Essential Knowledge

In Galaxies, Or Graur offers a brief and fascinating overview of the history, physics, and astrophysical uses of galaxies. Starting with the history of the last two thousand years of galaxy studies, Graur discusses the types of galaxies we observe and the physics that drive them; the myths and physical structure of the Milky Way; how galaxies were used to discover and study the mysterious phenomena of dark matter and dark energy; and how scientists think galaxies formed shortly after the Big Bang and evolved to their present forms.

There is a great gift buried deep within you that is begging to come out now. And that gift is reality shifting: the power to experience new realities with just the specific use of your mind and a simple script. For beginners, newbies, and struggling shifters, this is the simple and succinct reality shifting resource you've been looking for and will teach you everything you need to shift to your desired reality for goal achievement or new experiences. This book will also serve as your "all-in-one" place to find shifting-related information and learn some advanced shifting methods!

Welcome to Crafting Your Cybersecurity Career from Cyberafi! This book is designed for anyone interested in starting a career in cybersecurity, whether you're a recent graduate, experienced professional, or simply want to learn more about this exciting field. Our goal is to provide you with the knowledge and resources you need to accelerate your journey to a lucrative six-figure cybersecurity career.

In the late 1850s, a physician in New York City used a syringe and glass tube to inject half a drop of sperm into a woman's uterus, marking the first recorded instance of artificial insemination. From that day forward, doctors and scientists have turned to technology in ever more innovative ways to facilitate conception. Fertility Technology surveys this history in all its medical, practical, and ethical complexity, and offers a look at state-of-the-art fertility technology in various social and political contexts around the world.

A few decades into the digital era, scientists discovered that thinking in terms of computation made possible an entirely new way of organizing scientific investigation; eventually, every field had a computational branch: computational physics, computational biology, computational sociology. More recently, "computational thinking" has become part of the K-12 curriculum. But what is computational thinking? This volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series offers an accessible overview.

A concise introduction to the history and methods of espionage, illustrated by spy stories from antiquity to today's high-tech world.

Billions of people around the globe use various applications of spatial computing daily - by using a ride-sharing app, GPS, social media check-ins, even Pokemon Go. Scientists and researchers use spatial computing to track diseases, map the bottom of the oceans, chart the behavior of endangered species, and create election maps in real time. Drones and driverless cars use a variety of spatial computing technologies. Spatial computing works by understanding the physical world, knowing and communicating our relation to places in that world, and navigating through those places.

Irony and sarcasm are two of the most misused, misapplied, and misunderstood words in our conversational lexicon. In this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, psycholinguist Roger Kreuz offers an enlightening and concise overview of the life and times of these two terms, mapping their evolution from Greek philosophy and Roman rhetoric to modern literary criticism to emojis.

Humans are hard-wired for collaboration, and new technologies of communication act as a super-amplifier of our natural collaborative mindset. This volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series examines the emergence of a new kind of social collaboration enabled by networked technologies. This new collaborative society might be characterized as a series of services and startups that enable peer-to-peer exchanges and interactions though technology.

In this accessible guide to the meanings of sustainability, Kent Portney describes the evolution of the idea and examines its application in a variety of contemporary contexts - from economic growth and consumption to government policy and urban planning.

The Internet of Things is a networked world of connected devices, objects, and people. In this book Samuel Greengard offers a guided tour through this emerging world and how it will change the way we live and work. Greengard explains that the Internet of Things (IoT) is still in its early stages. Smartphones, cloud computing, RFID (radio-frequency identification), technology, sensors, and miniaturization are converging to make possible a new generation of embedded and immersive technology.

Everything we know about how planets form and how life arises suggests that human civilization on Earth should not be unique. We ought to see abundant evidence of extraterrestrial activity - but we don't. Where is everybody? In this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, science and technology writer Wade Roush examines one of the great unsolved problems in science: Is there life, intelligent or otherwise, on other planets?

In Tech Monopoly, Herbert Hovenkamp explores competition problems in a wide range of high-tech firms—from those that sell purely digital products, such as video streaming, search, software, or email services, to others that sell more traditional "tactile" products, such as hardware, clothing, groceries, or rides. He offers a realistic look at the powers and limitations of antitrust law in tech markets with an assessment that is as comprehensive as it is accessible.

The beginning of the modern contraceptive era began in 1882, when Dr. Aletta Jacobs opened the first birth control clinic in Amsterdam. The founding of this facility, and the clinical provision of contraception that it enabled, marked the moment when physicians started to take the prevention of pregnancy seriously as a medical concern. In this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, Donna Drucker traces the history of modern contraception, outlining the development, manufacturing, and use of contraceptive methods from the opening of Dr. Jacobs' clinic to the present.

Peter Bandettini covers the essentials of fMRI, providing insight and perspective from his nearly three decades of research. He describes other brain imaging and assessment methods; the sources of fMRI contrasts; the basic methodology, from hardware to pulse sequences; brain activation experiment design strategies; and data and image processing. A unique, stand-alone chapter addresses major controversies in the field, outlining 26 challenges that have helped shape fMRI research.

After solar flares wipe out electrical grids worldwide, a small community survives by selling data recovered from decrepit hard drives and rare books. Nostalgic for the days of big business, the commune’s founding members call themselves Corporate and micromanage everyone. Raised into the hustle, Iris Ecosia’s ADHD brain rebels at Corporate’s structure. She attracts the attention of Robert Lycos, the son of one of the Shareholders, but their relationship comes to a crashing end when she loses focus at a critical moment and a vital piece of equipment is destroyed.

The dream of a universal translation device goes back many decades, long before Douglas Adams's fictional Babel fish provided this service in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Since the advent of computers, research has focused on the design of digital machine translation tools - computer programs capable of automatically translating a text from a source language to a target language. This has become one of the most fundamental tasks of artificial intelligence.

People keep track. In the 18th century, Benjamin Franklin kept charts of time spent and virtues lived up to. Today, people use technology to self-track: hours slept, steps taken, calories consumed, medications administered. Ninety million wearable sensors were shipped in 2014 to help us gather data about our lives. This audiobook examines how people record, analyze, and reflect on this data, looking at the tools they use and the communities they become parts of.

Food shortages. Lack of essential supplies. Social distancing. Mandated quarantines. These were the results of COVID-19 as it rampaged the world. Within the United States, families were unprepared and learned they could no longer rely on traditional resources. Surviving a World in Distress is a resource to prepare you with the necessary tools to survive both man-made and natural disasters. It will guide and teach you how to purchase, organize, and understand the essentials of life, including food, water, heat, shelter, and self-preservation techniques.

You’re not imagining it—education feels harder than ever. The paperwork is endless. Student engagement rollercoasters. And the tech? It keeps evolving before you’ve even had a chance to breathe. But what if, instead of scrambling to keep up, you could leap ahead—without burning out? Across classrooms, school offices, and kitchen tables, one thing is becoming clear: AI isn’t here to replace you. It’s here to help you do what you do best. It’s a tool to reduce your workload, personalize learning, and reignite the spark that brought you to education in the first place.