Systems Science

On a summer night in 1984, 19-year-old UC Berkeley sophomore Karen Thomas leaves her uniformed patrol job at the University of California Police Department and walks home alone in darkness. At the threshold of her apartment a man assaults her at knife point. After a soul chilling struggle she manages to escape and call 911. Police catch her assailant, she identifies him, and he is arrested. Fast forward 2014, 30 years after her assault. Why does the body remember what the mind tries so desperately to forget?

What is our immune system, and how does it work? A vast array of cells, proteins and chemicals spring into action whenever our bodies are damaged, but immunity is not something you can see, touch, or feel. It can fight off malicious bacteria and viruses, locate cancerous growths, and even rewire our brains—but sometimes our own tissues can get caught in its crossfire, with catastrophic consequences. Humans may be the most disease-ridden animals on the planet. Professor John Trowsdale shows how the immune system protects us, and how our bodies invest huge resources to keep it running.

Did you know that in the United States alone, an estimated 345 billion gallons of water are used daily? This shouldn’t be surprising–we live in a world of consumerism, and unfortunately, this even correlates to how we use natural resources like electricity and water. But what are you supposed to do? It’s not like you can just go without water.

Caleb Hanson assumed the most exciting part of his field trip scouting in Northern Minnesota would be a rare bird sighting. Instead, he was abducted by hive-minded hexapods and forced to be their children's teacher. Not the worst way to ride out the end of the world. Two years later, the apocalypse has finally come for Caleb. His savior-captors are murdered, leaving him as the last line of defense for the alien kids he's grown to know and love. Now, he'll have to bend his values or watch his students die.

Patriarch Jay Luckrun is one of the strongest dungeon crawlers in all of the Multiverse, but he's still not strong enough to overcome the greatest powers of the System. The [System Master] and the leaders of the great four pantheons. While making preparations for the soon-to-come war, Jay and his familiar Kleo touch on the ancient powers of the Precursor System, a type of system that existed before the current Multiverse System. There's more to it than what is known, more that involves Jay's path as one without fate.

When you go to sleep, the world doesn't rest with you. As John's closed-door cultivation continues, Sarah decides it's time to make a name for herself. Her goal of sharing her knowledge of medicine comes to fruition by offering to teach a few apprentices for the Sword sect. Unfortunately, knowledge is sometimes best kept secret. For one can teach an art, but not the ethics behind it.

Fie abides by one rule: Look after your own. Her Crow caste of undertakers and mercy-killers takes more abuse than coin, but when they’re called to collect royal dead, she’s hoping they’ll find the payout of a lifetime. When Crown Prince Jasimir turns out to have faked his death, Fie’s ready to cut her losses - and perhaps his throat. But he offers a wager that she can’t refuse: Protect him from a ruthless queen, and he’ll protect the Crows when he reigns.

Having survived the trials of the dungeon and embraced the unbridled magic of Premar, Knox has ascended from a humble woodcutter to the revered Titan of Light. But with great power comes even greater challenges. As the guardian of new lands under the Titan System, Knox must navigate a treacherous path filled with monsters that lurk in the shadows, cunning pirates seeking to plunder his domain, and an onslaught of the undead threatening to overrun his territories.

In Capitalism, Alone, leading economist Branko Milanovic explains the reasons for this decisive historical shift since the days of feudalism and, later, communism. Surveying the varieties of capitalism, he asks: What are the prospects for a fairer world now that capitalism is the only game in town? His conclusions are sobering, but not fatalistic. Capitalism gets much wrong, but also much right - and it is not going anywhere. Our task is to improve it.

The land rush is over. With just a few open stakes remaining two years after the System’s arrival on Earth, the incoming alien groups turn on each other in a cutthroat struggle for dominance. These conflicts are ripe opportunities for bold adventurers and bounty hunter Hal Mason isn’t one to miss his chance. When a trade dispute between two powerful Galactic factions escalates into open warfare, Mason plunges headfirst into the fray.

Captain Picard has never encountered an opponent more powerful than Q, a being from another continuum who is dangerous, obnoxious, mysterious, and seemingly all-powerful. But now, Trelane has tapped in to an awesome power source that makes him more powerful than the entire continuum. Q warns that Trelane has become unspeakably dangerous - this time the stakes are all of creation. Read by John de Lancie.

In the tradition of Dale Russakoff's The Prize and Dana Goldstein's The Teacher Wars, Wexler brings together history, research, and compelling characters to pull back the curtain on this fundamental flaw in our education system - one that fellow reformers, journalists, and policymakers have long overlooked, and of which the general public, including many parents, remains unaware.

Benjamin's life was perfect. He'd just graduated from college and landed his dream job; he was finally ready to make his own way in life. However, before he could do that, he and his buddies decided to go on one last camping trip that changed everything. Suddenly, the five of them were ripped from their campsite on Earth by powerful magics, brought face-to-face with the might of the rune mages, and forced to become pawns in larger schemes.

The immune system holds the key to human health. In The Beautiful Cure, leading immunologist Daniel M. Davis describes how the scientific quest to understand how the immune system works - and how it is affected by stress, sleep, age, and our state of mind - is now unlocking a revolutionary new approach to medicine and well-being. The body's ability to fight disease and heal itself is one of the great mysteries and marvels of nature. But in recent years, painstaking research has resulted in major advances in our grasp of this breathtakingly beautiful inner world....

As Reeves shows, the growing separation between the upper middle class and everyone else can be seen in family structure, neighborhoods, attitudes, and lifestyle. Those at the top of the income ladder are becoming more effective at passing on their status to their children, reducing overall social mobility. The result is not just an economic divide but a fracturing of American society along class lines. Upper-middle-class children become upper-middle-class adults.

Interference is the true history of the most important and consequential decisions, obstacles, and quandaries Mueller and his team faced when investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. For the first time, Mueller’s only deputy, his most senior counselor who served on the Watergate Special Prosecution Force, and the lead prosecutor looking into obstruction of justice and Russian interference, have come together to tell a highly relevant and compelling account of what it was like to carry out their investigation of election interference.

This book provides basic information about sociology and is an excellent resource for beginners or those seeking general knowledge about the subject matter. It is divided into three parts. Part one introduces the concept of sociology, explores micro-sociologist and macro-sociologist types, and explains the differences between quantitative and qualitative methodologies used in research. Part two focuses on specific areas of interest for sociological research including cults, family, religion, education, race, gender, age, sexual orientation, health, gangs, crime, and immigration. Part three ...

Slengral is summoned back to the Aglatha shinara by none other than queen matriarch, Zathexa—who happens to be his mother? With his sister and heir to the shinara dead, Slengrala is commanded to return home not only to fulfill his duty to mate and breed a new queen but to answer to the charges made against him.

The murder is tragic, but the death of a sibling at the hands of a monster is something you never quite get over. Along with the gut-wrenching feeling of loss came the overwhelming sense of shame. Everyone had been counting on us to kill the first known vampire in three generations, and we let all of them down. Now the weight of our failure hung heavy around my neck like a yoke. Only one thing would remove the taint of failure from our family name, and that was the one thing keeping me going. Vengeance. If you ever wondered what happened to D’avin after Drake left him cradling his dead ...

Melvin has normal problems. High school. Tests. Trying to find a girlfriend (and failing...miserably). But one day he awakens with access to a System that governs all magic. In his attempt to summon a teacher to show him the ropes, he botches the ritual and accidentally summons a magic-wielding girl named Kalliphae. Sure, she's powerful and deadly. A femme fatale who's more intimidating than even the most popular girls at school.