The Redesigned Earth

This book provides insight into the basic aspects of ecology that impact or are affected by engineering practices. Ecological principals are described and discussed through the lens of the influences that built structures have on the Earth’s biological, geological, and chemical systems. The text goes on to elucidate the engineering influences that have or will influence the face of the Earth. These influences redesign the Earth, either by destroying natural systems and replacing them with highly subsidized systems or by attempting to restore highly disturbed or contaminated systems with the basic natural systems that were originally present.

Our current economic system is unsustainable. Its fundamental elements, unlimited growth, and endless wealth accumulation fly in the face of the fact that the Earth's resources are clearly finite. In this work, the authors offer a comprehensive new economic model.

Principal-investigator (PI) Earth science missions are small, focused science projects involving relatively small spacecraft. The selected PI is responsible for the scientific and programmatic success of the entire project. A particular objective of PI-led missions has been to help develop university-based research capacity. Such missions, however, pose significant challenges that are beyond the capabilities of most universities to manage. To help NASA's Office of Earth Science determine how best to address these, the NRC carried out an assessment of key issues relevant to the success of university-based PI-led Earth observation missions. This report presents the result of that study. In particular, the report provides an analysis of opportunities to enhance such missions and recommendations about whether and, if so, how they should be used to build university-based research capabilities.

The first International Conference on Horseshoe Crab’s Conservation conducted at Dowling College, USA, (2007) and it’s proceedings published by Springer in 2009, prompted the continued research and conservation efforts presented at subsequent conferences and colloquium in Hong Kong, Taiwan, (2011); San Diego, CA, (2014), (CERF); Japan, Sasebo (2015) and an accepted inclusion for a special session on Horseshoe Crabs at the 2017 CERF Conference held in Providence, RI, USA. All these aforementioned conferences contributed manuscripts, posters, workshop “position papers”, and oral presentations the majority of which have not been published in total. In 2015, Carmichael et al. had published by Springer the majority of manuscripts from the 2011 Hong Kong / Taiwan conference. However, workshop results and all subsequent presentations and workshops were not. The Japan conference presented over 40 papers alone. A collection of all workshop summaries, poster presentations and new manuscript submittals (San Diego, CA; Sasebo, Japan; and Providence, RI) as well as products prepared for the IUCN World Congress in Hawaii, (2016), are included potential contributions for review in this compilation now available for global distribution in this Springer Nature publication. The “Proceedings of International Conferences on the Biology and Conservation of Horseshoe Crabs”, thus contains over 50 manuscripts and a diversified collection of documents, photos and memorabilia covering all four of the horseshoe crab species globally: their biology, ecology evolution, educational, and societal importance. This book exposes the impacts that humans have imposed on all four of these species, revealing through the coordinated effort of horseshoe crab scientists with the IUCN, of the worldwide need for a clear conservative effort to protect these paleo- survival organisms from a looming extinction event. Biologists, conservationists, educators, and health professionals will all welcome this book not only for exploration of its pharmacological interest, but also for the mystery of their longevity. This book also clarifies the future research needs and the conservation agenda for the species worldwide. Anyone working or studying estuaries on a global scale, will need to obtain this seminal work on horseshoe crabs.

This is the second of two Space Studies Board reports that address the complex issue of incorporating the needs of climate research into the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS). NPOESS, which has been driven by the imperative of reliably providing short-term weather information, is itself a union of heretofore separate civilian and military programs. It is a marriage of convenience to eliminate needless duplication and reduce cost, one that appears to be working. The same considerations of expediency and economy motivate the present attempts to add to NPOESS the goals of climate research. The technical complexities of combining seemingly disparate requirements are accompanied by the programmatic complexities of forging further connections among three different agencies, with different mandates, cultures, and congressional appropriators. Yet the stakes are very high, and each agency gains significantly by finding ways to cooperate, as do the taxpayers. Beyond cost savings, benefits include the possibility that long-term climate observations will reveal new phenomena of interest to weather forecasters, as happened with the El Niño/Southern Oscillation. Conversely, climate researchers can often make good use of operational data. Necessity is the mother of invention, and the needs of all the parties involved in NPOESS should conspire to foster creative solutions to make this effort work. Although it has often been said that research and operational requirements are incommensurate, this report and the phase one report (Science and Design) accentuate the degree to which they are complementary and could be made compatible. The reports provide guidelines for achieving the desired integration to the mutual benefit of all parties. Although a significant level of commitment will be needed to surmount the very real technical and programmatic impediments, the public interest would be well served by a positive outcome.

Contrary to popular belief, fostered in countless school classrooms the world over, Christopher Columbus did not discover that the world was round. The idea of the world as a sphere had been widely accepted in scientific, philosophical and even religious circles from as early as the fourth century bc. Bizarrely, it was not until the supposedly more rational nineteenth century that the notion that the world might actually be flat really took hold. Even more bizarrely, it persists to this day. Based on a range of original sources, Garwood's history of flat-earth beliefs - from the Babylonians to the present day - raises issues central to the history and philosophy of science, its relationship with religion and the making of human knowledge about the natural world. Flat Earth is the first definitive study of one of history's most notorious and persistent ideas, and evokes all the intellectual, philosophical and spiritual turmoil of the modern age. 'Highly entertaining and often hilarious ... an enjoyable romp through the dottier history of scientific and religious eccentricity' Sunday Times 'This entertaining history of the Flat Earth movement is full of crazy characters and fascinating details' Daily Telegraph 'Wonderful ... an intriguing chronicle of 150 years of self- delusion' Financial Times

1. If God is pure, then how did sin and evil enter into this world? 2. The state of fallen angels that has been thrown on earth 3. The fraud committed by the fallen angels using the name of the great men who once lived on this earth 4. The greatest mistake committed naturally! 5. Our elders often say that all gods are same, as they all teach to be good! 6. Your soul will be handed over to the deity you dearly worship 7. What should intelligent men do? 8. Where is the true God? How can we find him?