The Earth as a Cradle for Life aims to fill the gap between readers who have a strong and informed scientific interest in the environment (but no access to the journal literature), and their desire for a basic understanding of the environment. It provides a comprehensive account, and requires no advanced mathematical skills. It will also satisfy a need for a textbook on fundamental science for students in tertiary environmental science courses that may otherwise neglect the underlying basis of their subject.The Earth as a Cradle takes a step back from common perceptions of the environment, and presents a new fundamental perspective. It draws attention to observations that have been neglected or discounted for reasons the authors found invalid, and which allow a more coherent account of the environment than is possible without them.Misunderstandings about the environment are common, even in the scientific community. They arise in part from the multi-disciplinary nature of the subject and the difficulty in keeping all relevant observations in mind and assessing their validity. These misunderstandings are often consequences of the band-wagon effect: when an idea is reinforced by repeated quotation and becomes difficult to contradict even when it is in obvious conflict with observations. This is especially so in a subject with strong media interest and conflicting commercial interests — and Cradle sweeps these considerations aside and presents a new environmental scenario.This book draws on several decades of research by the authors on fundamental Earth science, and presents probing insights on environmental questions that are not widely recognized — even in the professional community. For this reason it will become a landmark in the environmental science and Earth science literature.

In this innovative book, Clement Tisdell adopts a holistic approach, combining economic, social, biophysical and historical considerations to analyse the economic origins of major contemporary environmental problems, especially those associated with climate change. The ability of humankind to respond effectively to these problems is assessed in a unique and lucid fashion. The depth and nature of social embedding is identified as the major (but not the only) barrier to dealing with human-induced environmental change.

This book surveys the models for the origin of life and presents a new model starting with shaped droplets and ending with life as polygonal Archaea; it collects the most published micrographs of Archaea (discovered only in 1977), which support this conclusion, and thus provides the first visual survey of Archaea. Origin of Life via Archaea’s purpose is to add a new hypothesis on what are called “shaped droplets”, as the starting point, for flat, polygonal Archaea, supporting the Vesicles First hypothesis. The book contains over 6000 distinct references and micrographs of 440 extant species of Archaea, 41% of which exhibit polygonal phenotypes. It surveys the intellectual battleground of the many ideas of the origin of life on earth, chemical equilibrium, autocatalysis, and biotic polymers. This book contains 17 chapters, some coauthored, on a wide range of topics on the origin of life, including Archaea’s origin, patterns, and species. It shows how various aspects of the origin of life may have occurred at chemical equilibrium, not requiring an energy source, contrary to the general assumption. For the reader’s value, its compendium of Archaea micrographs might also serve many other interesting questions about Archaea. One chapter presents a theory for the shape of flat, polygonal Archaea in terms of the energetics at the surface, edges and corners of the S-layer. Another shows how membrane peptides may have originated. The book also includes a large table of most extant Archaea, that is searchable in the electronic version. It ends with a chapter on problems needing further research. Audience This book will be used by astrobiologists, origin of life biologists, physicists of small systems, geologists, biochemists, theoretical and vesicle chemists.

This self-contained handbook provides a carefully researched, compact source of key earth science information and data, logically sorted by subject matter, and then cross-referenced. Appealing to both experts and non-experts alike, the book presents earth science and environmental science as closely intertwined. It includes tables of the global distributions of fossil fuels, contrasted by tables of the distribution of non-fossil energy sources. Concise explanations cover the subject matters of geology, geophysics, oceans, atmosphere with attention to environmental implications and resources.

We cannot continue on a business-as-usual, carbon fuel dependent mode of operation, because the consequences of doing so are catching up with us. So, what must we do to ensure there is a tomorrow?In this book, experts from around the world come together to shed light on what we can do to preserve and expand resources key to the survival of human civilization — from the state-of-the-art of innovative engineering; to the latest status on energy, energy mix, and advancements in renewable energy — including the complementary energy storage using hydrogen; or innovative architecture for more sustainable buildings, including retrofitting of aging tall buildings; innovative ways to improve our air, water and coastline with nearshore biodiversity reclamation; to the subject of sustainable development through the water-energy-food nexus.This volume is recommended for research and graduate courses on energy and sustainability, and policymakers interested in the subjects.

Describes the various fields of application of astronautics and the underlying technology. Written on a level understandable for non-specialists. Provides an outlook on the future of this fascinating field.

This textbook details basic principles of planetary science that help to unify the study of the solar system. It is organized in a hierarchical manner so that every chapter builds upon preceding ones. Starting with historical perspectives on space exploration and the development of the scientific method, the book leads the reader through the solar system. Coverage explains that the origin and subsequent evolution of planets and their satellites can be explained by applications of certain basic principles of physics, chemistry, and celestial mechanics and that surface features of the solid bodies can be interpreted by principles of geology.

In this book forty eminent scientists examine the astrobiological origins of life and the emergence of biodiversity in extreme environments. The coverage includes extremophiles: microbes living in hostile conditions of high temperature, psychrophilic, UV radiation, and halophilic environments. Also discussed are the origin and history of Martian water, and the possible biogeochemistry inside Titan.

This book shows the state-of-the-art in Europe on a very new discipline, Space Weather. This discipline lies at the edge between science and industry. This book reflects such a position with theoretic papers and applicative papers as well. Each chapter starts with a short introduction, which shows the coherence of a given domain. Then, four to five contributions written by the best specialists in Europe give detailed hints of a hot topic in space weather.

One of the fundamental questions of our existence is why we are so smart. There are lots of drawbacks to having a large brain, including the huge food intake needed to keep the organ running, the frequency with which it goes wrong, and our very high infant and mother mortality rates compared with other mammals, due to the difficulty of giving birth to offspring with very large heads. So why did evolution favour the brainy ape? This question has been widely debated among biological anthropologists, and in recent years, Maslin and his colleagues have pioneered a new theory that might just be the answer. Looking back to a crucial period some 1.9 million years ago, when brain capacity increased by as much as 80%, The Cradle of Humanity explores the implications of two adaptive responses by our hominin ancestors to rapid climatic changes - big jaws, and big brains. Maslin argues that the impact of changing landscapes and fluctuating climates that led to the appearance of intermittent freshwater lakes in East Africa may have played a key role in human evolution. Alongside the physical evidence of fossils and tools, he considers social theories of why a large, complex brain would have provided a major advantage when trying to survive in the constantly changing East African landscape.