Other books that might interest you

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  The Accelerating Universe -...

  Mario Livio

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  "The Accelerating Universe is not only an informative book about modern cosmology. It is rich storytelling and, above all, a celebration of the human mind in its quest for beauty in all things." —Alan Lightman, author of Einstein's Dreams 
  "This is a wonderfully lucid account of the extraordinary discoveries that have made the last years a golden period for observational cosmology. But Mario Livio has not only given the reader one clear explanation after another of what astronomers are up to, he has used them to construct a provocative argument for the importance of aesthetics in the development of science and for the inseparability of science, art, and culture." —Lee Smolin, author of The Life of the Cosmos 
  "What a pleasure to read! An exciting, simple account of the universe revealed by modern astronomy. Beautifully written, clearly presented, informed by scientific and philosophical insights." —John Bahcall, Institute for Advanced Study 
  "A book with charm, beauty, elegance, and importance. As authoritative a journey as can be taken through modern cosmology." —Allan Sandage, Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington

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  We Do Things Differently - The...

  Mark Stevenson

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  There is hope for us yet: “Stevenson’s engaging commentary has the ability to restore your faith in human ingenuity in the face of adversity.” —Geographical magazine   Our systems are failing. Old models—for education, healthcare and government, food production, energy supply—are creaking under the weight of modern challenges. As the world’s population heads towards 10 billion, it’s clear we need new approaches. In We Do Things Differently, historian and futurologist Mark Stevenson sets out to find them, across four continents.   From Brazilian favelas to high-tech Boston, from rural India to a shed inventor in England’s home counties, Mark Stevenson travels the world to find the advance guard reimagining our future. At each stop, he meets innovators who have already succeeded in challenging the status quo, pioneering new ways to make our world more sustainable, equitable, and humane. Populated by extraordinary characters—including Detroit citizens who created new jobs and promoted healthy eating by building greenhouses; an Austrian mayor who built a new biomass plant using the by-product of a local flooring company; and an Indian doctor who crowdsourced his research and published his findings online—We Do Things Differently paints a riveting picture of what can be done to address the world’s most pressing dilemmas, offering a much-needed dose of down-to-earth optimism. It is a window on (and a roadmap to) a different and better future.   “Stevenson writes with enormous warmth and humor.” —Cory Doctorow

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  Boiling Point - Government...

  Maude Barlow

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  Passionate and cogent, this could be the most important book of the year for Canadians 
  We are complacent. We bask in the idea that Canada holds 20% of the world’s fresh water—water crises face other countries, but not ours. We could not be more wrong. In Boiling Point, bestselling author and activist Maude Barlow lays bare the issues facing Canada’s water reserves, including long-outdated water laws, unmapped and unprotected groundwater reserves, agricultural pollution, industrial-waste dumping, boil-water advisories, and the effects of deforestation and climate change. This will be the defining issue of the coming decade, and most of us have no idea that it is on our very own doorstep. 
  Barlow is one of the world’s foremost water activists and she has been on the front lines of the world’s water crises for the past 20 years. She has seen first-hand the scale of the water problems facing much of the world, but also many of the solutions that are being applied. In Boiling Point, she brings this wealth of experience and expertise home to craft a compelling blueprint for Canada’s water security.

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  Mapping the Nation - History and...

  Susan Schulten

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  “A compelling read” that reveals how maps became informational tools charting everything from epidemics to slavery (Journal of American History).   In the nineteenth century, Americans began to use maps in radically new ways. For the first time, medical men mapped diseases to understand and prevent epidemics, natural scientists mapped climate and rainfall to uncover weather patterns, educators mapped the past to foster national loyalty among students, and Northerners mapped slavery to assess the power of the South. After the Civil War, federal agencies embraced statistical and thematic mapping in order to profile the ethnic, racial, economic, moral, and physical attributes of a reunified nation.   By the end of the century, Congress had authorized a national archive of maps, an explicit recognition that old maps were not relics to be discarded but unique records of the nation’s past. All of these experiments involved the realization that maps were not just illustrations of data, but visual tools that were uniquely equipped to convey complex ideas and information. In Mapping the Nation, Susan Schulten charts how maps of epidemic disease, slavery, census statistics, the environment, and the past demonstrated the analytical potential of cartography, and in the process transformed the very meaning of a map.   Today, statistical and thematic maps are so ubiquitous that we take for granted that data will be arranged cartographically. Whether for urban planning, public health, marketing, or political strategy, maps have become everyday tools of social organization, governance, and economics. The world we inhabit—saturated with maps and graphic information—grew out of this sea change in spatial thought and representation in the nineteenth century, when Americans learned to see themselves and their nation in new dimensions.

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  Affirmations High Vibrations Of...

  Max Topoff

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  Welcome to the Most Powerful Practice of Gratitude in the Morning. Today it is very important to stay on the high vibrations and always have contact with your true essence. And the practice of gratitude is exactly what will help you tune in to the frequency of love and happiness. This way you will attract to yourself only the brightest and most favorable. Repeat this practice from 21 days in a row. And let the magic of gratitude transform your whole life. Send your gratitude to the universe and feel its blessing in your life. Let’s get started.

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  Milk - A Local and Global History

  Deborah Valenze

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  The illuminating history of milk, from ancient myth to modern grocery store.How did an animal product that spoils easily, carries disease, and causes digestive trouble for many of its consumers become a near-universal symbol of modern nutrition? In the first cultural history of milk, historian Deborah Valenze traces the rituals and beliefs that have governed milk production and consumption since its use in the earliest societies.Covering the long span of human history, Milk reveals how developments in technology, public health, and nutritional science made this once-rare elixir a modern-day staple. The book looks at the religious meanings of milk, along with its association with pastoral life, which made it an object of mystery and suspicion during medieval times and the Renaissance. As early modern societies refined agricultural techniques, cow's milk became crucial to improving diets and economies, launching milk production and consumption into a more modern phase. Yet as business and science transformed the product in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, commercial milk became not only a common and widely available commodity but also a source of uncertainty when used in place of human breast milk for infant feeding. Valenze also examines the dairy culture of the developing world, looking at the example of India, currently the world's largest milk producer.Ultimately, milk’s surprising history teaches us how to think about our relationship to food in the present, as well as in the past. It reveals that although milk is a product of nature, it has always been an artifact of culture.

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