Publisher: IRENA
The report, prepared in collaboration with UN Refugee Agency, proposes renewable energy solutions to provide clean and reliable power to refugees and the humanitarian organisations.
In the Serengeti region in Tanzania, conflict can arise between humans and the elephants that graze on their crops. The U.S.-based nonprofit RESOLVE is testing a new way to reduce these clashes while protecting both elephants and humans: drones. NewsHour Weekend Special Correspondent Christopher Livesay traveled to Tanzania to learn more about the technique.Show book
This book is a potted history of video games, telling all the rollercoaster stories of this fascinating young industry that’s now twice as big globally than the film and music industries combined. Each chapter explores the history of video games through a different lens, giving a uniquely well-rounded overview. Packed with pictures and stats, this book is for video gamers nostalgic for the good old days of gaming, and young gamers curious about how it all began. If you’ve ever enjoyed a video game, or you just want to see what all the fuss is about, this book is for you. There are stories about the experimental games of the 1950s and 1960s; the advent of home gaming in the 1970s; the explosion – and implosion – of arcade gaming in the 1980s; the console wars of the 1990s; the growth of online and mobile games in the 2000s; and we get right up to date with the 2010s, including such cultural phenomena as twitch.tv, the Gamergate scandal, and Fortnite. But rather than telling the whole story from beginning to end, each chapter covers the history of video games from a different angle: platforms and technology, people and personalities, companies and capitalism, gender and representation, culture, community, and finally the games themselves.Show book
President Donald Trump signed the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Transition Authorization Act of 2017, the first comprehensive NASA authorization act passed in seven years by Congress, authorizing $19.5 billion in funding for deep space exploration and human travel to Mars by 2030. NASA will lead our nation and our world on a journey to Mars. Like the Apollo Program, they will embark on this journey for all humanity. Mars is the horizon goal for pioneering space; it is the next tangible frontier for expanding human presence. Mars have found valuable resources for sustaining human pioneers, such as water ice just below the surface. Mars had conditions suitable for life, but will it our new home?" Table of Contents: Basic Facts About Mars Journey to Mars - Introduction Journey to Mars - Pioneering Next Steps in Space Exploration: Our Goal Our Approach: Pioneering Principles Three Phases on Our Journey to Mars Our Strategy for the Journey to Mars Our Progress and Plans on the Journey to Mars Pioneering Challenges Government's Authorization of the Plan - An Act to Authorize the Programs of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and for Other PurposesShow book
If you move at high speed, time slows down, space squashes up, and you get heavier. Travel fast enough and you could weigh as much as a jumbo jet, be flattened thinner than a CD without feeling a thing—and live forever! As for the angles of a triangle, they do not always have to add up to 180 degrees. And then, of course, there are black holes. These are but a few of the extraordinary consequences of Einstein's theory of relativity. It is now over a hundred years since he made these discoveries, and yet the general public is still largely unaware of them. Filled with illuminating anecdotes and fascinating accounts of experiments, this book aims to introduce the interested lay person to the subject of relativity in a way which is accessible and engaging and at the same time scientifically rigorous. With relatively few mathematical equations—nothing more complicated than the Pythagoras's Theorem—this VSI packs a lot time into very little space, and for anyone who has felt intimidated by Einstein's groundbreaking theory, it offers the perfect place to start.Bonus material: This audiobook includes figures in printable PDF format.Show book
One Day University presents a series of audio lectures recorded in real-time from some of the top minds in the United States. Given by award-winning professors and experts in their field, these recorded lectures dive deep into the worlds of religion, government, literature, and social justice. When Thomas Edison died on October 18, 1931, the lights went out. In his honor, President Herbert Hoover asked Americans everywhere to turn off their Edison lightbulbs at 10 p.m. on the evening of his funeral. "Thomas Edison, Genius Inventor, Dies at 84" screamed the front-page headline in the New York Daily News. When Nikola Tesla died in room 3327 of the New Yorker Hotel on January 7, 1943, the lights went out for him alone. Tesla was surrounded, not by a family, but by his pet pigeons. The obituary in The New York Times did not call Tesla a genius. Instead, its final paragraphs implied he was a crackpot: Tesla had conceived of a "death beam" powerful enough to annihilate an army of 1,000,000 soldiers; and he was certain of intergalactic messaging that would allow communication with Mars. Edison and Tesla were arch-enemies with competing visions as to how to electrically empower America. Their hostility played out in the infamous War of the Currents. Radio, television, robots, electric cars, self-driving cars, solar heating, the internet, and the cellphone were on the mind of one or the other of these geniuses. Which one ultimately proved to have the more accurate and enduring vision for the world? Who is in the news today and why? Come and find out the answers. This audio lecture includes a supplemental PDF.Show book
This “informative account” of canine evolution will “appeal to dog lovers with a curiosity about the origins of their favorite companion.” (Publishers Weekly) Many have made the case that dogs have evolved from wolves but the evolutionary link between wolves and dogs remains a mystery. In How the Dog Became the Dog, Mark Derr posits that the dog’s evolution from wolf was inevitable due to the mutually beneficial nature of the relationship between wolves and hunter-gatherer humans. How the Dog Became the Dog presents the domestication of the dog as a biological and cultural process that began with a reciprocal cooperation between dogwolves and humans that evolved over time, from the first dogs that took refuge with humans against the cold at the end of the last Ice Age, to the 18th century, when humans began to exercise full control of dog reproduction, life, and death, through centuries of natural and artificial selection that led us to the many breeds of dogs we know and love today. “A transporting slice of dog/wolf thinking that will pique the interest of anyone with a dog in their orbit.” —Kirkus ReviewsShow book
