Discover long-lost stories of science spanning thousands of years of Life on Earth in this journey through our universe’s most peculiar properties. Mysteries of Science takes readers on a journey through science’s biggest, tiniest, weirdest, and wildest stories from the realms of explorers and inventors to space, evolution, myths, and more through 101 bite-sized chapters. Tour the pyramids, learn forgotten languages, re-invent the wheel, sail the seven seas, meet the dinosaurs, roam the universe, and uncover the truth beyond mysteries. Combining boundless curiosity with inexhaustible…mehr
Discover long-lost stories of science spanning thousands of years of Life on Earth in this journey through our universe’s most peculiar properties. Mysteries of Science takes readers on a journey through science’s biggest, tiniest, weirdest, and wildest stories from the realms of explorers and inventors to space, evolution, myths, and more through 101 bite-sized chapters. Tour the pyramids, learn forgotten languages, re-invent the wheel, sail the seven seas, meet the dinosaurs, roam the universe, and uncover the truth beyond mysteries. Combining boundless curiosity with inexhaustible skepticism on each and every page, science writer Barry Evans collects the most fascinating tales from our natural world to show that science is not only extremely valuable, but utterly exciting as well.
Barry Evans writes a regular science column for the North Coast Journal of Humboldt County, California. A retired civil engineer, he is the author of The Wrong-Way Comet and Everyday Wonders, has published many local histories of Northern California, and produced segments for his local NPR affiliate. Evans lives in Old Town Eureka, CA with his wife Louisa Rogers, several kayaks and bikes, and a stuffed gorilla named “Nameless.”
Inhaltsangabe
Introduction ANTHROPOLOGY: Where we came from 1. A is for Amazon: Not all the sistahs picked berries 2. The Cooking Ape: How fire made us human 3. The Skin of Our Teeth: Our species survived a bottleneck. Just 4. The Neanderthal Connection: Tell-tale genes 5. Altruism’s Hidden Benefits: Being kind pays off 6. The Earliest Americans: From Siberia to the Americas 7. Agriculture: Our Worst Mistake?: The Neolithic Revolution 8. Ötzi the Iceman: He didn’t die of natural causes 9. The Bronze Age: Copper good, bronze better. Much better. 10. The Long Mayan Drought: The end of Tikal, Palenque, Copan… ENGINEERING: Beyond Lego® blocks 1. Pyramid Scheme: Does the Great Pyramid incorporate pi? 2. Mind the Gap!: A brief history of the arch 3. The Antikythera Mechanism: A 2,000-year-old computer 4. Perry Collins’ Overland Telegraph: A world-class miss 5. The Most Expensive Lighthouse: California’s St. George Reef 6. Panama: Linking the Oceans: Saving 5,000 miles of travel EVOLUTION: The single best idea ever 1. Yo’ Mama’s a Fish!: Give or take 100 million generations 2. Genetic vs. Cultural Evolution: In two Powerpoint® slides 3. The Unity of Life: If it’s alive, it’s your cousin 4. Evolution Isn’t Progress!: The meme that just won’t quit 5. Are Men (and Women) from Mars?: Life began…where? 6. Eohippus to Percheron: Evolution of the horse 7. Darwin’s Bulldog: Thomas Huxley and the Great Debate 8. Evolution’s Co-Discoverer: Crediting Alfred Russel Wallace 9. The Other Evolutionist: Did a farmer upstage Darwin and Wallace? 10. Dawn Redwoods: An overlooked branch of evolution EXPLORATION: To the ends of the Earth 1. Fifth Century Pacific Crossing?: Evaluating the evidence 2. The United States of Zheng: Showing the flag 600 years ago 3. The Martellus Map: Was Columbus misled? 4. Magellan’s Pacific: Linking the oceans 5. Columbus of the Pacific: Friar Urdaneta’s “Volta do Mar” 6. The Longitude Challenge: Latitude, easy. Longitude, not so much 7. Scott of the Antarctic: Reckless and/or brave? HEALTH: Our bodies, ourselves 1. Hunter vs. Farmer and ADHD: Leave those kids alone 2. Lactose-tolerance: Evolution in action 3. Barbie Redux: That waist-to-hip ratio 4. Sleep, Pray, Sleep: Are you a normal insomniac? 5. When the Old World Met the New: Smallpox in America 6. A Brief History of Vaccination: Anti-vaxxers aren't new 7. The Roots of Homeopathy: It’s BS (but with the best of intentions) 8. An Uplifting Story: Is the bra a booby trap? INVENTIONS: Building better mousetraps 1. The Real Wheel: Someone had to be first 2. Unwrapping the Past: Reading a lump of charcoal 3. A Brief History of Dildos: A penetrating account 4. Perpetual Motion Machines: Fighting thermodynamics 5. Spectacles and Telescopes: A small mystery 6. Gutenberg’s Legacy: Inventor or synthesizer? 7. Atoms: Solving the Invisible: Inventing our theory of matter 8. Monsieur Sax’s Brass Clarinet: Creating that smooth sound 9. Alice in (Photography) Wonderland: A math teacher’s hobby 10. The Sound Guys: Edison and Berliner: Cylinders: 0; Discs: 1 11. The Golden Age of Crystal Sets: That 1920s sound 12. The Quartz Crisis: Adventures in watchmaking 13. Analog Youth to Digital Geezer: Trying to keep up 14. Charon’s Obol, the Zahir and More: Riffing on coinage 15. Mastodons in Greenland: How an invention helped recreate an ancient land LANGUAGE: Words, spoken and written 1. Language: Nature or Nurture?: Or, is Chomsky irrelevant? 2. Quest for our Mother Tongue: Making sense of “Proto-World” 3. The Weirdness of English: Black sheep of Germanic languages 4. No Celtic? Blame the Volcanoes: Why English lacks Celtic 5. The Phoenician Connection: How English “softened” 6. Lord, is it me? (Or, is it I?): The quest for “proper English” 7. Homer’s Wine-dark Sea: Did the ancients see our colors? 8. Invention of our Alphabet: From ox head to letter A 9. Runes in the Ruins: Viking graffiti 10. Black English: Simplify, simplify 11. Whence “Britain”: Not Brutus 12. The Rosetta Stone: Deciphering the hieroglyphs 13. When did Language Begin?: 100,000 or a million years ago 14. The Vindolanda Tablets: Voices from Roman Britain 15. Silent Reading and Word Breaks: How they’re related 16. For the Week-hearted: Our curious seven-day period 17. Hesiod: Farmer, Poet, Misogynist MYTHS: Stuff of dreams 1. The Voynich Manuscript: It’s been decoded...again! 2. Doubting Shakespeare: Stratford man or Stratford myth? 3. Vlad, Vampires and Dracula: The warlord-diplomat behind the myth 4. Fairy Tales: Fooling Sherlock Holmes’ creator 5. Antarctic Atlantis: Looking for Plato’s mythical land 6. The Myth of the Good Old Days: They weren’t 7. King Arthur: Once and Future King 8. The Great Flood: The reality behind the Noah story 9. A Brief History of Hell: The myth to end all myths 10. The Lure of Labyrinths: From Minotaur’s den to a meditative walk 11. Attila, Scourge of God…and Diplomat: Beyond the myth 12. The Myth of the Dark Ages: Time to drop the label NUMBERS: The magic of math 1. The Number of the Beast: 666 or 616? 2. Metering the Meter: First, go to the North Pole 3. Measuring Our Lives: 60 minutes, 24 hours, 7 days, 52 weeks 4. Archimedes’ Tomb: Anticipating calculus by two thousand years 5. Roman and Arabic Numerals: Our debt to Leonardo of Pisa 6. Halloween, Samhain, Jack o’ Lantern: Our pagan festivals 7. A Funny Thing Happened to Pi: Finding its 10 trillionth digit SPACE: Earth’s eye view of the Universe 1. Einstein, Newton and Eclipse of 1919: Fudging the results 2. The Monk’s Tale: When the moon split in two 3. Were the Old Days Shorter?: Or am I getting older? 4. Impact! 50,000 BC: Arizona’s Barringer Crater 5. Galileo’s Moons: Everything changed one night in 1610 6. Dinosaurs Died, Mammals Thrived: An ancient fluke put us here 7. Vulcan, Missing in Action: Searching for Planet X 8. Are We the World?: The problem with hubris 9. Z is for Zodiac: I am Virgo, hear me roar
Introduction ANTHROPOLOGY: Where we came from 1. A is for Amazon: Not all the sistahs picked berries 2. The Cooking Ape: How fire made us human 3. The Skin of Our Teeth: Our species survived a bottleneck. Just 4. The Neanderthal Connection: Tell-tale genes 5. Altruism’s Hidden Benefits: Being kind pays off 6. The Earliest Americans: From Siberia to the Americas 7. Agriculture: Our Worst Mistake?: The Neolithic Revolution 8. Ötzi the Iceman: He didn’t die of natural causes 9. The Bronze Age: Copper good, bronze better. Much better. 10. The Long Mayan Drought: The end of Tikal, Palenque, Copan… ENGINEERING: Beyond Lego® blocks 1. Pyramid Scheme: Does the Great Pyramid incorporate pi? 2. Mind the Gap!: A brief history of the arch 3. The Antikythera Mechanism: A 2,000-year-old computer 4. Perry Collins’ Overland Telegraph: A world-class miss 5. The Most Expensive Lighthouse: California’s St. George Reef 6. Panama: Linking the Oceans: Saving 5,000 miles of travel EVOLUTION: The single best idea ever 1. Yo’ Mama’s a Fish!: Give or take 100 million generations 2. Genetic vs. Cultural Evolution: In two Powerpoint® slides 3. The Unity of Life: If it’s alive, it’s your cousin 4. Evolution Isn’t Progress!: The meme that just won’t quit 5. Are Men (and Women) from Mars?: Life began…where? 6. Eohippus to Percheron: Evolution of the horse 7. Darwin’s Bulldog: Thomas Huxley and the Great Debate 8. Evolution’s Co-Discoverer: Crediting Alfred Russel Wallace 9. The Other Evolutionist: Did a farmer upstage Darwin and Wallace? 10. Dawn Redwoods: An overlooked branch of evolution EXPLORATION: To the ends of the Earth 1. Fifth Century Pacific Crossing?: Evaluating the evidence 2. The United States of Zheng: Showing the flag 600 years ago 3. The Martellus Map: Was Columbus misled? 4. Magellan’s Pacific: Linking the oceans 5. Columbus of the Pacific: Friar Urdaneta’s “Volta do Mar” 6. The Longitude Challenge: Latitude, easy. Longitude, not so much 7. Scott of the Antarctic: Reckless and/or brave? HEALTH: Our bodies, ourselves 1. Hunter vs. Farmer and ADHD: Leave those kids alone 2. Lactose-tolerance: Evolution in action 3. Barbie Redux: That waist-to-hip ratio 4. Sleep, Pray, Sleep: Are you a normal insomniac? 5. When the Old World Met the New: Smallpox in America 6. A Brief History of Vaccination: Anti-vaxxers aren't new 7. The Roots of Homeopathy: It’s BS (but with the best of intentions) 8. An Uplifting Story: Is the bra a booby trap? INVENTIONS: Building better mousetraps 1. The Real Wheel: Someone had to be first 2. Unwrapping the Past: Reading a lump of charcoal 3. A Brief History of Dildos: A penetrating account 4. Perpetual Motion Machines: Fighting thermodynamics 5. Spectacles and Telescopes: A small mystery 6. Gutenberg’s Legacy: Inventor or synthesizer? 7. Atoms: Solving the Invisible: Inventing our theory of matter 8. Monsieur Sax’s Brass Clarinet: Creating that smooth sound 9. Alice in (Photography) Wonderland: A math teacher’s hobby 10. The Sound Guys: Edison and Berliner: Cylinders: 0; Discs: 1 11. The Golden Age of Crystal Sets: That 1920s sound 12. The Quartz Crisis: Adventures in watchmaking 13. Analog Youth to Digital Geezer: Trying to keep up 14. Charon’s Obol, the Zahir and More: Riffing on coinage 15. Mastodons in Greenland: How an invention helped recreate an ancient land LANGUAGE: Words, spoken and written 1. Language: Nature or Nurture?: Or, is Chomsky irrelevant? 2. Quest for our Mother Tongue: Making sense of “Proto-World” 3. The Weirdness of English: Black sheep of Germanic languages 4. No Celtic? Blame the Volcanoes: Why English lacks Celtic 5. The Phoenician Connection: How English “softened” 6. Lord, is it me? (Or, is it I?): The quest for “proper English” 7. Homer’s Wine-dark Sea: Did the ancients see our colors? 8. Invention of our Alphabet: From ox head to letter A 9. Runes in the Ruins: Viking graffiti 10. Black English: Simplify, simplify 11. Whence “Britain”: Not Brutus 12. The Rosetta Stone: Deciphering the hieroglyphs 13. When did Language Begin?: 100,000 or a million years ago 14. The Vindolanda Tablets: Voices from Roman Britain 15. Silent Reading and Word Breaks: How they’re related 16. For the Week-hearted: Our curious seven-day period 17. Hesiod: Farmer, Poet, Misogynist MYTHS: Stuff of dreams 1. The Voynich Manuscript: It’s been decoded...again! 2. Doubting Shakespeare: Stratford man or Stratford myth? 3. Vlad, Vampires and Dracula: The warlord-diplomat behind the myth 4. Fairy Tales: Fooling Sherlock Holmes’ creator 5. Antarctic Atlantis: Looking for Plato’s mythical land 6. The Myth of the Good Old Days: They weren’t 7. King Arthur: Once and Future King 8. The Great Flood: The reality behind the Noah story 9. A Brief History of Hell: The myth to end all myths 10. The Lure of Labyrinths: From Minotaur’s den to a meditative walk 11. Attila, Scourge of God…and Diplomat: Beyond the myth 12. The Myth of the Dark Ages: Time to drop the label NUMBERS: The magic of math 1. The Number of the Beast: 666 or 616? 2. Metering the Meter: First, go to the North Pole 3. Measuring Our Lives: 60 minutes, 24 hours, 7 days, 52 weeks 4. Archimedes’ Tomb: Anticipating calculus by two thousand years 5. Roman and Arabic Numerals: Our debt to Leonardo of Pisa 6. Halloween, Samhain, Jack o’ Lantern: Our pagan festivals 7. A Funny Thing Happened to Pi: Finding its 10 trillionth digit SPACE: Earth’s eye view of the Universe 1. Einstein, Newton and Eclipse of 1919: Fudging the results 2. The Monk’s Tale: When the moon split in two 3. Were the Old Days Shorter?: Or am I getting older? 4. Impact! 50,000 BC: Arizona’s Barringer Crater 5. Galileo’s Moons: Everything changed one night in 1610 6. Dinosaurs Died, Mammals Thrived: An ancient fluke put us here 7. Vulcan, Missing in Action: Searching for Planet X 8. Are We the World?: The problem with hubris 9. Z is for Zodiac: I am Virgo, hear me roar
Es gelten unsere Allgemeinen Geschäftsbedingungen: www.buecher.de/agb
Impressum
www.buecher.de ist ein Internetauftritt der buecher.de internetstores GmbH
Geschäftsführung: Monica Sawhney | Roland Kölbl | Günter Hilger
Sitz der Gesellschaft: Batheyer Straße 115 - 117, 58099 Hagen
Postanschrift: Bürgermeister-Wegele-Str. 12, 86167 Augsburg
Amtsgericht Hagen HRB 13257
Steuernummer: 321/5800/1497
USt-IdNr: DE450055826
![Contributions to Canadian Natural History [microform]](https://bilder.buecher.de/produkte/65/65514/65514543m.jpg "Contributions to Canadian Natural History [microform]")
![Report on a Deep Sea Dredging Expedition to the Gulf of St. Lawrence [microform]](https://bilder.buecher.de/produkte/65/65627/65627142m.jpg "Report on a Deep Sea Dredging Expedition to the Gulf of St. Lawrence [microform]")
