
ISBN: 1400052181
Author: Rebecca Skloot
Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells—taken without her knowledge—became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first “immortal” human cells grown in culture, they are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. If you could pile all HeLa cells ever grown onto a scale, they’d weigh more than 50 million metric tons—as much as a hundred Empire State Buildings. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb’s effects; helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions.
Yet Henrietta Lacks remains virtually unknown, buried in an unmarked grave.
Now Rebecca Skloot takes us on an extraordinary journey, from the “colored” ward of Johns Hopkins Hospital in the 1950s to stark white laboratories with freezers full of HeLa cells; from Henrietta’s small, dying hometown of Clover, Virginia—a land of wooden slave quarters, faith healings, and voodoo—to East Baltimore today, where her children and grandchildren live and struggle with the legacy of her cells. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by admin | Posted in New Releases, Reference-New | Posted on 02-03-2011-05-2008
0

ISBN: 0199753784
Author: Barry Eichengreen
For more than half a century, the U.S. dollar has been not just America’s currency but the world’s. It is used globally by importers, exporters, investors, governments and central banks alike. Nearly three-quarters of all $100 bills circulate outside the United States. The dollar holdings of the Chinese government alone come to more than $1,000 per Chinese resident.
This dependence on dollars, by banks, corporations and governments around the world, is a source of strength for the United States. It is, as a critic of U.S. policies once put it, America’s “exorbitant privilege.” However, recent events have raised concerns that this soon may be a privilege lost. Among these have been the effects of the financial crisis and the Great Recession: high unemployment, record federal deficits, and financial distress. In addition there is the rise of challengers like the euro and China’s renminbi. Some say that the dollar may soon cease to be the world’s standard currency–which would depress American living standards and weaken the country’s international influence. Read the rest of this entry »

ISBN: 0691147787
Author: Richard Crossley
This stunningly illustrated book from acclaimed birder and photographer Richard Crossley revolutionizes field guide design by providing the first real-life approach to identification. Whether you are a beginner, expert, or anywhere in between, The Crossley ID Guide will vastly improve your ability to identify birds. Unlike other guides, which provide isolated individual photographs or illustrations, this is the first book to feature large, lifelike scenes for each species. These scenes–640 in all–are composed from more than 10,000 of the author’s images showing birds in a wide range of views–near and far, from different angles, in various plumages and behaviors, including flight, and in the habitat in which they live. These beautiful compositions show how a bird’s appearance changes with distance, and give equal emphasis to characteristics experts use to identify birds: size, structure and shape, behavior, probability, and color. This is the first book to convey all of these features visually–in a single image–and to reinforce them with accurate, concise text. Each scene provides a wealth of detailed visual information that invites and rewards careful study, but the most important identification features can be grasped instantly by anyone. By making identification easier, more accurate, and more fun than ever before, The Crossley ID Guide will completely redefine how its users look at birds. Essential for all birders, it also promises to make new birders of many people who have despaired of using traditional guides. Revolutionary. This book changes field guide design to make you a better birder A picture says a thousand words. The most comprehensive guide: 640 stunning scenes created from 10,000 of the author’s photographs Reality birding. Lifelike in-focus scenes show birds in their habitats, from near and far, and in all plumages and behaviors Teaching and reference. The first book to accurately portray all the key identification characteristics: size, shape, behavior, probability, and color Practice makes perfect. An interactive learning experience to sharpen and test field identification skills Bird like the experts. The first book to simplify birding and help you understand how to bird like the best An interactive website–www.crossleybirds.com–includes expanded captions for the plates and species updates
Pages: 544 |
Binding: Hardcover |
| Publisher: Princeton University Press |
Year: 2011 |


ISBN: 0446577898
Author: Brad Meltzer
There are stories no one knows. Hidden stories. I love those stories. And since I work in the National Archives, I find those stories for a living.
Beecher White, a young archivist, spends his days working with the most important documents of the U.S. government. He has always been the keeper of other people’s stories, never a part of the story himself…
Until now.
When Clementine Kaye, Beecher’s first childhood crush, shows up at the National Archives asking for his help tracking down her long-lost father, Beecher tries to impress her by showing her the secret vault where the President of the United States privately reviews classified documents. After they accidentally happen upon a priceless artifact – a 200 hundred-year-old dictionary that once belonged to George Washington, hidden underneath a desk chair, Beecher and Clementine find themselves suddenly entangled in a web of deception, conspiracy, and murder.
Soon a man is dead, and Beecher is on the run as he races to learn the truth behind this mysterious national treasure. His search will lead him to discover a coded and ingenious puzzle that conceals a disturbing secret from the founding of our nation. It is a secret, Beecher soon discovers, that some believe is worth killing for.
Gripping, fast-paced, and filled with the fascinating historical detail for which he is famous, THE INNER CIRCLE is a thrilling novel that once again proves Brad Meltzer as a brilliant author writing at the height of his craft.
Pages: 464 |
Binding: Hardcover |
| Publisher: Grand Central Publishing |
Year: 2011 |


ISBN: 0470930225
Author: Andrew Liveris
America used to define itself by the things it built. We designed and produced the world’s most important innovations, and in doing so, created a vibrant manufacturing sector that built the middle class. We manufactured our way to the top and became the undisputed economic leader among all nations. But over the last several decades, and especially in the last ten years, the sector that was America’s great pride has eroded, costing millions of jobs and putting our long-term prosperity at risk. Now, as we struggle to recover from the worst recession in generations, our only chance to turn things around is to revive the American manufacturing sector—and to revolutionize it. In MAKE IT IN AMERICA: The Case for Reinventing the Economy, Andrew Liveris — Chairman and CEO of The Dow Chemical Company—offers a thoughtful and passionate argument that America’s future economic growth and prosperity depends on the strength of its manufacturing sector. The book
- Explains how a manufacturing sector creates economic value at a scale unmatched by any other, and how central the sector is to creating jobs both inside and outside the factory.
- Explores how other nations are building their manufacturing sectors to stay competitive in the global economy, and describes how America has failed to keep up.
- Provides an aggressive, practical and comprehensive agenda that will put the U.S. back on track to lead the world.
It’s time to stop accepting as inevitable the shuttering of factories and staggering job losses that have come to define manufacturing. It’s time to acknowledge the cost of inaction. There is no better company to make the case for reviving U.S. manufacturing than the Michigan-based The Dow Chemical Company, one of the world’s largest manufacturers and one of its most global corporations. And there’s no better book to show why it needs to be done and how to do it than MAKE IT IN AMERICA.
Andrew Liveris is Chairman and CEO of The Dow Chemical Company, one of the largest multinational corporations in the world and a leader in science and technology.
Q&A with Author Andrew Liveris
What is the biggest factor to explain the dramatic loss of U.S. manufacturing sector jobs that began in the 1970s?
 |
| Author Michael Burchell |
There are a lot of reasons that the U.S. manufacturing sector has lost jobs over the last four decades, but they boil down to this. The world changed, and our policy approach did not change with it. Read the rest of this entry »