Washoe County Library System

"An essential analysis of the modern science and technology that makes our twenty-first century lives possible--a scientist's investigation into what science really does, and does not, accomplish. We have never had so much information at our fingertips and yet most of us don't know how the world really works. This book explains seven of the most fundamental realities governing our survival and prosperity. From energy and food production, through our...

Reveals the world's absolute dependence on sand as a resource material used in virtually every structure and consumer product, describing how the planet's dwindling sand levels and related human practices are incurring significant environmental consequences.

"The New York Times bestselling author of The Rational Optimist and Genome returns with a fascinating, brilliant argument for evolution that definitively dispels a dangerous, widespread myth: that we can command and control our world.The Evolution of Everything is about bottom-up order and its enemy, the top-down twitch--the endless fascination human beings have for design rather than evolution, for direction rather than emergence. Drawing on anecdotes...

Tracking through 12,000 years of history in the Middle East, Europe, and the United States, James Burke shows how past events and technologies led to modern inventions, such as the atomic bomb, engines, electric lamps, telecommunications, the computer, refrigeration, the production line, jets, plastics, rocketry, and movies.

In the year 241, twelve-year-old Lina trades jobs on Assignment Day to be a Messenger to run to new places in her decaying but beloved city, perhaps even to glimpse Unknown Regions.

Explores the origins and effects of those inventions that shape our modern world. "This humorous and upbeat science series show that history is filled with seemingly unrelated discoveries that are actually connected in the most surprising ways. Host James Burke continues to delight viewers as he explores the effects and origins of inventions and events that shape the modern world"--Container cover insert.

Neo discovers that somehow he is able to use his powers in the real world and that his mind can be freed from his body. As a result of which he finds himself trapped on a train station between the Matrix and the Real World. Meanwhile, Zion is preparing for the oncoming war with the machines with little chance of survival. Neo's associates set out to free him from The Merovingian since it's believed that he is the One who will end the war between humans...

World-renowned economist Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, explains that we have an opportunity to shape the fourth industrial revolu­tion, which will fundamentally alter how we live and work. Schwab argues that this revolution is different in scale, scope and complexity from any that have come before. Characterized by a range of new technologies that are fusing the physical, digital and biological worlds,...

The founding father of nanotechnology predicts the coming changes to the economy and the environment as more manufacturing is done with extreme precision on the atomic level at a significantly lower cost.

The lives and fates of three civilizations separated in time become intertwined as the forces behind an indestructible and massive canal 2,000 miles long and spanning the mid-continent of Earth react to a plot to overthrow the world government, and three teams of scientists find their lives changed beyond belief.