Showing results by publisher "Hachette Audio" in Science & Engineering

"More years ago than I care to reckon up, I met Richard Feynman." So begins The Language God Talks, Herman Wouk's gem on navigating the divide between science and religion. In one rich, compact volume, Wouk draws on stories from his life as well as on key events from the 20th century to address the eternal questions of why we are here, what purpose faith serves, and how scientific fact fits into the picture.

We've all asked ourselves the question. It's impossible to look up at the stars and NOT think about it: Are we alone in the universe? Books, movies, and television shows proliferate that attempt to answer this question and explore it. In Out There, Space.com senior writer Dr. Michael Wall treats that question as merely the beginning, touching off a wild ride of exploration into the final frontier. He considers, for instance, the myriad of questions that would arise once we do discover life beyond Earth (an eventuality which, top NASA officials told Wall, is only drawing closer).

In this "immersive, densely reported, and altogether remarkable first book [with] the texture and color of a first-rate novel" (New York Times), journalist Doug Bock Clark tells the epic story of the world's last subsistence whalers and the threats posed to a tribe on the brink. Deeply empathetic and richly reported, The Last Whalers is a riveting, powerful chronicle of the collision between one of the planet's dwindling indigenous peoples and the irresistible enticements and upheavals of a rapidly transforming world.

Give a Sh*t is the first eco-friendly handbook of its kind for these dire times when the Earth needs us most. Distilling the most crucial knowledge and advice from your favorite sustainable lifestyle brand, vegan cookbook, and eco-friendly beauty guide, Give a Sh*t guides you through small-but-impactful shifts you can make. With eco-lifestyle expert Ashlee Piper's succinct, no-nonsense advice, it's never been easier to live more thoughtfully and true to your values, get healthier, and give a shit about the planet.

The easiest-to-use and most comprehensive field guide to North American birds - from the country's preeminent writers on birds and nature. Drawing on more than 20 years' experience as bird and wildlife experts, Donald and Lillian Stokes have produced field guides that are factually, visually, and organizationally superior to any other books you can buy.

NASA Astrobiologist and renowned scientist Dr. David Grinspoon brings listeners an optimistic message about humanity's future in the face of climate change. For the first time in Earth's history, our planet is experiencing a confluence of rapidly accelerating changes prompted by one species: Humans. Climate change is only the most visible of the modifications we've made - up until this point, inadvertently - to the planet. And our current behavior threatens not only our own future but that of countless other creatures.

Denial presents a radical new theory on the origins of our species. It was not, the authors argue, a biological leap that set humanity apart from other species, but a psychological one: namely, the uniquely human ability to deny reality in the face of inarguable evidence - including the willful ignorance of our own inevitable deaths.

Pets have never been more popular. Over half of American households share their home with either a cat or a dog, and many contain both. This is a huge change from only a century ago, when the majority of domestic cats and dogs were working animals, keeping rodents at bay, guarding property, herding sheep. Nowadays, most are valued solely for the companionship they provide. As mankind becomes progressively more urban and detached from nature, we seem to be clinging to the animals that served us well in the past.

For generations, we've been taught that women and men differ in profound and important ways. Women are more sensitive and emotional, whereas men are more aggressive and sexual, because this or that region in the brains of women is smaller or larger than in men, or because they have more or less of this or that hormone. This story seems to provide us with a neat biological explanation for much of what we encounter in day-to-day life. But is it true? According to neuroscientist Daphna Joel, it's not.

Being overweight is not just the result of too many cheeseburgers or not enough exercise. According to leading-edge science, there are silent saboteurs in our daily lives that contribute greatly to our obesity epidemic: obesogens. These weight-inducing offenders, most of which are chemicals, disrupt our hormonal systems, alter how we create and store fat, and change how we respond to dietary choices. Because they are largely unregulated, obesogens lurk all around us - in food, furniture, plastic products such as water bottles and food containers, and other surprising exposure points.

Modern science has brought us produce in perpetual abundance - once-rare fruits are seemingly never out of season, and we breed and clone the hardiest, best-tasting varieties of the crops we rely on most. As a result, a smaller proportion of people on earth go hungry today than at any other moment in the last thousand years, and the streamlining of our food supply guarantees that the food we buy, from bananas to coffee to wheat, tastes the same every single time.

Based on his historic mission to the International Space Station, Ask an Astronaut is Tim Peake's guide to life in space and his answers to the thousands of questions he has been asked since his return to Earth. With explanations ranging from the mundane (how do you wash your clothes or go to the bathroom while in orbit?) to the profound (do humans have a duty to explore the unknown?), all written in Tim's characteristically warm style, Tim shares his thoughts on every aspect of space exploration.

It's accepted wisdom today that human beings have permanently damaged the natural world, causing extinction, deforestation, pollution, and of course climate change. But in Inheritors of the Earth, biologist Chris Thomas shows that this obscures a more hopeful truth - we're also helping nature grow and change. Human cities and mass agriculture have created new places for enterprising animals and plants to live, and our activities have stimulated evolutionary change in virtually every population of living species.

Why cracking the code of human conception took centuries of wild theories, misogynist blunders, and ludicrous mistakes.Throughout most of human history, babies were surprises. People knew the basics: Men and women had sex, and sometimes babies followed. But beyond that the origins of life were a colossal mystery. The Seeds of Life is the remarkable and rollicking story of how a series of blundering geniuses and brilliant amateurs struggled for two centuries to discover where, exactly, babies come from.

Expand your memory, concentration, energy, and learning ability with this 4-step holistic program which helps your brain perform at optimum mental ability. Dr. Dharma Singh Khalsa's Brain Longevity Program uses complementary medicine from Eastern and Western traditions, along with nutritional therapy, stress management, exercise therapy, and pharmacology, to reduce the effects of "normal" brain aging.

Renowned scientist and best-selling author Jane Goodall delivers an eye-opening and empowering book that explores the social and personal significance of what we eat. In Harvest for Hope, Jane Goodall presents an empowering and far-reaching vision for social and environmental transformation through the way we produce and consume the foods we eat.

The remarkable story of the heroic effort to save and preserve Afghanistan's wildlife - and a culture that derives immense pride and a sense of national identity from its natural landscape.

Over the past 200 years, human life expectancy has approximately doubled. Yet we face soaring worldwide rates of obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, mental illness, heart disease, and stroke. In his fascinating new book, Dr. Lee Goldman presents a radical explanation: The key protective traits that once ensured our species' survival are now the leading global causes of illness and death.

Imagine an everyday world in which the price of gasoline (and oil) continues to go up, and up, and up. Think about the immediate impact that would have on our lives. Of course, everybody already knows how about gasoline has affected our driving habits. People can't wait to junk their gas-guzzling SUVs for a new Prius. But there are more, not-so-obvious changes on the horizon that Chris Steiner tracks brilliantly in this provocative work.

Although vital to our well-being and even to our success as a species, the physical sense of balance has never attained the same recognition as sight, hearing, touch, smell, or taste. Now, with an epidemic of debilitating falls sweeping America's aging population, the time is ripe for a lively and illuminating tour of the human body's most exquisitely intricate and least understood faculty.