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Cosmos: Possible Worlds – Ann Druyan

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Cosmos: Possible Worlds

Ann Druyan

Genre: Science & Nature

Price: $14.99

Publish Date: February 25, 2020

Publisher: National Geographic Society

Seller: Penguin Random House LLC


This sequel to Carl Sagan's blockbuster continues the electrifying journey through space and time, connecting with worlds billions of miles away and envisioning a future of science tempered with wisdom. Based on National Geographic's internationally-renowned television series, this groundbreaking and visually stunning book explores how science and civilization grew up together. From the emergence of life at deep-sea vents to solar-powered starships sailing through the galaxy, from the Big Bang to the intricacies of intelligence in many life forms, acclaimed author Ann Druyan documents where humanity has been and where it is going, using her unique gift of bringing complex scientific concepts to life. With evocative photographs and vivid illustrations, she recounts momentous discoveries, from the Voyager missions in which she and her husband, Carl Sagan, participated to Cassini-Huygens's recent insights into Saturn's moons. This breathtaking sequel to Sagan's masterpiece explains how we humans can glean a new understanding of consciousness here on Earth and out in the cosmos–again reminding us that our planet is a pale blue dot in an immense universe of possibility.

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Cosmos: Possible Worlds – Ann Druyan

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Dragons of Eden – Carl Sagan

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Dragons of Eden

Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence

Carl Sagan

Genre: Environment

Price: $1.99

Publish Date: December 12, 1986

Publisher: Random House Publishing Group

Seller: Penguin Random House LLC


“A history of the human brain from the big bang, fifteen billion years ago, to the day before yesterday . . . It's a delight.”— The New York Times Dr. Carl Sagan takes us on a great reading adventure, offering his vivid and startling insight into the brain of man and beast, the origin of human intelligence, the function of our most haunting legends—and their amazing links to recent discoveries.  “How can I persuade every intelligent person to read this important and elegant book? . . . He talks about all kinds of things: the why of the pain of human childbirth . . . the reason for sleeping and dreaming . . . chimpanzees taught to communicate in deaf and dumb language . . . the definition of death . . . cloning . . . computers . . . intelligent life on other planets. . . . Fascinating . . . delightful.”— The Boston Globe “In some lost Eden where dragons ruled, the foundations of our intelligence were laid. . . . Carl Sagan takes us on a guided tour of that lost land. . . . Fascinating . . . entertaining . . . masterful.”— St. Louis Post-Dispatch

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Dragons of Eden – Carl Sagan

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Cosmos – Carl Sagan & Ann Druyan

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Cosmos
Carl Sagan & Ann Druyan

Genre: Science & Nature

Price: $2.99

Publish Date: October 12, 1980

Publisher: Random House Publishing Group

Seller: Penguin Random House LLC


RETURNING TO TELEVISION AS AN ALL-NEW MINISERIES ON FOX   Cosmos is one of the bestselling science books of all time. In clear-eyed prose, Sagan reveals a jewel-like blue world inhabited by a life form that is just beginning to discover its own identity and to venture into the vast ocean of space.  Cosmos retraces the fourteen billion years of cosmic evolution that have transformed matter into consciousness, exploring such topics as the origin of life, the human brain, Egyptian hieroglyphics, spacecraft missions, the death of the Sun, the evolution of galaxies, and the forces and individuals who helped to shape modern science.   Praise for Cosmos   “Magnificent . . . With a lyrical literary style, and a range that touches almost all aspects of human knowledge, Cosmos often seems too good to be true.” — The Plain Dealer   “Sagan is an astronomer with one eye on the stars, another on history, and a third—his mind’s—on the human condition.” — Newsday   “Brilliant in its scope and provocative in its suggestions . . . shimmers with a sense of wonder.” — The Miami Herald   “Sagan dazzles the mind with the miracle of our survival, framed by the stately galaxies of space.” — Cosmopolitan   “Enticing . . . iridescent . . . imaginatively illustrated.” — The New York Times Book Review NOTE: This edition does not include images.

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Cosmos – Carl Sagan & Ann Druyan

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Pale Blue Dot – Carl Sagan & Ann Druyan

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Pale Blue Dot

A Vision of the Human Future in Space

Carl Sagan & Ann Druyan

Genre: Physics

Price: $1.99

Publish Date: November 8, 1994

Publisher: Random House Publishing Group

Seller: Penguin Random House LLC


"FASCINATING . . . MEMORABLE . . . REVEALING . . . PERHAPS THE BEST OF CARL SAGAN'S BOOKS." –The Washington Post Book World (front page review) In Cosmos, the late astronomer Carl Sagan cast his gaze over the magnificent mystery of the Universe and made it accessible to millions of people around the world. Now in this stunning sequel, Carl Sagan completes his revolutionary journey through space and time. Future generations will look back on our epoch as the time when the human race finally broke into a radically new frontier–space. In Pale Blue Dot Sagan traces the spellbinding history of our launch into the cosmos and assesses the future that looms before us as we move out into our own solar system and on to distant galaxies beyond. The exploration and eventual settlement of other worlds is neither a fantasy nor luxury, insists Sagan, but rather a necessary condition for the survival of the human race. "TAKES READERS FAR BEYOND Cosmos . . . Sagan sees humanity's future in the stars." –Chicago Tribune

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Pale Blue Dot – Carl Sagan & Ann Druyan

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Cosmos – Carl Sagan

READ GREEN WITH E-BOOKS

Cosmos
Carl Sagan

Genre: Science & Nature

Price: $9.99

Publish Date: October 12, 1980

Publisher: Random House Publishing Group

Seller: Penguin Random House LLC


RETURNING TO TELEVISION AS AN ALL-NEW MINISERIES ON FOX   Cosmos is one of the bestselling science books of all time. In clear-eyed prose, Sagan reveals a jewel-like blue world inhabited by a life form that is just beginning to discover its own identity and to venture into the vast ocean of space.  Cosmos retraces the fourteen billion years of cosmic evolution that have transformed matter into consciousness, exploring such topics as the origin of life, the human brain, Egyptian hieroglyphics, spacecraft missions, the death of the Sun, the evolution of galaxies, and the forces and individuals who helped to shape modern science.   Praise for Cosmos   “Magnificent . . . With a lyrical literary style, and a range that touches almost all aspects of human knowledge, Cosmos often seems too good to be true.” — The Plain Dealer   “Sagan is an astronomer with one eye on the stars, another on history, and a third—his mind’s—on the human condition.” — Newsday   “Brilliant in its scope and provocative in its suggestions . . . shimmers with a sense of wonder.” — The Miami Herald   “Sagan dazzles the mind with the miracle of our survival, framed by the stately galaxies of space.” — Cosmopolitan   “Enticing . . . iridescent . . . imaginatively illustrated.” — The New York Times Book Review NOTE: This edition does not include images.

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Cosmos – Carl Sagan

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"Cosmos" Explains How Global Warming Threatens Civilization as We Know It

Mother Jones

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So now Cosmos has really done it.

The show had already enraged climate deniers by explaining just how big a problem global warming is. But clearly, it wasn’t done. On the latest episode, entitled “The Immortals,” host Neil deGrasse Tyson explores a grandiose theme if ever there was one: What it would take for our species to get off-world, as well as whether we’ll ever be able to successfully contact alien life. Both are, in effect, chances at immortality, since either our species—or at least the information we create and transmit into space—would thereby live on, perhaps even beyond the death of our sun.

But guess what: Both forms of immortality, according to the show, are threatened by factors that can disrupt the stability and the longevity of human civilization—and that includes human-caused climate change.

To understand how that could be so, you need to first understand something that loomed very large in the thoughts of Tyson’s predecessor, Carl Sagan, and that underlies this latest Cosmos episode: The Drake Equation. Derived by the astrophysicist Frank Drake, the equation is basically a formula for trying to determine how many technologically advanced civilizations there might be in the Milky Way galaxy, and how likely it is that our own civilization would be able to contact them. It looks like this (for much more detail, visit the SETI Institute):

N = R* · fp · ne · fl · fi · fc · L

N, the quantity we’re trying to identify, refers to how many civilizations there are in the Milky Way galaxy, that have reached a technological state whereby they can make radio transmissions into space, rendering them theoretically detectable by other civilizations on other planets. It is a product of these factors: R*, or how fast stars form that could support intelligent life; fp, how many of those stars, in turn, support planetary systems, like our own solar system; ne, how many planets in each of these solar systems could at least theoretically, due to their environment, support life; fl, how many of those planets turn out to be places where life indeed develops; and fi, or how many of those planets produce life that has intelligence.

And then come the two terms of the equation that are perhaps the most interesting: fc, denoting “the fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space”; and L, denoting “the length of time such civilizations release detectable signals into space.”

Here’s a video of Sagan explaining the equation from the old Cosmos. Note that its final term (referred to above as L), for Sagan, is visually represented by a mushroom cloud—for civilizations that destroy themselves with nuclear weapons won’t last long enough to send radio signals into space for a very long period of time. Or as Sagan observes, some civilizations “might…snuff themselves out in an instant of unforgivable neglect.” They might blow themselves up.

The new installment of Cosmos has, in effect, replaced that mushroom cloud with a coal plant. Exploring the theme of civilizational collapse in a Jared Diamondesque vein, Tyson proceeds to look into all the factors that cause civilizations to fall away, thus in effect exploring that last crucial term in the Drake Equation, L (although the show does not mention the equation by name). Here, things like violence and war loom large, but so do major destabilizing environmental or climatic shifts. As Tyson puts it, “Whether or not we ever make contact with intelligent alien life may depend on a critical question: What is the life expectancy of a civilization?”

Neil deGrasse Tyson visits present-day Iraq to explain the rise—and collapse—of ancient Mesopotamian civilization. Fox/National Geographic

To illustrate this, the show focuses in particular on Mesopotamia of more than 4,000 years ago, home to some of the earliest writing, as well as myths that have lived on and achieved at least some modicum of immortality, like the epic of Gilgamesh. Yet the Mesopotamian civilization was done in by violence, as well as by environmental pollution (too much irrigation of farmlands with salt-laden water) and climate change, or more specifically, an epic drought. They thought it was a divine punishment. We know better…or do we?

Which brings us to our own civilization, a global one that is currently digging a deep hole of its own—climate change—which could threaten a major collapse. We might, unfortunately, be one of those “civilizations that self-destruct,” in Tyson’s words. Here’s Tyson’s big statement about it (you can watch the video here):

TYSON: In one respect, we’re ahead of the people of ancient Mesopotamia. Unlike them, we understand what’s happening to our world. For example, we’re pumping greenhouse gases into our atmosphere, at a rate not seen on Earth for a million years. And there’s scientific consensus that we’re destabilizing our climate. Yet, our civilization seems to be in the grip of denial, a kind of paralysis. There’s a disconnect between what we know, and what we do.

Being able to adapt our behavior to challenges is as good a definition of intelligence as any I know. If our greater intelligence is the hallmark of our species, then we should use it, as all other beings use their distinctive advantages, to help ensure that their offspring prosper, and their heredity is passed on, and that the fabric of nature that sustains us is protected. Human intelligence is imperfect, surely, and newly arisen. The ease with which it can be sweet talked, overwhelmed, or subverted by other hardwired tendencies, sometimes themselves disguised as the light of reason, is worrisome. But if our intelligence is the only edge, we must learn to use it better, to sharpen it, to understand its limitations and deficiencies. To use it, as cats use stealth before pouncing, as walking sticks use camouflage, to make it the tool of our survival. If we do this, we can solve almost any problem we are likely to confront in the next 100,000 years.

The show then ends by envisioning a better future, one in which we emerge from the cloud of denial, recognize our problems, and face and get past them. If we do that, and peer far enough ahead, Tyson notes that we can imagine a world in which “the last internal combustion engine is placed in a museum, as the effects of climate change reverse and diminish,” and in which “the polar ice caps are restored to the way they were in the 19th century.” And ultimately, one in which we get off world, explore the stars—and discover a fate that is no longer specifically tied to Earth alone. A form of immortality.

In other words, you might say that the latest Cosmos makes the grandest statement yet for why we had better do something about climate change. And here’s the thing: It looks, based on previews, like the next episode will focus even more deeply on the subject.

If anything can shift our culture towards a broader appreciation of science, then, this show may really be it.

On our most popular episode of the Inquiring Minds podcast, Tyson explained why he doesn’t debate science deniers, and much more. You can listen here (interview starts around minute 13):

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"Cosmos" Explains How Global Warming Threatens Civilization as We Know It

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Could Carl Sagan Have Defeated Climate Denial?

Mother Jones

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Yesterday at the Library of Congress, a stunning list of science luminaries—from Bill Nye the Science Guy to Neil deGrasse Tyson to White House science adviser John Holdren—joined one extremely funny science aficionado (Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane) to celebrate the late astronomer and television star Carl Sagan. The occasion was the opening of the “Seth MacFarlane Collection” of Sagan’s personal papers: 1,705 boxes of Sagan’s letters, notes, and writings now reside at the Library. The event also felt much like a preview of the coming Fox series Cosmos: A SpaceTime Odyssey, a remake of the show that made Sagan famous, that will be hosted by deGrasse Tyson and produced by MacFarlane and Sagan’s widow, Ann Druyan.

One of the leading themes, however, was political. Speaker after speaker used the occasion to lament the way science is treated in the United States today, usually leading with the example of climate change. Science is suffering from “politicization on steroids,” said MacFarlane. “We took a big, big hit when we lost Carl Sagan,” he added later. Holdren remarked that Sagan “would have loved” President Obama’s comment in June that when it comes to climate, “we don’t have time for a meeting of the Flat Earth Society.” Steven Soter, a writer on the original Cosmos series, added that Sagan would have been “appalled” by today’s attacks on climate scientists, and that he would have “deeply altered the landscape” on the climate issue were he still alive.

Sagan died in 1996 after two years of struggling with myelodysplasia, a bone marrow disease. He was 62. During his life, he became the public face of science in the US and around the world thanks to the Emmy-award-winning Cosmos, which first aired on PBS in 1980 to great acclaim. He also published many widely read science books, campaigned for nuclear arms control and space exploration, and was a visionary who not only imagined what life might be like elsewhere in the galaxy but actually endeavored to search for it (a quest embodied in Sagan’s novel Contact)—all the while denouncing UFO aficionados who failed to play by the rules of science and skepticism.

The notion that, today, Sagan would have been deeply engaged with the climate issue is highly plausible. In publicizing the threat of “nuclear winter” in the early 1980s, Sagan was basically outlining the possible consequences of a human-induced climate-alteration (albeit one that would freeze us rather than fry us). In fact, Sagan gained recognition as an astronomer for his research on the greenhouse effect of Venus, work that later inspired NASA climate researcher James Hansen.

Carl Sagan at the founding of the Planetary Society. NASA JPL/Wikimedia Commons

And yet it doesn’t take anything away from Sagan’s unrivaled legacy to say that the problems we face today are perhaps too large even for him. The truth is that to celebrate what made Sagan so great and so successful as science’s emissary to the public is to simultaneously realize why the challenges faced by science in the public arena today are so vast and intractable.

David Morrison, a doctoral student of Sagan’s and an astrophysicist who now directs the Carl Sagan Center for Study of Life in the Universe at the SETI Institute, wondered aloud yesterday whether if he were alive today, Sagan would have been much more successful at fighting off nonsense than the rest of us. In answering the question, Morrison observed that in Sagan’s heyday, the days of the Cosmos series, a few networks still dominated television. That meant that when Sagan was on TV (whether on PBS or doing one of his regular guest appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson), your chances were very high of actually seeing him, because there just weren’t many other things to watch. By contrast, when the much-awaited Cosmos sequel airs on Fox, viewers will have the option of flipping to anything from reality cooking shows to paranormal pseudo-documentaries to politicized news.

For a brief trip down memory lane (and to see how science on TV used to look), here’s the opening of the original Cosmos:

According to Fox, Sagan’s Cosmos was ultimately seen by 750 million people. But nobody talking about science today gets the attention of audiences as vast as Sagan’s, due to fundamental changes in the structure of the media.

At the same time, we can also see that some of the battles that Sagan engaged in the 1980s—over Ronald Reagan’s “Star Wars” program and so-called nuclear winter—were dress rehearsals for the intense science politicization over issues like climate change that we live with today. In these conflicts, academic scientists and a few celebrity allies, like Sagan, clashed with conservative scientists affiliated with think tanks like the George C. Marshall Institute, who defended the science behind “Star Wars” and challenged nuclear winter.

That’s still the basic blueprint for how political science conflicts play out, but perhaps as a result of so many of them, political conservatives in the US have grown increasingly distrustful of the scientific community, as documented in a recent study by sociologist Gordon Gauchat. This was not something Sagan had to face. Heading into the 1980s, surveys assessing public trust in science did not show a big difference between left and right:

Declining trust in science among conservatives since 1980. Gordon Gauchat

In other words, Sagan was a science communicator and a science hero in an era in which we weren’t nearly as polarized over science, or sorted into politicized boxes due to our media choices. Today it’s just different, and a whole lot harder. And thus while there is little doubt that Sagan’s “heir apparent” (in MacFarlane’s words), Neil deGrasse Tyson, is at least as talented as Sagan was, the overarching context has changed fundamentally.

The true challenge for science communication and outreach today, accordingly, is to figure out how to counteract these two momentous trends—let’s call them politicization and fragmentation—and bring science to everybody once again.

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Could Carl Sagan Have Defeated Climate Denial?

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Scientists Just Measured the True Color of a Far-Off Planet

The Pale Blue Dot, Earth as seen by Voyager 1. Photo: NASA / Voyager 1

Twenty three years ago and from 3.8 billion miles away the Voyager 1 probe turned and snapped a photo of Earth—the Pale Blue Dot. The photo showed our Earth as a speck in the dark sky—all of human existence wrapped up in a pixel.

Though the Earth is still all we’ve got, in recent years astronomers discovered potentially billions of other planets, many seemingly just like ours. Now, astronomers have found a new, simple parallel between one of these far-off planets and Carl Sagan’s famous blue dot, says the European Space Agency. For the first time ever, astronomers have directly measured the color of a planet in another solar system. And it’s blue—“a deep azure blue, reminiscent of Earth’s colour as seen from space,” says the ESA.

Pale Blue Dots parallelisms aside, though, the planet, HD 189733b, is more like Neptune’s evil twin than a distant Earth.

This “deep blue dot” is a huge gas giant orbiting very close to its host star. The planet’s atmosphere is scorching with a temperature of over 1000 degrees Celsius, and it rains glass, sideways, in howling 7000 kilometre-per-hour winds.

An artist’s rendering of the planet HD 189773b. Photo: NASA / ESA / M. Kornmesser

The planet orbits the star HD 189733 in the Vulpecula constellation, and to figure out its color, researchers used Hubble to measure the light coming from the star, both when the planet was in front and when it wasn’t. Looking at the subtle shifts in the color of the light let them figure out the color of the planet’s atmosphere.

More from Smithsonian.com:

You Can’t Throw a Rock in the Milky Way Without Hitting an Earth-Like Planet
This Is an Actual Photo of a Planet in Another Solar System

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Scientists Just Measured the True Color of a Far-Off Planet

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