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4127 books match the query 'Science' and 6 start with y

cover of Yam in West Africa: Food, Money, and More

Yam in West Africa

Food, Money, and More

Felix I. Nweke

Michigan State University Press, 2015

Yam in West Africa examines a crop that has been sidelined and ignored for too long while being central to the existence of so many and consumed worldwide. In this book, Felix Nweke attempts to unravel the contradictory nature of the yam crop sector in West Africa by looking at the largest issues in the problematic industry.

Yam production is concentrated in West Africa, which is responsible for more than 90 percent of the 50 million tons produced annually around the globe. Though the crop can attract high prices, too often its producers live in penury. Regional issues drive up labor costs of food crops because of dependence on obsolete technology. In addition, certain agronomic practices that are peculiar to yam production remain unchanged, and pests and diseases still ravage the crop. Yam in West Africa investigates solutions to these problems with the aim of expanding yam production, increasing sales, helping farmers, and bringing more of this staple food to those who need it. The future of the yam is bright; this book aims to make it more so.
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cover of Yardstick Nation: The Metric System in America

Yardstick Nation

The Metric System in America

Hector Vera

Vanderbilt University Press, 2025

Honorable Mention, Robert K. Merton Book Award, American Sociological Association’s Science, Knowledge, and Technology (SKAT) Section, 2026

Why is there no metric system in the United States? Why is it that a country known for its openness to the future, its scientific innovations, and its preference for practicality has not adopted the most practical, scientific, and innovative system of measurement? Yardstick Nation answers these questions by analyzing the political, economic, and international factors that determined the trajectory of the United States as a nation self-excluded from one of the most successful global technical languages.

Using a historical-comparative approach and qualitative analysis of archival material, the book examines the trajectories of American scientists, engineers, politicians, and industrialists from 1787 to 1982, to detail what they wanted to attain and to explain what was actually possible to achieve given the political and economic conditions in which they lived. Yardstick Nation argues that in order to understand the unbreached distance between the United States and the metric system, we must consider the interaction between three structural elements: historical timing, state infrastructural power, and international economic integration.

Author Hector Vera’s systematic look at when and why countries have adopted the metric system shows that its introduction is never casual. In the countries that voluntarily embraced the metric system, this was the result of either deep internal political transformations or momentous changes in the international economy. When the adoption of the metric system is politically driven, it comes as the result of a social revolution, independence war, national unification, or the draft of a new constitution. When it is propelled by economic factors, metrication is part of the efforts of economically stagnant countries to integrate into international markets.

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cover of Yellowstone Story, Revised Edition, Volume I: A History of Our First National Park

Yellowstone Story, Revised Edition, Volume I

A History of Our First National Park

Aubrey L. Haines

University Press of Colorado, 1996

The Yellowstone Park Act
Approved March 1, 1872

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the tract of land in the Territories of Montana and Wyoming, lying near the headwaters of the Yellowstone river . . . is hereby reserved and withdrawn from settlement, occupancy, or sale under the laws of the United States, and dedicated and set apart as a public park or pleasuring-ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people.

The Yellowstone Story traces the history of the Yellowstone region from the time when hunters and gatherers migrated into the Rocky Mountains thousands of years ago to the post-World War II era when tourists began inundating Yellowstone National Park. Volume I takes the account from prehistoric times through the mid-1880s, with emphasis on the park's exploration and its trouble-filled early years under federal management. Volume II covers the years of military administration of the park and the more recent developments under the National Park Service.
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cover of Yellowstone Wolves: Science and Discovery in the World's First National Park

Yellowstone Wolves

Science and Discovery in the World's First National Park

Edited by Douglas W. Smith, Daniel R. Stahler, and Daniel R. MacNulty

University of Chicago Press, 2020

In 2020, it will have been twenty-five years since one of the greatest wildlife conservation and restoration achievements of the twentieth century took place: the reintroduction of wolves to the world’s first national park, Yellowstone. Eradicated after the park was established, then absent for seventy years, these iconic carnivores returned to Yellowstone in 1995 when the US government reversed its century-old policy of extermination and—despite some political and cultural opposition—began the reintroduction of forty-one wild wolves from Canada and northwest Montana. In the intervening decades, scientists have studied their myriad behaviors, from predation to mating to wolf pup play, building a one-of-a-kind field study that has both allowed us to witness how the arrival of top predators can change an entire ecosystem and provided a critical window into impacts on prey, pack composition, and much else.
 
Here, for the first time in a single book, is the incredible story of the wolves’ return to Yellowstone National Park as told by the very people responsible for their reintroduction, study, and management. Anchored in what we have learned from Yellowstone, highlighting the unique blend of research techniques that have given us this knowledge, and addressing the major issues that wolves still face today, this book is as wide-ranging and awe-inspiring as the Yellowstone restoration effort itself. We learn about individual wolves, population dynamics, wolf-prey relationships, genetics, disease, management and policy, newly studied behaviors and interactions with other species, and the rippling ecosystem effects wolves have had on Yellowstone’s wild and rare landscape. Perhaps most importantly of all, the book also offers solutions to ongoing controversies and debates.
 
Featuring a foreword by Jane Goodall, beautiful images, a companion online documentary by celebrated filmmaker Bob Landis, and contributions from more than seventy wolf and wildlife conservation luminaries from Yellowstone and around the world, Yellowstone Wolves is a gripping, accessible celebration of the extraordinary Yellowstone Wolf Project—and of the park through which these majestic and important creatures once again roam.
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cover of Yerkes Observatory, 1892-1950: The Birth, Near Death, and Resurrection of a Scientific Research Institution

Yerkes Observatory, 1892-1950

The Birth, Near Death, and Resurrection of a Scientific Research Institution

Donald E. Osterbrock

University of Chicago Press, 1996

Drawing on his experience as historian of astronomy, practicing astrophysicist, and director of Lick Observatory, Donald Osterbrock uncovers a chapter in the history of astronomy by providing the story of the Yerkes Observatory.
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cover of You Know My Method: Science of the Detective

You Know My Method

Science of the Detective

J.K. Van Dover

University of Wisconsin Press, 1994

You Know My Method surveys the century following Edgar Allan Poe’s invention of the fictional detective in 1841. The same century saw the development of the idea of the scientist as a person who defined himself by his use of a disciplined method of inquiry. By 1940, the detective had established himself as the most popular figure in literature, and science had become the custodian of truth in the modern world. These two developments were not unrelated.
    The four principal writers covered are Edgar Allan Poe, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, R. Austin Freeman, and Arthur B. Reeve. Another dozen more writers are treated somewhat more briefly: Gaboriau, Pinkerton, Green, Morrison, Futrelle, and Leroux, among others.
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