Lamar Public Library

"From a renowned historian comes a groundbreaking narrative of humanity's creation and evolution--a #1 international bestseller--that explores the ways in which biology and history have defined us and enhanced our understanding of what it means to be "human." One hundred thousand years ago, at least six different species of humans inhabited Earth. Yet today there is only one--homo sapiens. What happened to the others? And what may happen to us? Most...

Drawing on the latest research and her own work, Grandin identifies the core emotional needs of animals and explains how to fulfill them for dogs and cats, horses, farm animals, and zoo animals.

"Screens are seductive. We see it in our toddlers, begging for tablets. We see it in our pre-teens, leading double lives on Tumblr. We see it in ourselves, too, as much of our time gets sucked into news feeds and emails. From a parenting vantage, technology has been the holy grail, allowing us to outsource the unpleasant tasks and give ourselves a break. No clean-up after painting when it's done on a tablet. No complaints of "I'm bored" on a road...

"In her first book, How to Do Nothing, Jenny Odell wrote about the importance of disconnecting from the "attention economy" to spend time in quiet contemplation. But what if you don't have time to spend? In order to answer this seemingly simple question, Odell took a deep dive into the fundamental structure of our society and found that the clock we live by was built for profit, not people. This is why our lives, even in leisure, have come to seem...

In The Weather Machine, Andrew Blum takes readers on a journey to understand how the weather forecast works. He visits old weather stations and watches new satellites blast off. He follows the dogged efforts of scientists to create a supercomputer model of the atmosphere and traces the history of the algorithms that power their work. Our tools allow us to predict weather more accurately than ever, yet we haven't learned to trust them. Nor can we...

"Beyond the familiar online world that most of us inhabit--a world of Google, Facebook, and Twitter--lies a vast and often hidden network of sites, communities, and cultures where freedom is pushed to its limits, and where people can be anyone, or do anything, they want. This is the world of Bitcoin and Silk Road, of radicalism and pornography. This is the Dark Net. In this important and revealing book, Jamie Bartlett takes us deep into the digital...

Chemical reactions including combustion, rusting, and digestion occur all around us every day, even if we don't notice them. With this book, three illustrated makerspace projects will allow budding scientists to create their own chemical reactions. Readers will gain an understanding of the important uses of chemical reactions, the products they create, and the scientists who developed our understanding of them. Detailed instructions will help readers

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A revelatory history of the people who created the computer and the Internet discusses the process through which innovation happens in the modern world, citing the pivotal contributions of such figures as Ada Lovelace, Alan Turing, Bill Gates, and Tim Berners-Lee.

Award-winning food writer Bee Wilson's secret history of kitchens, showing how new technologies - from the fork to the microwave and beyond - have fundamentally shaped how and what we eat. Since prehistory, humans have braved sharp knives, fire, and grindstones to transform raw ingredients into something delicious -- or at least edible. But these tools have also transformed how we consume, and how we think about, our food. In Consider the Fork,...

"There are few industrialists in history who could match Elon Musk's relentless drive and ingenious vision. A modern alloy of Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Howard Hughes, and Steve Jobs, Musk is the man behind PayPal, Tesla Motors, SpaceX, and SolarCity, each of which has sent shock waves throughout American business and industry. More than any other executive today, Musk has dedicated his energies and his own vast fortune to inventing a future that...