk drawer aficionados, and science-fair parents rejoice as Cy helps you bring out your inner MacGyver. In these pages you will learn how to turn a piece of paper into a Frisbee, a business card into a boomerang, a TV tray into a robot, and more.  Beginning with a complete list of materials and some sneaky science fun-damentals, Cy presents easy-to-follow step-by-step instructions paired with helpful illustrations. Most projects will be completed in just minutes using common items found around the house.

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  Particle Physics - A Very Short...

  Frank Close

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  Following the discovery of the Higgs boson, Frank Close has produced this major revision to his classic and compelling introduction to the fundamental particles that make up the universe. Frank Close takes us on a journey into the atom to examine known particles such as quarks, electrons, and the ghostly neutrino, and explains the key role and significance of the Higgs boson. Along the way he provides fascinating insights into how discoveries in particle physics have actually been made, and discusses how our picture of the world has been radically revised in the light of these developments. He concludes by looking ahead to new ideas about the mystery of antimatter and massive neutrinos, and to what the next fifty years of research might reveal about the nature of the Higgs field which molds the fundamental particles and forces.

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