"A bold exploration of the reintegration of rationality and intuition, science and soul, to foster individual and planetary healing. Examines how integrating important alchemical images with Gaian science can offer insights into our interconnectedness with Gaia. Looks at how the four components of the living earth-biosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere, and lithosphere-mesh with the four elements of alchemical theory and the four functions of consciousness...

Millions of people visit xkcd.com each week to read Randall Munroe's iconic webcomic. His stick-figure drawings about science, technology, language, and love have a large and passionate following. Fans of xkcd ask Munroe a lot of strange questions. What if you tried to hit a baseball pitched at 90 percent the speed of light? How fast can you hit a speed bump while driving and live? If there was a robot apocalypse, how long would humanity last? In...

For any task you might want to do, there's a right way, a wrong way, and a way so monumentally complex, excessive, and inadvisable that no one would ever try it. Munroe has created a guide to the third kind of approach. He provides highly impractical advice for everything from landing a plane to digging a hole. In exploring the absurd, he opens up an understanding to the science and technology underlying the things we do every day. -- adapted from...

"This is a little book of profound questions--unknowns that address the secrets of our world, our civilization, the meaning of life. Here are the deepest riddles that have fascinated, obsessed, and haunted the greatest thinkers of our time, including Nobel laureates, cosmologists, philosophers, economists, prize-winning novelists, religious scholars, and more than 250 leading scientists, artists, and theorists. In The Last Unknowns, John Brockman,...

Based on Michael Brooks's popular article for New Scientist--one of the most forwarded articles in the magazine's online history--13 Things That Don't Make Sense tackles the most hotly debated topics in science today, from the placebo effect to life on Mars, and shows how these conundrums are changing the way scientists approach their work and why these issues will define science in the twenty-first century. Brooks covers such topics as: the missing...

Helaine Becker places six different kinds of monsters under her microscope to expose the proven scientific principles behind the legends. There's also historical background on each monster, as well as trivia and jokes in sidebars, and quizzes at the end of every chapter for readers to test their knowledge. Becker uses the never-ending appetite for all things monster to engage the imaginations of children and get them excited about science, especially...

What happens when you burp in space? Can you comb a hairy doughnut? Is the platypus even a real animal? Join us for a mind-boggling look at the record-breaking world around us. From the science of slam dunks and the smelliest substances to over-engineered inventions and the physics of cats, you'll find page after page of amazing--and downright unbelievable--facts. Plus: do try this at home. Have a go at 10 record-breaking experiments that will blow...

Presents in introduction to thirty-four scientific breakthroughs, discussing the history of their discovery and providing instructions for conducting experiments which demonstrate their principles.

The creator of the popular webcomic "xkcd" uses line drawings and just ten hundred common words to provide simple explanations for how things work, including microwaves, bridges, tectonic plates, the solar system, the periodic table, helicopters, and other essential concepts.