Books » Science Experiment Books

A great introduction to the world of single-celled organisms, this inexpensive volume showcases an array of curious creatures: a blob-like amoeba; a slipper-shaped paramecium and its mortal enemy, the suctorian; the hydra and its crown of grasping tentacles; and many others. The authors recount the feeding, reproductive, and defensive strategies employed by these animals in easy-to-understand language that opens the door to a wonderful world of discovery. 1969 edition. 37 illus.

A journey into everyday life through spectacular microscopic images.

This substantial volume brings together extraordinary images produced through the latest technologies in microphotography. Most of the 205 stunning, full-color photographs have been taken using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), allowing us to see our world as never before.

Each image is a close-up that reveals remarkable forms, shapes and colors. The book is divided into six chapters that cover:
- Micro-organisms
- Zoology
- Botany
- Minerals
- The human body
- Technology

Every spread includes complete, informative captions that identify the photograph and describe both the image and the way in which it was captured.

With its stunning full-color photographs and text written in clear and accessible language, Microcosmos provides a fascinating journey of discovery.

This guide to using the Saxon Home Study Math and Physics programs has been designed to help homeschoolers using Saxon math 54-Calculus and Physics.

Work at the biology bench requires an ever-increasing knowledge of mathematical methods and formulae. In Lab Math, Dany Spencer Adams has compiled the most common mathematical concepts and methods in molecular biology, and provided clear, straightforward guidance on their application to research investigations. Subjects range from basics such as scientific notation and measuring and making solutions, to more complex activities like quantifying and designing nucleic acids and analyzing protein activity. Tips on how to present mathematical data and statistical analysis are included. A reference section features useful tables, conversion charts and "plug and chug" equations for experimental procedures. This volume is an excellent, structured source of information that in many laboratories is often scattered and informally organized.

Related Titles from the Publisher
Statistics at the Bench: A Step-By-Step Handbook for Biologists
Lab Dynamics
At the Bench
At the Helm
Lab Ref, Volume 2: A Handbook of Recipes, Reagents, and Other Reference Tools for Use at the Bench

"After watching elderly mice on resveratrol perform like rodent Olympians in an endurance test, I came away convinced that the long, weird quest to extend life span-a 5,000-year trek during which hopelessly hopeful seekers tried everything from transfusing youths' blood into their aged veins to injecting minced dog testicles-was finally getting somewhere."

Even before the first person set off to find the Fountain of Youth, we've been searching for a way to live longer. But promises of life extension have long reeked of snake oil, and despite our wishful thinking-not to mention the number of vitamins we pop, cups of ginkgo tea we drink, or miles we jog-few of us believe we'll live to see 100, much less set a longevity record.

Scientists, too, have long been skeptical, often dismissing gerontology, the study of aging, as little more than a front for charlatans. And it's hard to blame them. Aging's daunting complexity has often led to more questions than answers, and opportunists have always been quick to cash in on any development, no matter how dubious.

But now we're closing in on true breakthroughs in anti-aging science. Compounds that dramatically extend the health spans and longevity of animals, including mammals, have recently been demonstrated in the lab, and gerontologists now generally agree that drugs that slow human aging and greatly boost health in later life are no longer a distant dream-in fact, candidates supported by reams of data are already at hand.

David Stipp, a veteran science journalist, tells the story of these momentous developments and the scientists behind them. He reveals how seemingly unconnected findings on gene mutations that can double animals' life spans, the life-extending effect of near-starvation diets, the link between dwarfism and longevity, the secrets of weirdly long-lived animals, and the special genes behind human centenarians' radical resistance to the ravages of time are coming together to spark an anti-aging revolution.

Writing for nonscientists, Stipp provides a definitive, engaging account of some of the most exciting, and sometimes controversial, advances that promise to change the way we live forever.

A fully illustrated edition of the international best-seller Longitude. The Illustrated Longitude recounts in words and images the epic quest to solve the greatest scientific problem of the eighteenth and three prior centuries: determining how a captain could pinpoint his ship's location at sea. All too often throughout the ages of exploration, voyages ended in disaster when crew and cargo were either lost at sea or destroyed upon the rocks of an unexpected landfall. Thousands of lives and the fortunes of nations hung on a resolution to the longitude problem. To encourage a solution, governments established prizes for anyone whose method or device proved successful. The largest reward of £20,000-- truly a king's ransom-- was offered by Britain's Parliament in 1714. The scientific establishment-- from Galileo to Sir Isaac Newton-- had been certain that a celestial answer would be found and invested untold effort in this pursuit. By contrast, John Harrison imagined and built the unimaginable: a clock that told perfect time at sea, known today as the chronometer. Harrison's trials and tribulations during his forty-year quest to win the prize are the culmination of this remarkable story. The Illustrated Longitude brings a new and important dimension to Dava Sobel's celebrated story. It contains the entire original narrative of Longitude, redesigned to accompany 183 images chosen by William Andrewes-- from portraints of every important figure in the story to maps and diagrams, scientifc instruments, and John Harrison's remarkable sea clocks themselves. Andrewes's elegant captions and sidebars on scientific and historical events tell their own story of longitude, paralleling and illuminating Sobel's memorable tale.

Half a million years ago our ancestors learned to make fire from scratch. They crafted intricate tools from stone and brewed mind-altering elixirs from honey. Their descendants transformed clay into pottery, wool into clothing, and ashes into cleansers. In ceramic crucibles they turned rock into metal, metal into colored glazes, and glazes into glass. Buildings of brick and mortar enshrined books of parchment and paper. Kings and queens demanded ever more colorful clothing and accessories in order to out-class clod-hoppers and call-girls. Kingdoms rose and fell by the power of saltpeter, sulfur, and charcoal. And the demands of everyday folk for glass and paper and soap stimulated the first round of chemical industrialization. From sulfuric acid to sodium carbonate. From aniline dyes to analgesic drugs. From blasting powder to fertilizers and plastics. In a phrase, "from Caveman to Chemist."

Caveman Chemistry is an experiential exploration of chemical technology from the campfires of the stone age to the plastic soft-drink bottle. An experiential exploration? Not only will you learn about these technologies, you will learn to recreate them. Instructions are given for making bronze from metal ores; glass from sand, ashes, and limestone; paper from grass or straw; soap from fat; alcohol from honey; photographs from egg whites; chlorine from salt water and celluloid from cotton.

Your guides on this journey are the four alchemical elements; Fire, Earth, Air and Water. These archetypical characters deliver first-hand accounts of the births of their respective technologies. The spirit of Fire, for example, was born in the first creature to cultivate the flame. This spirit passed from one person to another, from one generation to another, from one millennium to another, arriving at last in the pages of this book. The spirit of Earth taught folks to make tools of stone, the spirit of Air imparted knowledge of units and the spirit of Water began with the invention of "spirits." Having traveled the world from age to age, who can say where they will find their next home? Perhaps they will find one in you.

Do you own a TI-89, TI-89 Titanium, TI-92 Plus, or a Voyage 200 graphing calculator? If you do, or if you need to get one for school or your job, then you need to know how it works and how to make the most of its functions.

TI-89 For Dummies is the plain-English nuts-and-bolts guide that gets you up and running on all the things your TI-89 can do, quickly and easily. This hands-on reference guides you step by step through various tasks and even shows you how to add applications to your calculator. Soon you'll have the tools you need to:

• Solve equations and systems of equations
• Factor polynomials
• Evaluate derivatives and integrals
• Graph functions, parametric equations, polar equations, and sequences
• Create Stat Plots and analyze statistical data
• Multiply matrices
• Solve differential equations and systems of differential equations
• Transfer files between two or more calculators
• Save calculator files on your computer

Packed with exciting and valuable applications that you can download from the Internet and install through your computer, as well as common errors and messages with explanations and solutions, TI-89 For Dummies is the one-stop reference for all your graphing calculator questions!

During the nineteenth century, a remarkable scientific instrument known as a harmonograph revealed the beautiful patterns found in music. Harmonograph is an introduction to the evolution of simple harmonic theory, from the discoveries of Pythagoras to diatonic tuning and equal temperament. Beautiful drawings show the octave as triangle, the fifth as pentagram; diagrams show the principles of harmonics, overtones, and the monochord. Anthony Ashton examines the phenomenon of resonance in Chladni patterns, describes how to build a harmonograph of your own, and provides tables of world tuning systems. This inspiring book will appeal to musicians, mathematicians, designers, and artists alike.

Scientists are in the business of trying to understand the world. Exploring commonplace phenomena, they have uncovered some of Nature's deepest laws. We can in turn apply these laws to our own lives, to better grasp and enhance our performance in daily activities as varied as cooking, home improvement sports-even dunking a doughnut! This book makes the science of the familiar a key to opening the door for those who want to know what scientists do, why they do it, and how they go about it. Following the routine of a normal day, from coffee and breakfast to shopping, household chores, sports, a drink, supper, and a bath, we see how the seemingly mundane can provide insight into the most profound scientific questions. Some of the topics included are the art and science of dunking, how to boil an egg, how to tally a supermarket bill, the science behind hand tools, catching a ball, or throwing a boomerang, the secrets of haute cuisine, bath (or beer) foam, and the physics of sex.