San Antonio College Library

The fascinating story of the most powerful source of energy the earth can yield. Uranium is a common element in the earth's crust, and the only naturally occurring mineral with the power to end all life on the planet. After World War II, it reshaped the global order. Marie Curie gave us hope that uranium would be a miracle panacea, but the Manhattan Project gave us reason to believe that civilization would end with apocalypse. Slave labor camps in...

Fred Pearce has been writing about climate change for eighteen years, and the more he learns, the worse things look. Where once scientists were concerned about gradual climate change, now more and more of them fear we will soon be dealing with abrupt change resulting from triggering hidden tipping points. Even President Bush's top climate modeler, Jim Hansen, warned in 2005 that "we are on the precipice of climate system tipping points beyond which...

Provides an illustrated tour through the universe's most theatrical and mysterious events, including eclipses, the Aurora borealis, St. Elmo's fire, dust devils, petrified forests, ball lightning, and salt lakes.