extreme environments

An anesthesiologist and NASA adviser explores how pioneering doctors and scientists have built on findings about the body's response to extreme environments and physical challenges to develop such medical innovations as open-heart surgery, skin grafts, and trauma care.

Everyone has experienced hot days in which it's hard to move without sweating. Readers will realize those days were cool compared to some of the sweltering locations vividly described within the pages of this volume. Death Valley, the Sahara, and Ethiopia are highlighted in text and on maps in this trip around the globe in search of Earth's hottest places. Why some locations are so hot, different ways of measuring temperature, and the health risks of extreme heat are just a few of the topics touched upon in this book, compatible with any science and social studies collection.

Many people know that Antarctica is the coldest place on Earth, but they might not know why. Readers of this globetrotting volume will learn how the sun's rays affect our planet's surface. They'll also discover other bitter cold places around the globe and how people manage to live there. In one town in Russia, people leave their glasses at home so they don't freeze to their face! Science and social studies topics combine to present some truly absorbing and chilling peeks at some of the world's most fascinating and frigid places.

The author describes his experiences as a member of several scientific expeditions in search of never-before-seen, underground life-forms, and discusses the debates that have arisen in the scientific community over some of the discoveries.

Explores the first aid and medical advancements that have been made in the twentieth century due to exploration expeditions around the world.

Considers that possibility that life exists beyond Earth, and looks at how scientists have searched for evidence of life on Mars and in other parts of the solar system.

Examines life forms that live in extreme environments that scientists had previously thought were uninhabitable, including the antarctic ice, hot springs, and on Mars.

An exploration of extreme environments around the world and the people who live in them that describes cold, hot, wet, dry, polluted, remote, earthquake-prone, and flood-prone places.