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  Serving the Reich - The Struggle...

  Philip Ball

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  This historical analysis of Heisenberg, Planck, Debye, and other German physicists during WWII “is a stunning cautionary tale, well researched and told” (Choice).   After World War II, most scientists in Germany maintained that they had been apolitical or actively resisted the Nazi regime, but the true story is much more complicated. In Serving the Reich, Philip Ball takes a fresh look at that controversial history, contrasting the career of Peter Debye, director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics in Berlin, with those of two other leading physicists in Germany during the Third Reich: Max Planck, the elder statesman of physics, and Werner Heisenberg, who succeeded Debye as director of the institute when it became focused on the development of nuclear power and weapons.           Mixing history, science, and biography, Ball offers a powerful portrait of moral choice and personal responsibility, as scientists navigated “the grey zone between complicity and resistance.” Ball’s account of the different choices these men made shows how there can be no clear-cut answers or judgement of their conduct. Yet he also demonstrates that the German scientific establishment as a whole mounted no serious resistance to the Nazis, and in many ways acted as a willing instrument of the state.  Serving the Reich considers what this problematic history can tell us about the relationship between science and politics today. Ultimately, Ball argues, a determination to present science as an abstract inquiry into nature that is “above politics” can leave science and scientists dangerously compromised and vulnerable to political manipulation.  A CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title Award winner

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  Differential Diagnosis in...

  Ahran Arnold

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  The essential guide to differential diagnoses 
  Appreciation of the differential diagnosis for a particular symptom or sign has been a pillar of the practise of general medicine for generations of doctors. 
  Keeping a broad differential in mind when approaching the new patient is often key to avoid pitfalls of tunnel vision in management. Equally, the importance of the differential diagnosis in undergraduate and postgraduate examinations cannot be understated. 
  This book contains a series of lists of differential diagnoses for general medical presentations. We hope it will be of use for doctors wishing to refresh their memory with a quick reference guide, students of undergraduate medicine as well as postgraduate doctors in preparation for Membership of the Royal College of Physicians (MRCP) examinations. 
  The best way to navigate the book is to identify the symptom or clinical feature required using the contents pages but the lists can be read in sequence for general readers.

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  The Book of the Universe Stars...

  Terrence Meaden

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  This is the story of the Universe including life as we know it.It is a book of origins, prehistory and history … arranged in Three Testaments to honour the supreme achievements of the talented men and women who have been unravelling the mysteries of the cosmos, evolution, human antiquity and world history. Composed in biblical-prose format, the volume presents the facts of science and, as best as possible, relevant truths of history. The scientific facts rest on proven principles gained by observation, instrumentation, insight, intelligence, reason, and the application of physical laws and the formulation of harmonious, logical models. In defining the latest wisdom, they spell out the fundamentals of the physics of the wonders of the Universe?regarding which ever more exact details are improving all the time.It is testimony and eulogy, in praise of high scholarship and logic?the ultimate Enlightenment. Testament 1 tells the story of the Universe, the Stars, the Solar System and Planet Earth. Testament 2 examines the Origins of Life on Earth. The Third Testament treats the story of humanity as it proceeds to the present day?humans enriched with intelligence and a genetically-promising future. Yet, despite the successes, the story concludes with an Epilogue contemplating “How did it come about that Homo sapiens in the course of 160,000 years manage to get itself into the current mess?”?referring to the amalgam of authoritative religions, undemocratic governments, reckless overpopulation and irresponsible worldwide waste on land and ocean.

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  Tracing Your Ancestors Through...

  Celia Heritage

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  Family historian Celia Heritage shares an unorthodox approach to researching genealogy in Tracing Your Ancestors Through Death Records. 
   
  Of all family history sources, death records are probably the least used by researchers. They are, however, frequently the most revealing of records, giving a far greater insight into our ancestors’ lives and personalities than those records created during their lifetime. 
   
  Celia Heritage leads readers through the various types of death records, showing how they can be found, read and interpreted and how to glean as much information as possible from them. In many cases, they can be used as a starting point for developing your family history research into other equally rewarding areas. This highly readable handbook is packed with useful information and helpful research advice. In addition, a thought-provoking final chapter looks into the repercussions of death its effects on the surviving members of the family and the fact that a premature death could sometimes affect the family for generations to come. 
   
  “There comes a time when you reach a dead end using the online services . . . at which point you need expert advice on how to proceed. Celia Heritage provides that expert advice, going above and beyond in helping you through the details of finding and examining your ancestors’ death records. A vital resource for family historians.” —Books Monthly

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  Other Minds - The Octopus the...

  Peter Godfrey-Smith

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  Although mammals and birds are widely regarded as the smartest creatures on earth, it has lately become clear that a very distant branch of the tree of life has also sprouted higher intelligence: the cephalopods, consisting of the squid, the cuttlefish, and above all the octopus. In captivity, octopuses have been known to identify individual human keepers, raid neighboring tanks for food, turn off lightbulbs by spouting jets of water, plug drains, and make daring escapes. How is it that a creature with such gifts evolved through an evolutionary lineage so radically distant from our own? What does it mean that evolution built minds not once but at least twice? The octopus is the closest we will come to meeting an intelligent alien. What can we learn from the encounter? In Other Minds, Peter Godfrey-Smith, a distinguished philosopher of science and a skilled scuba diver, tells a bold new story of how subjective experience crept into being-how nature became aware of itself. As Godfrey-Smith stresses, it is a story that largely occurs in the ocean, where animals first appeared. Tracking the mind's fitful development, Godfrey-Smith shows how unruly clumps of seaborne cells began living together and became capable of sensing, acting, and signaling. As these primitive organisms became more entangled with others, they grew more complicated. The first nervous systems evolved, probably in ancient relatives of jellyfish; later on, the cephalopods, which began as inconspicuous mollusks, abandoned their shells and rose above the ocean floor, searching for prey and acquiring the greater intelligence needed to do so. Taking an independent route, mammals and birds later began their own evolutionary journeys. But what kind of intelligence do cephalopods possess? Drawing on the latest scientific research and his own scuba-diving adventures, Godfrey-Smith probes the many mysteries that surround the lineage. How did the octopus, a solitary creature with little social life, become so smart? What is it like to have eight tentacles that are so packed with neurons that they virtually "think for themselves"? What happens when some octopuses abandon their hermit-like ways and congregate, as they do in a unique location off the coast of Australia?By tracing the question of inner life back to its roots and comparing human beings with our most remarkable animal relatives, Godfrey-Smith casts crucial new light on the octopus mind-and on our own.

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  Summary of Shoshana Zuboff's The...

  Swift Reads

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  Buy now to get the insights from Shoshana Zuboff's The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. 
    
  Sample Insights: 
  1) Surveillance capitalism claims human experience as free raw material that can be translated into behavioral data for a commercial purpose. 
  2) Surveillance capitalism is the business model that Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple use. It is a way to make money by using our data, or selling it to advertisers and other companies. Google invented and perfected surveillance capitalism.

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