Science

Models change our worlds. From global carbon flux models to regional coastal flood prediction maps, climate-related models influence how we know our environment, how we build our cities, and how we act on a climate-altered planet. Yet such models typically require specialized knowledge to navigate, and because the climate crisis is inherently multidimensional, technical expertise in isolation is not enough.

Climate Changed examines models and their imperfect yet central role in understanding the relationship between global climate dynamics and the human-built environment. It compares and synthesizes the methods and function of models in disciplines ranging from architecture and planning to climate science and natural hazards research. This book considers how disparate models are woven together to understand the climate crisis, underscoring the necessity of combining locally situated and transdisciplinary knowledge with climate science to navigate current and future cataclysmic changes. It highlights the challenges and consequences of disciplinary boundaries, siloed scientific knowledge, and uneven data and develops ways to overcome these limitations.

As the world faces the effects of climate change, climate scientists are debating the future of their field; architects, engineers, and planners are designing in the context of climate change; and society at large is grappling with how to take action. This book brings those communities together to chart a path forward.

After the research psychologist Barbara Blatchley’s husband and partner of thirty-six years passed away, her life changed utterly. Seeking to understand the pain and confusion she felt, Blatchley began exploring the psychology and neuroscience of bereavement. Why does grief last so long and hurt so much? How do we come to terms with loss?

In Sorrow’s Long Road, Blatchley interweaves an engaging and reader-friendly look at the research on grief with her powerful personal narrative. Beginning with the day of her husband’s death, she traces the questions that loss raised and the answers that science provides. Blatchley examines the psychology of love and attachment, detailing how we bond with others and what happens when those bonds are broken. She considers the storm of emotions that the bereaved experience, as well as both the physical and psychological effects of grieving. Blatchley maps out how we adapt to the changes that loss brings and find a new identity afterward. In addition to her own experiences, she shares the stories of other people who have suffered a loss and struggled to recover, illustrating how grief changes over time.

Accessibly written and deeply empathetic, Sorrow’s Long Road humanizes the science, showing how psychology and neuroscience can help us make sense of the darkest times in our lives.

After the research psychologist Barbara Blatchley’s husband and partner of thirty-six years passed away, her life changed utterly. Seeking to understand the pain and confusion she felt, Blatchley began exploring the psychology and neuroscience of bereavement. Why does grief last so long and hurt so much? How do we come to terms with loss?

In Sorrow’s Long Road, Blatchley interweaves an engaging and reader-friendly look at the research on grief with her powerful personal narrative. Beginning with the day of her husband’s death, she traces the questions that loss raised and the answers that science provides. Blatchley examines the psychology of love and attachment, detailing how we bond with others and what happens when those bonds are broken. She considers the storm of emotions that the bereaved experience, as well as both the physical and psychological effects of grieving. Blatchley maps out how we adapt to the changes that loss brings and find a new identity afterward. In addition to her own experiences, she shares the stories of other people who have suffered a loss and struggled to recover, illustrating how grief changes over time.

Accessibly written and deeply empathetic, Sorrow’s Long Road humanizes the science, showing how psychology and neuroscience can help us make sense of the darkest times in our lives.

Biotechnology and law are inextricable. Patent, regulatory, and contract law profoundly shape the biotech industry, and each of these practice areas is deeply intertwined with the science it governs. Yet many in this industry lack even a basic grasp of these laws, jeopardizing their business success as a result.

This book is an essential introduction to biotechnology law for scientists, startup founders, regulatory specialists, patent liaisons, investors, academics, students, and other nonattorneys with biotech backgrounds. It covers core topics such as patentability, patent prosecution and infringement, patent opinions, the development and FDA approval of small-molecule and biologic drugs, regulatory exclusivity, generic drugs and ANDA litigation, biosimilars and the patent dance, patent licenses, and collaboration agreements. Written with scientists in mind, Biotechnology Law is a clear, concise, and entirely practical primer on the topic, replete with straightforward, real-world examples to illustrate each key concept. Understanding the legal machinery through which science becomes business is not a luxury—it is a crucial part of a scientist’s training. Alan J. Morrison’s expert treatment embraces this new reality.

The long and distinguished tradition of tracking dinosaurs and other extinct animals in Europe dates back to the 1830s. Yet this venerable tradition of scientific activity cannot compare in magnitude and scope with the unprecedented spate of discovery and documentation of the last few years. Now, following on the heels of his Dinosaur Tracks and Other Fossil Footprints of the Western United States, Martin Lockley teams up with Christian Meyer to present an up to date synthesis of the recent findings in the field of European fossil footprints. Drawing extensively on their own research results from studies in Britain, Switzerland, Portugal, Spain, and elsewhere, the authors create a dynamic picture of mammal, reptile, bird, and amphibian "track-makers" throughout more than 300 million years of vertebrate evolution, placed in the context of Europe's changing ancient environments.

Beginning with an introduction to tracking and a history of the European tracking tradition, Dinosaur Tracks and Other Fossil Footprints of Europe then charts a broad path of evolutionary proliferation from the proto-dinosaurs of the Early Triassic period to the dinosaurs' decline and disappearance in the Upper Cretaceous. The survey continues into the age of mammals and birds, ending with the cave art of our Paleolithic ancestors.

One of the great paradoxes of modern times is that the more scientists understand the natural world, the more we discover that our everyday beliefs about it are wrong. Astronomy, in particular, is one of the most misunderstood scientific disciplines.

With the participation of thousands of undergraduate students, Neil F. Comins has identified and classified, by origin and topic, over 1,700 commonly held misconceptions. Heavenly Errors provides access to all of them and explores many, including:

• Black holes suck in everything around them.

• The Sun shines by burning gas.

• Comets have tails trailing behind them.

• The Moon alone causes tides.

• Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun, is the hottest planet.

In the course of correcting these errors, he explains that some occur through the prevalence of pseudosciences such as astrology and UFO-logy and some enter the public conscience through the "bad astronomy" of Star Trek, Star Wars, and other science-fiction movies.. Perhaps most important, Professor Comins presents the reader with the methods for identifying and replacing incorrect ideas—tools with which to probe erroneous notions so that we can begin to question for ourselves... and to think more like scientists.

One of the great paradoxes of modern times is that the more scientists understand the natural world, the more we discover that our everyday beliefs about it are wrong. Astronomy, in particular, is one of the most misunderstood scientific disciplines.

With the participation of thousands of undergraduate students, Neil F. Comins has identified and classified, by origin and topic, over 1,700 commonly held misconceptions. Heavenly Errors provides access to all of them and explores many, including:

• Black holes suck in everything around them.

• The Sun shines by burning gas.

• Comets have tails trailing behind them.

• The Moon alone causes tides.

• Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun, is the hottest planet.

In the course of correcting these errors, he explains that some occur through the prevalence of pseudosciences such as astrology and UFO-logy and some enter the public conscience through the "bad astronomy" of Star Trek, Star Wars, and other science-fiction movies.. Perhaps most important, Professor Comins presents the reader with the methods for identifying and replacing incorrect ideas—tools with which to probe erroneous notions so that we can begin to question for ourselves... and to think more like scientists.

Over 4.5 billion years, Earth’s climate has transformed tremendously. Before our more temperate recent past, the planet swung from one extreme to another—from a greenhouse world of sweltering temperatures and high sea levels to a “snowball earth” in which glaciers reached the equator. During this history, we now know, living things and the climate have always influenced and even shaped each other. But the climate has never changed as rapidly or as drastically as it has since the Industrial Revolution.

In this lively and entertaining book, Donald R. Prothero explores the astonishing connections between climate and life through the ages, telling the remarkable stories of the scientists who made crucial discoveries. Journeying through the intertwined evolution of climate and life, he tackles questions such as: Why do we have phytoplankton to thank for the air we breathe? What kind of climate was necessary for the rise of the dinosaurs—or the mammals, their successors? When and how have climatic changes caused mass extinctions? Prothero concludes with the Ice Ages and the Holocene, the role of climate in human history, and the perils of anthropogenic climate change. Understanding why the climate has changed in the past, this timely book shows, is essential to grasping the gravity of how radically human activity is altering the climate today.