Life's Engines

Life's Engines PDF Author: Paul G. Falkowski
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691247692
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 224

Book Description
The marvelous microbes that made life on Earth possible and support our very existence For almost four billion years, microbes had the primordial oceans all to themselves. The stewards of Earth, these organisms transformed the chemistry of our planet to make it habitable for plants, animals, and us. Life's Engines takes readers deep into the microscopic world to explore how these marvelous creatures made life on Earth possible—and how human life today would cease to exist without them. Paul Falkowski looks "under the hood" of microbes to find the engines of life, the actual working parts that do the biochemical heavy lifting for every living organism on Earth. With insight and humor, he explains how these miniature engines are built—and how they have been appropriated by and assembled like Lego sets within every creature that walks, swims, or flies. Falkowski shows how evolution works to maintain this core machinery of life, and how we and other animals are veritable conglomerations of microbes. A vibrantly entertaining book about the microbes that support our very existence, Life's Engines will inspire wonder about these elegantly complex nanomachines that have driven life since its origin. It also issues a timely warning about the dangers of tinkering with that machinery to make it more "efficient" at meeting the ever-growing demands of humans in the coming century.

Life's Engines

Life's Engines PDF Author: Paul G. Falkowski
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691247684
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 224

Book Description
The marvelous microbes that made life on Earth possible and support our very existence For almost four billion years, microbes had the primordial oceans all to themselves. The stewards of Earth, these organisms transformed the chemistry of our planet to make it habitable for plants, animals, and us. Life's Engines takes readers deep into the microscopic world to explore how these marvelous creatures made life on Earth possible—and how human life today would cease to exist without them. Paul Falkowski looks "under the hood" of microbes to find the engines of life, the actual working parts that do the biochemical heavy lifting for every living organism on Earth. With insight and humor, he explains how these miniature engines are built—and how they have been appropriated by and assembled like Lego sets within every creature that walks, swims, or flies. Falkowski shows how evolution works to maintain this core machinery of life, and how we and other animals are veritable conglomerations of microbes. A vibrantly entertaining book about the microbes that support our very existence, Life's Engines will inspire wonder about these elegantly complex nanomachines that have driven life since its origin. It also issues a timely warning about the dangers of tinkering with that machinery to make it more "efficient" at meeting the ever-growing demands of humans in the coming century.

Life's Engines

Life's Engines PDF Author: Paul G. Falkowski
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691173354
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 218

Book Description
The stewards of Earth, these organisms transformed the chemistry of our planet to make it habitable for plants, animals, and us.

Three Little Engines

Three Little Engines PDF Author: Bob McKinnon
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0593225066
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 25

Book Description
A gorgeously illustrated, modern retelling of the classic The Little Engine That Could, sharing the timely message that everyone's journey is different, and that sometimes, success comes from a helping hand. Graduation day is finally here! The Little Blue Engine, the Yellow Passenger Engine, and the Red Freight Engine are excited to take their final test of Engine School: making their first solo trip over the mountain. But each engine encounters different challenges and obstacles on their journey. Gorgeous illustrations by Lou Fancher and Steve Johnson combine with a poignant story told by Bob McKinnon to remind a new generation of readers to "think they can."

Cells, Gels and the Engines of Life

Cells, Gels and the Engines of Life PDF Author: Gerald H. Pollack
Publisher: Ebner and Sons Publishers
ISBN:
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 328

Book Description
This book challenges the current wisdom of how cells work. It emphasizes the role of cell water and the gel-like nature of the cell, building on these features to explore the mechanisms of communication, transport, contraction, division, and other essential cell functions. Written for the non-expert, the book is profound enough for biologists, chemists, physicists and engineers.--From publisher description.

Moral Engines

Moral Engines PDF Author: Cheryl Mattingly
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 1785336940
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 266

Book Description
In the past fifteen years, there has been a virtual explosion of anthropological literature arguing that morality should be considered central to human practice. Out of this explosion new and invigorating conversations have emerged between anthropologists and philosophers. Moral Engines: Exploring the Ethical Drives in Human Life includes essays from some of the foremost voices in the anthropology of morality, offering unique interdisciplinary conversations between anthropologists and philosophers about the moral engines of ethical life, addressing the question: What propels humans to act in light of ethical ideals?

Invisible Search and Online Search Engines

Invisible Search and Online Search Engines PDF Author: Jutta Haider
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429828012
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 247

Book Description
Invisible Search and Online Search Engines considers the use of search engines in contemporary everyday life and the challenges this poses for media and information literacy. Looking for mediated information is mostly done online and arbitrated by the various tools and devices that people carry with them on a daily basis. Because of this, search engines have a significant impact on the structure of our lives, and personal and public memories. Haider and Sundin consider what this means for society, whilst also uniting research on information retrieval with research on how people actually look for and encounter information. Search engines are now one of society’s key infrastructures for knowing and becoming informed. While their use is dispersed across myriads of social practices, where they have acquired close to naturalised positions, they are commercially and technically centralised. Arguing that search, searching, and search engines have become so widely used that we have stopped noticing them, Haider and Sundin consider what it means to be so reliant on this all-encompassing and increasingly invisible information infrastructure. Invisible Search and Online Search Engines is the first book to approach search and search engines from a perspective that combines insights from the technical expertise of information science research with a social science and humanities approach. As such, the book should be essential reading for academics, researchers, and students working on and studying information science, library and information science (LIS), media studies, journalism, digital cultures, and educational sciences.

The Life and Legend of James Watt

The Life and Legend of James Watt PDF Author: David Philip Miller
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN: 0822986795
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 469

Book Description
The Life and Legend of James Wattoffers a deeper understanding of the work and character of the great eighteenth-century engineer. Stripping away layers of legend built over generations, David Philip Miller finds behind the heroic engineer a conflicted man often diffident about his achievements but also ruthless in protecting his inventions and ideas, and determined in pursuit of money and fame. A skilled and creative engineer, Watt was also a compulsive experimentalist drawn to natural philosophical inquiry, and a chemistry of heat underlay much of his work, including his steam engineering. But Watt pursued the business of natural philosophy in a way characteristic of his roots in the Scottish “improving” tradition that was in tension with Enlightenment sensibilities. As Miller demonstrates, Watt’s accomplishments relied heavily on collaborations, not always acknowledged, with business partners, employees, philosophical friends, and, not least, his wives, children, and wider family. The legend created in his later years and “afterlife” claimed too much of nineteenth-century technology for Watt, but that legend was, and remains, a powerful cultural force.
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