Francis Wootton's first memory is of Kurt Cobain's death and there have since been other hardships much closer to home. At fifteen, he knows all about loss and rejection, and if he's honest, Francis- would-be poet, possible intellectual - feels he is wasted in Tyne and Wear. Lower Fifth is supposed to be his time: but when he is diagnosed with leukaemia, a whole new world of worry presents itself. There's the horror of being held back a year at school, the threat of imminent baldness. But he hadn't reckoned on meeting Amber and finding a reason to tackle it all - the good the bad and everything in-between - head on.

This “superb history” of artificial light traces the evolution of society—“invariably fascinating and often original . . . [it] amply lives up to its title” (Publishers Weekly, starred review). In Brilliant, Jane Brox explores humankind’s ever-changing relationship to artificial light, from the stone lamps of the Pleistocene to the LEDs embedded in fabrics of the future. More than a survey of technological development, this sweeping history reveals how artificial light changed our world, and how those social and cultural changes in turn led to the pursuit of more ways of spreading, maintaining, and controlling light. Brox plumbs the class implications of light—who had it, who didn’t—through the centuries when crude lamps and tallow candles constricted waking hours. She identifies the pursuit of whale oil as the first time the need for light thrust us toward an environmental tipping point. Only decades later, gas street lights opened up the evening hours to leisure, which changed the ways we live and sleep and the world’s ecosystems. Edison’s bulbs produced a light that seemed to its users all but divorced from human effort or cost. And yet, as Brox’s informative portrait of our current grid system shows, the cost is ever with us. Brilliant is infused with human voices, startling insights, and timely questions about how our future lives will be shaped by light

"Hurry, look!" Rosebud the baby girl rabbit shouted, hopping up and down outside of her burrow home. In the still of the night, high above in the sky over a stable in a faraway city of Bethlehem, was a brilliant light. Discover what all the animals are experiencing because of the light's brilliance. Curiosity spreads throughout the stable as they search for answers to the mystery. Read as the story unfolds and as the animals uncover the secrets of the brilliant light. Witness and experience the awesome event of the birth of Jesus through the eyes of the animals. It was a brilliant light, a silent night, and a miraculous sight.

WINNER of the WRITERS' GUILD BEST FIRST NOVEL AWARD: A riveting, thought-provoking speculative literary novel exploring the impact of the AI revolution through the eyes of three very different young women. Lal, Janetta and Rose are living in a time of flux. Technological advance has brought huge financial rewards to those with power, but large swathes of the population are losing their jobs to artificial intelligence, or auts, as they're called. Unemployment is high, discontent is rife and rumours are swirling. Many feel robbed - not just of their livelihoods, but of their hopes for the future. Lal is languishing in her role at a coffee shop and feeling overshadowed by her quietly brilliant sister, Janetta, whose Ph.D. is focused on making auts empathetic. Even Rose, Lal's best friend, has found a sense of purpose in charismatic up-and-coming politician Alek. When vigilantes break in to the coffee shop and destroy their new coffee-making aut, it sets in motion a chain of events that will pull the three young women in very different directions. Change is coming - change that will launch humankind into a new era. If Rose, Lal and Janetta can find a way to combine their burgeoning talents, they might just end up setting the course of history.

Published to celebrate the awarding of the 2014 Nobel Prize in physics to Shuji Nakumura, this newly revised edition of a 2007 book profiles the gifted Japanese engineer who is largely responsible for the coming revolution in lighting technology. He came out of nowhere to stun the world with his announcement that he had created the last piece in the puzzle needed for manufacturing solid-state white lights. The invention of this holy-grail product, which promises to make Edison's light bulb obsolete, had eluded the best minds at the top electronic firms for twenty-five years. Thanks to Nakamura's work, the technology of light emitting diodes (LEDs) is ready for widespread implementation. Its impacts will include a reduction in energy consumption for electric lighting by up to 80 percent. This revised edition contains a new preface and an afterword that summarizes Nakamura's most recent accomplishments. In 2008, he and two other scientists founded a company called Soraa (which means sky in Japanese). In 2012, the firm debuted a new technology, based on improved crystal growth (using a technique pioneered by Shuji). It enables second-generation LEDs that are much smaller, more energy-efficient, produce better color, and most likely will replace halogen lights. Besides the Nobel Prize, Nakamura is also the winner of the prestigious $1.5 million Millennium Technology Prize and Japan's Order of Culture Award. Veteran technology writer Bob Johnstone is the first Western journalist to meet and interview Nakamura and he has received the brilliant engineer's full cooperation through a series of exclusive interviews given for the book.

This book contains an excellent overview of the status and highlights of brilliant light facilities and their applications in biology, chemistry, medicine, materials and environmental sciences. Overview papers on diverse fields of research by leading experts are accompanied by the highlights in the near and long-term perspectives of brilliant X-Ray photon beam usage for fundamental and applied research.

"Previously published as In bloom in 2013 in Great Britain by Constable & Robinson Ltd."--Title page verso.

WINNER of the WRITERS' GUILD BEST FIRST NOVEL AWARD: A riveting, thought-provoking speculative literary novel exploring the impact of the AI revolution through the eyes of three very different young women. Lal, Janetta and Rose are living in a time of flux. Technological advance has brought huge financial rewards to those with power, but large swathes of the population are losing their jobs to artificial intelligence, or auts, as they're called. Unemployment is high, discontent is rife and rumours are swirling. Many feel robbed - not just of their livelihoods, but of their hopes for the future. Lal is languishing in her role at a coffee shop and feeling overshadowed by her quietly brilliant sister, Janetta, whose Ph.D. is focused on making auts empathetic. Even Rose, Lal's best friend, has found a sense of purpose in charismatic up-and-coming politician Alek. When vigilantes break in to the coffee shop and destroy their new coffee-making aut, it sets in motion a chain of events that will pull the three young women in very different directions. Change is coming - change that will launch humankind into a new era. If Rose, Lal and Janetta can find a way to combine their burgeoning talents, they might just end up setting the course of history.