Based on the latest scientific research, "Cosmic Pinball" details what is happening in the planetary neighborhood. Going beyond millennial hype, this book provides a unique framework of history and research to provide a sound overview of the science of comets, meteors, and asteroids.

Laura Winslow came to Tucson, hoping her past would never find her. Now working as a high-tech cyber-sleuth for Miguel Zepeda, an aging P.I. who lives on a reservation, she hides within the Internet. But when Miguel disappears, Laura investigates an alleged fraud within a small drug company. With no clue of her boss's whereabouts, she is dragged into a maze of gangs, scams, and murder.

The nature and meaning of rock stardom—celebrities who embody the most important social and cultural conflicts of their era. "All stars are celebrities, but not all celebrities are stars," states David Shumway in the introduction to Rock Star, an informal history of rock stardom. This deceptively simple statement belies the complex definition and meaning of stardom and more specifically of rock icons. Shumway looks at the careers and cultural legacies of seven rock stars in the context of popular music and culture—Elvis Presley, James Brown, Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, the Grateful Dead, Joni Mitchell, and Bruce Springsteen. Granted, there are many more names that fall into the rock icon category and that might rightfully appear on this list. Partly, that is the point: "rock star" is a familiar and desired category but also a contested one. Shumway investigates the rock star as a particular kind of cultural construction, different from mere celebrity. After the golden age of moviemaking, media exposure allowed rock stars more political sway than Hollywood's studio stars, and rock stars gradually replaced movie stars as key cultural heroes. Because of changes in American society and the media industries, rock stars have become much more explicitly political figures than were the stars of Hollywood’s studio era. Rock stars, moreover, are icons of change, though not always progressive, whose public personas read like texts produced collaboratively by the performers themselves, their managers, and record companies. These stars thrive in a variety of media, including recorded music, concert performance, dress, staging, cover art, films, television, video, print, and others. Filled with memorable photographs, Rock Star will appeal to anyone interested in modern American popular culture or music history.

The Jorge Andr‚ Swieca Summer School is a traditional school in Latin America well known for the high level of its courses and lecturers. This book contains lectures on forefront areas of high energy physics, such as collider physics, neutrino phenomenology, noncommutative field theory, string theory and branes.

Decision-Making gets significant coverage in the business press and as an academic topic in business schools. However, there is a dearth of information on the transpersonal consideration on decision-making and how it effects leaders and leadership in human-systems. Maximizing positive results in human-systems, requires the decision-maker to maintain a constant consideration of both local and non-local elements impacting and being impacted by the decision(s) being made. This book introduces the concept of "Scope of Decision" as a way of arriving at higher quality decisions by considering them from a greater distance from the decision-maker in the time-space continuum. The author designed and used a unique exemplar modeling paradigm to conduct the research, using the proven methodologies of phenomenography and neurolinguistic modeling. This study presented in this book attempts to offer some insight on the transpersonal process of "intentionality" in decision-making, specifically as it applies to making high-quality decisions in human-systems. As stated in the title this study was not intended to be exhaustive, but rather to open new pathways of consideration and knowing in regard to the topic of decision-making. The conclusions arrived at read like a compass pointing to the means for dramatically improving your decision-making, and are best described in the sometimes hauntingly poetic language of the participants as they explore and discover their own processes for what goes into making exquisite decisions.

Explores the shared quest of ancient prophets and today's astronomers to explain the strange phenomena of our skies-from the apocalypse foretold in Revelations to modern science's ongoing identification of multiple cataclysmic threats, including the impact of comets and asteroids on earthly life, the likelihood of future collisions, the meaning of solar eclipses and the death of stars, the implications of black holes for time travel, and the ultimate fate of the universe and time.

"An intellectual accomplishment that illuminates the magic and the wisdom of the heavens above."—Kirkus Reviews "Tracing our contemplation of the cosmos from the big bang to the big crunch" (The New Yorker), Marcelo Gleiser explores the shared quest of ancient prophets and today's astronomers to explain the strange phenomena of our skies—from the apocalypse foretold in Revelations to modern science's ongoing identification of multiple cataclysmic threats, including the impact of comets and asteroids on earthly life, the likelihood of future collisions, the meaning of solar eclipses and the death of stars, the implications of black holes for time travel, and the ultimate fate of the universe and time. Presenting insights to cosmological science and apocalyptic philosophy in an "easily accessible" (Library Journal) style, Gleiser is "a rare astrophysicist as comfortable quoting Scripture as explaining formulas" (Booklist). K. C. Cole praises his ability to "[work] the entwined threads of science and religion into a vision of 'the end' that is strangely comforting and inspiring."

Donna Shirley's 35-year career as an aerospace engineer reached a jubilant pinnacle in July 1997 when Sojourner--the solar-powered, self-guided, microwave-oven-sized rover--was seen exploring the Martian landscape in Pathfinder's spectacular images from the surface of the red planet. The event marked a milestone in space, but for Donna Shirley, the leader of the mostly male team that designed and built Sojourner--and the first woman ever to manage a NASA program--it marked a triumph of another kind. Managing Martians is Shirley's captivating memoir of a life and career spent reaching for the stars. From her seemingly outlandish aspiration at age ten to build aircraft, to abandoning high school Home Ec in favor of mechanical drawing, and, at sixteen, becoming a licensed pilot, Shirley defied expectations from the beginning. In a vivid narrative, rich with anecdotes and thrilling turning points, Shirley recounts the intense battles she waged to defend her vision and the ingenuity and resourcefulness of her committed team. Her moment-by-cliffhanging-moment account of Pathfinder's landing and Sojourner's first tentative foray across the sands of Mars brilliantly captures the fulfillment of a lifelong dream as it heralds a brave new era of space exploration.