Take your mind off of midterms with these new books available at the Coles Science Center.
Declassified: 50 Top-Secret Documents That Changed History
by Thomas B. Allen
UB270 .A45 2008
"Culled from archives around the world, the 50 documents in Declassified illuminate the secret and often inaccessible stories of agents, espionage, and behind-the-scenes events that played critical roles in American history. Moving through time from Elizabethan England to the Cold War and beyond, noted author Tom Allen places each document in its historical and cultural context, sharing the quirky and little-known truths behind state secrets and clandestine operations...this lively history contains never-before-published and hard-to-find documents—printed from scans of the originals wherever possible."--Amazon.com
Electronic Tribes: The Virtual Worlds of Geeks, Gamers, Shamans, and Scammers
by Tyrone L. Adams and Stephen A. Smith
TK5105.88817 .E53 2008
"In Electronic Tribes, the authors of sixteen competitively selected essays provide an up-to-the-minute look at the social uses and occasional abuses of online communication in the new media era. ... Their research raises compelling questions and some remarkable answers about the real-life social consequences of participating in electronic tribes." --Amazon .com
Easeful Death: Is There a Case for Assisted Suicide
by Mary Warnock and Elisabeth Macdonald
Oxford University Press
R726 .W36 2008
"Now, in Easeful Death, Mary Warnock and Elisabeth Macdonald offer a clearly reasoned, even-handed assessment of arguments both for and against the legalization of assisted suicide and euthanasia. The authors take as their starting point the attempts in Britain and other countries to bring compassion into the rules governing the end of a patient's life. Written with sensitivity, grace, and level-headed authority, Easeful Death is essential reading for caregivers, doctors, medical ethicists, and anyone concerned with their own or a loved one's end of life decisions. It argues persuasively that whatever the results of the legislative debate, compassion must be the guiding principle in the way we treat people who are dying or want to die."
The Last Taboo: Opening the Door on the Global Sanitation Crisis
by Maggie Black and Ben Fawcett
RA567 .B63 2008
"In the byways of the developing world, much is quietly happening on the excretory frontier. This book takes us on a tour of those endeavors, in the company of today's sanitary heroes. In the International Year of Sanitation, the authors bring—with humor and impeccable taste—this awkward subject to a wider audience than the world of international waste usually commands. They seek the elimination of the Great Distaste so that people without political clout or economic muscle can claim their right to a dignified and hygienic place to “go”.
The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom
by Simon Winchester
Q143.N44 W56 2008
"...Joseph Needham (1900–1995) is the man who made China China, forming the West's understanding of a sophisticated culture with his masterpiece, Science and Civilization in China, says bestselling author Winchester. In a life devoted to recording the Middle Kingdom's intellectual wealth, Needham, an eccentric, brilliant Cambridge don, made a remarkable journey from son of a London doctor through scientist-adventurer to red scare target. In Winchester's (The Professor and the Madman) estimable hands, Needham's story comes to life straightaway. From the biochemist's arrival in WWII Chongqing (the smells, of incense smoke, car exhaust, hot cooking oil, a particularly acrid kind of pepper, human waste, oleander, and jasmine) to his steely discipline when crafting his research into prose (to an old friend: I am frightfully busy. You come without an appointment, so I am afraid I cannot see you), Winchester plunges the reader into the action with hardly a break. As the author notes in an outstanding epilogue—a swirling 12-page trip through the kaleidoscope of contemporary China—he is at pains to place Needham front and center in our understanding of the nation that now plays such a huge role in American life."--Publishers weekly
Secrets of the Hoary Deep: A Personal History of Modern Astronomy
by Riccardo Giacconi
QB472 .G53 2008
"Part history, part memoir, and part cutting-edge science, Secrets of the Hoary Deep is the tale of x-ray astronomy from its infancy through what can only be called its early adulthood. It also offers the companion story of how the tools, techniques, and practices designed to support and develop x-ray astronomy were transferred to optical, infrared, and radio astronomy, drastically altering the face of modern space exploration. Giacconi relates the basic techniques developed at American Science and Engineering and explains how, where, and by whom the science was advanced."--Amazon.com