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Earth in Human Hands
- Shaping Our Planet's Future
- Narrated by: David Grinspoon
- Length: 17 hrs and 12 mins
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Publisher's summary
NASA Astrobiologist and renowned scientist Dr. David Grinspoon brings listeners an optimistic message about humanity's future in the face of climate change. For the first time in Earth's history, our planet is experiencing a confluence of rapidly accelerating changes prompted by one species: Humans. Climate change is only the most visible of the modifications we've made - up until this point, inadvertently - to the planet. And our current behavior threatens not only our own future but that of countless other creatures. By comparing Earth's story to those of other planets, astrobiologist David Grinspoon shows what a strange and novel development it is for a species to evolve to build machines, and ultimately, global societies with world-shaping influence.
Without minimizing the challenges of the next century, Grinspoon suggests that our present moment is not only one of peril, but also great potential, especially when viewed from a 10,000-year perspective. Our species has surmounted the threat of extinction before, thanks to our innate ingenuity and ability to adapt, and there's every reason to believe we can do so again.
Our challenge now is to awaken to our role as a force of planetary change, and to grow into this task. We must become graceful planetary engineers, conscious shapers of our environment and caretakers of Earth's biosphere. This is a perspective that begs us to ask not just what future do we want to avoid, but what do we seek to build? What kind of world do we want? Are humans the worst thing or the best thing to ever happen to our planet? Today we stand at a pivotal juncture, and the answer will depend on the choices we make.
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Story
Beyond dares to imagine a fantastic future for humans in space - and then reminds us that we're already there. Human exploration has been an unceasing engine of technological progress, from the first homo sapiens to leave our African cradle to a future in which mankind promises to settle another world. Beyond tells the epic story of humanity leaving home - and how humans will soon thrive in the vast universe beyond the Earth.
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OTHER WORLDS
- By chetyarbrough.blog on 01-10-16
By: Chris Impey
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Origin Story
- A Big History of Everything
- By: David Christian
- Narrated by: Jamie Jackson
- Length: 12 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Most historians study the smallest slivers of time, emphasizing specific dates, individuals, and documents. But what would it look like to study the whole of history, from the big bang through the present day - and even into the remote future? How would looking at the full span of time change the way we perceive the universe, the earth, and our very existence? These were the questions David Christian set out to answer when he created the field of "Big History", the most exciting new approach to understanding where we have been, where we are, and where we are going.
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A brilliant achievement, must read/listen
- By 11104 on 09-05-18
By: David Christian
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Five Billion Years of Solitude
- The Search for Life Among the Stars
- By: Lee Billings
- Narrated by: Lee Billings
- Length: 9 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Since its formation nearly five billion years ago, our planet has been the sole living world in a vast and silent universe. Now, Earth's isolation is coming to an end. Over the past two decades, astronomers have discovered thousands of "exoplanets" orbiting other stars, including some that could be similar to our own world. Studying those distant planets for signs of life will be crucial to understanding life's intricate mysteries right here on Earth. In a firsthand account of this unfolding revolution, Lee Billings draws on interviews with top researchers.
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Bloated
- By Dr A on 01-09-14
By: Lee Billings
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Space Chronicles
- Facing the Ultimate Frontier
- By: Neil deGrasse Tyson
- Narrated by: Mirron Willis
- Length: 10 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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With his signature wit and thought-provoking insights, Neil deGrasse Tyson - one of our foremost thinkers on all things space - illuminates the past, present, and future of space exploration and brilliantly reminds us why NASA matters now as much as ever. As Tyson reveals, exploring the space frontier can profoundly enrich many aspects of our daily lives, from education systems and the economy to national security and morale.
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The least helpful review of Space Chronicles.
- By Joshua Kring on 06-17-15
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Harmony
- A New Way of Looking at Our World
- By: Charles HRH The Prince of Wales
- Narrated by: Charles HRH The Prince of Wales
- Length: 11 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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For the first time, HRH The Prince of Wales shares his views on how our most pressing modern challenges - from climate change to poverty - are rooted in mankind's disharmony with nature, presenting a compelling case that the solution lies in our ability to regain a balance with the world around us. With its holistic approach, this provocative and well-reasoned book takes the discussion of sustainability and climate change in a new direction.
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An Excellent Exploration
- By Sara on 03-31-16
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Confessions of an Alien Hunter
- A Scientist's Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence
- By: Seth Shostak
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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This engaging memoir reveals the true story of the Search for ExtraterrestrialIntelligence (SETI), and discloses what we may very soon discover. Chronicling the program’s history with insight and humor, SETI senior astronomer Seth Shostak assures us that if there is sentient life in the universe, we are within decades of picking up its signal.
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Somewhat Disappointed...
- By Tim on 11-12-10
By: Seth Shostak
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Catching Stardust
- Comets, Asteroids and the Birth of the Solar System
- By: Natalie Starkey
- Narrated by: Alison Campbell
- Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Icy, rocky, sometimes dusty, always mysterious – comets and asteroids are among the Solar System's very oldest inhabitants, formed within a swirling cloud of gas and dust in the area of space that eventually hosted the Sun and its planets. Locked within each of these extra-terrestrial objects is the 4.6-billion-year wisdom of Solar System events, and by studying them at close quarters using spacecraft we can coerce them into revealing their closely-guarded secrets. This offers us the chance to answer some fundamental questions about our planet and its inhabitants.
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Chasing star stuff always results in technological advances
- By Raduede on 12-30-18
By: Natalie Starkey
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13 Things That Don't Make Sense
- The Most Baffling Scientific Mysteries of Our Time
- By: Michael Brooks
- Narrated by: James Adams
- Length: 8 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Science starts to get interesting when things don't make sense. Science's best-kept secret is that there are experimental results and reliable data that the most brilliant scientists can neither explain nor dismiss. If history is any precedent, we should look to today's inexplicable results to forecast the future of science. Michael Brooks heads to the scientific frontier to meet 13 modern-day anomalies and discover tomorrow's breakthroughs.
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10 interesting chapters-read epiloge first
- By Stephen on 06-10-09
By: Michael Brooks
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Until the End of Time
- Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe
- By: Brian Greene
- Narrated by: Brian Greene
- Length: 14 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Until the End of Time is Brian Greene's breathtaking new exploration of the cosmos and our quest to find meaning in the face of this vast expanse. Greene takes us on a journey from the big bang to the end of time, exploring how lasting structures formed, how life and mind emerged, and how we grapple with our existence through narrative, myth, religion, creative expression, science, the quest for truth, and a deep longing for the eternal.
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Uneven
- By NJ on 03-03-20
By: Brian Greene
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The Science of Discworld
- A Novel
- By: Terry Pratchett, Ian Stewart, Jack Cohen
- Narrated by: Michael Fenton Stevens, Stephen Briggs
- Length: 13 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Not just another science audiobook and not just another Discworld novella, The Science of Discworld is a creative, mind-bending mash-up of fiction and fact, that offers a wizard’s-eye view of our world that will forever change how you look at the universe.
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Not the best Pratchett, but gets there in the end
- By Rachel on 07-30-14
By: Terry Pratchett, and others
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A Short History of Nearly Everything
- By: Bill Bryson
- Narrated by: Richard Matthews
- Length: 18 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Bill Bryson has been an enormously popular author both for his travel books and for his books on the English language. Now, this beloved comic genius turns his attention to science. Although he doesn't know anything about the subject (at first), he is eager to learn, and takes information that he gets from the world's leading experts and explains it to us in a way that makes it exciting and relevant.
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The Only Book I reread imediatley after reading
- By Andrew on 11-09-09
By: Bill Bryson