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On the origin of time : Stephen Hawking's final theory / by Hertog, Thomas,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."Stephen Hawking's closest collaborator offers the intellectual superstar's final thoughts on the cosmos--a dramatic revision of the theory that made him the heir to Einstein's legacy. Perhaps the biggest question Stephen Hawking tried to answer in his extraordinary life was how the universe could have created conditions so perfectly hospitable to life. Pondering this mystery led Hawking to study the big bang origin of the universe, but his early work ran into a crisis when the math predicted many big bangs producing a multiverse--countless different universes, most far too bizarre to harbor life. Holed up in the theoretical physics department at Cambridge, Stephen Hawking and his friend and collaborator Thomas Hertog worked shoulder to shoulder for twenty years on a new quantum theory of the cosmos. As their journey took them deeper into the big bang, they were startled to find a deeper level of evolution in which the physical laws themselves transform and simplify until particles, forces, and even time itself fades away. Once upon a time, perhaps, there was no time. This led them to a revolutionary idea: the laws of physics are not set in stone but are born and co-evolve as the universe they govern takes shape. On the Origin of Time takes the reader on a quest to understand questions bigger than our universe, peering into the extreme quantum physics of black holes and the big bang and drawing on the latest developments in string theory. As Hawking's final days drew near, the two collaborators developed a final theory proposing their radical new Darwinian perspective on the origins of our universe. Hertog offers a striking new vision that ties together more deeply than ever the nature of the universe's birth with our existence. This new theory profoundly transforms the way we think about our place in the order of the cosmos and may ultimately prove Hawking's biggest legacy"--
Subjects: Hawking, Stephen, 1942-2018.; Cosmology.; Universe.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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And don't f&%k it up : an oral history of RuPaul's drag race (the first ten years) / by Fernandez, Maria Elena,author.;
"The four-time winner of the Emmy for outstanding reality series, RuPaul's Drag Race never set out to win over conventional America or climb the ladder of mainstream pop culture success. Its first season was classic counterculture, developed and filmed while President G.W. Bush was in office but launched at a time when Obama fever was at a national high. Over thirteen years and about 160 drag queen contestants later, everything from its language and style has seeped into the culture, cementing its place in herstory, one tuck at a time. With viewers everywhere from the halls of Congress to Wall Street, from big cities to small towns, Drag Race has become a worldwide phenomenon. Told over its first ten years, encompassing the show's first 14 seasons, And Don't F&%k It Up tells a cultural history through the stories of the people who lived it: the creators of the show, the contestants, the crew, the judges, and even some key (famous) fans. It begins with RuPaul's 34-year friendship and business relationship with World of Wonder Productions, the entertainment company that helped launch him into superstardom, and later talked him into giving a drag reality show a chance. From there, it traces the evolution of the show--and its queens--through a decade of gag-worthy seasons, serving up all kinds of behind-the-scenes realness, from Ongina's decision to reveal her HIV+ status to the story behind Asia O'Hara's butterfly finale fiasco. With a history as shady and funny as it is dramatic and inspiring, RuPaul's Drag Race is a mirror reflecting the cultural and political mores of our time. Its meteoric rise to becoming a once-in-a-generation success story is explored here as never before, in intimate, exuberant, unfettered detail"--
Subjects: RuPaul, 1960-; RuPaul's drag race (Television program : 2009- ); Drag queens; Television personalities; Talent shows (Television programs);
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The beautiful ones / by Prince,author.; Piepenbring, Dan,editor.;
Includes bibliographical references (pages 254-276).Prince was a musical genius, one of the most beloved, accomplished, and acclaimed musicians of our time. He was a startlingly original visionary with an imagination deep enough to whip up whole worlds, from the sexy, gritty funk paradise of "Uptown" to the mythical landscape of Purple Rain to the psychedelia of "Paisley Park." But his most ambitious creative act was turning Prince Rogers Nelson, born in Minnesota, into Prince, one of the greatest pop stars of any era. The Beautiful Ones is the story of how Prince became Prince-- a first-person account of a kid absorbing the world around him and then creating a persona, an artistic vision, and a life, before the hits and fame that would come to define him. The book is told in four parts. The first is the memoir Prince was writing before his tragic death, pages that bring us into his childhood world through his own lyrical prose. The second part takes us through Prince's early years as a musician, before his first album was released, via an evocative scrapbook of writing and photos. The third section shows us Prince's evolution through candid images that go up to the cusp of his greatest achievement, which we see in the book's fourth section: his original handwritten treatment for Purple Rain-- the final stage in Prince's self-creation, where he retells the autobiography of the first three parts as a heroic journey. The book is framed by editor Dan Piepenbring's riveting and moving introduction about his profound collaboration with Prince in his final months-- a time when Prince was thinking deeply about how to reveal more of himself and his ideas to the world, while retaining the mystery and mystique he'd so carefully cultivated-- and annotations that provide context to the book's images. This work is not just a tribute to an icon, but an original and energizing literary work in its own right, full of Prince's ideas and vision, his voice and image-- his undying gift to the world.
Subjects: Biographies.; Prince.; African American musicians; Rock musicians;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Money : a story of humanity / by McWilliams, David,author.; Lewis, Michael(Michael M.),writer of foreword.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."The story of money is the story of our desires, our genius, and our downfalls. Money is power -- and power beguiles. Nothing we've invented as a species has defined our own evolution so thoroughly and changed the direction of our planet's history so dramatically. Money has shaped the very essence of what it means to be human. We can't hope to understand ourselves without it. And yet despite money's primacy, most of us don't truly understand it. As economist David McWilliams states, money is everything. "Money defines the relationship between worker and employer, buyer and seller, merchant and producer. But not only that: it also defines the bond between the governed and the governor, the state and the citizen. Money unlocks pleasure, puts a price on desire, art and creativity. It motivates us to strive, achieve, invent and take risks. Money also brings out humanity's darker side, invoking greed, envy, hatred, violence and, of course, colonialism." Money isn't just paper or coins or virtual currency. Money is humanity. Leading economics expert, David McWilliams answers these questions and more in Money, an epic, breathlessly entertaining journey across the world through the present and the past, from the birthplace of money in ancient Babylon to the beginning of trade along the silk road to China, from Marrakech markets to Wall Street and the dawn of cryptocurrency. By tracking its history, McWilliams uncovers our relationship with money, transforming our perspective on its impact on the world right now. McWilliams is no dusty economist; he is a communicator at the highest level, a highly telegenic and marketable expert who is as comfortable in front of a large audience talking about his favourite subject as he is appearing on podcasts, social media, and even in stand-up comedy. He's been called Ireland's most important economist and is ranked among the leading economists working today. The story of money is the story of earth's most inventive, destructive, and dangerous animal: Homo sapiens. It is our story."--
Subjects: Money;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
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The bird way : a new look at how birds talk, work, play, parent, and think / by Ackerman, Jennifer,1959-author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index.""There is the mammal way and there is the bird way." This is one scientist's pithy distinction between mammal brains and bird brains: two ways to make a highly intelligent mind. But the bird way is much more than a unique pattern of brain wiring, and lately, scientists have taken a new look at bird behaviors they have, for years, dismissed as anomalies or mysteries. What they are finding is upending the traditional view of how birds conduct their lives, how they communicate, forage, court, breed, survive. They're also revealing the remarkable intelligence underlying these activities, abilities we once considered uniquely our own--deception, manipulation, cheating, kidnapping, infanticide, but also, ingenious communication between species, cooperation, collaboration, altruism, culture, and play. Some of these extraordinary behaviors are biological conundrums that seem to push the edges of--well--birdness: A mother bird that kills her own infant sons, and another that selflessly tends to the young of other birds as if they were her own. Young birds that devote themselves to feeding their siblings and others so competitive they'll stab their nestmates to death. Birds that give gifts and birds that steal, birds that dance or drum, that paint their creations or paint themselves, birds that build walls of sound to keep out intruders and birds that summon playmates with a special call--and may hold the secret to our own penchant for playfulness and the evolution of laughter. Drawing on personal observations, the latest science, and her bird-related travel around the world, from the tropical rainforests of eastern Australia and the remote woodlands of northern Japan, to the rolling hills of lower Austria and the islands of Alaska's Kachemak Bay, Ackerman shows there is clearly no single bird way of being. In every respect, in plumage, form, song, flight, lifestyle, niche, and behavior, birds vary. It's what we love about them. As E.O Wilson once said, when you have seen one bird, you have not seen them all"--
Subjects: Birds;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Every living thing : the great and deadly race to know all life / by Roberts, Jason(President of Panmedia Corporation),author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."From the bestselling author of A Sense of the World comes this dramatic, globe-spanning and meticulously-researched story of two scientific rivals and their race to survey all life on Earth. In the 18th century, two men dedicated their lives to the same daunting task: identifying and describing all life on Earth. Their approaches could not have been more different. Carl Linnaeus, a pious Swedish doctor with a huckster's flair, believed that life belonged in tidy, static categories. Georges-Louis de Buffon, an aristocratic polymath and keeper of France's royal garden, viewed life as a dynamic swirl of complexities. Both began believing their work to be difficult, but not impossible--how could the planet possibly hold more than a few thousand species? Stunned by life's diversity, both fell far short of their goal. But in the process they articulated starkly divergent views on nature, on humanity's role in shaping the fate of our planet and on humanity itself. The rivalry between these two unique, driven individuals created reverberations that still echo today. Linnaeus, with the help of acolyte explorers he called "apostles" (only half of whom returned alive), gave the world such concepts as mammal, primate and homo sapiens--but he also denied species change and promulgated racist pseudo-science. Buffon coined the term reproduction, formulated early prototypes of evolution and genetics, and argued passionately against prejudice. It was a clash that, during their lifetimes, Buffon seemed to be winning. But their posthumous fates would take a very different turn. With elegant, propulsive prose grounded in more than a decade of research, featuring appearances by Voltaire, Benjamin Franklin and Charles Darwin, bestselling author Jason Roberts tells an unforgettable true-life tale of intertwined lives and enduring legacies, tracing an arc of insight and discovery that extends across three centuries into the present day"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Buffon, Georges Louis Leclerc, comte de, 1707-1788.; Linné, Carl von, 1707-1778.; Biology; Life (Biology); Natural history; Naturalists; Naturalists;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
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When the heavens went on sale : the misfits and geniuses who put space within reach / by Vance, Ashlee,author.;
"With the launch of the Falcon 1 rocket in 2008, Elon Musk's SpaceX became the first private company to build a low-cost rocket that could reach orbit. And that milestone carried major implications: Silicon Valley, not NASA, was suddenly cemented as the epicenter of the new Space Age. Start-ups and the wealthy investors behind them began to realize that the universe--ungoverned and infinite--was open for business. Welcome to the wild west of aerospace engineering. When the Heavens Went on Sale tells the remarkable, unfolding story of this frenzied intergalactic land grab. Through his trademark immersive reporting, Ashlee Vance follows four pioneering companies--Astra, Firefly, Planet Labs, and Rocket Lab--as they build new space systems and attempt to launch rockets into orbit. While the public fixated on the space tourism being driven by Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Richard Branson, these new companies arrived with a different set of goals: to make rocket and satellite launches fast and cheap, thereby opening Earth's lower orbit for business--and setting it up as the next playing field for humankind's technological evolution, where we can connect, analyze, and monitor everything on Earth. Vance has had a front row seat and singular access to this peculiar and unprecedented moment in history. When the Heavens Went on Sale travels through private company headquarters, labs, and top-secret launch locations around the world, including California, Texas, Alaska, New Zealand, Ukraine, India, and French Guiana. Vance chronicles it all in full color: the private jets, communes, gun-toting bodyguards, hallucinogens, espionage investigations, and multi-millionaires guzzling booze to dull the pain as their fortunes disappear. With the most detailed and intimate reporting of Vance's career, When the Heavens Went on Sale reveals the spectacular chaos of the new business of space, and what happens when the idealistic, ambitious minds of Silicon Valley turn their unbridled vision toward the limitless expanse of the stars. This is the most pressing and controversial technology story of our times, a tale of fascinating characters chasing unimaginable stakes as they race to space"--
Subjects: Privatization.; Rockets (Aeronautics); Space tourism.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Contesting intersex : the dubious diagnosis / by Davis, Georgiann,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."When sociologist Georgiann Davis was a teenager, her doctors discovered that she possessed XY chromosomes, marking her as intersex. Rather than share this information with her, they withheld the diagnosis in order to 'protect' the development of her gender identity; it was years before Davis would see her own medical records as an adult and learn the truth. Davis' experience is not unusual. Many intersex people feel isolated from one another and violated by medical practices that support conventional notions of the male/female sex binary which have historically led to secrecy and shame about being intersex. Yet, the rise of intersex activism and visibility in the US has called into question the practice of classifying intersex as an abnormality, rather than as a mere biological variation. This shift in thinking has the potential to transform entrenched intersex medical treatment. In Contesting Intersex, Davis draws on interviews with intersex people, their parents, and medical experts to explore the oft-questioned views on intersex in medical and activist communities, as well as the evolution of thought in regards to intersex visibility and transparency. She finds that framing intersex as an abnormality is harmful and can alter the course of one's life. In fact, controversy over this framing continues, as intersex has been renamed a 'disorder of sex development' throughout medicine. This happened, she suggests, as a means for doctors to reassert their authority over the intersex body in the face of increasing intersex activism in the 1990s and feminist critiques of intersex medical treatment. Davis argues the renaming of 'intersex' as a 'disorder of sex development' is strong evidence that the intersex diagnosis is dubious. Within the intersex community, though, disorder of sex development terminology is hotly disputed; some prefer not to use a term which pathologizes their bodies, while others prefer to think of intersex in scientific terms. Although terminology is currently a source of tension within the movement, Davis hopes intersex activists and their allies can come together to improve the lives of intersex people, their families, and future generations. However, for this to happen, the intersex diagnosis, as well as sex, gender, and sexuality, needs to be understood as socially constructed phenomena"--
Subjects: Intersex people.; Intersexuality; Sexual disorders.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The program : inside the mind of Keith Raniere and the rise and fall of NXIVM / by Natalie, Toni,author.; Hardin, Chet,author.;
Includes bibliographical references."Many have heard of NXIVM and its creator, Keith Raniere, an unassuming Albany man who prosecutors say ensnared tens of thousands of people in the US, Mexico and elsewhere, to do his bidding and pay millions of dollars to participate in his self-improvement methodology. What is not known is how many more people came under the thrall of this man in the years leading up to and including his founding of NXIVM. Where did Keith Raniere begin? How did he build NXIVM and its prior incarnations? And, most notably, how was this relatively far-flung entrepreneur able to get and keep his access to the wealth and power that allowed him to lure so many successful, sophisticated people? Enter single mother Toni Natalie, Keith's Patient Zero, the first one indoctrinated into Raniere's methodology and the first one to escape. Told in three parts, the narrative uniquely walks us through the origin story to the fall of Raniere through Toni's eyes and ears. During this time, she bore witness to the evolution of his methodology, including his use of sexual coercion and entrapment, blackmail, and employment of psychological tools such as hypnosis and neuro linguistic programming to ambush, control, and punish those who would not heed his wishes ... most of all Toni. Though unaware of Raniere's true motives and the extent of his involvement until she reconnected with others, Toni can uniquely detail the thousands of fortunes lost and the lives left in disarray that she witnessed contemporaneously, as she pulls back the curtain on the mind control techniques used on members of NXIVM and DOS, a group of women allegedly coerced into sexual acts under the guise of a "women's empowerment" inner circle, whom Raniere exercised extreme control over directly and through his lieutenants. But far from being a victim's story, in the spirit of Erin Brockovich, Toni's is a nuanced narrative of a multi-dimensional woman saving herself, and then working tirelessly to help other women do the same for themselves. Today, Toni is happy, reunited with her son, and surrounded by friends and family--it is this perspective that makes her such a unique storyteller"--
Subjects: Raniere, Keith.; Natalie, Toni.; NXIVM (Firm); Cult members.; Ex-cultists.; Human trafficking.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Letters / by Sacks, Oliver,1933-2015,author.; Edgar, Kate(Editor),editor.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."The letters of one of the greatest observers of the human species, revealing his intimate thoughts on life and work, friendship and art, medicine and society, and the richness of his relationships with friends, family and scientists over the decades. A prolific correspondent, Dr. Oliver Sacks -- who describes himself variously in these pages as "a philosophical physician," "an astronomer of the inward," a "neuropathological Talmudist," and "a consummate observer" with "a pure love for phenomena" -- wrote letters throughout his life to his parents, his beloved Aunt Lennie, to friends and colleagues from London, Oxford, California, and around the world. The pages begin with his arrival in America as a young man, eager to establish himself away from the confines of postwar England, and carry us through his bumpy early career in medicine and the discovery of his writer's voice and métier; his weightlifting, motorcycle-riding years and his explosive seasons of discovery with the patients who populate his book Awakenings; his growing interest in matters of sight and the musical brain; his many friendships and exchanges with fellow writers, artists and scientists (to say nothing of astronauts, botanists, and mathematicians), and his deep gratitude for all these relationships at the end of his life. From Francis Crick and Jane Goodall to W. H. Auden and Susan Sontag, from lovers to patients, and ordinary folk who wrote to him with their odd symptoms and questions, all are treated equally to Sacks's lyrical, ferocious, penetrating and at times hilarious observations. His musings often contain the first detailed sketches of an essay forming in his mind. Sensitively introduced and edited by Kate Edgar, Sacks's longtime assistant (and one of his correspondents), the letters deliver a complete portrait of Sacks as he wrestles with the workings of the brain and mind. We see, through his eyes, the beginnings of modern neuroscience as it unlocks many secrets of how the human brain defines us. We experience the arc of a remarkable personal evolution, closely following the thought processes of one of the twentieth century's great intellectuals, whose life was long and productive and whose words, as evidenced in these pages, were unfailingly shaped with generosity and wonder toward other people"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Personal correspondence.; Personal narratives.; Sacks, Oliver, 1933-2015; Sacks, Oliver, 1933-2015; Neurologists;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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