Professional Engineer

A Londoner for more than 20 years, moving from flat to Tube to air-conditioned office, Melissa Harrison knew what it was to be insulated from the seasons. Adopting a dog and going on daily walks helped reconnect her with the cycle of the year and the quiet richness of nature all around her: swifts nesting in a nearby church; ivy-leaved toadflax growing out of brick walls; the first blackbird's song; an exhilarating glimpse of a hobby over Tooting Common.

The Pasagoula River is the largest unobstructed river in the continuous United States. Because of this lack of restraint, the river has been left to rise and fall naturally with the seasons, overflowing annually into the adjoining bottomland surrounded by some of the most ecologically diverse woodlands, in North America. Herman Murrah lived his entire life on the banks and in the swamp surrounding this river in southeast Mississippi. In this book, Herman's son Davy details the adventures that continue to inspire young conservationists in the fight to protect our remaining natural ecosystems.

We now know that the universe is mostly dark, made up of particles and forces undetectable by our most powerful telescopes. The discovery signaled a Copernican-like revolution in astronomy: not only are we not the center of the universe, neither is the stuff of which we're made. Vera Rubin played a pivotal role in this discovery. By showing that some astronomical objects seem to defy gravity, Rubin helped convince the scientific community of the possibility of dark matter. In Bright Galaxies, Dark Matter, and Beyond, Ashley Jean Yeager tells the story of Rubin's life and work.

In the middle of New York City lies a neighborhood where all secrets are valuable, all assets are liquid, and all deals are sealed with a blessing rather than a contract. Welcome to the diamond district. Ninety percent of all diamonds that enter America pass through these few blocks, but the inner workings of this mysterious world are known only to the people who inhabit it.

This audiobook takes a closer look at who Charles Darwin was, how he lived his everyday life and how influential he became; not just in his own day but into the modern world as well. Find out what interested his incredible mind and how Darwin presented his theories to a yet unsuspecting world. From beetles to butterflies, coral reefs and tropical islands, from apes to humans, learn how Charles Darwin's evidence speaks even to the world today.

Edwin Hubble was a man ahead of his time. For him only astronomy really mattered. He took advantage of the opportunity given to him to use the most advanced telescope of his time to determine the truth behind the most distant clouds of light visible to Earth-based observers. His major discoveries changed our knowledge of our place in the universe forever. His determination that the universe is expanding served as the foundation for the big bang theory.

Explore the stories of more than 85 of the world's most inspirational and influential scientists with this innovative and bold book of biographies. From mathematicians to meteorologists, geologists to geneticists, each scientist is presented through a combination of stimulating words. Combining elements of biography, history, and analysis, Scientists Who Changed History explains the groundbreaking contributions made by these revolutionary men and women in a clear and informative way.

In 2007, after 20 years of living in London, Kate Humble and her husband Ludo decided it was time to leave city life behind them. Three years later, now the owner of a Welsh smallholding, Kate hears that a nearby farm is to be broken up and sold off. Another farm lost; another opportunity for a young farmless farmer gone. Desperate to stop the sale, Kate contacts the council with an alternative plan - to keep the farm working and to run a rural skills and animal husbandry school alongside it. Against all odds, she succeeds.

About the Book: The engineers that have brought us the contemporary world of technological marvels have not solved all the world’s interesting problems, just the easy ones. For working and aspiring engineers, the world’s complexity grows daily, and the problems we face grow more thorny. One’s engineering education could not teach us all we must now know, or even guess at the domains of learning we must master to be effective next year. There are technical domains yet to be created which we will need to master to be effective a decade from now. In the midst of such intellectual ...

It all started with a Hob Nob. As Dr Matt Morgan, an intensive care consultant, examined a patient who had suffered a cardiac arrest after inhaling some biscuit crumbs, he saw a flock of birds fly past the window. They must inhale objects all the time when flying, how do they survive? he thought to himself. This began an investigation that spanned continents, species and millennia. For animal science has so much to teach us about human medicine. While some of the overlaps and parallels are obvious, there is so much more that we have learnt from the animal world.

Dale Vince never intended to start a business. Driven by a passion for sustainability, he left school aged 15 and became a New Age traveler, living for free in a wind-powered double decker bus. But after building his first wind turbine, he realized that to change the world he needed to be on the grid, not off it. In 1996, he founded green energy company Ecotricity based on principles of social, financial, and environmental sustainability, and changed the landscape of UK energy forever.

The twists and turns of the last 15 years of the Qantas story contain all the ingredients of a corporate thriller, with constant shocks to the system, and boardroom dramas and disasters narrowly avoided. During this tumultuous period, as CEO of Australia's iconic airline, Alan Joyce became one of the best-known corporate figures in Australia, and one of the most polarising. Global aviation expert Peter Harbison tells the full and unvarnished story of this fascinating period of the Qantas journey.

By the end of World War I, Albert Einstein had become the face of the new science of theoretical physics and had made some powerful enemies. One of those enemies, Nobel Prize winner Philipp Lenard, spent a career trying to discredit him. Their story of conflict, pitting Germany's most widely celebrated Jew against the Nazi scientist who was to become Hitler's chief advisor on physics, had an impact far exceeding what the scientific community felt at the time.

Grim Reaper sits on the heart surgeon's shoulder. A slip of the hand and life ebbs away. The balance between life and death is so delicate, and the heart surgeon walks that rope between the two. In the operating room, there is no time for doubt. It is flesh, blood, rib retractors and pumping the vital organ with your bare hand to squeeze the life back into it. An off day can have dire consequences - this job has a steep learning curve, and the cost is measured in human life. Cardiac surgery is not for the faint of heart.

Katalin Karikó began life as a butcher’s daughter in post-war Communist Hungary. But even as a child she understood two crucial things: for those who can see it, the world is full of fascination and wonder, and whatever challenges she faced, she could overcome them with her boundless appetite for learning. Breaking Through is Karikó’s extraordinary memoir of how she achieved her dream of becoming a scientist, first in Hungary and then in the USA, and pursued her belief – despite so many telling her not to – that an elusive molecule called mRNA could transform our ability to prevent disease.

Just trying to define a man who had the qualities of a mathematician, astronomer, philosopher, inventor, and astrologer can prove difficult. But all of that can be ascribed to Johannes Kepler, one of the giants of his era who ushered in the Scientific Revolution and is often considered the first modern scientist.

Part memoir, part homage to wilderness, Shearwater traces the author’s 50-year obsession with one of nature’s supreme travellers. In the finest tradition of nature writing, Roger Morgan-Grenville, author of Liquid Gold - described by Mary Colwell (Curlew Moon) as ‘a book that ignites joy and warmth’ - unpicks the science behind its incredible journey; and into the story of a year in the shearwater’s life, he threads the inspirational influence of his Hebridean grandmother who instilled in him a love of wild places and wild animals.

Do you know why CSS programming will save you time over any other programming language?

As a girl in New York City in the 1940s, Mildred "Millie" Dresselhaus was taught that there were only three career options open to women: secretary, nurse, or teacher. In Carbon Queen, science writer Maia Weinstock describes how, with curiosity and drive, Dresselhaus defied expectations and forged a career as a pioneering scientist and engineer. Dresselhaus made highly influential discoveries about the properties of carbon and other materials and helped reshape our world in countless ways—from electronics to aviation to medicine to energy.

In 1862, ambitious scientist James Glaisher set out to do the impossible: ascend higher into the skies than ever before to establish his groundbreaking research. Glaisher’s death-defying journey forms the story of the major motion picture The Aeronauts, starring Eddie Redmayne as Glaisher and Felicity Jones as his balloon companion, Amelia Wren. Written in his own words, The Aeronauts chronicles Glaisher’s incredible flights and discoveries first hand, as well as his observations on the pioneers who came before and inspired him.