How I Beat Coca-Cola and Other Tales of One-Upmanship PDF Download

Author: Carl Djerassi
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Pres
ISBN: 0299295036
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 173

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Book Description
Carl Djerassi crafts a shrewd collection of comedies of manners, exposing the foibles of elite tribes—business executives, chefs, scientists, professors, musicians, and other clever characters. They spar in battles of one-upmanship using class, education, gender, or prestige as their weapons, sometimes leaving damaged bystanders in their wake but sometimes finding their superiority deflated by unexpected turns of events.

Author: Carl Djerassi
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0140143599
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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When Professor Isidore Cantor reveals his latest breakthrough in cancer research, the scientific community is galvanized. Cantor’s most promising research fellow, Dr. Jeremiah Stafford, has only to conduct the experiment that will prove the brilliant hypothesis and win Cantor the Nobel Prize. But how far will the young assistant go to guarantee the results? Carl Djerassi draws from his long career as a world-famous scientist to describe the fierce competition driving scientific super-stars in this gripping and suspenseful novel. “A brilliant tale of the morals and politics of contemporary science. Exciting, moving, and brilliantly written.”—Iris Murdoch “A fly-on-the-lab-wall look at the way big-time science is practiced today.”—The Washington Post Book World

Author: Carl Djerassi
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0140296549
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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A compelling novel based on the high-stakes biotech industry and the science behind Viagra from the internationally known “Father of the Pill.” The fourth installment of Carl Djerassi’s pioneering “science-in-fiction” tetralogy tells the story of a husband and wife team who devise new solutions to problems associated with sex and reproduction. Renu Krishnan is an Indian-born, American-educated scientist who discovers how NO (nitric oxide) can help men with erectile dysfunction—the scientific rationale behind Viagra. At the same time, her husband, Israeli scientist Jephtah Cohn, develops a new approach to ovulation prediction, which is also based on factual research. When Wall street gets wind of their discoveries, the couple catapults in the fast paced world of lawyers and IPOs, where scientists are now a hot commodity. Deftly exploring the demanding worlds of academia and high finance, Djerassi brings back many characters from his three earlier novels for a satisfying conclusion.

Author: Carl Djerassi
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0140254854
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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“A beautifully ingenious, funny, brilliantly intelligent, and moving tale of very human scientists. A splendid novel.”—Iris Murdoch At the age of 68, distinguished Princeton science professor Max Weiss is bribed into taking an early retirement. Frustratingly aware that his best years are not yet behind him, Weiss devises an inventive revenge in the form of “Dr. Diana Skordylis”—a pseudonym for a partnership among Weiss and three aging colleagues, each with an ax to grind against the scientific community. What the Skordylis group doesn’t anticipate, however, is the unbridled success of their venture: the discovery of PCR, one of the most important breakthroughs in contemporary biomedical science. Professional jealousy soon threatens Diana Skordylis’s life. As the force of ego tests the bonds of collaboration, the reader is treated to a fascinating glimpse inside the worlds of academia and scientific enterprise. “A subtle meditation on scientific personality . . . An odd blend of literature, philosophy, and science writing, as creative as any organic potpourri that Djerassi might have mixed up in his laboratory.”—The Washington Post “This is a novel of ideas, quite literally, yet it flashes with wit and is often quite charming, thanks to well-drawn characters at ease with mind-boggling concepts who talk about them in a down-to-earth way.”—San Francisco Chronicle

Author: Carl Djerassi
Publisher: Univ of Wisconsin Press
ISBN: 029928333X
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 90

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Hannah Arendt, Walter Benjamin, and Theodor W. Adorno were intellectual giants of the first half of the twentieth century. The drama Foreplay explores their deeply human and psychologically intriguing private lives, focusing on professional and personal jealousies, the mutual dislike of Theodor Adorno and Hannah Arendt, the association between Walter Benjamin and Georges Bataille, and the border between erotica and pornography. Djerassi’s extensive biographical research brings to light many fascinating details revealed in the dialogues among the characters, including Adorno’s obsession with his dreams, Benjamin’s admiration for Franz Kafka, and the intimate correspondence between Gretel Adorno and Walter Benjamin. The introduction of a fictitious character, Fräulein X, intensifies the complex interplay among the four lead protagonists and allows for a comparison of Adorno’s philandering and the similar behavior of Martin Heidegger, whose affair with Hannah Arendt is well known. Foreplay brims with intrigue and the friction created when strong personalities clash.

Author: Carl Djerassi
Publisher: Univ of Wisconsin Press
ISBN: 9780299227944
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 132

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Book Description
Carl Djerassi is one of "the fathers of the Pill"--he was awarded the National Medal of Science for the first synthesis of a steroid oral contraceptive--and has had a prolific additional career as a writer of fiction, plays, and dialogues about science. In these two plays, ICSI and Taboos, he dramatizes the social transformations and contested viewpoints created by advances in reproductive science and technology. Two of the most startling developments in contemporary science have radically disrupted the historical connection between sex and reproduction: in vitro fertilization and intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI)--an assisted reproductive technique that directly injects a single sperm into an egg. The word play ICSI--designed for classroom readings--presents, in the format of a contentious talk-show dialogue, the science of direct-injection fertilization and the ethical issues connected with it. A DVD included in the book provides video of the ICSI injection process as viewed through a microscope, to be used in performances of the ICSI one-act dialogue. Taboos, a full-length play, turns the screws on characters that reflect a polarized America. Two couples--lesbian partners and a conservative husband and wife struggling with infertility--must make choices in a drama that examines the disjunction of sexual reproduction and the physical act of sex.

Author: Richard P. Feynman
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393355683
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 429

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Book Description
One of the most famous science books of our time, the phenomenal national bestseller that "buzzes with energy, anecdote and life. It almost makes you want to become a physicist" (Science Digest). Richard P. Feynman, winner of the Nobel Prize in physics, thrived on outrageous adventures. In this lively work that “can shatter the stereotype of the stuffy scientist” (Detroit Free Press), Feynman recounts his experiences trading ideas on atomic physics with Einstein and cracking the uncrackable safes guarding the most deeply held nuclear secrets—and much more of an eyebrow-raising nature. In his stories, Feynman’s life shines through in all its eccentric glory—a combustible mixture of high intelligence, unlimited curiosity, and raging chutzpah. Included for this edition is a new introduction by Bill Gates.

Author: Tom Salinsky
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350026174
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 521

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Book Description
The Improv Handbook is the most comprehensive, smart, helpful and inspiring guide to improv available today. Applicable to comedians, actors, public speakers and anyone who needs to think on their toes, it features a range of games, interviews, descriptions and exercises that illuminate and illustrate the exciting world of improvised performance. First published in 2008, this second edition features a new foreword by comedian Mike McShane, as well as new exercises on endings, managing blind offers and master-servant games, plus new and expanded interviews with Keith Johnstone, Neil Mullarkey, Jeffrey Sweet and Paul Rogan. The Improv Handbook is a one-stop guide to the exciting world of improvisation. Whether you're a beginner, an expert, or would just love to try it if you weren't too scared, The Improv Handbook will guide you every step of the way.

Author: Cory Doctorow
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 0765329107
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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From the two defining personalities of post-cyberpunk SF, a brilliant collaboration to rival 1987's The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling

Author: Bradley Campbell
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319703293
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 301

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Book Description
The Rise of Victimhood Culture offers a framework for understanding recent moral conflicts at U.S. universities, which have bled into society at large. These are not the familiar clashes between liberals and conservatives or the religious and the secular: instead, they are clashes between a new moral culture—victimhood culture—and a more traditional culture of dignity. Even as students increasingly demand trigger warnings and “safe spaces,” many young people are quick to police the words and deeds of others, who in turn claim that political correctness has run amok. Interestingly, members of both camps often consider themselves victims of the other. In tracking the rise of victimhood culture, Bradley Campbell and Jason Manning help to decode an often dizzying cultural milieu, from campus riots over conservative speakers and debates around free speech to the election of Donald Trump.