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Synthetic Planet

Author: Monica J. Casper

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-11-12

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 1317794818

This timely collection of original essays traces the migration of synthetic chemicals from the laboratory to the factory and then into the environment, bodies and communities. Turning our attention to the impact these chemicals have on our ecosystems, human health, social organization and political processes, the contributors break new ground by focusing on the production and distribution of these potentially hazardous agents themselves rather than just detailing their effects.

Synthetic Planet

Author: Monica J. Casper

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-11-12

Total Pages: 358

ISBN-13: 131779480X

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The Synthetic Age

Author: Christopher J. Preston

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2019-03-19

Total Pages: 223

ISBN-13: 0262345307

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Imagining a future in which humans fundamentally reshape the natural world using nanotechnology, synthetic biology, de-extinction, and climate engineering. We have all heard that there are no longer any places left on Earth untouched by humans. The significance of this goes beyond statistics documenting melting glaciers and shrinking species counts. It signals a new geological epoch. In The Synthetic Age, Christopher Preston argues that what is most startling about this coming epoch is not only how much impact humans have had but, more important, how much deliberate shaping they will start to do. Emerging technologies promise to give us the power to take over some of Nature's most basic operations. It is not just that we are exiting the Holocene and entering the Anthropocene; it is that we are leaving behind the time in which planetary change is just the unintended consequence of unbridled industrialism. A world designed by engineers and technicians means the birth of the planet's first Synthetic Age. Preston describes a range of technologies that will reconfigure Earth's very metabolism: nanotechnologies that can restructure natural forms of matter; “molecular manufacturing” that offers unlimited repurposing; synthetic biology's potential to build, not just read, a genome; “biological mini-machines” that can outdesign evolution; the relocation and resurrection of species; and climate engineering attempts to manage solar radiation by synthesizing a volcanic haze, cool surface temperatures by increasing the brightness of clouds, and remove carbon from the atmosphere with artificial trees that capture carbon from the breeze. What does it mean when humans shift from being caretakers of the Earth to being shapers of it? And in whom should we trust to decide the contours of our synthetic future? These questions are too important to be left to the engineers.

Meat Planet

Author: Benjamin Aldes Wurgaft

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2020-10-13

Total Pages: 262

ISBN-13: 0520379004

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In 2013, a Dutch scientist unveiled the world’s first laboratory-created hamburger. Since then, the idea of producing meat, not from live animals but from carefully cultured tissues, has spread like wildfire through the media. Meanwhile, cultured meat researchers race against population growth and climate change in an effort to make sustainable protein. Meat Planet explores the quest to generate meat in the lab—a substance sometimes called “cultured meat”—and asks what it means to imagine that this is the future of food. Neither an advocate nor a critic of cultured meat, Benjamin Aldes Wurgaft spent five years researching the phenomenon. In Meat Planet, he reveals how debates about lab-grown meat reach beyond debates about food, examining the links between appetite, growth, and capitalism. Could satiating the growing appetite for meat actually lead to our undoing? Are we simply using one technology to undo the damage caused by another? Like all problems in our food system, the meat problem is not merely a problem of production. It is intrinsically social and political, and it demands that we examine questions of justice and desirable modes of living in a shared and finite world. Benjamin Wurgaft tells a story that could utterly transform the way we think of animals, the way we relate to farmland, the way we use water, and the way we think about population and our fragile ecosystem’s capacity to sustain life. He argues that even if cultured meat does not “succeed,” it functions—much like science fiction—as a crucial mirror that we can hold up to our contemporary fleshy dysfunctions.

The Synthetic Age

Author: Christopher J. Preston

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2019-02-19

Total Pages: 223

ISBN-13: 0262537095

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Protostars and Planets VI

Author: Henrik Beuther

Publisher: University of Arizona Press

Published: 2014-12-18

Total Pages: 945

ISBN-13: 0816598762

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The revolutionary discovery of thousands of confirmed and candidate planets beyond the solar system brings forth the most fundamental question: How do planets and their host stars form and evolve? Protostars and Planets VI brings together more than 250 contributing authors at the forefront of their field, conveying the latest results in this research area and establishing a new foundation for advancing our understanding of stellar and planetary formation. Continuing the tradition of the Protostars and Planets series, this latest volume uniquely integrates the cross-disciplinary aspects of this broad field. Covering an extremely wide range of scales, from the formation of large clouds in our Milky Way galaxy down to small chondrules in our solar system, Protostars and Planets VI takes an encompassing view with the goal of not only highlighting what we know but, most importantly, emphasizing the frontiers of what we do not know. As a vehicle for propelling forward new discoveries on stars, planets, and their origins, this latest volume in the Space Science Series is an indispensable resource for both current scientists and new students in astronomy, astrophysics, planetary science, and the study of meteorites.

The Life of Super-Earths

Author: Dimitar Sasselov

Publisher: Basic Books (AZ)

Published: 2012-01-24

Total Pages: 226

ISBN-13: 046502193X

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An astronomy professor at Harvard University discusses the possibilities of finding other worlds that sustain alien life forms, citing recent breakthroughs in biology and exoplanetary astronomy, including the recent discovery of arsenic-based bacteria in a California lake.

Geosynthetics: Leading the Way to a Resilient Planet

Author: Giovanni Biondi

Publisher: CRC Press

Published: 2023-09-15

Total Pages: 2826

ISBN-13: 1003813852

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This volume contains the proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Geosynthetics (12 ICG), held in Roma, Italy, 17-21 September 2023. About 750 Authors - Academics, Researchers, Students, Practitioners, Contractors and Manufacturers – contributed to the peer-reviewed papers of this volume, which includes the Giroud lecture, the Bathurst lecture, the Rowe lecture, four keynote lectures and 296 technical papers. The content of these proceedings illustrates the sustainable use of geosynthetics in a variety of innovative as well as consolidated applications. After the sustainability implications in the correct use of geosynthetics, the ability to overcome the natural events effects, often related to the climate change, and to adequately afford the human activities (as the increase of pollution) forced to refer to a new keyword: Resiliency. The 12 ICG intends to become the base for the next step, hence the conference theme is 'Geosynthetics, Leading the Way to a Resilient Planet'. The conference topics, through general and parallel sessions, invited presentations and keynote lectures, address the most recent developments in geosynthetic engineering, and stimulate fruitful technical and scientific interaction among academicians, professionals, manufacturers, students. The 12 ICG proceedings contain a wealth of information that could be useful for researchers, practitioners and all those working in the broad, innovative and dynamic field of geosynthetics.

Rock and Mineral Magnetism

Author: W. O'Reilly

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 231

ISBN-13: 1468484680

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The past two decades have witnessed a revolution in the earth sciences. The quantitative, instrument-based measurements and physical models of. geophysics, together with advances in technology, have radically transformed the way in which the Earth, and especially its crust, is described. The study of the magnetism of the rocks of the Earth's crust has played a major part in this transformation. Rocks, or more specifically their constituent magnetic minerals, can be regarded as a measuring instrument provided by nature, which can be employed in the service of the earth sciences. Thus magnetic minerals are a recording magnetometer; a goniometer or protractor, recording the directions of flows, fields and forces; a clock; a recording thermometer; a position recorder; astrain gauge; an instrument for geo logical surveying; a tracer in climatology and hydrology; a tool in petrology. No instrument is linear, or free from noise and systematic errors, and the performance of nature's instrument must be assessed and certified. This has been the task of the research worker in rock and mineral magnetism.

Moon-Based Synthetic Aperture Radar

Author: Zhen Xu

Publisher: CRC Press

Published: 2024-06-04

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 1040026753

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Lunar explorations have received increasing attention in recent years with tremendous application values, including using the Moon as a remote sensing platform for Earth observation. As an active sensor, the Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) can detect changes in the atmosphere, terrain, and ocean. Moon-based SAR, complementary to the spaceborne SAR systems, expands our capabilities of watching and understanding the Earth. This book explains the Moon-Earth observation geometry, generic parameters, image focusing, and outlook using the Moon-based SAR. Written as a SAR imaging of Earth on the lunar-based platform, it makes it an essential reference to those interested in planetary and Earth sciences. FEATURES Uses the Moon as a remote sensing platform for Earth observation Explains how to obtain a high spatial resolution with a short revisit time using the Moon-based SAR Covers the observation geometry, range and signal models, two-dimensional signal spectrum, and focusing algorithms for the Moon-based SAR Presents a detailed analysis of sources of phase errors in the Moon-based SAR signal Includes global case studies and introduces conceptual ideas for further research This book is intended for senior graduate students, professional researchers, and engineers studying and working in the fields of lunar exploration and remote sensing applications, especially when dealing with high-orbit SAR studies.