Author : Rebecca Reider
Publisher : University of New Mexico Press
Page : 336 pages
File Size : 17,32 MB
Release : 2009
Category : Ecology
ISBN : 082634674X
Reider tells the tangled tale of the creation, and eventual disintegration, of the experimental eco-utopia known as Biosphere 2.
Author : Mark Nelson
Publisher :
Page : 275 pages
File Size : 46,71 MB
Release : 2020-04-14
Category :
ISBN : 9780907791768
Life Under Glass tells the fascinating story of four men and four women who lived and worked inside the Biosphere 2 structure, where they recycled their air, water, food, and wastes, setting a world record for time spent in a closed ecological system. This is the only account written during the unprecedented experiment while the team was enclosed inside.
Author : John Polk Allen
Publisher :
Page : 348 pages
File Size : 29,41 MB
Release : 2009
Category : Architecture
ISBN :
Synergetic Press is proud to announce the long-awaited release of Me and the Biospheres: A Memoir by the Inventor of Biosphere 2, the definitive autobiography of one of the most luminous minds of our time. Accomplished poet, philosopher, inventor and total systems scientist, John Allen is a charming and engaging guide to how the world's largest laboratory for global ecology ever built came to be. Anyone suffering from the Global Warming Blues will cherish this uplifting account of the most ambitious environmental experiment ever undertaken. Biosphere 2, a world under glass, covered three acres of Arizona desert. Contained within a magnificently designed air-tight, sealed glass and steel framed architectural setting were models of seven biomes: an ocean with coral reef, marsh, rainforest, savannah, desert, farm and a micro-city. Eight people lived inside this structure for two years (1991-1993) setting world records in human life support, monitoring their impact on the environment, while providing crucial data for future manned missions into outer space. John Allen prepared for the manifestation of Biosphere 2 by assembling many smaller projects: the creation of a ferro-cement hulled ship to study ocean and river ecologies and cultures; the development of a rainforest enrichment project, a theater group, world-class art gallery and more. As awe inspiring as the great cathedrals, Biosphere 2's building and operation demanded the efforts of the most diverse team of scientists, engineers, artists and thinkers from around the world with whom John Allen worked closely for decades. His memoir is a rich and complex narrative, filled with rollicking adventure, exceptional camaraderie and mind-bending science, lavishly illustrated with nearly four hundred photographs. Me and the Biospheres is a passionate call to reawaken to the beauty of our peerless home, Biosphere 1, the Earth.
Author : Tricia Sullivan
Publisher : Gateway
Page : 230 pages
File Size : 32,76 MB
Release : 2013-09-24
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 1473200768
Kalypso Deed is a shotgun, riding the interface between the AI Ganesh and human scientists who solve problems through cyberassisted Dreams. But she's young and a little careless; she'd rather mix drinks and play jazz. Azamat Marcsson is a colorless statistician: middle-aged, boring, and obsessed with microorganisms. A first-class nonentity - until one of his Dreams implodes, taking Kalypso with it. Now Ganesh is crashing, and nothing could be worse. For on the planet T'nane, it is the AI alone that keeps the colonists alive, eking out a grim existence in an environment inimical to human life. To save the colony, Kalypso must persuade Marcsson to finish the Dream that is destroying Ganesh. But Marcsson has gone mad, and T'nane itself has plans for them both that will alter their minds-and their world - forever.
Author : Barry Lopez
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 300 pages
File Size : 11,31 MB
Release : 2024-07-23
Category : Nature
ISBN : 1668080028
Winner of the National Book Award This bestselling, groundbreaking exploration of the Far North is a classic of natural history, anthropology, and travel writing. The Arctic is a perilous place. Only a few species of wild animals can survive its harsh climate. In this modern classic, Barry Lopez explores the many-faceted wonders of the Far North: its strangely stunted forests, its mesmerizing aurora borealis, its frozen seas. Musk oxen, polar bears, narwhal, and other exotic beasts of the region come alive through Lopez’s passionate and nuanced observations. And, as he examines the history and culture of its indigenous communities, along with parallel narratives of intrepid, often underprepared and subsequently doomed polar explorers, Lopez drives to the heart of why the austere and formidable Arctic is also a constant source of breathtaking beauty, mystery, and wonder. Written in prose as pure as the land it describes, Arctic Dreams is a timeless mediation on the ability of the landscape to shape our dreams and to haunt our imaginations.
Author : Elizabeth E. Meacham
Publisher : Findhorn Press
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 16,19 MB
Release : 2020-02-04
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN : 9781620559871
A guide to co-creating a healing vision for humanity and the Earth through nature-connected shamanic rituals • Explains the Earth Spirit Dreaming process for rebirthing inherent shamanic abilities with dozens of practices in three categories: Earth-connecting practices, Spirit-connecting practices, and Dream-connecting practices • Provides experiential exercises to foster interactions with the intelligences and elemental energies of nature and the Spirit realm, realign you with the rhythms and flow of life, and co-create a healing dream for humanity and all of life on our planet • Contains step-by-step directions for connecting with the light guides of the planet for guidance and healing Humanity has become profoundly disconnected from the web of life on Earth as well as from nature as a whole. In this practical guide, Elizabeth E. Meacham details her field-tested method of shamanic ecotherapy practices to resolve this centuries-long trend toward disconnection. Through these practices, you will learn how to reconnect to Earth’s systems and help restore health and balance to people and the planet. Translating transformative ideas from visionary environmental thinkers into engaging shamanic rituals for profound spiritual growth, Meacham offers dozens of practices in three categories: Earth-connecting practices, Spirit-connecting practices, and Dream-connecting practices. Building on one another, the exercises open channels to allow you to directly experience the intelligences of the Earth and Spirit realms, rebirth your inherent shamanic abilities, realign you with the rhythms and flow of life, and reclaim your ancestral power for co-creating a healing dream for our species and all of life on our planetary home. Guiding the reader through a progressively deepening journey toward connection with ourselves, each other, and the consciousness of our biosphere, the practices also invite profound mindfulness, as we work to hold a vision of connection with the Earth and Spirit realms, while choosing consciously to focus on joy, beauty, gratitude, love, and healing. Illuminating a shamanic awakening within Western culture at the dawn of an ecological age, Earth Spirit Dreaming reveals how the birth of a global consciousness of healing depends upon our commitment to individual and collective spiritual evolution. Calling us back to our shamanic heritage of a living nature spirituality, this manual offers much needed guidance on the essential journey back to an intimate love of Earth.
Author : Abigail Alling
Publisher :
Page : pages
File Size : 15,47 MB
Release : 2020
Category : Biotic communities
ISBN : 9780907791775
"This book is a revised second edition of the first edition. Second ed. includes foreword, introduction, and afterword materials provided by authors. The story itself is that of a two year experiment in the 1990s, the first fully closed system experiment in the world. The authors share the story of "living inside": from their fully self-sufficient diet, daily maintenance of the experiment, and the ways they kept themselves nourished, and entertained for their two years away from the world on the outside. The added edition will also include some highlights, lightly detailing a few of the findings of their experiment"--
Author : Stephen Harrod Buhner
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 548 pages
File Size : 13,14 MB
Release : 2014-05-14
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN : 1591438365
A manual for opening the doors of perception and directly engaging the intelligence of the Natural World • Provides exercises to directly perceive and interact with the complex, living, self-organizing being that is Gaia • Reveals that every life form on Earth is highly intelligent and communicative • Examines the ecological function of invasive plants, bacterial resistance to antibiotics, psychotropic plants and fungi, and the human species In Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm, Stephen Harrod Buhner reveals that all life forms on Earth possess intelligence, language, a sense of I and not I, and the capacity to dream. He shows that by consciously opening the doors of perception, we can reconnect with the living intelligences in Nature as kindred beings, become again wild scientists, nondomesticated explorers of a Gaian world just as Goethe, Barbara McClintock, James Lovelock, and others have done. For as Einstein commented, “We cannot solve the problems facing us by using the same kind of thinking that created them.” Buhner explains how to use analogical thinking and imaginal perception to directly experience the inherent meanings that flow through the world, that are expressed from each living form that surrounds us, and to directly initiate communication in return. He delves deeply into the ecological function of invasive plants, bacterial resistance to antibiotics, psychotropic plants and fungi, and, most importantly, the human species itself. He shows that human beings are not a plague on the planet, they have a specific ecological function as important to Gaia as that of plants and bacteria. Buhner shows that the capacity for depth connection and meaning-filled communication with the living world is inherent in every human being. It is as natural as breathing, as the beating of our own hearts, as our own desire for intimacy and love. We can change how we think and in so doing begin to address the difficulties of our times.
Author : Fred M. Phillips
Publisher : UNM Press
Page : 296 pages
File Size : 34,31 MB
Release : 2015-07-15
Category : Science
ISBN : 0826349455
The Rio Grande was ancient long before the first humans reached its banks. These days, the highly regulated river looks nothing like it did to those early settlers. Alternately viewed as a valuable ecosystem and life-sustaining foundation of community welfare or a commodity to be engineered to yield maximum economic benefit, the Rio Grande has brought many advantages to those who live in its valley, but the benefits have come at a price. This study examines human interactions with the Rio Grande from prehistoric time to the present day and explores what possibilities remain for the desert river. From the perspectives of law, development, tradition, and geology, the authors weigh what has been gained and lost by reining in the Rio Grande.
Author : Anna Marie Skalka
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 193 pages
File Size : 47,10 MB
Release : 2018-10-15
Category : Science
ISBN : 0674988752
Approximately eight percent of our DNA contains retroviral sequences that are millions of years old. Through engaging stories of scientific discovery, Anna Marie Skalka explains our evolving knowledge of these ancient denizens of the biosphere and how this understanding has significantly advanced research in genetic engineering, gene delivery systems, and precision medicine. Discovering Retroviruses begins with the pioneer scientists who first encountered these RNA-containing viruses and solved the mystery of their reproduction. Like other viruses, retroviruses invade the cells of a host organism to reproduce. What makes them “retro” is a unique process of genetic information transfer. Instead of transcribing DNA into RNA as all living cells do, they transcribe their RNA into DNA. This viral DNA is then spliced into the host’s genome, where the cell’s synthetic machinery is co-opted to make new virus particles. The 100,000 pieces of retroviral DNA in the human genome are remnants from multiple invasions of our ancestors’ “germline” cells—the cells that allow a host organism to reproduce. Most of these bits of retroviral DNA are degenerated fossils, but some have been exploited during evolution, with profound effects on our physiology. Some present-day circulating retroviruses cause cancers in humans and other animals. Others, like HIV, cause severe immunodeficiencies. But retroviruses also hold clues to innovative approaches that can prevent and treat these diseases. In laboratories around the world, retroviruses continue to shed light on future possibilities that are anything but “retro.”
